A Former Monk Explains Why Concentration is the Best Business Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

Entrepreneurs’ Organization helps entrepreneurs achieve their full potential by enabling life-enhancing connections, designing shared experiences, and providing collaborative learning. Dandapani, a former Hindu monk, teaches business leaders the value of Unwavering Focus. He was also a recent guest on EO’s Wonder podcast. We asked Dandapani how leaders can improve company productivity by helping employees learn to maximize the power of their minds. Here’s what he shared:

As a business leader, you provide your team with critical training for every tool they’ll need in their roles: from mobile device hardware and software to CRMs, accounting and sales tools.

High-quality training is a best practice because it empowers employees with the knowledge necessary to succeed both personally and professionally.

But–are you neglecting the one software that 100 percent of your team uses every day but has never been trained to use effectively?

What is this universal software? The human mind.

The human mind is the most sophisticated tool on the planet. Using it, we’ve harnessed electricity, discovered quantum computing, and unlocked the human genome.

I’ve asked audiences across the world, “Who here was taught how to concentrate in school?” In eight years, not one person ever raised their hand.

We’re born with an incredibly powerful mind, but nobody teaches us how to maximize its potential. That’s shocking! With no training, we’re left to figure it out for ourselves.

I was a perpetually distracted kid. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to finish a sandwich, so you know I couldn’t focus on schoolwork. Teachers would say, “Dandapani, it’s time to focus.” But nobody ever taught me how.

It’s ironic: I was often scolded because I couldn’t focus. Now, I travel the world teaching people how to focus.

Did you ever ask anyone, “Could you please teach me how to concentrate?” Probably not. That question never occurred to me either, so I never learned. Until I went to the monastery.

Soon after I arrived, my guru asked, “Has anyone taught you how to concentrate?”

I thought, “Oh, that’s an interesting question. I’ve never heard anybody mention teaching concentration.”

It’s the greatest veil placed over humanity: We’re given a mind with nearly limitless capacity but never taught how to harness and use it properly to achieve what we want in life.

Learning to use your mind effectively–and providing your team with this training–will benefit every aspect of life. It helps entrepreneurs increase focus and productivity. It helps employees perform better, and helps companies grow.

Here are six benefits you’ll experience when you and your team learn to concentrate:

Distraction causes a huge loss of productivity and efficiency. Why? When you switch back and forth between projects or conversations and then try to re-engage with the original task, you waste time, expend energy, and create stress. You can’t continue where you left off–it takes time to regain your flow. By learning to concentrate, you eliminate wasted time and energy.

With multiple computer windows open, audible email and phone alerts, and switching between projects, you’re practicing distraction. You’re probably quite good at it! Most of us can’t concentrate because we practice distraction more than we practice focus. The mind excels at what it practices.

Your team members come to work with personal issues on their minds. Their awareness jumps from personal concerns to work projects, instead of focusing on work. When you learn to concentrate, you are able to put aside personal concerns temporarily during work hours. Afterward, you can deal with them when you choose.

Doesn’t every business leader want to provide their employees with the ability to keep awareness on work while they’re at work?

Imagine how much time, energy, efficiency and money are lost because people aren’t taught to use their minds effectively. Now, imagine your company is the one where employees can concentrate, completing tasks effectively, efficiently, and without errors caused by common distractions. Don’t you want that?

Employees use their minds all day to benefit your company: in meetings, sending emails and price quotes, with clients, and on sales calls. If they’re using their minds 100 percent of the time, why not teach them to use the mind properly? Go to the source. When they understand the primary, core tool they use every day, job performance naturally improves.

Learning how to concentrate enhances overall quality of life because you know how to focus on the task at hand. While at work, that means focusing on work. With family and friends, that means being fully engaged and present in meaningful, memorable moments. And on vacation, you can focus on the primary objective: relaxation.