Stop Biohacking Start Nurturing
You cannot hack a relationship or a life the way you optimize a piece of technology, because we are living organisms that take time to grow, so change the word from hack to nurture and do the work.
Dandapani has done the same meditation his guru taught him in 1995 for thirty years, while people keep asking him for a faster or more novel one. He argues that optimization belongs to technology, not to living organisms, and that shifting your language from hacking to nurturing changes how you treat relationships, your body and your business.
What this talk covers
- He has practiced the same meditation his guru taught him in 1995 for thirty years, and people still ask him for a different one to do while paddle boarding or skiing.
- Optimization works with technology, but we are not technology; we are living organisms that take time to grow and evolve.
- He cannot hack his relationship with his daughter, which has been built by seven years of undivided attention, presence and love.
- He does not need a ring to tell him how he slept; the nervous system is profoundly sophisticated, and you can get to know your own body and mind directly.
- Changing language changes thinking, and changing thinking changes behavior, so shifting from hack to nurture has been huge in how he approaches relationships and business.
I can't hack my relationship with my daughter.Dandapani
Questions
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It works for technology, where you can optimize and become more efficient. People are living organisms that take time to grow and evolve, so the same approach does not transfer.
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He wakes up and asks himself how he slept rather than checking an app. Get to know your body and your mind instead of reading the data every day.
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It looks like time, patience and repetition. He and a friend sat on a veranda for three hours looking at nature and talking, which cannot be compressed into a five minute call.
Transcript
575 words · 3:00
My guru taught me a meditation in 1995. 30 years. I've been doing the same meditation. Well, you know what people ask me? Do you have a different meditation I can do? One with my cat, maybe one while I'm paddle boarding, you know, while I'm skiing or painting. You know, while I'm...
By hacking is... That by hacking is everywhere. Now that you're saying it, wow. It's like everywhere. Why are we hacking everything? Why don't we just do the work? It's like optimization. Everything must be more optimized, right?
Yes. Because we do that with technology, which it's fine. It works with technology. You can optimize, you can be more efficient,
but we're not technology. We're the living organism. We take time to grow and evolve. And if you're asking about evolution,
if we keep going down to the direction of just trying to hack everything, it doesn't work. I can't hack my relationship with my daughter. I've been nurturing it for the last seven years
by spending time giving her my undivided attention, my presence, my love. And that nurturing builds my closeness to her. how can I hack it?
There's no way to hack it, you know? And once we realize that, then we stop going down this crazy path of hacking everything and I have to do cold baths
and I have to do this and wear a ring on my finger. Please ring, tell me how I slept last night. Well, I asked yourself how you slept last night. I can't believe you're saying that
because I took my hoop off. I had a hoop on, I took it off. I was like, I'm done with a technology telling me how well I slept.
I'm like, I'll get out of here. I don't want to know. It's not how you slept. Yeah, yeah.
wake up in the morning and I ask myself, how might our nervous system is the most profound, sophisticated, you know, set of wires and nerves in the entire universe. And if we can learn to harness it, understand it, calm it down and get to know it, we can learn so many things about our mind and body. We don't need a ring to tell us how we slept and to look at all the data every
day on the app, you know, no, just get to know your body, get to know your mind. You know, I think one of the, uh, one of the most important things that we get to do, at least in the professions that we have is that we get to change people's language. Because ultimately, when you can change language, you change thinking, you change thinking and change behavior. And a
small thing like shifting your language from hack to nurture has been huge. So beautiful. In how you approach relationships and business. Yeah. That's, that's amazing. I really like that. Bio nurturing. Bio hacking, bio nurturing. Nice. Yeah. You know, John, John, when you came here, we, we spent what half a day together. We sat on a veranda maybe for three hours, right?
Looking at nature, John, we were chit chatting, but there's no way to hack that and just get on a five minute call. And in that time we spent together and going out for lunch and talking, we were nurturing our friendship. That's right. And that requires time and patience and repetition. you