 When it comes to building an incredible life, I always advise people to focus on two things, work and love. I mean, most of us spend more hours at work than with the people we love the most or with the hobbies we love the most. So to me, you should spend a lot of time in your life figuring out the work you feel like is your absolute purpose and your absolute Dharma in life. Now in this video, I wanna share what your Dharma is and how to actually find it. Now when I was reading Robert Green's book, Mastery, that was one of the key pieces that helped me figure out the work that I really, really felt born to do. The problem is his books are huge and they're really thick. So if you wanna shortcut that, I recommend a service called Blinkist, a really, really cool app that I've used plenty of times. Now in today's age, it's pretty tough to find the time to actually sit down and truly learn. And when it's easier just to flip up an Instagram and go through a bunch of pictures when you're in line, it can seem like you don't have the time to actually read. But there's a really cool service I use called Blinkist and it's the only app that actually takes the best insights from a ton of nonfiction books and condenses them to 15 minutes or less so you can read or listen to them and get the key points to improve your life. Now, even books I've procrastinated on like Think and Grow Rich, I drove to a friend's house the other day and I re-listened to all the essential points in under 15 minutes. Now Blinkist is a special package here for my listeners. If you go to Blinkist.com forward slash Alex, the first 100 people will get a free trial. So check the link below. Now, what is a person's purpose and Dharma in the work sense? Now, the way I think about it is this amazing quote from Thomas Merton. He says that every man has a vocation to be someone but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill his vocation, he can only be one person himself. So Dharma is this term that comes from the Bhagavad Gita and it's the idea of the intersection of a person's work purpose in life mixed with their divine or spiritual or kind of ultimate form of fulfillment that your Dharma should be the through line of your life, the core thread that kind of directs everything else and guides everything else. Now, here's how it was described. Krishna says that there is a certain kind of action that leads to freedom and fulfillment. A certain kind of action that is always aligned with our true nature and this is action motivated by Dharma. It is the action taken in service of our sacred calling, our duty, our vocation and that this is the only kind of action we can take in our work life without creating suffering. So I think of it as the intersection or the highest intersection of your unique gifts and strengths mixed with your purpose in the world. But how do you even know if you found your Dharma or not? And you're probably wondering how to even find it if you haven't already. I mean, it's hard to find work that's really fulfilling. Well, here's how it's described. You know, Jane Goodall, the woman who did work with primates said that it was that thing that just kind of brought that spark back into her eye that just litter up like a child when they're playing with their absolute favorite toy or they're doing their absolute favorite hobby. Beethoven described it as the holy work that would save him and Nikola Tesla had a direct quote that said, I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love and everything. So if you haven't found it, I recommend that you look for that spark and deep sense of excitement that comes with certain topics. Now, when you find your work or you find something that might be in the proximity of it, do two key things every day. Now, the first is the unification of your life around your Dharma. This is based on Stephen Cope's book, The Great Work of Your Life, where he talks about the people that really ended up becoming icons in their fields who forgot about success, but instead figured out that to become the ultimate fulfilled and ultimately successful person, you have to have the maximum percentage of your time per day dedicated around your holy work and not being distracted by partying, by moving to New York City or LA, by trying to become popular or anything like that, but dedicating yourself as many hours a day as possible to unification. So one of the great stories he tells is the poet Robert Frost. And he said that Frost became aware of the fact that we each may have a gift or a seed, but that does not mean that we use it wisely and that it is up to us to figure out the right conditions for our purpose and our life to flourish. So he said that Frost was intuitively aware of an important principle. In the cultivation of Dharma, there is nothing more important than understanding what conditions are needed and relentlessly creating them. Frost realized that his Dharma required a farm, so he bought one. It required him to give up teaching and so he relinquished it. It required a period of intense work in England and so he went. Our job is to make choices that create the right conditions for Dharma to flourish. So the first is unification of your life, your energy around your Dharma, your sacred purpose. Now, the second thing is really deliberate practice or having that mastery focus. So whether it is a person who's trying to be the world-class pianist, violinist, ballet dancer or athlete, you see them dedicating unnatural amounts of focused dedicated time to acquire skills and to be deliberate about how they are getting better. Now, Steven Cope talks about this in the sense that you need to have even your diet. Is your diet aligned with maximum productivity in your desired field? Is your sleep aligned with that? Is partying aligned with the maximum performance in your chosen craft? Is being a player or loosely dating people all the time and occupying your evening hours with that emotional energy? Is that aligned with the kind of life you wanna build? We've talked about deliberate practice here and living your life deliberately and acquiring deliberate skill sets. But is your every aspect of your life revolved around a focused concept of just the mastery of your craft? So this brings up the question, what if you haven't found your Dharma? I'm here giving a 10 day personal growth challenge and one of them is to find your sacred work but what if you haven't found it or don't even have a clue? Everything kind of feels at you. I would say to look for one thing and that is have a mastery focus at whatever it is you're doing now even if it's not where you wanna be forever. If you are a barista, pour that cup of coffee like your idol is going to drink it. If you're a video editor, create the video that is the absolute most beautiful thing you have ever made. If you're a writer, write the book that would just blow away yourself but also your friends and your family. And if you're an athlete, don't go and ask yourself on the field, go like you're training to be an Olympian or the highest paid performer in your field. Have a mastery focus to the little things that you do or your current craft because that will help you no matter what. And of course, look for that thing that lights you up and makes your heart beat a little quicker because that's probably either your Dharma or on the path towards your Dharma. I hope that helps you guys. That is our next step in this 10 piece personal development challenge. I think this is a huge topic. Now again, there's that discount from Blinkist down there below. You could check it out the first link underneath and keep your eyes peeled for the next video in the series. But for now, check out this related video here.