Speaker 1: The number one health and wellness podcast Shetty.
Speaker 2: Today we have best selling author, motivational speaker, and big
Speaker 2: time podcaster Jay Shetty, who's out on let y'all Know
Speaker 2: Now out on its All Purpose live tour right now.
Speaker 2: Speaking of that, man, I think it's so cool, Jay,
Speaker 2: when you show the pictures of how it started to
Speaker 2: how it's going, and I actually counted the people in
Speaker 2: one of the picture. It was only twelve to be
Speaker 2: in the position that you're in now. When you started
Speaker 2: out on this journey. How could you ever have imagined
Speaker 2: that it would end up where you are now, touring
Speaker 2: the country, touring the world in some senses, and people
Speaker 2: power into arenas to see.
Speaker 1: I don't think you could ever imagine it, and that's
Speaker 1: what's beautiful about it. I think the challenge today is
Speaker 1: everyone has too much pressure. Every video has to have
Speaker 1: a million views, Everything you post has to get lots
Speaker 1: of engagement, Everything you share has to get lots of attention.
Speaker 1: When I started giving my first talks, I was in
Speaker 1: a room like the corner of this the size of
Speaker 1: the corner of this room, and the first time I
Speaker 1: went to speak, zero people showed up. So I just
Speaker 1: practiced to the four walls, and the second time I
Speaker 1: showed up, no one showed up, And so I practiced
Speaker 1: to the four walls. And the third time I realized
Speaker 1: that the fire the person who was putting the flyers out,
Speaker 1: because who went in a good job. But for years,
Speaker 1: nearly ten years before I posted a video, I was
Speaker 1: speaking to groups of small rooms. I was speaking of
Speaker 1: groups of three people, five people, ten people, And I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I never ever felt, why is
Speaker 1: only ten people? I never ever felt, oh, it's only
Speaker 1: twenty people today, I would have loved it to be
Speaker 1: fifty or one hundred, don't get me wrong, but I
Speaker 1: never thought it needed to be more than that. I
Speaker 1: was just happy that anyone would take time out of
Speaker 1: their day to come and hear about things that were
Speaker 1: meant to be good for them. But you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't hey, here's how to do this, or here's how
Speaker 1: to get rich, or it was here's how to improve
Speaker 1: your life. And so for me, those years of spending
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours with people, roughly ten years later,
Speaker 1: when I post my first video and I start to
Speaker 1: have the groundswell experience of more people finding out about
Speaker 1: my work. I live in gratitude every day. I post
Speaker 1: those to show people that no one starts in an arena.
Speaker 1: Everyone starts at zero. And the reason why we don't
Speaker 1: start is not because we're scared of starting at zero.
Speaker 1: We're scared of people watching us start at zero. We're
Speaker 1: scared of the opinions of people around us starting at zero.
Speaker 1: We're not scared of starting from scratch. We're scared of
Speaker 1: our friends seeing us start from scratch. And I just
Speaker 1: want to remind people that everyone started zero. You did,
Speaker 1: you did, and everyone on planet Earth did, and that
Speaker 1: means you can do it as much as I have.
Speaker 2: Hey change, By the way, I just want to say this,
Speaker 2: this is the first time Fred's voice has been out
Speaker 2: sexy doing our show.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that London.
Speaker 4: That London is sexy. Now I see it.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about motivational speaking and spiritual advisors.
Speaker 4: What about on the others? Why do people need them?
Speaker 3: I'm a I'm a I'm not a pessimist, but I'm
Speaker 3: a you know, I'm a person that thinks about it,
Speaker 3: like I don't talk to anybody like this is this
Speaker 3: is probably my therapy with us doing this. What about
Speaker 3: on the other side, why do people need you to
Speaker 3: get them going?
Speaker 4: Like, bro, tighten up.
Speaker 1: You know what's really interesting is when you're doing it,
Speaker 1: you don't think that's what you're doing. So when I
Speaker 1: first started learning from the monks, I was just trying
Speaker 1: to share what they were teaching me because I thought
Speaker 1: it was valuable. It's almost like if someone told you, hey,
Speaker 1: this is really cool thing. There's this cool spot, there's
Speaker 1: this great movie, there's this great song that, there's this
Speaker 1: great rapper, there's this great artist. If someone introduced you
Speaker 1: to that, you'd start talking about it because it was cool.
Speaker 1: And so for me, wisdom was cool, and so I
Speaker 1: was just sharing it because it changed my life and
Speaker 1: had an impact on me, and I thought it would
Speaker 1: help other people. So from my side, you don't even
Speaker 1: see yourself that way. You just see yourself as a
Speaker 1: spiritual dealer because you're just sharing what's helping you and
Speaker 1: you want it to help other people. So from my side,
Speaker 1: I don't look at myself as that. I think for people,
Speaker 1: what happens is we're all looking for people who represent
Speaker 1: what we're chasing, who represent what we're pursuing, who represent
Speaker 1: what we admire. And I think the thing is everyone
Speaker 1: needs someone or something to believe in. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: want people to believe in me. I want them to
Speaker 1: believe in the wisdom. So that's my responsibility to make
Speaker 1: it very clear. I don't want you to believe in me.
Speaker 1: I'm flawed, I'm human, I have weaknesses. But the wisdom
Speaker 1: has lasted for five thousand years. There's nothing in the
Speaker 1: world that has lasted apart from the world the planet
Speaker 1: for five thousand years. I remember talking about The Bug
Speaker 1: with Gito, which is the book that I referenced a
Speaker 1: lot in my books. I was speaking about it with
Speaker 1: a guy that had met and he was big in business,
Speaker 1: and he said to me after the interview. This was
Speaker 1: years ago. He said to me, because, how long did
Speaker 1: you say that book's been around? I said, five thousand years.
Speaker 1: He goes, oh, there must be truth in it. If
Speaker 1: it's lasted five thousand years. You think about the best
Speaker 1: music artists, they're not going to last five thousand years.
Speaker 1: You think about the best movies, they're not going to
Speaker 1: last five thousand years. Well, I'm definitely not going to
Speaker 1: last five thousand years. So the fact that something has
Speaker 1: stood the test of time, that's worth sharing. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get people to believe in that because that
Speaker 1: is actually going to change their life. Them believing in
Speaker 1: me or another person or whatever is kind of insignificant
Speaker 1: and irrelevant.
Speaker 5: You also try to get people to believe in their
Speaker 5: purpose because you speak about passion being what you like
Speaker 5: and purpose being what you give. Take us back to
Speaker 5: the moment when you say you were just in the
Speaker 5: room waiting for people, and you were staring at the
Speaker 5: four walls. Right, if your purpose wasn't greater than your passion,
Speaker 5: would we be doing this interview today.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. The purpose is what drives you,
Speaker 1: because when you're doing your passion, there may not be
Speaker 1: the result immediately. And so for me, the way I
Speaker 1: like to explain it is, your passion is for you.
Speaker 1: Your passion is doing something that brings you joy. It
Speaker 1: could be baking, could be photography, could be organizing your
Speaker 1: kid's birthday. It could be coaching them, you know, a
Speaker 1: football or soccer or whatever it may be. That could
Speaker 1: be your passion. But as soon as you start doing
Speaker 1: it to improve other people's lives, that's where it becomes
Speaker 1: a purpose. When you start connecting it with making someone
Speaker 1: else's day better. So instead of just baking for you,
Speaker 1: you're not baking for the homeless. Instead of just baking
Speaker 1: for you, you're not baking for the community. Instead of
Speaker 1: just taking pictures for yourself, you start sharing it so
Speaker 1: the people who don't have the money to travel that
Speaker 1: far can now see what it looks like to experience it.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you start to get that feedback
Speaker 1: and you realize you're meant for more, You're made for more,
Speaker 1: You're here for more. For me, I would have kept going,
Speaker 1: and I did keep going for ten years of sharing
Speaker 1: it in small rooms because I saw impact on one person.
Speaker 1: And I think if anyone wants to build a product,
Speaker 1: a business, a service, a show, you've got to see
Speaker 1: how it impacts one person before you can impact one
Speaker 1: million people. If your product can't change one person's life,
Speaker 1: it's never going to change a million people's lives because
Speaker 1: the feedback you get from that one person is everything.
Speaker 1: That one person could help you improve your product, your service,
Speaker 1: your energy, your show more than anyone. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: guys have had it, Like you've had someone who watches
Speaker 1: every Pivot podcast right every episode. They're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I really liked him when you guys did that. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure when you guys did that, And same for me.
Speaker 1: People will be like, I really like it when you
Speaker 1: share your opinion. I really like it when you stay
Speaker 1: true to your value. That's what helps you keep going.
Speaker 1: So to me, I kept going because there was always
Speaker 1: one person who was being moved. And even today, when
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to a large audience or an arena, I'm
Speaker 1: visualizing being in that small room with three to five people,
Speaker 1: because that's how intimate I want it to feel. I
Speaker 1: wanted to feel like this. This is special. Just the
Speaker 1: intimacy you guys have created here. This is special, and
Speaker 1: I want people in a room full of thousands to
Speaker 1: feel like this because this is what we're all craving.
Speaker 1: No one's craving to be in a room full of
Speaker 1: thousands of people. Everyone's craving this eye contact, this kind
Speaker 1: of connection, this kind of space, and it's our job.
Speaker 1: And that's what you guys do so well here. Whenever
Speaker 1: I watch your clips, this is how I feel. I
Speaker 1: feel this close to you. Before I met you, I
Speaker 1: felt like I knew you because I'd seen so many
Speaker 1: of you guys's clips and it felt like you guys
Speaker 1: were genuine and sincere. You were doing this for the
Speaker 1: right reason, and so I think we've got to give
Speaker 1: that give people that experience. And that's what I've always
Speaker 1: tried to do, whether it was five people of five thousand. Jay.
Speaker 2: I look at you, man, the finally manicured hair, right,
Speaker 2: the beard always taped up, obviously, the gear. And I
Speaker 2: see you in bad boys and moving around, and it's like,
Speaker 2: man like this dude's kind of like me.
Speaker 6: Make sure his hair is nice. He make sure his
Speaker 6: clothes or tight, right, he gonna stay clean.
Speaker 2: And I see the lifestyle you live now, and I
Speaker 2: try to just put my mind and say, okay, Jay Shetty,
Speaker 2: after being college educated, decided to follow the monastic way?
Speaker 2: What was it about that lifestyle that drew you to
Speaker 2: the astronum?
Speaker 1: When I met my monk teacher, I saw that he
Speaker 1: dedicated his life to monstering his emotions and his mind
Speaker 1: and serving other people. And that's what attracted me. I
Speaker 1: felt that that felt like a life worth pursuing. When
Speaker 1: I met him, I remember I'd met people who are
Speaker 1: rich and famous and successful, but I don't think i'd
Speaker 1: met anyone who was content and happy in their own skin.
Speaker 1: I'm a monk teacher didn't have any of those other things,
Speaker 1: but he was happy in who he was, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I want that, Like that feels like the
Speaker 1: life I want to have. And he graduated also from it,
Speaker 1: which is the MIT of India. So he went to
Speaker 1: one of the best colleges in the country. For example,
Speaker 1: the current CEO of Google went to that university. Like
Speaker 1: that's the level of institution. And he gave that all
Speaker 1: up to be a monk. So I was thinking, and
Speaker 1: I was at college at the time, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if I'm going to aspire to get
Speaker 1: a job like that, this guy's given it up. There's
Speaker 1: something amazing about him. So to me, it was truly
Speaker 1: the fascination. And I'm sure you've had it in sports.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had it in business where you see
Speaker 1: someone and you just like the way they move and
Speaker 1: you think, how are you that happy, that peaceful, that content?
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to know. And so to me,
Speaker 1: it was as simple as finding one person who is
Speaker 1: living differently. And I always say to people, everyone needs
Speaker 1: to find their monk. And what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is who's the one person you haven't met yet that's
Speaker 1: going to change the trajectory of your life. Who's the
Speaker 1: one person who embodies what you believe life is about.
Speaker 1: It might not be a monk, it might be something else,
Speaker 1: but everyone has to find that. And for me, mental stability,
Speaker 1: resilience and peace and service to others have always felt
Speaker 1: like the best pursuits. And now when you're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, the hair or the clothes or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: I'm giving myself permission to be all of myself. So
Speaker 1: I enjoy presenting myself.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 1: I like living an intentional life. I think the way
Speaker 1: we dress, the way we appear, everything's about intention and
Speaker 1: that's what mindfulness is. Mindfulness ultimately, is am I mindful
Speaker 1: about what I wear? What I think about, how I
Speaker 1: show up, what energy I walk into the room with,
Speaker 1: if I'm kind to people. That's what mindfulness is about.
Speaker 1: So to me, everything from like this room has been
Speaker 1: mindfully designed. I walked in and I felt happy, I
Speaker 1: felt good, I felt it was comfortable, it was inviting.
Speaker 1: But let's say you were like, oh, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: it only matters what's on the inside. We'll just sit
Speaker 1: in a black room. Yeah, well that's gonna affect your mindset.
Speaker 1: So mindfulness also means focusing on the outside and the inside.
Speaker 1: And I think immature mindfulness is like, oh, it only
Speaker 1: matters what's on the outside, And materialism is it only
Speaker 1: matters what's on the outside, right, So I think that's
Speaker 1: the mistake we make as humans. We think, Oh, if
Speaker 1: I'm spiritual, it means only the inside matters. And if
Speaker 1: I'm material only the outside matters. And intentional mindful living
Speaker 1: is they both affect each other. If I'm in a
Speaker 1: messy outside space, I'm gonna be messy up here. And
Speaker 1: if I have a messy world here, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how clean my outside is, I'll never be at peace.
Speaker 1: And that's what I learned in the monastery for Shure.
Speaker 3: Monk ism, is it like the fight club where you
Speaker 3: can't talk about the fight club? Like I know had
Speaker 3: to become a crip or a blood you get jumped in.
Speaker 3: What's the process of becoming a monk? Like you meet
Speaker 3: your advisor, your monk teacher, and then you become a monk.
Speaker 4: What is that process?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's there's a system for sure, and it's
Speaker 1: not like fight club. You can totally talk about it.
Speaker 1: They don't get jumped in.
Speaker 4: They jump you in because.
Speaker 1: Tool the initiation is the daily practice and commitment to it.
Speaker 1: So you're waking up at four am, you're meditating for
Speaker 1: four to eight hours a day. You sleep on the
Speaker 1: floor on a thin mat and have a sheet. When
Speaker 1: you're in India, you have a mosquito net because the
Speaker 1: mosquitoes will bite you all night, so you've got to
Speaker 1: be inside of this tent like thing. You get two
Speaker 1: sets of robes. You wear one, you wash one. All
Speaker 1: your possessions fit inside a gym locker and you live
Speaker 1: that practice. You eat what you're given. You don't get
Speaker 1: to choose. There's no menu, you don't get to say
Speaker 1: to that one pizza and doesn't exis. Everyone eats the
Speaker 1: same thing. There's no space that's yours. So we'd be
Speaker 1: in a room like this and there's thirty men sleeping
Speaker 1: in it, and you just put your mout down and
Speaker 1: go to sleep. It's not like that's my corner. The
Speaker 1: idea is to lose a sense of I, me and
Speaker 1: mind until you have very very few possessions. And it's
Speaker 1: that daily practicing commitment that if they see you're dedicated
Speaker 1: to that allows you to become a monk, Like.
Speaker 3: Let's ride to the monastery, like I've seen no one
Speaker 3: get it, Like yeah, that process of it, like you
Speaker 3: being a monk and your books, you know, the mindset,
Speaker 3: the like Okay, I met this dude and then now
Speaker 3: I'm sleeping on the mat, yeah, with thirty dudes sitting
Speaker 3: in the room with me. Like that that process, like
Speaker 3: it what why?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 6: But what what is that?
Speaker 4: Those steps? Is it something mental? Then the shaven of
Speaker 4: the hair and.
Speaker 3: All that stuff like yeah, I like the day the
Speaker 3: process from living a normal life, have an apartment, graduating
Speaker 3: from one of the best schools, and now I have
Speaker 3: no possessions, I'm in a locker and I'm sleeping on
Speaker 3: the floor with twenty nine dudes.
Speaker 1: So I was so young when I did it that
Speaker 1: there was a sense of naive following. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is I was just like, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: give it a go, Let's try it out, like, let's
Speaker 1: test it out. I kind of went in there as
Speaker 1: an experiment. I was like, can I do this? What
Speaker 1: did it look like? And I think I had that
Speaker 1: openness of that age where you aren't necessarily asking all
Speaker 1: these questions, you're kind of just like, let's see how
Speaker 1: it goes. And to me, it was as simple as
Speaker 1: I spoke to the monk in England, which is where
Speaker 1: I first met him, and then he invited me to
Speaker 1: India to spend time with him. So I flew over
Speaker 1: during my Christmas breaks in college vacations, and I would
Speaker 1: spend time with him at the monastery. And now at
Speaker 1: that time, I would get a more comfortable room and
Speaker 1: I'd do the practices so they didn't throw me right
Speaker 1: into the deep end. But I did that so often
Speaker 1: that I got so used to it that when I graduated,
Speaker 1: I knew what I was getting myself into. It's almost like,
Speaker 1: you've seen this is you're going to sleep it. You've
Speaker 1: seen what it looks like. And I, truly, if I'm
Speaker 1: completely honest, I didn't give it too much thought. I
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm open to it. Let's see if
Speaker 1: it works, let's test it out. And so to me,
Speaker 1: the mindset was being open, not being skeptical, and being
Speaker 1: a human guinea pig and going let's see if this
Speaker 1: proves to be true. And the more I did it,
Speaker 1: the more I gained confidence in it because I mean
Speaker 1: to me a kid from London waking up at four am.
Speaker 1: You know, as a college student, that's unheard of. You're
Speaker 1: getting back at four am right from going out, and
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, I'm waking at four am.
Speaker 1: But I literally said, I'm just going to do this
Speaker 1: properly and see if it works. And I think that's
Speaker 1: something I'd like to encourage, especially young people to do,
Speaker 1: is if you're going to try something out, go all
Speaker 1: in and test it out for seven days, and if
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, don't do it again. But the problem
Speaker 1: is we never go all in. We do it for
Speaker 1: a day. If I said to you, I really want
Speaker 1: to learn about American football, right, I really want to
Speaker 1: understand the game. Well, if I come to one game
Speaker 1: a year, what am I going to learn? If you
Speaker 1: get a one meditation a year, what are you going
Speaker 1: to learn? I'm not going to learn anything. But if
Speaker 1: I sat with you every single day, if I followed
Speaker 1: you around, if I followed the players around, then I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to learn something, right. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's that intimacy and that connection to a coach, a
Speaker 1: mentor a guide that makes it easier to understand what's
Speaker 1: happening and what's going on. So it's an immersive experience.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense. I want to make sure I
Speaker 1: answer your question. It's a great question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems crazy to do, but you wanted to
Speaker 3: dive in, and.
Speaker 1: That's totally it is crazy. It was so now when
Speaker 1: I look back, I'm like, what was I thinking? But
Speaker 1: I had that young, naive spirit of this guy has
Speaker 1: something I don't have and I want it. And you
Speaker 1: could think about how that mindset can get you into
Speaker 1: trouble right when you're young. I'm sure I saw lots
Speaker 1: of guys who had amazing cars and rims and you know,
Speaker 1: clothes and whatever it is, and you can get involved
Speaker 1: in the wrong things because you also want that. I
Speaker 1: just was really lucky that the person I was inspired
Speaker 1: to be like was a monk. People who was asking me,
Speaker 1: how did you have that at such a young age.
Speaker 1: I truly think it's because of their aura and their presence.
Speaker 1: I don't it's a little bit of me. I have
Speaker 1: a good heart. I was raised to be a good man.
Speaker 1: My mom raised me well. But they are just so
Speaker 1: powerful in their presence that you just couldn't help but
Speaker 1: want to live that way. And I'm lucky that it
Speaker 1: was the right people not the wrong people, because that
Speaker 1: naive mindset can end up, you know, in completely the
Speaker 1: other direction.
Speaker 5: I just want to add to that too, J before
Speaker 5: I get into the immersion, because you're here now, you're
Speaker 5: wanted the boys.
Speaker 7: And this is more so for Channing.
Speaker 5: But I just want to say before I get into
Speaker 5: that question, is you're not your thoughts, right, You're not
Speaker 5: your emotions.
Speaker 7: You're the observer of those things.
Speaker 5: And a young Jay, you were able to observe, you know,
Speaker 5: what you wanted when you met this monk, and it
Speaker 5: allowed you to discover your identity.
Speaker 7: And your real purpose. If I'm the right ones.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But in terms of Channing, I want to go
Speaker 5: back to when you say being mindful right, and your
Speaker 5: appearance and your approach.
Speaker 7: What drives that?
Speaker 5: Because Channing calls it insecurity there so conversation more so
Speaker 5: than awareness, because he feels that the way Ryan dresses
Speaker 5: or the way I might dress, or the things I wear,
Speaker 5: which comes across as materialistic, but it's something that I like, Right,
Speaker 5: how do you what drives your mindfulness? I'm sure it's
Speaker 5: not an insecurity more so than it is awareness itself.
Speaker 5: Of wanting to present yourself this way.
Speaker 1: The way I like to think about it is two
Speaker 1: people can do the exact same thing, but for completely
Speaker 1: different reasons. Let's say we were at a charity event
Speaker 1: and two celebrities signed a million dollar check for the charity.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's happening inside their head. One of
Speaker 1: them signed it because they want to be seen as child.
Speaker 1: The other person signed it because they really believe in
Speaker 1: the charity. We don't know, only they do. And that's
Speaker 1: how it works with everything in life. Two people go
Speaker 1: to the same job every day. One person does it
Speaker 1: because they love the job. The other person does it
Speaker 1: to put food on the table. You could see two
Speaker 1: people dressed in three piece suits. One does it because
Speaker 1: they're insecure, and one does it because it represents who
Speaker 1: they are and how they want to be presented.
Speaker 4: No one knows.
Speaker 1: The only person that knows is the person wearing the suit,
Speaker 1: wearing the watch giving the money and charity externally. It's both,
Speaker 1: it could be whatever. And so sometimes we see people
Speaker 1: and we project our own insecurities onto them. So I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that by Channey, I don't know you well
Speaker 1: enough look at me. I just I'm gonna go off
Speaker 1: with you said. Some people do a fan security. Other
Speaker 1: is how they want to be presented, presented to.
Speaker 4: Who other people?
Speaker 1: And if you if the world was blind, would you
Speaker 1: dress up? So I'll give you an example. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a really good example. My friends back in London
Speaker 1: rip the way, what do you what word do you use?
Speaker 1: Like this? I don't know what's the word? Like, what's
Speaker 1: the word in the room? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so
Speaker 1: like I'm just making sure I'm not speaking too much British.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so my Yeah, my friends back at home
Speaker 1: will see me on the red carpet and destroy me
Speaker 1: in the group chat, right, They'll post it up and
Speaker 1: be like boys up with your hair, bro like you know,
Speaker 1: like what are you wearing? Why are you wearing that?
Speaker 1: Why are you looking like a girl? Like you know?
Speaker 1: Like that, my friends will completely destroy me in the
Speaker 1: group chat. So I get no clout for dress like
Speaker 1: I have taken some risks. My wife we made a
Speaker 1: video last week which wasn't my idea, but it was
Speaker 1: Taylor who's here with me? So Taylor did she set
Speaker 1: me up? She invited me into a space with my
Speaker 1: wife and she had printed out all my looks in
Speaker 1: the last nine years of my public figure career, like
Speaker 1: since I left the monastery and since my career took off,
Speaker 1: and she got my wife to rap my looks and
Speaker 1: roast me on each one of them. My wife doesn't
Speaker 1: even like this stuff I wear. So, if I'm completely honest,
Speaker 1: and this is why I like Ryan because he has
Speaker 1: good taste. Right, So this is Ryan compliments me on
Speaker 1: what I wear because he has a good taste. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't have good taste. So actually
Speaker 1: I wear a lot of stuff that no one wants
Speaker 1: to see me. And so what I'm trying to say
Speaker 1: is that actually I would argue that some of the things,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking for myself. I can only talk for myself.
Speaker 1: I'd argue and say a lot of the stuff I wear,
Speaker 1: the people around me don't even like it, but I
Speaker 1: like it. It makes me feel comfortable, It makes me
Speaker 1: feel confident, it makes me feel like I like for me.
Speaker 1: I also like to dress up to feel how I
Speaker 1: want to feel in this space. So I'm comfortable in this.
Speaker 1: I feel casual in it, I feel like myself, I
Speaker 1: feel relaxed. Do I want people to think I care
Speaker 1: about my appearance, of course I do. Definitely do I
Speaker 1: care what people think about my parents. Of course I do.
Speaker 1: I'm not beyond that. And I think it's the honesty
Speaker 1: of that which is what makes me authentic, not the
Speaker 1: not caring. I think we live in a world where
Speaker 1: we think, if that person don't care about what anyone thinks,
Speaker 1: they're authentic.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: Authentic is me being honest about what I care about,
Speaker 1: what I don't. Do. I care if Ryan thinks I
Speaker 1: dress well, Yes, of course I do. But that's honesty.
Speaker 1: That is authenticity. I think today we've made authenticity feel
Speaker 1: like I don't care about anyone and I'm above it all,
Speaker 1: I'm beyond it. That's not authenticity. That's just fake. Namely
Speaker 1: one person, by the way, when I walked around as
Speaker 1: a monk, that's when I really didn't care because we
Speaker 1: had robes, we had shaved heads, and there was nothing
Speaker 1: attractive about our appearance. And I remember walking through city centers.
Speaker 1: We traveled across Scandinavia, teaching meditation in Copenhagen and Stockholm
Speaker 1: and Oslo, and I'd be on the streets and people
Speaker 1: are laughing at you. People are looking at you like
Speaker 1: you're dressed weird, like I've done that too. So I
Speaker 1: have lived in a world of no one cared that
Speaker 1: I didn't care what people thought. But now at this point,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be honest than say I like taking pride
Speaker 1: in my appearance. I like dress in a certain way.
Speaker 1: Some people hate it, some people love it. But I
Speaker 1: think that no one knows what's going on inside someone's mind.
Speaker 1: And that's what's most interesting to me is that we
Speaker 1: can all have projections of why people dress the way
Speaker 1: they do, talk the way they do, or do what
Speaker 1: they do, and then you realize what you said. I
Speaker 1: think the inner reflection is more important to me than
Speaker 1: what we think of others. So the inner reflection is
Speaker 1: am I doing this for the praise? Because if I am,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be let down by it, because sometimes
Speaker 1: people are going to notice it and sometimes they're not.
Speaker 1: So do I keep doing it when there's no praise
Speaker 1: or do I only do it when there is praise?
Speaker 1: Am I doing this because it makes me feel comfortable?
Speaker 1: Or am I willing to wear something completely uncomfortable in
Speaker 1: order to impress people? Right? So I never wear a
Speaker 1: suit these days because I don't like wearing suits. I
Speaker 1: don't feel comfortable in them, right, it doesn't make me
Speaker 1: feel at ease.
Speaker 4: He wears the tight crutch suits. We can't be comfortable.
Speaker 6: Why are you looking at my crutch?
Speaker 4: Because I know you've got an east infection? Jay, I
Speaker 4: gotta ask you with the honesty too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I'm I've been They've killed me on this
Speaker 3: show before we were doing so long.
Speaker 1: They usually roast to you, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: But when I tell dudes like you're a good looking dude,
Speaker 3: Like what's the boy name, Denzel Award? Like I see
Speaker 3: a dude, I'm like, bro, you're a fine dude, like
Speaker 3: Jason Momoa, Idris Elba. I got some dudes that we
Speaker 3: could raise a baby together. But like, do you think
Speaker 3: you're a very good looking man? The pretty eyes, like
Speaker 3: in the way you talk and the little you know,
Speaker 3: the accent. Would you be as successful if you were
Speaker 3: a big, old, fat, ugly guy.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's two sides to this. One side is I'm also
Speaker 1: an Indian man. You don't see a lot of brown
Speaker 1: Indian people having huge public profiles, Like it's just not
Speaker 1: that as common, right, It's just not I mean to
Speaker 1: be honest, I think most Indian people when they come
Speaker 1: to America. It's like most people don't even know where
Speaker 1: to place. You born and raised in London, there's lots
Speaker 1: of Indian people, so it's very common, but in the
Speaker 1: media you didn't really see that. And so if you
Speaker 1: think about in America, the most successful Indian person in
Speaker 1: America of all time is Deepac ch Oprah, like the
Speaker 1: only person I can think of, and then there would
Speaker 1: have been like a musician Jay Sean. More recently there's
Speaker 1: Ris Armored and Dev Patel, both amazing actors, but there's
Speaker 1: few and far between, like there's a handful of South
Speaker 1: Asian people. I think it's a hard question to answer
Speaker 1: because I don't know is the reality. But what I
Speaker 1: would say is that subjectively speaking, there's plenty of people
Speaker 1: who've succeeded in life not based on their appearance as well,
Speaker 1: and they would say that themselves. And I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone is attractive to everyone. Like people always meet me
Speaker 1: and go, oh, you're a lot shorter in person, right,
Speaker 1: which means that there's a presence on screen that like
Speaker 1: people expect me to be bigger, but that's a personality
Speaker 1: thing that's not my shape or size. Some people also
Speaker 1: tell me that I look more fat on social media.
Speaker 1: People meet them, they're like, oh, you know, you're really lean,
Speaker 1: you're a fit in person. And I'm like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: what do I look to you? And then you know,
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, appearance and stuff is such
Speaker 1: a it's so subjective, right, I'm sure you've met someone
Speaker 1: that like, like, I get it. There's people that I
Speaker 1: think are attractive or whatever, and some people think they're ugly.
Speaker 1: It's such a messy thing. Ultimately, what I think it
Speaker 1: is is it does come down to energy and personality
Speaker 1: and spirit, and that's what people hold on to with people.
Speaker 1: I think that's what works when you look at the
Speaker 1: biggest YouTubers in the world today, look at some of
Speaker 1: the biggest podcasters, look at some of the biggest comedians.
Speaker 1: It's people telling great stories and people who make you
Speaker 1: feel something. And I think that's what wins in the
Speaker 1: online world. Because back in the day, people were choosing
Speaker 1: who people followed. Right, there'd be an exec in a
Speaker 1: suit that said, you're good looking, you're ugly. The good
Speaker 1: looking person gets to be front of house, the ugly
Speaker 1: person has to be back a house. No one decides
Speaker 1: that anymore, the public decides who goes up and down.
Speaker 1: So to me, when the public gets to decide, now,
Speaker 1: you have to make someone feel something for them to
Speaker 1: keep being involved. And I've been doing this for nine
Speaker 1: years online, and my goal always is to make people
Speaker 1: feel something. By the way, if you look at my
Speaker 1: old videos, I didn't have like this, I'm wearing a
Speaker 1: T shirt. I've got, you know, people, I remember my
Speaker 1: first video we posted. People were like, why's he got
Speaker 1: a wind machine? Dude? It wasn't a wind machine. It
Speaker 1: was the wind. The wind's just blowing my hair. Because
Speaker 1: I didn't have a team to produce the thing. My
Speaker 1: first video, I'm sitting there with a boom mic stuck
Speaker 1: into a backpack to hold it up, and my friend's
Speaker 1: got his camera, Like that's all we had. And so
Speaker 1: when I started out, we didn't have like I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't, you know, wearing cool clothes. I didn't. My
Speaker 1: hair wasn't perfect. I was just some guys. So I think,
Speaker 1: to me, it's what we make people feel. To me,
Speaker 1: that's what people connect with.
Speaker 2: Life is about connection, and we're all searching for it
Speaker 2: in some way and in something. And I thought you
Speaker 2: said something really profound about the language we use.
Speaker 6: Right, there's two different to describe being alone.
Speaker 2: One is solitude, which could be looked at as a positive,
Speaker 2: and then there's loneliness, which obviously has a negative connotation.
Speaker 6: How does someone who is alone or spending time alone
Speaker 6: decipher between the two.
Speaker 1: I think in today's society, people would rather be in
Speaker 1: the wrong relationship than be alone. People would rather settle
Speaker 1: for less than they deserve than be alone. People would
Speaker 1: rather be in a toxic relationship than be alone. We've
Speaker 1: made being alone feel so scary and feel so bad
Speaker 1: that people don't even think about it. Eighty percent of
Speaker 1: people will pick out their phone in a crowd just
Speaker 1: not to feel lonely. You just walk in through a
Speaker 1: crowd and you just take your phone out because you
Speaker 1: don't want to feel like you're alone. People struggle to
Speaker 1: eat on their own. Whenever you ever seen someone go
Speaker 1: out sit at a table by themselves and eat food.
Speaker 1: If we do that, we have to get our phone now.
Speaker 1: It's very rare. So we've made it since we were young.
Speaker 1: If you think about it, if you were the kid
Speaker 1: eating lunch on your own table alone, you were considered
Speaker 1: the loaner or the weirdo. If you turn up to
Speaker 1: a wedding and you don't have a plus one, or
Speaker 1: you just got divorced, or you just broke up, everyone's
Speaker 1: looking at you like are you okay? Like poor you.
Speaker 1: It's like if you don't have someone next to you,
Speaker 1: you're always seen as weaker, less than, or incomplete. We
Speaker 1: even say that, we say, find someone who completes you.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? It means you're incomplete without someone.
Speaker 1: So we've made people feel that if you're alone, you're incomplete.
Speaker 1: So we've villainized being alone. But Paul Tillich wrote about it,
Speaker 1: and the monk teachers reminded me that there's two words
Speaker 1: for being alone. One is lonely and one is solitude.
Speaker 1: Paul Tillot says that being lonely is the weakness of
Speaker 1: being alone, but solitude is this strength of being alone.
Speaker 1: So solitude is saying, actually, if I can be comfortable
Speaker 1: in my own company, that success. If I can like
Speaker 1: the thoughts in my mind and the conversations I have
Speaker 1: in my head when I'm alone, then I've had success
Speaker 1: in my life. And that's what the monks were trying
Speaker 1: to train you to do that instead of always looking
Speaker 1: for the next bit of praise, the next bit of validation,
Speaker 1: the next bit of approval. How do I feel so
Speaker 1: centered and happy and content with who I am that
Speaker 1: I'm not looking for other people to fill the parts
Speaker 1: of me that are gaps. I actually look for other
Speaker 1: people so we can enhance and grow together. And so,
Speaker 1: to me, solitude is something we all need. And by
Speaker 1: the way, we did this at my last show two
Speaker 1: years ago, I went on a world tour. We did
Speaker 1: nearly forty cities across the world, and my first segment
Speaker 1: was something I was so excited to do. So what
Speaker 1: we did is I ask people in the audience who's
Speaker 1: the most addicted to their phone? And we broke it
Speaker 1: down to the person who looks at their phone basically
Speaker 1: every two minutes, so I'd bring them out to the audience.
Speaker 1: I had of five thousand people who take one person
Speaker 1: onto stage, and I asked them how that feels. And
Speaker 1: they usually feel pretty bad about it, naturally, as we
Speaker 1: all do. And I told them, well, they shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: bad about it, because they're just the honest one. Everyone
Speaker 1: else is lying because you know, everyone's addicted to their phone.
Speaker 1: And then What I did is I gave them one question.
Speaker 1: And what they didn't know is we lock them into
Speaker 1: a cave on stage. We had this big box come out,
Speaker 1: almost like a magician's box, and we locked them in
Speaker 1: it in pitch black. Gave them noise canceling headphones so
Speaker 1: they can't hear anything. I didn't even tell them how
Speaker 1: long they were going to be in there. This person
Speaker 1: was in there for fifteen minutes alone. We had a
Speaker 1: night vision camera so we could see how they were
Speaker 1: settling in them and I left them with one question.
Speaker 1: The question was, what's the one thing you value that
Speaker 1: you've been devaluing lately? What's really important to you but
Speaker 1: you keep brushing it aside. I left them with that.
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes later. People would come out of this solitude.
Speaker 1: Some people would be in tears, some people would be
Speaker 1: in deep reflection, some people would have had a moment.
Speaker 1: It was so good that people thought we fake the
Speaker 1: whole thing, Like people afterwards coming up to me, going,
Speaker 1: you must have faked that. I was like, trust me,
Speaker 1: I'm in Australia. I've never been to Australia. We just
Speaker 1: picked someone out of the audience. People had huge experiences
Speaker 1: and the reason I did that was to show people
Speaker 1: that when you take reflection into solitude, you come out
Speaker 1: with value.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: We've been told if you're alone, you don't get any
Speaker 1: value from it. These people were getting so much value
Speaker 1: from it because they had a pointed focus and reflection.
Speaker 1: And then afterwards we'd have a conversation about it. People
Speaker 1: were talking about how they valued their family and they
Speaker 1: don't care about them, they haven't been focusing on them.
Speaker 1: People talked about their kids, people talked about themselves. It
Speaker 1: was really beautiful and we've got video for its to
Speaker 1: prove it. And what was amazing about it was just
Speaker 1: everyone walked away realizing that solitude and the discomfort of
Speaker 1: solitude was helpful. So to me, it's all about showing
Speaker 1: people that they have the answers within themselves, not showing
Speaker 1: them that I have the answers and solitude has the answers.
Speaker 1: You can't hear your voice when you're surrounded by all
Speaker 1: of this noise. You can't hear you in a voice,
Speaker 1: when you're surrounded by opinions. You can't hear your voice
Speaker 1: when you're always asking the group chat, what should I wear?
Speaker 1: What should I do? Where should we go. You never
Speaker 1: get to know yourself because you never had to. I'm
Speaker 1: really loving where this conversation is going. Let's pause for
Speaker 1: a quick break for our sponsors and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sticking with me. Let's get into it.
Speaker 5: How do you get people to embrace that solitude in
Speaker 5: that stillness because the world, it's a constant reminder of
Speaker 5: what hustle, how it can reward you, right, and then
Speaker 5: technology is forever evolving.
Speaker 7: You don't want to feel missed out.
Speaker 5: So how do you get someone to like, I'm the
Speaker 5: person that's on my phone right all the time if
Speaker 5: you ask them, I'm that guy that would have I
Speaker 5: poured out of the crowd. But how do you get
Speaker 5: someone to embrace that stillness that you will hope that
Speaker 5: they could search for.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think that stillness and
Speaker 1: solitude means doing nothing and just sitting there, And that's
Speaker 1: not the goal. The goal is we're gonna focus your
Speaker 1: attention on one thing. And actually that's where beast mode
Speaker 1: comes from. To me, beast mode doesn't come from running
Speaker 1: around being busy. Beast mode comes from having super focused
Speaker 1: on one thing. There's this great quote I love from
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee, where he said, I'm not scared of the
Speaker 1: man who's practiced fifteen thousand kicks one time each. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of the man who's practiced one kick fifteen thousand times. Right,
Speaker 1: Because if you've practiced something once every time, you're not
Speaker 1: scared of that person because they can't do it that well.
Speaker 1: So the person who's running around trying to do everything,
Speaker 1: I'm not scared of that person. They're not winning. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of the person who stood at the hoop and
Speaker 1: shot a hundred free throws every hour for the next
Speaker 1: ten days. That person's scary. So that's what stillness and
Speaker 1: solitude is is, can I focus laser focus on one thing,
Speaker 1: whether that's the mindset, whether that's clarity, whether it's strategy,
Speaker 1: whether it's my breath, whatever it is. That person's scary.
Speaker 1: That person's undefeatable because that person has done the same
Speaker 1: thing again and again and again. Doesn't make sense. It's
Speaker 1: like stillness and solitude isn't I'm just sitting there doing nothing.
Speaker 1: Time's going by, I'm wasting time. It's no, it's one
Speaker 1: pointed attention. Energetically. I was talking to Carmelo Anthony yesterday,
Speaker 1: and he was saying that the best games he played
Speaker 1: was when his coaches showed him a video of like
Speaker 1: three hundred when like Gerard Butler's like shouting Sparta or like,
Speaker 1: you know, the best games he played was when he
Speaker 1: was in the zone. It wasn't the best games, wasn't
Speaker 1: the ones where he's like just doing a million things.
Speaker 1: It was like he was showing a video that made
Speaker 1: him feel like a gladiator, that made him know what
Speaker 1: he had to go and do out there. That's what
Speaker 1: solitude gives you the space to do. Solitude gives you
Speaker 1: the space to go. What is the energy I'm trying
Speaker 1: to create? But you can't create that if you're hustling,
Speaker 1: running around trying to win everything and do everything. And
Speaker 1: that's what I want people to think of stillness and
Speaker 1: solitude as it's priming the beast inside of you to
Speaker 1: do what Bruce Lee said, which is I'm so focused
Speaker 1: that you know, I don't even need to move that
Speaker 1: much to destroy my enemy. Like that's the energy you
Speaker 1: can create in solitude.
Speaker 2: You know, when I look at you and your wife
Speaker 2: now right, it's like your wife has her own thing,
Speaker 2: you have your own thing. And then you come together
Speaker 2: and you guys do your thing. You know, you met
Speaker 2: her while you were in the monastery, and then now
Speaker 2: you're rout and you get an opportunity to develop this relationship.
Speaker 6: Was it difficult to be.
Speaker 2: In something where it became about us when for three
Speaker 2: years you were dealing in the world of mindfulness, of understanding, solitude,
Speaker 2: of having a certain level of peace by yourself, and
Speaker 2: now you had to give yourself to someone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually met her before I became a monk, okay,
Speaker 1: And we never dated. I just met her. I introduced
Speaker 1: her to my sister. They became friends, and so when
Speaker 1: I came back from the monastery, her and my sister
Speaker 1: were best friends, and my sister was my wingman. So
Speaker 1: in my first book, I wrote my dedication. I dedicated
Speaker 1: Think like a Monk to my wife, and the dedication says,
Speaker 1: to my wife, who's more monk than I'll ever be?
Speaker 1: And I mean that my wife is way more monk
Speaker 1: than I'll ever be. I had to work to be
Speaker 1: a monk. My wife is a monk like she's naturally
Speaker 1: that way. And I got lucky and fortunate that I
Speaker 1: was able to find a partner who actually brings me
Speaker 1: peace rather than brings me drama. And I always say
Speaker 1: that the right person will reduce drama and the wrong
Speaker 1: person will increase trauma. Right, the right person brings you peace,
Speaker 1: the wrong person brings you chaos. The right person brings
Speaker 1: you stability. The wrong person brings you inconsistency. And so
Speaker 1: to me, I found someone who was able to match
Speaker 1: that energy. But it was hard in the beginning because
Speaker 1: I came out of the monastery as a bit of
Speaker 1: an avoidance. What I mean by that was I used
Speaker 1: to constantly say to my wife, you know, I'd be
Speaker 1: okay without you. I used to be happy before this.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm okay without you. And I didn't realize
Speaker 1: how much damage that did to connection because I felt
Speaker 1: that with strength and confidence, it was just avoidance. It
Speaker 1: was the avoidance of connection. I'd be like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be happy on my own. You know, I'm happy
Speaker 1: on my own. I was good by myself. It's not
Speaker 1: that that's not true. It's that when you're trying to
Speaker 1: connect with someone, that isn't the language and the approach
Speaker 1: that creates connection. So what did that do that create
Speaker 1: a relationship When my wife like, well, I'm okay without
Speaker 1: you too, right, And now you're like few strangers living
Speaker 1: in the same house. We both think, oh, we're better
Speaker 1: without each other. We're fine without each other. So that's
Speaker 1: what the challenge was, is that I came out as
Speaker 1: an avoidant and created an avoidant attachment style in my
Speaker 1: own relationship. And it took me a long time to realize.
Speaker 1: And partly it was me grieving a past life. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you felt this in sport, business and everything
Speaker 1: else in your lives. When you're retiring, there's a grieving
Speaker 1: of who you used to be. And so for me
Speaker 1: leaving the monastery, I was grieving that life that I
Speaker 1: had created for myself. And what you do is when
Speaker 1: you're grieving, you take that into the next life and
Speaker 1: you carry that baggage into your next relationship. It took
Speaker 1: me a lot of years to say, actually, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna embrace I'm a married man now, I'm not a
Speaker 1: monk anymore, and that's okay, And this is coming with
Speaker 1: new gifts, new blessings, new reflections, and this is going
Speaker 1: to make me a better monk, a better man, a
Speaker 1: better person. And if I embrace it rather than I
Speaker 1: keep holding onto this over here, there's a beautiful Zen
Speaker 1: teaching that says, whatever you're holding onto is what's holding
Speaker 1: you back. So if you're holding onto a past version
Speaker 1: of yourself, that's holding your back. If you're holding to
Speaker 1: a person in your past, that's holding you back. If
Speaker 1: you're holding onto a life that you once had, that's
Speaker 1: holding you back. So what's holding you back is something
Speaker 1: you're actually holding onto. But if you just let it
Speaker 1: go and free it, you're free to move forward.
Speaker 3: And Jack got to ask you about the three year
Speaker 3: stretch in the monastery. You in college, you were having
Speaker 3: a good time, understand you, and then you got back
Speaker 3: into the world. There was three years you didn't touch
Speaker 3: a woman or have no sex.
Speaker 1: Nothing for three years. Bro, that's crazy, It is crazy.
Speaker 3: Did you have to really meditate some nights it's three years, Jane,
Speaker 3: that's nuts to me.
Speaker 1: You know what it is, there's an environment when you
Speaker 1: go to a place where people have meditated for decades,
Speaker 1: and some temples we went to in south of India
Speaker 1: people have meditated for thousands of years and people have
Speaker 1: been celibate for thousands of years. There's an energy in
Speaker 1: that space that you can't conceive. The only way I
Speaker 1: can describe it is like when you go to a
Speaker 1: stadium that you love and you just get pumped because
Speaker 1: you walk into this stadium and it has an energy
Speaker 1: because your greats played there and you won super Bowls
Speaker 1: there or whatever it is, and you walk into that space.
Speaker 1: And so I think the energetic sphere that's created by
Speaker 1: the monks is what makes it easier. Was it hard
Speaker 1: for me? Of course it was. Was it unnatural for me,
Speaker 1: of course it was, But there was a value in it,
Speaker 1: and it was made easier in their association. There are
Speaker 1: certain things that are easier when you're surrounded by people. Right,
Speaker 1: there's that famous quote that says, if you're surrounded by
Speaker 1: five rich people, you'll be the sixth. If you're surrounded
Speaker 1: by five smart people, you'll be the sixth. If you're
Speaker 1: surrounded by five fit people, you'll be the sixth, And
Speaker 1: if you're surrounded by five idiots, you'll be the sixth. Right,
Speaker 1: you're going to be the sixth of whoever you are.
Speaker 1: So when you're surrounded by all these people that are
Speaker 1: committed to this practice surprisingly becomes easier. But yes, there
Speaker 1: were times when I had to really lock in when
Speaker 1: I felt weak, when I felt moments of vulnerability. For sure,
Speaker 1: you're so engaged positively. This is another trick for the mind.
Speaker 1: The mind can't give up something hard if it doesn't
Speaker 1: have something that it's connected to better. Right, So when
Speaker 1: you think about the first car you ever got, there's
Speaker 1: how I like to think about this. The first car
Speaker 1: I ever got. I'll have to show you a picture later.
Speaker 1: It's a red Vauxhall Courser, which I don't even think
Speaker 1: they have the brand in America. But it's like this tiny,
Speaker 1: little red beetle looking thing.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It was the first car I ever had. To me
Speaker 1: that was a Ferrari, because I was a kid who
Speaker 1: just wanted a car, Like I would be playing like
Speaker 1: fifty cent the game while driving around in my red,
Speaker 1: tiny little beetle looking car, and I felt like the
Speaker 1: coolest kid in town. And this is when you had
Speaker 1: the cassette tape that connected to the MP three player
Speaker 1: and then you know, played the song and I used
Speaker 1: to feel so cool. Now I when I look back
Speaker 1: at that picture, I mean, I look like an idiot,
Speaker 1: like that car was, you know whatever. But if someone
Speaker 1: told me to give up that car for nothing, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, are you kidding me? I'd never give it up.
Speaker 1: It's the best car in the world because for me,
Speaker 1: that's all I could afford. That was the best thing
Speaker 1: I could have. But if someone said, hey, i'll trade
Speaker 1: you at that time, I'll trade you a Mercedes for
Speaker 1: that car, I would have done it in an instant. Obviously.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what it's like, where it's like you're
Speaker 1: addicted to this thing over here. You can't just give
Speaker 1: it up. Like to make to theoretically rationalize how you
Speaker 1: can give it up is impossible. But when someone's offering
Speaker 1: you something, when it's enlightenment, mindfulness, presence, the greatest emotional
Speaker 1: and mental mastery, and it's being offered to you, it's
Speaker 1: because of that that it becomes easier to not follow
Speaker 1: this distraction.
Speaker 5: If that is Yeah, Jay, you talked about your wife
Speaker 5: and yourself living in the same home as strangers. Did
Speaker 5: that help you create your book The Eight Rules of Love?
Speaker 5: When I think you talk about building and maintaining relationships,
Speaker 5: and I also want to ask you, what's the most
Speaker 5: common misconception of love?
Speaker 1: So the book wasn't written from what I got, right,
Speaker 1: The book was written from what other people got wrong
Speaker 1: that shared their stories with me. So I wrote the
Speaker 1: book not from what I got right about love, but
Speaker 1: from what I got wrong and the people that are
Speaker 1: interviewed on what they got wrong, because I think it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to study people's challenges. The biggest misconception about
Speaker 1: love is that we've confused inconsistency with excitement, and we've
Speaker 1: confused stability with boredom. We've confused that if someone shows
Speaker 1: up with f that they're desperate. If someone shows up
Speaker 1: for us with time and energy, we think they need us.
Speaker 1: We think that if someone actually has space for us,
Speaker 1: then they must be the loser. We believe that love
Speaker 1: means chasing someone who doesn't want to stay, rather than
Speaker 1: being with someone who never wants to leave. The biggest
Speaker 1: misconception is that love is something that has to be
Speaker 1: earned rather than shared, and so what we do is
Speaker 1: we want to be with the person who keeps us
Speaker 1: on our toes right. We've all met people who say
Speaker 1: I really want someone with values, but then they chase
Speaker 1: the person who doesn't give them validation. We've all met
Speaker 1: someone who says I really want someone who's affectionate, but
Speaker 1: they chase the person who doesn't give them any attention.
Speaker 1: We've all met someone who says I really want someone
Speaker 1: who's present, But then you're chasing the person who never
Speaker 1: shows up on time. We're always chasing the person who
Speaker 1: doesn't give us what we want because we believe that's love.
Speaker 1: And that's the biggest misconception. And too many people are
Speaker 1: chasing all the wrong people. And the right person is
Speaker 1: standing right there, ready to love them with all their heart,
Speaker 1: but they're boring, needy, desperate, and I'm not attracted to them.
Speaker 1: But wait, when you're gonna be with someone for five, ten,
Speaker 1: fifteen years, I want the person who texts me back.
Speaker 1: I want the person who calls me back in five ten,
Speaker 1: fifteen years time. I want the person who shows up
Speaker 1: on time. I want the person who wants to hear
Speaker 1: how my day was. I don't want the person who's
Speaker 1: never around. I don't want the person who disappears when
Speaker 1: it's hard like that's not the person I want. And
Speaker 1: so people are choosing the sixth month pleasure versus the
Speaker 1: sixty year presence. And yeah, those six months are gonna
Speaker 1: be the amazing six months, but guess what, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to keep doing those six months every six months
Speaker 1: six months, so you either date, you know, thirty people
Speaker 1: every six months or the rest of your life, or
Speaker 1: you have one person or two people maybe because by
Speaker 1: the way, I also don't like to demonize divorce and
Speaker 1: breakups because I do believe it's honestly possible for people
Speaker 1: to outgrow each other and for people to grow apart.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we should demonize people who get
Speaker 1: divorced or break up or make it feel like a
Speaker 1: failure when actually it could be the best decisions of
Speaker 1: someone's life and the best decision for that other person.
Speaker 1: And I think we have to learn in society to
Speaker 1: be okay with that because a fifty percent of people
Speaker 1: are doing it anyway, so you're going to know someone
Speaker 1: who's gone through it, and b it's actually we should
Speaker 1: realize it's more rare to stay with someone than it
Speaker 1: is to leave someone. It's way harder to find someone
Speaker 1: on planet Earth that you actually can stay with than
Speaker 1: it is to find someone that you probably will outgrow
Speaker 1: or break up with. So, you know, I think we've
Speaker 1: got to give people an easier time on that.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because in reading the title of your book,
Speaker 2: it's you know, find it, keep it, let it go,
Speaker 2: And it's almost one of those things you read that
Speaker 2: tiredle You're like, well, damn, he gonna get me to it,
Speaker 2: then teach me how to live when it's gone. But
Speaker 2: that is part of it. When you wrote that book,
Speaker 2: what sort of advice were you trying to give to
Speaker 2: people who are looking for love, who are trying to
Speaker 2: continue to build on their love, and also who are
Speaker 2: trying to let go of love lost.
Speaker 1: There's two things. The first is everyone, at one point
Speaker 1: in their life will have to let go of someone
Speaker 1: they love, whether that be while that person's alive or
Speaker 1: while that person's about to pass away. Every single one
Speaker 1: of us is going to lose someone we love. And
Speaker 1: the hardest realization is when you recognize that you love
Speaker 1: someone but you still have to let them go because
Speaker 1: you didn't have the other emotional skills to keep love right.
Speaker 1: You can love someone but not be good for them,
Speaker 1: and someone can love you but not be right for
Speaker 1: you because they don't have the other emotional skills that
Speaker 1: make love stay. Love's not enough. You need emotional maturity,
Speaker 1: you need personal mastery, you need self control, you need compassion,
Speaker 1: you need empathy. There is so much more. Needed to
Speaker 1: make love last, and so a lot of us are
Speaker 1: going to lose love because we didn't develop those other skills.
Speaker 1: You lose love. To remind you that there are other
Speaker 1: skills to be developed as well. There are other habits
Speaker 1: that you need to build as well. And the number
Speaker 1: one habit that I encourage all people to realize is
Speaker 1: that we've put romantic love on a pedestal on planet Earth.
Speaker 1: We believe that romantic love is the number one timeeype
Speaker 1: of love. If you look at all the spiritual traditions
Speaker 1: they disagree. They believe that the number one type of
Speaker 1: love is a parent's love for their child. That's the deepest,
Speaker 1: most unconditional, selfless love that could possibly exist. But in humans,
Speaker 1: we've said romantic love is better than anything. So someone
Speaker 1: could be loved by their kid and love their kid.
Speaker 1: Someone could love their friends and be loved by their friends.
Speaker 1: Someone could love their brother or their sister and be
Speaker 1: loved by their siblings, but still feel incomplete because they
Speaker 1: don't have a partner. And I want to remind people
Speaker 1: that you need to value all of those forms of
Speaker 1: love as much as romantic love. Stop putting this hierarchy
Speaker 1: on love. Stop rating love on a scale of romantic
Speaker 1: love is the best. Family love is second, kid's love
Speaker 1: is fifth. That's what's ruining love in our lives. I
Speaker 1: think people don't realize how much love they already have
Speaker 1: have and by the way, that will probably help you
Speaker 1: find romantic love. Whereas when you walk around thinking I
Speaker 1: don't have love in my life, well, guess what, that's
Speaker 1: all you're gonna.
Speaker 4: See thinking of love.
Speaker 3: Does your passion for helping others, your passion for, you know,
Speaker 3: spiritually guiding people. Does that take away from your personal
Speaker 3: love relationships, your wife, your family Because you're helping so
Speaker 3: many people, there's only so much energy, It's only so
Speaker 3: many hours in a day.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Yeah, I've always felt like, in
Speaker 1: one sense, I always feel like I have so much
Speaker 1: parental energy because my work is so parental. Right, It's
Speaker 1: almost like you're giving parental love through what I do
Speaker 1: every day. So I feel like the parental side of
Speaker 1: my life is very satisfied. But I still want to
Speaker 1: have kids with my wife because I think she'll be
Speaker 1: a great mom. I think that i'd like to create
Speaker 1: with her because I'd want to have a kid that's
Speaker 1: just like her. So there's a beauty in that too.
Speaker 1: I think about it the other way around. If you
Speaker 1: love your kid, you have to love their friends, because
Speaker 1: if you don't love their friends, your kid is surrounded
Speaker 1: by friends who don't have love. And if you love
Speaker 1: your kid and you love their friends, you have to
Speaker 1: love their school because if you don't care about the
Speaker 1: school they go to, your kid is going to become
Speaker 1: like the school makes them. So if you love your
Speaker 1: kid and you love their friends and you care about
Speaker 1: their school, you got to care about the city they
Speaker 1: grow up in because what they see on the streets
Speaker 1: is what they're going to repeat. And then if you
Speaker 1: care about your kid and you care about their friends,
Speaker 1: and you care about the school and you care about
Speaker 1: the city, you got to care about the country they
Speaker 1: grow up in because the leaders they see are the
Speaker 1: people they're following. So if you actually care about your kid,
Speaker 1: you have to care about the world because your kid
Speaker 1: is growing up in that world. And so I think
Speaker 1: people don't realize. They go, oh, I'm caring about my kids.
Speaker 1: But if you just care about your kids, you don't
Speaker 1: really get them anywhere because they're growing up in the
Speaker 1: world that you hate. And that's not the world you
Speaker 1: want to create. And that's why I think so many
Speaker 1: people today are realizing it does matter who the leaders are.
Speaker 1: It does matter what they see on TV. It does
Speaker 1: matter who's represented. It does matter that people of color
Speaker 1: get a chance to have exec positions and leadership positions.
Speaker 1: It does matter that people have represented effectively on screen
Speaker 1: and off screen. It does matter that women are in
Speaker 1: boardrooms and are CEOs. All of this matters because your
Speaker 1: kid's going to grow up in that world. It's not
Speaker 1: good enough to say I love my kid, I care
Speaker 1: about them, and because I just take care of them,
Speaker 1: everything's going to be okay. Now, I'm not saying everyone
Speaker 1: has the capacity to take care of everything, but the
Speaker 1: mom showing up at school to make sure the kids
Speaker 1: have support, that's making an impact. Right the parent who's
Speaker 1: coaching their kid in Little League, that's making an impact.
Speaker 1: The fact that I get to try and show love
Speaker 1: to the world is making an impact in my own way.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's all connected. I can't really break
Speaker 1: it apart. If that makes sense. Let's take a short
Speaker 1: to hear from some of our sponsors, then we'll get
Speaker 1: right back into it. I hope you learned about some
Speaker 1: of our incredible partners. Let's jump by kid.
Speaker 5: When I do speak to school's business whatever, I like
Speaker 5: to lead with routine versus commitment because I think routines
Speaker 5: are vital for everyone. Much like yourself as a monk,
Speaker 5: you believe in structure.
Speaker 7: I know, think like a monk.
Speaker 5: You talk about routine when things are challenging for you,
Speaker 5: Do you have like a personal mantra or something that
Speaker 5: kind of reminds you to get back in gear? Because
Speaker 5: in my speech about routine versus commitment, we all are
Speaker 5: going to have that. But the commitment reinforces the routine
Speaker 5: in those times when you don't feel like, you know,
Speaker 5: sticking to that routine.
Speaker 7: What's your personal mind for or guideline.
Speaker 1: Everything that is good for me is hard before I
Speaker 1: do it and easy after I do it. And everything
Speaker 1: that's bad for me is easy before I do it,
Speaker 1: and it's hard after I do it. Getting to the
Speaker 1: gym is hard. The feed after leaving the gym is easy.
Speaker 1: Eating junk food is easy, but the feeling afterwards is hard.
Speaker 1: So I like to remind myself that if I don't
Speaker 1: feel like going to the gym right now, that's how
Speaker 1: it's meant to feel it's going to be hard if
Speaker 1: I don't feel like eating a salad right now, that's
Speaker 1: how it's meant to feel. It's hard because it's good
Speaker 1: for me. So anything that is good for my body
Speaker 1: and good for my mind is hard to do right now,
Speaker 1: but it bears benefits afterwards. And anything that is not
Speaker 1: great for me to do right now, it's going to
Speaker 1: be easy, but it's going to create lots of pain afterwards.
Speaker 1: And that reminder to me allows me to recognize it's okay.
Speaker 1: It's hard because it's good for me, So I turn
Speaker 1: to that when it's a bigger thing in life. A
Speaker 1: mantra that I love is this only makes the story better.
Speaker 1: Whenever I fail, or whenever I lose, or whenever something
Speaker 1: goes wrong, I always say to myself, this only makes
Speaker 1: the story better. Because if you've failed, you've fallen, you've
Speaker 1: made mistakes, you're a human. It's more relatable when you
Speaker 1: tell your story one day, more people will connect to you,
Speaker 1: whereas if your story was just win off to win,
Speaker 1: off to win, off to win, you're unrelatable, and so
Speaker 1: it only makes the story better.
Speaker 2: Jay, you seem really traditional in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: and then so progressive in others. I think when you
Speaker 2: have a mindset that's deeply rooted in history, some of
Speaker 2: those things are going to carry over. But you also
Speaker 2: seem to understand, okay, as life change and as life evolves,
Speaker 2: we have to We had Jason Kelce on the show
Speaker 2: and he talked about the famous swipe right or left,
Speaker 2: whatever way it is that got him kighly. You know,
Speaker 2: for you when you think of of like dating apps
Speaker 2: and the way that people try to meet one another, now,
Speaker 2: how much better do you.
Speaker 6: Think that makes it? Or do you think it's harder that.
Speaker 1: You have to look at through what's actually changed. So
Speaker 1: we have more choices, but all the studies show that
Speaker 1: humans are bad with more choice. The Paradox of Choice
Speaker 1: is a recent study that shows how when humans have
Speaker 1: more things to choose from, they always make bad choices.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's a big challenge in the
Speaker 1: fact that now you're exposed to more people. Twenty five
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, most people married someone in a five
Speaker 1: mile radius of where they grew up. So your friend
Speaker 1: knew them, your brother knew them, your family knew them,
Speaker 1: the person down the street knew them. Someone knew them,
Speaker 1: and that's how you met them. Today, people are getting
Speaker 1: married to people from different cities, different countries, different cultures,
Speaker 1: and that comes with a set of challenges. Not that
Speaker 1: it's bad, It just requires more maturity, It requires more
Speaker 1: openness and wisdom. And so what I think we need
Speaker 1: to do is we need to be really clear about
Speaker 1: the values and vision of the relationship we want, because
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed. You could have married the person next
Speaker 1: door twenty five years ago and they could have been abusive,
Speaker 1: They could have been a narcissist. They probably were, and
Speaker 1: we just didn't think about it because people got arranged
Speaker 1: marriages and they didn't talk about it. It wasn't public knowledge.
Speaker 1: Just because you married the person next door doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they were right for you. That wasn't a good thing either.
Speaker 1: So I think we also have this nostalgic view of oh,
Speaker 1: you know, the eyes crusted at the grocery store and
Speaker 1: I dropped a bag of potatoes and they came and
Speaker 1: picked them up with me, and oh my god, it
Speaker 1: was so romantic. It's like, yeah, but that person was
Speaker 1: a psycho, Like you didn't you didn't know that, right,
Speaker 1: exactly right. It's like, well, you didn't. You didn't talk
Speaker 1: about that like part in the past that people didn't
Speaker 1: talk about this. Right, you have so many marriages that
Speaker 1: have physical abuse, domestic violence, verbal abuse going on background
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, no one even knows about it. But oh,
Speaker 1: we met them next door and they were my sister's friend,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it was awesome. Like we have this
Speaker 1: romantic view of the past, and I don't think that's
Speaker 1: healthy either. We have to move with the times. So
Speaker 1: one of the things I built recently is I partnered
Speaker 1: up with match dot com to build a values based
Speaker 1: matching system. What this does is it allows you to
Speaker 1: do a short test we created where you get to
Speaker 1: learn your values, and everyone who joins that part of
Speaker 1: the app does the same. The goal for this was
Speaker 1: not to say I want you to find someone with
Speaker 1: the same values. The goal for me was, now, at
Speaker 1: least you can see someone's values up front, and when
Speaker 1: you meet them, you can check whether their values are aligned.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, no one walks around with their
Speaker 1: values stuck on the top of their forehead. It takes
Speaker 1: years to figure someone's values out. But what if that
Speaker 1: becomes the thing you start talking about checking out when
Speaker 1: you meet someone and they say, oh, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: my family. Family's number one priority. Then you go to them,
Speaker 1: when did you last speak to your mom? And they're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I haven't spoken to it for two years.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, this person's not in alignment. Someone
Speaker 1: says to you, oh yeah, yeah, I'm ambitious, I love
Speaker 1: I love work, and then you go, all right, but
Speaker 1: what are you building right now? And they're like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm trying to figure it out right. It's
Speaker 1: like you can very quickly when you talk about values,
Speaker 1: figure out whether someone is compatible for you and whether
Speaker 1: they whether you're attracted them and excited about them. And
Speaker 1: so to me, I'm more interested in making people clear
Speaker 1: about their vision and values and that will make dating
Speaker 1: easier because that narrows the pool, that makes the choice easier,
Speaker 1: rather than if you're just basing it on looks, or
Speaker 1: if you're just basing it on a clever little caption
Speaker 1: or a funny thing they said about themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: now you can just get chat GPT to write the
Speaker 1: funniest thing, and everyone's a comedian now, you know. It's
Speaker 1: like it's not hard to fake it. And so I
Speaker 1: think we have to look deeper to find a relationship
Speaker 1: that's going to last longer. We have to look beyond
Speaker 1: looks to find a relationship that will last when the
Speaker 1: looks fade. We gotta look so much more at someone's
Speaker 1: heart than just how interesting they look on a page.
Speaker 1: And that only happens when you talk about vision and values.
Speaker 2: My favorite j Shady picture now like this. I like
Speaker 2: all the I like all the red carpet pictures. I
Speaker 2: like all the different things that you know, the Vince
Speaker 2: you show up at, you know, presiding over nuptial All
Speaker 2: those pictures are cool. But the coolest picture is your
Speaker 2: high school picture. Haha, right, And I think it's because
Speaker 2: of the story you shared on Instagram about it though,
Speaker 2: all the things people told you you couldn't do, all
Speaker 2: the things people said you couldn't be, And it seems
Speaker 2: now that you are living in your purpose, and that
Speaker 2: purpose is a tree that's deeply rooted with a lot
Speaker 2: of branches. For people watching this show, Jay, how will
Speaker 2: they truly know that what they're doing, what they're pouring into,
Speaker 2: is them living in their purpose.
Speaker 1: The first step of finding your purpose is collecting wherever
Speaker 1: you are right now, even if you hate your job,
Speaker 1: Collect every skill, every person, every networking relationship. Collect collect, collect, literally,
Speaker 1: see yourself as a collector of gold coins. Even if
Speaker 1: you hate your job, you hate your career. Collect everything
Speaker 1: you possibly can from this experience, and then move to
Speaker 1: the next thing and collect everything from there. And one day,
Speaker 1: after you've done enough collecting, you're going to start connecting
Speaker 1: the dots. So my first ever job was I used
Speaker 1: to deliver newspapers in my area. All my friends who
Speaker 1: also deliver newspapers, they used to throw them on the
Speaker 1: train tracks. They never delivered them, so the guy who
Speaker 1: owned the newspaper company gave me more streets. So what
Speaker 1: did I learn? I learned, when you do a good job,
Speaker 1: you get rewarded. My next job was I worked at Morrison's.
Speaker 1: Morrison's is our walmart, like a grocery store. I used
Speaker 1: to stack shelves, I used to bring in palettes. I
Speaker 1: worked back of house. It was a hard job. I
Speaker 1: learned that not always just working hard leads to great rewards.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: The third job I had, I worked in retail. The
Speaker 1: fourth job I had, like I mean in one sense.
Speaker 1: After that, my fourth job was being a monk. I
Speaker 1: learned all the wisdom I learned all the wisdom that
Speaker 1: I learned. The fifth job I had I worked in
Speaker 1: the corporate world. I worked as a consultant. I learned negotiation,
Speaker 1: I learned sales. I learned connection. I learned understanding what
Speaker 1: people wanted and needed in different industries. Today, I'm living
Speaker 1: my purpose because I just connected all of that. Everything
Speaker 1: I'm living today is as much management as it is Monk,
Speaker 1: as it is Morrison's, as it is paper delivery. It's
Speaker 1: all of those things. And people think, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's one job that's going to be my purpose. Everything
Speaker 1: you do today, everything all of you do today, is
Speaker 1: this beautiful harmony and synergy of all the experiences you've had.
Speaker 1: That's what purpose is. And so purpose is not about
Speaker 1: finding the perfect job or the perfect title or the
Speaker 1: perfect thing. It's about just collecting experiences, collecting people, and
Speaker 1: then connecting it.
Speaker 3: One day, just listen to you talking knowing your success
Speaker 3: and watching your videos. Were you born different to be
Speaker 3: able to do what you're doing or with them?
Speaker 4: Did those experience make Jay Shendy.
Speaker 1: When you actually study the greatest athletes of all time,
Speaker 1: even if they were born with it, they're still working
Speaker 1: harder than everyone.
Speaker 3: But Randy Moss was six had forty in vertical sure,
Speaker 3: so physical, physical, like the athlete side of it.
Speaker 1: But you've probably know a lot of guys that are
Speaker 1: six to four and can't do that. So you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people that are tall and built,
Speaker 1: but I know a lot of people that are attractive
Speaker 1: that are not actors on screen. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people who can sing who aren't musicians. Like I
Speaker 1: know a lot of rappers that made it that have
Speaker 1: terrible verses, like you know, but they stuck it out. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you think about the amount of rappers that
Speaker 1: have terrible verses that have hit songs, but when you
Speaker 1: hear their bars, you're like, how did you make it?
Speaker 1: But they stuck around so consistency. Like what's that famous
Speaker 1: quote like hard work meets talent when talent doesn't work
Speaker 1: hard like that. It's the oldest quote in the book,
Speaker 1: but it's so true. So for me, I would say
Speaker 1: that I was so much of it was nurture. So
Speaker 1: much it was nurture. My parents were really scared I
Speaker 1: was going to be a shy kid, so they forced
Speaker 1: me to go to public speaking drama school when I
Speaker 1: was eleven years old. I hated it, but I went
Speaker 1: for seven years. And when I walked out there, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to talk about. But I knew I
Speaker 1: had skills, but I didn't have something to talk about.
Speaker 1: But then when I became a monk or I had
Speaker 1: something to talk about. So I found the passion with
Speaker 1: the skills. Because skills aren't good enough, what are you
Speaker 1: going to do with it? And so I really believe
Speaker 1: in people nurturing their abilities and people investing in their abilities,
Speaker 1: and people realizing that it's possible for them. Is it
Speaker 1: possible for me to be a basketball player a football player?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Right, Physically I'm not even in the fiftieth percentile, like
Speaker 1: I'm ninety like right, Like I'm like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can't write. There are certain things I just can't do.
Speaker 1: So I've got to be honest about that. But that's
Speaker 1: mainly sports, which requires a physicality to it, or if
Speaker 1: you're a singer, but there's some singers who can't sing
Speaker 1: that well too, So you know, it's like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of careers where sports is probably the one that
Speaker 1: you just can't mesh around with, right, But then you
Speaker 1: get people like Alan Iverson, Like you know, you get
Speaker 1: a few players who don't really fit the bill, and
Speaker 1: that's exception. They're not the rule. They're the exception where
Speaker 1: they don't have the physicality, but they're just talented. So
Speaker 1: I agree. I think sports is one of those things
Speaker 1: you can't break into if you don't have something you're
Speaker 1: born with. But of other things, there's not many things
Speaker 1: that feel the same way as sports.
Speaker 5: Jay, throughout the collection process of you discovering your purpose,
Speaker 5: what was your biggest pivot? That's that one moment and
Speaker 5: we always act off. I guess this is the one
Speaker 5: moment you can look back on and say, without this
Speaker 5: happening to me or for me, I wouldn't be who
Speaker 5: I am today.
Speaker 1: So the reason why I love the name of the
Speaker 1: podcast is because my life is full of pivots. There's
Speaker 1: not one. Everything's a pivot. So instead of getting a
Speaker 1: corporate job, which I was destined to get, I decided
Speaker 1: to become a monk. That was a pivot. Then when
Speaker 1: I was meant to be a monk, I thought I
Speaker 1: was going to be a monk for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life, but I left because it didn't feel right. Anymore.
Speaker 1: That was a pivot. Went back to the corporate world.
Speaker 1: I was just about getting steady in my job. I
Speaker 1: was going to get married to my wife, and I went,
Speaker 1: this isn't my purpose. I'm going to leave. That was
Speaker 1: a pivot. Started making videos. When I started making videos,
Speaker 1: I made these four minute videos. They went viral. I
Speaker 1: wanted to launch a podcast, and every podcast company said,
Speaker 1: don't do a podcast. People want to listen to you
Speaker 1: for four minutes. No one wants to listen to you
Speaker 1: for an hour. So I did it. That was a pivot.
Speaker 1: Then I had a hit podcast. I wanted to write
Speaker 1: a book. Fourteen out of seventeen publishers said, don't call it.
Speaker 1: Think like a monk. No one wants to think like
Speaker 1: a monk. I wrote the book anyway. That was a pivot.
Speaker 1: Then I wanted to go. So it's like my life
Speaker 1: has just been full of pivots. I actually think all
Speaker 1: I care about is pivots. I don't actually want to
Speaker 1: be ever not pivoting, because that's what we all have
Speaker 1: to do. And I think the longer you take to pivot,
Speaker 1: the harder it gets. There's a beautiful quote I read
Speaker 1: the other day that I love, and it says the
Speaker 1: longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive
Speaker 1: it is to get back home. And so actually, the
Speaker 1: more you pivot, because I started pivoting when I became
Speaker 1: a monk at twenty one, twenty two years old. Because
Speaker 1: I've pivoted that early, I've got so comfortable pivoting. So
Speaker 1: I would encourage everyone to not be scared of the pivot,
Speaker 1: because the pivot becomes the platform that creates the next
Speaker 1: moment of your purpose. Whereas if you stay where you are,
Speaker 1: that's what kind of crushes everything, and you get more
Speaker 1: scared to move the more years go by. And so
Speaker 1: I just I just keep pivoting even now, like you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to do I mean, we've been talking about it.
Speaker 1: We're doing TV and film, we're doing production, we're doing
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And in one sense, someone said, well, Jay,
Speaker 1: what qualification do you have. Oh, I just got to
Speaker 1: keep pivoting. Life's full of pivots, and I've learned that
Speaker 1: when I look back at my life, the best decisions
Speaker 1: I made were pivots. They weren't staying in the same place.
Speaker 1: That was never the good decision. So to answer your question, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a million pivots, and I hope there's a
Speaker 1: million more that surprise everyone. And I'm just collecting experiences.
Speaker 1: You know, today I get to see it with you guys, Like,
Speaker 1: how dope is this? Like, you know, I get to
Speaker 1: see with I get to sit with all of you
Speaker 1: from this world. I was laughing at my life. I
Speaker 1: was like you were talking about it, like I was
Speaker 1: in Bad Boys, like a year ago, sitting here with
Speaker 1: you guys today. Yesterday I was with Carmelo Anthony. Then
Speaker 1: I was with a mindfulness expert, then my monk teachers
Speaker 1: coming into La to live with me for two weeks
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Now my life is just made up of
Speaker 1: me collecting the random. And I want to die having
Speaker 1: just had these beautiful exchanges, meaningful exchanges with people that
Speaker 1: I maybe would never have crossed paths with or because
Speaker 1: I was trying to help people. How beautiful is that?
Speaker 1: Why would I say no to having the opportunity to
Speaker 1: have this rich life of experiences? And I think when
Speaker 1: you get lost in your cocoon and your echo chamber
Speaker 1: and your little world which we all do, you miss
Speaker 1: out on the joy that comes from you know. I
Speaker 1: remember when Ryan. Ryan realized that I listened to the game,
Speaker 1: and that was like a big moment for him, and
Speaker 1: it was like and it was like I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like all we did growing up in London was listened
Speaker 1: to American rap and hip hop. That's all we did.
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't know that from the way we dress,
Speaker 1: the way we look, from where we come from. But
Speaker 1: when you can find commonalities and similarities, you know, the
Speaker 1: the black Monk, Like who would have known? You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, it's official. Now away from this.
Speaker 6: They call me the black Monk too.
Speaker 4: You can leave, we stay around.
Speaker 1: But who would have ever thought that a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: a former American football players, had so much success in
Speaker 1: his career, would call himself the black Monk, like just
Speaker 1: I would never have guessed that in a million years.
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of this amazing life that we live,
Speaker 1: that me and Ryan could sit and have something in
Speaker 1: common when we're so different, have such different backgrounds and
Speaker 1: different upbringings. We can both like the game and both
Speaker 1: like the idea of being monks. Like that is the
Speaker 1: I love that. That's what makes life people I actually.
Speaker 2: And not you know, not a Hindu monastery but I
Speaker 2: actually spent a lot of time in the Greek Orthodoxed
Speaker 2: Christian monastery with Troy Palomalo, and the life was fascinating
Speaker 2: because those people seem like the most authentic humans in
Speaker 2: the world. They were one hundred percent comfortable in who
Speaker 2: they were. And so I understand when you say you
Speaker 2: met your monk teacher, you like, I want that, Like
Speaker 2: whatever that thing is, that's what I want. And you
Speaker 2: know you mentioned commonalities. I'm excited with working on something now.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about continuing to move forward, and that I
Speaker 2: do have one last question. I have like a million
Speaker 2: of them, but we'll talk about them off air one day.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned pivoting, that your entire life has
Speaker 2: been a pivot, and when you decide that you're gonna
Speaker 2: dedicate your life and to the monastic lifestyle, that's a
Speaker 2: that's a forever change, and you had to move out
Speaker 2: of there to move into something else that continue to.
Speaker 6: Move you towards your purpose.
Speaker 2: How do people decipher whether moving on or quitting, or
Speaker 2: changing careers or letting a relationship go is a pivot
Speaker 2: instead of a failure.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about that question is that it's actually all
Speaker 1: in your head, because what you label it as is
Speaker 1: what it becomes. So when I left the monastery, I
Speaker 1: thought it was a failure, and guess what, that's what
Speaker 1: it was. Then it was a failure. Now when I
Speaker 1: look back, I see it as a pivot. And often
Speaker 1: when you're making the decision, it feels like a failure
Speaker 1: in the moment. More often than not, it will feel
Speaker 1: like a failure in the moment, But when you look back,
Speaker 1: you'll see it as a pivot, because what you realize
Speaker 1: is is that if you keep seeing it as a failure,
Speaker 1: you'll keep failing. And when I left the monastery and
Speaker 1: felt like a failure, which I did, I realized that
Speaker 1: at one point that mindset didn't serve me anymore. There
Speaker 1: was only so much I could feel sorry for myself.
Speaker 1: There's only so much I could pity myself. There's only
Speaker 1: so much I could feel like I wish I was
Speaker 1: still there, and I had to own my life and
Speaker 1: take responsibility and say, what did I love about it?
Speaker 1: I love the fact that I got to study wisdom
Speaker 1: and share it. I love the fact that we woke
Speaker 1: up early and we meditated. I love the fact that
Speaker 1: we had a routine that made me feel good. Guess
Speaker 1: so I can do that. Well, now I can still
Speaker 1: do that, I can still build that into my life.
Speaker 1: That's why I wrote the book Think like a monk,
Speaker 1: not live like a monk, because I'm not living like
Speaker 1: a monk anymore, but I'm still thinking like one. So
Speaker 1: to me, it's all about how you label it. And
Speaker 1: chances are you will always label the end of something
Speaker 1: as a failure because again, society has conditioned you to
Speaker 1: believe that ending something or leaving something incomplete is a failure.
Speaker 1: So you will, in the moment always think it's a failure.
Speaker 1: But the quicker you realize it to pivot, the more
Speaker 1: you move towards your purpose. And so I would just
Speaker 1: encourage anyone to say, if something's no longer serving you,
Speaker 1: if something's no longer fulfilling you, if you've tried everything
Speaker 1: you possibly can and you can't save, fix, or solve
Speaker 1: this thing, let it be. You will feel like a failure,
Speaker 1: expect it, and then pivot. Allow yourself to feel like
Speaker 1: a failure, and then pivot.
Speaker 5: Our mantra here is accept the just and move forward,
Speaker 5: and also realize it's never too late to pivot, never
Speaker 5: too late to pivot.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: So the tour, you know, that's the reason we were
Speaker 2: able to catch you here in New York, just for
Speaker 2: people who are looking to tap in, people who want
Speaker 2: to get an opportunity to lay eyes on Jay Shetty
Speaker 2: and absorb some of that wisdom, but also experience some
Speaker 2: of the things you've experienced.
Speaker 6: Where are you going? How do they do that? How
Speaker 6: do they tap in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really excited. For the first time ever, we're
Speaker 1: doing a podcast tour, So we have fifteen cities, fifteen
Speaker 1: surprise guests across North America and Canada. I'll be interviewing
Speaker 1: people's favorites from the show, some new ones as well.
Speaker 1: And what I'm really excited about, if I'm honest, is
Speaker 1: it's going to be walking into a room. Well, when
Speaker 1: you look left and right, the person next to you
Speaker 1: listens to the same thing you do. So the amount
Speaker 1: you have in common with the people around you is huge.
Speaker 1: There's very few places in the world that we go
Speaker 1: into anymore where you feel connected to someone before you
Speaker 1: walk into the room. Now you can walk in and
Speaker 1: the person next to you as a favorite episode, you
Speaker 1: have a favorite episode. The energy is going to be
Speaker 1: electric and I'm going to be sharing wisdom and insights
Speaker 1: that we haven't before. I think there's something special about
Speaker 1: memories that are made in person. In New York, we're
Speaker 1: going to be at the Theater at MSG, so that's
Speaker 1: going to be incredible. In LA we're at the Greek Theater,
Speaker 1: which is beautiful. Then we're going Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Colorado, Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: You know. So we're doing fifteen cities and you can
Speaker 1: go to Jay Shetty Dop Me Forward Slash Tour and
Speaker 1: you'll find all the day to all the tickets, and
Speaker 1: I hope people will come out and leave with a
Speaker 1: connection with other people. That's my goal I think we're
Speaker 1: all looking for. I'm hoping people come there and leave
Speaker 1: with the date right. Like it's like you see someone
Speaker 1: you like. They care about the same stuff you do.
Speaker 1: So you know how rare it is to go to
Speaker 1: a place where people care about the same thing you do.
Speaker 1: They're listening to the same show. You can leave it
Speaker 1: the day, you can leave it. The proposal.
Speaker 2: It's like match dot com in person, in person creating
Speaker 2: it and now you're bringing everybody together to do it. Now,
Speaker 2: Jay This was amazing, man. This is something we've been
Speaker 2: wanting to do for a while. If I'm being honest,
Speaker 2: it's something that I didn't think was possible a while ago.
Speaker 2: But to meet you, man, to get to understand you
Speaker 2: a little better personally, and then now to sit with
Speaker 2: you. You truly are everything you see to be from the
Speaker 2: outside man. So best of luck on the tour. Can't
Speaker 2: wait to work with you further.
Speaker 1: But this is amazing now you all of you, and
Speaker 1: I met you in person, like you know, like you're
Speaker 1: like big scary dudes, you know, but it's like you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just the kindness, the genuineness, the curiosity,
Speaker 1: the depth of the questioning that I love. The skepticism
Speaker 1: and that's important, right, you need that, Like I think
Speaker 1: it's great when people push back and question and check
Speaker 1: and you know, reflect on stuff. And you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was blown away around by your hospitality, your kindness
Speaker 1: when I came out to the game to meet you.
Speaker 1: All the zoom calls we've had, I've really been humbled
Speaker 1: by how grounded and humble you are. Like it is
Speaker 1: just it's so rare in this world to meet someone
Speaker 1: who's operating at the top of their game, but is
Speaker 1: willing to make everyone else feel like a star. And
Speaker 1: you do that. Watching you in your element of like
Speaker 1: literally being on TV, jumping off in between me and
Speaker 1: you having like deep conversations on the sideline, jumping back
Speaker 1: on and off like watching you do that, you're I mean,
Speaker 1: your magnificent in what you do, but I was more
Speaker 1: impressed by who you were in just connecting and so
Speaker 1: I want the world to know that you're even better
Speaker 1: in person. Congrats on the Emmy nomination. You deserve it,
Speaker 1: you deserve to win it. And on top of all
Speaker 1: of that, it's just great to be around great men
Speaker 1: and great people. I think being around great men is
Speaker 1: something a lot of men need right now. And it's
Speaker 1: amazing that all of you are setting such an awesome
Speaker 1: example of what men can aspire to do, especially men
Speaker 1: who want to be powerful, make an impact, but then
Speaker 1: have a deep and good heart as well. So thank
Speaker 1: you for the example you're setting for men.
Speaker 6: Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: You got the best. You guys are awesome. I mean
Speaker 1: every word, every word that's crazy.
Speaker 6: Appreciate your brother. So what is this man?
Speaker 4: This is this custom?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, this is a brand that I love
Speaker 1: out of France. It's It's probably one of my favorite
Speaker 1: brands they make. They make good stuff. If you love
Speaker 1: this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew
Speaker 1: Hussey on how to get over your ex and and
Speaker 1: find true love in your relationships.
Speaker 5: People should be compassionate to themselves, but extend that
Speaker 2: Compassion to your future self, because truly extending your compassion
Speaker 2: to your future self is doing something that gives him
Speaker 2: or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life.