Does This Fit the Life You Want
Rather than judging an opportunity as good or bad, ask whether it is in alignment with where you want to go, because clarity about what you want is what lets you say no to everything else.
Dandapani explains why he uses the word alignment instead of good or bad when weighing opportunities, friendships, books and study. He describes choosing a few things about the mind to go narrow and deep on rather than a thousand, and applies the same test to the constant pressure to be on every new social media platform.
What this talk covers
- He prefers the word alignment to good or bad: the question about a business opportunity, a friendship, a book or a course is whether it is aligned with where he wants to go.
- There are a thousand books on the mind teaching a thousand different things, and he does not want a thousand things, he wants the few that matter to him and to go narrow and deep on those.
- Being clear about what he wants to develop mentally as he ages is what lets him decline a two day workshop on the mind that does not fit.
- The volume of things being offered today makes it easy to be sold into trying this and that, which is how people end up being told they need to be on Snapchat, then TikTok, then whatever comes next.
- Every platform demands a different size of content, so before adding one, ask what you actually want and how many of these things you could realistically sustain, then go narrow and deep and focus your time and energy on mastering what you really want in your life.
But I don't want a thousand different things about the mind. I just want these few things that are important to me, and I want to go narrow and deep on those things.Dandapani
Questions
-
Ask whether it is in alignment with where you want to go, rather than whether it is good or bad. If you are clear about what you want to develop in yourself, opportunities that do not fit become easy to decline.
-
He questions it. There will always be another app that everyone says you must be on, each demanding content in a different size, so ask what you actually want and how many platforms you can sustain before adding one.
-
He goes narrow and deep. There are a thousand books on the mind, but he wants only the few things that are important to him and puts his time and energy into mastering those.
Transcript
683 words · 3:07
Okay. So somebody comes up with their, they start with their 50 year plan. Who do I want to be? What type of person do I want to do?
What type of life do I want to live and what type of activities do I want to be able to do 50 years from now? And they research other people. They look at other, they look at monks, they look at entrepreneurs, they look
at anybody in their, in the life and say, do I want that life? Do I want to live a little bit more like that? If somebody wants to be alive in 50 years, the, and they're trying to make a decision whether they're going to smoke or do drugs or things like that.
now, then then then maybe they're saying like, Hey, that doesn't actually align with, with who I want to be long-term, like short term, this doesn't really, that won't really affect their one year, their three year plan, but it sure affects their 50 year plan.
Exactly. And I really liked the word align that you use because that's something that I use a lot rather than saying, Oh, that's not good or that's not, that's bad.
I prefer to use the word alignment. So in terms of opportunities that I may do for business or friends that I surround people that surround myself, books I read, things that I study, you know, is it in alignment with where I want to go? Because, for example, I love learning about the mind. It's something I train people with, I teach people.
But there's a thousand books that you can read about the mind and learn a thousand different things about the mind. But I don't want a thousand different things about the mind. I just want these few things that are important to me, and I want to go narrow and deep on those things. So having clarity of what I want to develop mentally for myself as I age
allows me to say no to something else. So somebody may come up to me and say, hey, down the pony, there's so-and-so is coming to town running a two-day workshop on the mine on this area. Would you like to come?
And I go like, not really, because it's not really aligned with what I want to develop for myself mentally. And the more clear we can be, the easier for us than to choose things in our life that really align with us. us. Because if you look at today, it's so with the amount of volume of things being offered to us coming our way, it's so easy to get sold into like, Oh, I should try this, I should try that,
you know, and same with social media. I remember when different things were coming out on starting my business, people that you need to get on Snapchat, you need to get on TikTok, you need to do this. And at some point, you're gonna like, why do I need to do all of these things? And how many of these things can I actually even sustain? How many can I do? If you're an entrepreneur,
and you're building your real estate business, and you think like, oh, should I be on TikTok? Should I be making videos? Should I be making reels?
Should I be doing this? Ask yourself what it is you want, because tomorrow there'll be another social media app that's coming out.
That's the new hot thing that everybody should be on. And then now you'll stress yourself making content for that. And then every one of them demands a different size.
Some is one by one, some's 1,350 by 1080, another one's vertical. You go like, holy crap, when will this ever end? So yeah, so get clear what it is you want.
You can learn from others and then just go narrow and deep and just master that and just really focus your time and energy in mastering what you really want in your life.