Let Purpose Decide Who Gets Your Time
Clarity of purpose is what decides which relationships you invest in, and without it you let in people and things that were never aligned with where you are going.
Dandapani agrees that relationships shape a life, then asks the harder question of how you decide which ones to invest in. He answers with clarity of purpose, using a business that knows it does e-commerce and would never add lawnmowers as the comparison for a life that knows what it is for.
What this talk covers
- Our lives are surrounded by people, so relationships are a key thing, but you still have to decide which ones you invest in.
- That decision requires clarity of purpose, articulated clearly enough that you can write it down.
- Purpose drives who you spend time with, what you listen to, what you read, what you eat and what you drink.
- A business with a clear purpose does not chase unrelated products; an e-commerce company does not start looking at lawnmowers, washing machines or fertilizer.
- In life, without that clarity, people bring in all types of people and things that are not aligned, because they do not know where they are going, so when someone tries to sell them a lawnmower they say yes.
Purpose drives who you spend time with, what you listen to, what you read, what you eat, what you drink, everything that you do.Dandapani
Questions
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Start with clarity of purpose. Dandapani says you cannot choose well between people and commitments until you can articulate clearly, and write down, what you want in your life.
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You bring all kinds of people and things into your life that are not aligned, because you do not know where you are going. He compares it to a business with no idea what it sells agreeing to sell lawnmowers.
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Because most people are far clearer about their business than their life. A company that knows it does e-commerce builds its conference, products and services around that and declines everything else, and he asks why life should be run with less clarity.
Transcript
628 words · 3:32
if you invest your energy in loving relationships, for instance, because that's what I've read a book about is what people tend to regret or really celebrate on their deathbed is basically it's all about the quality of their relationships. Is that a common denominator or is that different from you, me and everyone else?
Well, I think our lives are surrounded by people, right? We're humans, but we're always interacting with people unless you're a monk living up in the mountain by yourself. So I think relationships are key things, but how do you decide what relationship you invest
in? You need to have clarity of purpose. What do you want in your life? Can you articulate that clearly?
Can you write that down clearly? Purpose drives everything. Purpose drives who you spend time with, what you listen to, what you read, what you eat, what you drink, everything that you do.
You have a business, what's it focused on? E-commerce? Well, currently I'm running a huge conference with like 4,000 people. What's the conference about?
It's about e-commerce because that's where my professional heritage is. Yeah. I think Swen you should also talk about lawnmowers. And, uh, no, no, you should.
I think you should. Do you think, do you think you should? No, I don't think so. But yeah, I get the point.
Right. You clear what you're doing. You know what your business purpose is. So you build everything around your business around e-commerce.
You don't look at lawn mowers, you don't look at washing machines, you don't look at fertilizer or any of those other things. In life, people are not clear of their purpose of what they want. So they bring into your life all types of people that are not aligned, all kinds of things that are not aligned, because they don't know where they're going.
You're clear with your business. We do e-commerce. So you can create a conference, you can create products and services around e-commerce. And some priest tells you to sell lawnmowers. You go like, no, that's not what I want to do.
We don't do lawnmowers. We just do e-commerce. But in life, because you have no clarity, then someone tries to sell you a lawnmower.
You say, OK, great. I'll do lawnmowers now. OK. So if the priest is not telling me on a podcast what I should do,
and you just already mentioned your book, Unwavering Focus. But you also have an online course program, I think, on dandapani.org, right? You can find that.
And as I said, I had the privilege to get to know you more deeply and your teaching and private sessions. And I think you're opening this one up right
to the greater public for the first time. Yeah, no, I've always done in the last 10 years private events with organizations and companies and stuff. So I'm doing my first public event.
It's in Lisbon on 21st of October. It's an all-day workshop called Manifest. And the concept is how do we learn a framework, guidelines, mindset, the ability to focus to manifest what we want to manifest in our life.
Life is a manifestation of where we invest our energy. So it's open to the public. If something you're interested, you'll find information on my website, dondepalto.org.
But if it's something that you struggle in life, I would highly encourage you to come, but come only if you're willing to do the hard work. It's a serious workshop. We're here to do hard work, talk about difficult things,
confrontational face difficult things because I don't want to entertain people at this workshop. I want to give them tools to have difficult conversations so we can actually make progress.