Dandapani: A Monk's Practical Guide to Personal Sovereignty

28:19And depending on how well we sleep, our energy builds back up again. And the next day we have the opportunity to invest that energy into people and things. But most of us never discern who and what or evaluate who and what we're investing that energy in. We just give energy to people. So if I came up to you and I said, hey, Darren, I need$10 ,000 for a startup. You're like, well, tell me about the startup. You just won't hand me$10 ,000. But if I was in town and I said, hey, do you want to grab coffee? He might go like, okay. We're so protective of our money, but we're not as protective of our energy.

28:56And someone comes up to you and said, do you want to grab a drink or for a walk? You're like, all right. No questions asked. But that's your time. That's your energy. so for me it's the purpose the framework of purpose focus simplify sacrifice as you simplify what are we giving up who are we giving up and giving up the things that are unaligned with purpose is easy but sometimes you also have to give up things that are aligned with purpose that are of lesser priority and the idea then is to simplify our life so that we can take our finite time and energy and focus it into our purpose in life and that's the framework i use for myself and then for everything else i say no and and i think for people like you that have a big heart that want to go out there and impact and do things in the world i would say three words you know control your compassion because i think when we get on the spiritual path the first thing people want to do is change the world and impact the world.

30:01And I was that way when I joined the monastery. I was thinking of humanity and the impact I could do. And I learned over time that I need to control my compassion because I'm not an endless source of energy. Unlike a lot of spiritual people like to think I'm connected to the source, to the universe. Like, bullshit, I get tired at night. I got off a long plane flight. I'm exhausted. you know so how am i going to take my finite time and finite energy just really be wise about how i'm going to invest in purpose needs to be articulated so clearly as it drives everything down the line and all driven by the fact that i have one life i believe in reincarnation but i have one life as done the punny i mean my next life i could be a six foot tall blonde girl named Olga for all I know.

30:51But I have one life as Dandapani, and I want it to be an amazing life and a fulfilling life and a rewarding life. So I need to simplify. And people struggle with simplifying. And simplifying also, just to clarify, doesn't mean you can't have ambitious goals or audacious goals. It's just you're having very few of those relative to time and energy. That's my biggest thing. I got 12.

31:18Darin Olien:I get so excited about something but I think I'm recapitulating right now as you're talking because I get excited but I don't have the energy to follow through with all of it and then I get bummed so maybe substitute excitement with enthusiasm do you remember the song from the 80s like I'm so excited I'm about to lose control and I think I like. But that's what excitement does, right? You get excited and then you're about to lose control and the energy gets out of control. And then you go like, I got to do this project. I got to do this. I got to do this. Whereas enthusiasm is you're on a stagecoach with reins and six horses.

32:01And you're in charge of those horses, which is your life force and your prana, your energy. And you are the steward of where it is. Because at the end of the day, you think, you know,

32:15life is ebbing away every moment, every hour you know I don't want to get to the end of my life and realize that I didn't put my effort into pursuing my purpose in my life and living a deeply fulfilling life for me I couldn't care less what anybody else said about me on my deathbed literally could not care but I don't want to be able to look back on my life and go man, you know, I did all of these things, but I didn't really pursue what I really wanted. That would be brutal for me.

32:51Darin Olien:Brutal. Yeah. Brutal for me too. My dad didn't let himself do that. And I was like, no, I'm not doing that. Yeah. You know, like he said him, but he didn't do him. I think so many people are that way. They're terrified of doing that. You know, Darren, when my guru was dying in the monastery, We found out one day he had cancer, and within a few months he died. And one of the last things he said to a few monks that had gathered around him on his final days was, what an amazing life. I would not have traded it for anything in the world. What an amazing life. I would not have traded it for anything in the world.

33:29So imagine being on your deathbed to be able to look back on your life and go, that was so deeply rewarding and fulfilling. The only way you can is if you had clarity of purpose and be able to focus on that purpose and simplify your life to that. You know, this just gets me kind of back to what we were saying about social media.

33:55Darin Olien:A certain construct of life is like the opposite, right? And it's almost like we need this consciousness to step in and to orient ourselves back to this fulfillment that we're only going to get by going inward. And I don't know if you remember from our last podcast, we talked a lot about this and about people on the path today. And my guru had a beautiful phrase, people are committed to not being committed. They eat off the spiritual buffet table. I'll do a little bit of green juice and a little bit of mushroom and ayahuasca. I'll do kundalini yoga, maybe a Vipassana retreat. Throw it all together and I'll make spiritual progress.

34:45We don't approach showering that way. We follow a very systematic process. Take our clothes off, get the water at the right temperature, get wet, put soap, wash the soap off, dry, put clothes on, leave. We never mix it up and go like, let's be different. Varieties despise their life. No, when we're cooking, we follow a recipe. When we run business, the more structured we are, the better we are. But when it comes to spirituality, anything goes. So we think that by waking up in the morning and doing yoga or breathing or journaling or doing a cold plunge, chewing on some kale, eating some supplements and doing all this stuff, that we're making progress.

35:29but we're anything but committed to being committed to a path and people are terrified to commit to a spiritual path I'm in this kind of line of work so I hear about it all the time why do I need to give it a name you give your damn cat a name your business has a name so why are you afraid of saying you're a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew why can't I be everything I'm like, well, you don't run your business that way.

36:00Darin Olien:Right. I sell everything. No, you don't. You don't. You narrow down and you get very specific. You know, this is our brand. You have brand colors. You know, sometimes I work with companies. If you use our logo, you have to use this color. You can't use any other color. It needs to be this size. The font needs. I'm like, holy crap. So when it comes to spirituality, everything's out the door. So I think because people can't commit to a philosophy, to a goal, to a path, to a practice, they don't have the processes of the system to get to know themselves. And because they can't get to know themselves, they can't get to know their purpose, and then don't make traction on the path.

36:44These practices that are so random every day that they're doing gives them a sense that I'm doing something that's helping me to be more spiritual. You're kind of walking around the mountain as opposed to picking a path to go to the top and exploring all the little paths going up but never committing to anything.

37:05Darin Olien:Yeah, and you get exhausted and you find yourself not getting home. No. You're trapped in the woods on a survival show. and for, you know, but ultimately it comes down again to the maturity of the soul, right? When people come on my retreat, I ask them, what do you want? How far do you want to go? And there's no right or wrong answer. It's like playing soccer. You know, I can play with you and my friends, our friends in the park on the weekend, or I could go play in the English Premier League. But you have to define what it is you want. And if you want to play in the Premier League, you need to be committed.

37:44to a set of practices, to set up guidelines or ways of living and a path and commit to that. But if you want to play in the park on the weekend, then just do your ayahuasca and your green juice and your cold baths and gin a little bit in the morning and listen to Darren's podcast in Super Life. You're good to go.

38:05Darin Olien:Yeah, I mean, it's a good point because anything, we have to create clarity. You haven't. And you have to commit. Why are people terrified to commit? Why? They won't commit to a spiritual path. It's amazing. People are absolutely terrified. It's easier to shop around, right? I'll just go do like a yoga retreat, a kundalini thingy, Vipassana thing, go to Peru, meet with a shaman, you know? Yeah. Everyone in their dogs is a shaman. Yeah. Giving them out like candy. Plant medicine. Yes. Plant medicine everywhere. You know, microdose. If you're microdosing all day, is it still microdosing? Or is it now?

38:56Yeah. Exactly. You know, macrodosing.

39:00Darin Olien:Right. And it also starts to be this external thing that is the avoidance of the internal. I'm so grateful that my guru taught me these fundamental principles. And also one of the biggest things he taught me was the monks when I lived in the monastery was that to lean on your own spine. He would say that to the monks. He says, don't lean on me. One day I'll be gone. And if you're leaning on me, you'll fall down. And I love that phrase, lean on your own spine, because everything we need is inside of us, truly inside of us. You know, we don't need to search outward for this. We don't need all these hackings that, you know, this world is biohacking and this hacking and that hacking.

39:49You know, Darren, I bought, you know, initially 16 1⁄2 acres of land. We have 33 now in Costa Rica, and that 16 1⁄2 acres was completely clear-cut down to mud. And over the last 10, 12 years, we've planted 9 ,000 trees and plants. that took so much nurturing. And there was no way I could accelerate the growth of those trees and plants. I had to nurture it. And similarly, when I look at myself, I am a product of evolution. It's 2026 right now. I've been evolving for thousands of years. My soul has been living in different bodies getting to this point. There's no need to hack my way forward. but I can look at myself with empathy, with understanding, with compassion, and go, okay, it's going to take a while for Dandapani to work with these parts of him that are not so great, and let me massage it slowly every day, and then the other parts I'll work, nurture this way, and I'll grow faster.

40:52And the more time I'm willing to take, the less pressure I put on myself, the less pressure I put on myself, the faster I unfold spiritually. But, you know, we've gone so crazy in wanting to hack everything and spend our whole days researching and figuring out how to accelerate our health and wellness and unfoldment without actually just doing the basic, simple work. Am I off here? No, no, I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it is that, it's the crazy adventure of life.

41:39Darin Olien:And it's even now at a maximum of distraction of all of this stuff. And, you know, I can even say that and hear you and go, I know, I know it's an inner world. I know it's an inner game. I know the kingdom of everything is inside. And yet I fall into just like I have to get in my car, I got a thing, I got to make calls, and da-da-da. And the experience, even though I do spend time every day without fail, meditating and going inside and trying to be the observer as I'm walking in life. It is a freaking practice. But the lifestyle needs to support it, right? If the lifestyle doesn't support it, then it's chaos.

42:35In Hinduism, there's eight steps to enlightenment, and the first two steps is lifestyle design. Because if you don't have the life right, then how do you have a lifestyle that supports an inward journey? You really need to have that external world.

42:53Darin Olien:So you have to feel safe in your life. You have to feel safe. You have to have money. Because if you don't have money, then you're always worried, how am I going to feed my kids? What if someone gets sick? How am I going to pay rent? And when you're thinking those questions, you can't meditate. You're absorbed with those. Your basic needs in this world. Yes. You don't need the Ferrari, but you need the basic needs met to create an environment that allows you to go inward. That's why lifestyle design is so critical to go inside. And, you know, you were saying that you know it's an inner thing. If you truly believe that energy is in all things, which is science, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, which means you are energy.

43:41You've never been created or destroyed, which means you've always existed, which means when your physical body dies, you will still continue to exist. so how can you through your ability to profoundly focus take your awareness so deep within and touch into that essence of that energy that was never ever created or destroyed and touch into ultimately what's called the self pure awareness, pure energy

44:16yeah

44:16Darin Olien:because it's you're good do you need water I might just grab a little water if that's okay no no all good it's a good it's a good pause to sit in that I've been reading this

44:38Darin Olien:sorry thank you so much thank you

44:44it's okay I'll leave it on here yeah yeah

44:48Darin Olien:I've been reading this book, which is just wild, called The Science of a New Heaven. Science of a New Heaven? Yeah. Okay. And it's primarily based in, I'm going to get to why I'm thinking about it, but it's based in plasma. Okay. So their understanding of the universe is made up of 99.9 % plasma. So plasma is essentially some form of energized ions. Okay. Right? And whole sun is plasma, the concentrated form of plasma. Okay. And it is so rare from a universe perspective that anything is solid. When you think of plasma as not being solid, and it's 99.99 % the entire universe, they're starting to realize that this is scientific and that starts to get weird that they're seeing forms of concentrated plasma around orbs all of the stuff that that they can't how do i say this there is a form of intelligence that they're seeing in plasma and showing up in this universe.

46:19Darin Olien:Why am I saying all this? Because I guess because there is a form of this universe that is most of the universe that we don't know that is a network that everything comes out of. and I don't know why I was thinking about it. There's a reason I was thinking about that when you were saying that. What were you just saying? You were saying... How about energy cannot be created and in essence, you energy. Yeah, and they're getting so sophisticated that this energy is, these forms of energy is all around us at all times in all dimensions and all space. And it's so science is starting to fall into this place where they they're speaking of energy in ways that they can't understand, which is beautiful.

47:20Darin Olien:but it starts it was starting to trip me out because it's I guess it's giving some sort of hint that since the universe is mostly plasma we're mostly plasma and it gives this hint that this energy that's we're swimming in is also interacting with this. It's almost like giving an intelligence of God. There's this thing, this soup that we're in that is intelligent. Science is starting to show that the thing that's enveloped all of everything is intelligent. There's literally an organizing. They did this experiment, and then I'll shut up about this, but they did this experiment where they took plastic balls and put them in liquid and then they hit it with a with an energizing photon and it organized itself like microbes did in the gut.

48:28Darin Olien:There was an organizing principle to inanimate objects because it still forms of something right? Just because it's inanimate to us there is a form of energy that this thing is. And so when they hit it with this ionizing frequency, the balls started organizing themselves like they saw microbes in the gut. Anyway, it's in my head because the more I talk about consciousness, the more it's not even a, it's less about I believe in it, but there's actual organizing principle to this. Anyway, that's what I was thinking about. Okay, everybody, are you ready to upgrade your operating system? I know I am.

49:29Darin Olien:I'm always game to do that. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's what we're doing over at Super Life Patreon. This isn't just behind-the-scenes membership. It's a global experiment in conscious living that I am connected to, committed with, in every cell of my body. Each week, you'll get exclusive access to deeper podcast conversations, extended interviews, voice notes from the road of me personally, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes footage, community wellness challenges, and even surprise drop-ins that I no longer do on social media because I don't really dig it anymore.

50:15Darin Olien:We're talking decentralized healing, reclaiming sovereignty, ancient wisdom meets future tech, and a tribe of people with you walking the path. If you love this podcast, the Patreon is where we go deeper, get more real, and reclaim our power together. Join us at patreon.com forward slash Darren Olin. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com forward slash Darren Olin, D-A-R-I-N-O-L-I-E-N. Join the movement, support the mission, let's rise together. you know i will just make this one statement i i rarely say but if we waited for science to catch up with spirituality we'd be waiting a long time and there was a monk in the monastery that used to say uh god or divinity pure energy hit himself in simplicity not knowing that no one would ever find him there.

51:20You know, and we can, I think there's more and more temptation today because of the availability of knowledge and books and podcasts and AI to go, to be externalized. Because you can go down a million rabbit holes and you only have X amount of time on this planet.

51:41Darin Olien:Going back to that, yeah. And the fastest way to get where you want to go to go inward as opposed to go outward because you're just pursuing all these lines of thoughts. Whereas if you go inside... What's your daily practice look like today? Well, when I'm at home, I have a practice in the morning that I do. I have a traditional Hindu shrine that I sit and I do a ceremony and then a meditation. I had a much deeper practice before I had my daughter. She's seven now, but I spend a lot of time with her in the morning, part of my commitment of what I want to do. But my biggest practice is during the day, practicing keeping my awareness on one thing at a time.

52:37That's a practice.

52:39Darin Olien:So how do you handle the phone then? is it um i i pick it up only when i need to use it yeah uh sometimes i use it as a uh i get all my new source from there from instagram primarily i follow a bunch of news channels and i get my news there so uh but yeah i very rarely pick it up and just scroll yeah i don't go on youtube on there or facebook twitter x whatever I have those accounts and somebody posts on them for me. But yeah, my phone is primarily my work tool. And then when I'm with family, with friends, it doesn't sit on the table. It doesn't come out of my pocket. When I'm with my daughter, it's not even in the vicinity.

53:31It's in another room somewhere else. It doesn't come to meals with me. I value the human interaction. you know i i've simplified my life to x number of people that i truly value and if i'm with someone i want to give them my undivided attention and if my attention is on you my guru my guru had the saying you know where awareness goes energy flows so my awareness is on you my energy is flowing towards you and you feel my energy you feel that i'm present that's one of the greatest gifts i can give you yeah if i know your time on this planet is finite and you've chosen to give me an hour that you know i should be so grateful yeah you know if we both had three hours to live and you said i've done the plenty i have to go and as you were walking out the door i said darren can you give me like five minutes and you're all right sure and in that five minutes again you're knowing that you only have you know two hours 55 minutes left as we were talking i picked up my phone and started scrolling, would you be pissed?

54:36You'd be upset. You'd be like, bro, I've got three hours. I gave you five minutes and you're scrolling in front of me? And that's how I look at my day-to-day. Like, if I'm giving you two hours or an hour to have coffee or lunch or whatever, then let's just be here. Every time you pick up the phone in front of me and start doing your thing, it's me just... It's eating the clock. it's so wild because that is so common so common every dinner table every lunch table you see that i have a zero tolerance policy so i've trained the people in my life to not pull it out of the pocket yeah i'm out no i am i do i'll just get up and leave and i go like where are you going to the bathroom no i'm leaving yeah i thought we were here to spend time together and so did i but you You obviously love caressing your phone more than talking to me, so why don't you stay here and do that, and I'll just go do something else with my life.

55:39Darin Olien:Caressing you. Yeah, because I don't want to sit here and watch you do this, petting your phone. I mean, how is this entertaining? Yeah. And it's the biggest epidemic we have is not connecting. No. Right. people make appointments to go have dinner together because we want to catch up and then while they're at dinner they're catching up with other things don't go waste $200 on dinner or whatever it is stay home it's so bizarre we're just

56:20it's so externalized the consciousness today in the world that we're losing perspective on everything, right? And it needs to be simplified back to a few things. And it starts with committing. Committing, purpose, focus, simplify, sacrifice. That simple framework is a good framework to use. Simplify. We need to simplify our life. Yeah, not take more on. not take more on. And part of that sacrificing is sometimes saying no to things that we want to do. Just knowing that the more we add to our plate, you know, the less we can sustain. If I had a cup of water, just one cup of water, full of water, and I had one plant, I could water it.

57:16The following year, I add two more plants. I have three plants. I could probably split this three ways and water it. The year after that, I have 100 plants because I get busy. I have opportunities. I get creative. I add more people in my life, more things, more projects. Still one cup of water because I can't scale my time and I can't scale my energy. Now I have to divide this water 100 ways to water 100 plants. What's going to grow?

57:40Darin Olien:Nothing. Yeah, they're all going to suffer. They're all going to suffer. So simplify. Because finite time, finite energy. I can't have more than 24 hours a day, and I can't scale my energy, but I can better manage my energy. So I need to simplify and then proportionately distribute that energy to the few things that I've simplified my life to. God, you're nailing me right now. That is what I do. It is definitely what I do. I grab a bunch of stuff. I justify because I'm excited, enthusiastic about it, or I want to see something and then what I do, I get wiped out. It takes willpower, right? It takes willpower to say no to the things that you want to do.

58:29And excitement is a problem. And, you know, I'm one of those people with a lot of energy. I just keep going and going and going. so the tendency to want to do more things is always there and and just to be able to say no but it's hard to say no when you don't know what you're saying yes to right exactly so the yes

58:56Darin Olien:needs to be clear yeah super clear yeah that's where the purpose really comes in absolutely the purpose has to become come there and not feel also then you know going on social media and seeing all these people doing all these other things and then feeling like, well, I need to do more. This is great. I don't want to miss the AI bandwagon, so I should do this or I need to do that or I need to do this and then feel I need to take on more things. But that only comes when you have a lack of sense of who you are, why you're here on this planet and what it is you want. Because then you're making other people's goals, your goals, And you feel like, well, I need to be doing all these things too because look at all these other people doing these things.

59:44Well, that's their life. Let them do that. My life is this and this is what I want to do.

59:52Darin Olien:God dang. So nailed in that. I do that all the time. Well, you know, we all have, you know, that temptation, you know. and I won't deny that too as I look at my life and especially every time I travel and meet people and meet amazing people I go like oh that's cool for sure and I just go like yeah good luck good luck yeah and just

1:00:27ultimately Darren why are we here on this planet right I mean you think of how many millions of people billions of people have come through this life i mean do you believe in reincarnation or are you more like a one life

1:00:40Darin Olien:kind of person no no i i know i i don't know where i i i you know multi-verse it's like the timeline it's like all happening at the same yeah yeah i mean for sure i believe in zillions of lives that i've probably lived yeah that you have lived before yeah Yeah. So you think about the repetition that we go through every life. We were born, we were in diapers, we didn't have diapers at one point, but we grew up, learned to read, write, go to school, if we're at school, get a job, get married, have kids, watch the kids grow up, look after, raise the family, provide for the family, kids get married, kids get a job, become grandparents, get old, and then die.

1:01:28And then repeat that entire cycle again. You said it very clearly right at the start of the podcast. It's like people are in this zombie state of every day getting up and just doing the same repetitive thing over and over again until one day we get old and go, like, we can't do this anymore. And then the body is failing, the mind is failing. but when are we going to start realizing that there's something more to life or we just keep repeating the cycle and every project we pursue whether it's for ourselves or even the pursuit of impacting the environment and helping others and I'm not saying we shouldn't do this because I also believe in doing this I think they should be wisely chosen, and it shouldn't come at the expense of our own personal self-realization or experience of the eternity of who we are.

1:02:32Darin Olien:Right. Because we want to be the Savior, go out and impact and help and make a difference, and that's very noble, but at what cost? At what cost, yeah. The cost comes at not knowing ourselves and not actually doing the work to experience our innermost, highest state of consciousness,

1:02:55then I don't know why we just want to repeat this whole process over and over again.

1:03:01Darin Olien:Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day. And so many people are stuck in it. And so much is being sold online. You've got to do this. Every day something new is coming out that's good for you, that's better for you, and this method. I mean, it's endless. simplify. Get rid of everything. So if someone goes through this book, will they have a pretty clear path of at least understanding their purpose or at least closer to it? No, the book doesn't talk so much about purpose. It talks lightly. The book teaches you the skill of how to focus and to learn to practice focus so you can actually be good at it. So there's two things go hand in hand.

1:03:45I need to learn the piano and I need to practice the piano. Right, got it.

1:03:49Darin Olien:And that's needed more than ever right now. Yeah, absolutely. And unless you are able to focus, you can't be present in all your experiences in life and then you're essentially missing out. Because you're always physically present but mentally absent somewhere else. You always know that person too. They may not be bringing out their phone, but you're talking to them and you're not paying attention at all. Like, you know what I mean? And you never heard what I said, and you're saying something clearly not demonstrating that you heard anything that I've said. Every fifth person is like that, I think.

1:04:30Darin Olien:Or maybe even more. I think you're being very generous. Probably being generous. Every other. In my workshops, I always ask people, you know, like, who's ever had this experience where you're talking to someone and the person looks at you and go, where are you? Right. Well, I said, the right answer is, I'm right here. Now, where's your awareness? Oh, honey, it left the moment you started talking. Because you're always physically present. But where are you mentally absent? And that's the thing, right? People spend time with their loved ones, with their spouse, with their children. They're physically at the dinner.

1:05:06They're physically at the lunch. They're physically at the outing. And they go, check. I'm spending time with my family. And they feel good about it. But if you're mentally absent the whole time, if your awareness is somewhere else, that's where your energy is flowing. And they don't feel your energy. They only feel your physical presence.

1:05:25Darin Olien:And it robs both the person distracted and it robs the person who wants to be in your space. Absolutely. Because what's the message you're sending? You don't care. you know I don't really care enough about you that I'll sit here with you to show you that I'm here all the time going on one day what I should get for lunch I should really download that latest version of Claude that came out you know should I upgrade to the$20 version yes you should cheap ass bastard that's what you should upgrade you know and while the whole time I'm physically with you but mentally completely absent giving someone your undivided attention is one of the highest forms of love and respect to truly show someone you love you care i value your precious minutes on this planet your energy i am completely here but people talk about being present but you can't be present if you can't be focused my ability to give you my undivided attention results in the state of being present.

1:06:32So you don't practice being present, you practice being focused. The byproduct of focus is present. I go to the gym, I lift weights, I get muscle. It's a byproduct of lifting weights. The byproduct of focusing is the ability to be present.

1:06:49Darin Olien:It's a good distinction. It's very important because you hear a lot of new age people that will tell you, be present, be in the now, practice being, what the hell? No, you don't practice being in and out. You practice being focused. I must be able to keep my attention on you. As soon as I can keep my attention, my awareness on you, I am here, which means I'm being present. So the practice of holding attention, holding awareness on one thing at a time is the act of focus, which allows you to experience each moment, each experience, each person and have deeper, profound relationships. It's a big distinction difference because just saying be present doesn't give you a directive.

1:07:36Darin Olien:No. What the hell does that mean? I think there's just a lot of stuff that's just thrown out there, you know, in this quick consuming of content. Sounds good. Sounds great. And then people just repeat things. Oh, yeah. Repeat it, reshare it. That's good. That's good. I like that. Without even thinking about it. I'll share that. And it's the same thing of it's not about the destination. It's all about the journey. People just say that. People say life is short. And they're like, life is not short. If I'm stuck in traffic for three hours, it doesn't feel short. I say life is finite. There's a clear definitive end to it.

1:08:22But it's anything but short. You told me I was going to prison for a day. I go like, oh, I can manage that. You told me I was going to prison for 10 years. I go like, whoa. So if I get to live for 10 years, that's also a long time. Why is that not long? So life is anything but short. It's finite. There's a clear definitive end to it. I don't know when that end is. but you know people just repeat stuff without really thinking about it yeah all the time you

1:08:51Darin Olien:do a whole podcast and just that stuff oh totally just throw away statements all the time throw away statements full of it you know i think you know more than anything else in an era and it's like for your audience listening what do you want in life and how badly do you want it do you want to play soccer in the park with your friends or do you want to play in the Premier League? And it doesn't have to be either or, it could be a whole range of things in between, but define where that goal is and then commit to that path. Because until you define that, you're never going to make any progress. And there's no right or wrong.

1:09:35If you say I want to play soccer in the park, park on the weekend, that's fine. If your goal is to get further down, then you need to commit to a set of philosophies, a set of philosophy, a set of goals, a set of practices, a path, and commit and stop shopping around. Stop reading a thousand books. Not saying all those books are wrong, but focus on the things that will help you go to where you want to go. People take the shallow and wide approach as opposed to the narrow and deep. you know and gives them a sense of like if i read all these books and listen to all these podcasts and learn about all these things i'm making progress it comes down to being can you practice

1:10:22Darin Olien:it yeah well you regurgitate it different than practicing it oh there are a thousand people that can regurgitate my book better than i can yeah yeah but can they be completely present that's the question yeah brother i love this i love this stuff i love your work no thank you great to share literally share space with you and time finally yeah i appreciate that definitely love that over the screens stay stay in contact will do and uh let us know go kick ass in bakersfield and raise the level of attention and awareness in Bakersfield. Yes. But I appreciate you. Likewise as well and keep doing all the amazing things that you're doing.

1:11:11Thank you. Just simplify.

1:11:13Darin Olien:Maybe just simplify. I do. I do need to. Yeah. And I can't wait to devour your book. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Wow.