Speaker 1: I remember one incident where one of my best friends
Speaker 1: in school. One girl at school told him I was
Speaker 1: talking bad about him, which I definitely was not doing.
Speaker 1: That storms into the field, comes up to me, starts
Speaker 1: punching me in the face. I'm on the floor, I've
Speaker 1: got bruises all of my eyes, and I remember looking
Speaker 1: back at that, I almost started to observe human behavior
Speaker 1: early on. I'd say, where what is it that that
Speaker 1: person's going through that's making them behave that way? Rather
Speaker 1: than asking the questions why me, I think I started
Speaker 1: looking at what's happened to them? Hey, everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to On Purpose. I am so pumped that you're here
Speaker 1: with me right now. I want you to take a
Speaker 1: moment and just honor yourself, acknowledge yourself. I want you
Speaker 1: to keep showing up for yourself, but I want you
Speaker 1: to thank yourself when you do. And every time you
Speaker 1: tune into on Purpose, you're appreciating yourself, You're investing in yourself,
Speaker 1: You're growing yourself. Now. I interview a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I love my solo episodes, but every now and again,
Speaker 1: I like to share an interview that someone did with me.
Speaker 1: I find out when people interview me. I get to
Speaker 1: share more of myself. You get to learn more about me,
Speaker 1: and some really fascinating insights come out that wouldn't come
Speaker 1: out sometimes if I was planning a session myself or
Speaker 1: scripting a session with myself. I find that when I'm
Speaker 1: being asked questions, I'm connected to my intuition, I'm channeling more,
Speaker 1: I'm in flow, I'm in the zone. So this is
Speaker 1: one of those special interviews. It was with Mason and
Speaker 1: Payment out of Mad Happy. If you know the brand,
Speaker 1: love these guys. They did a great interview. I'm excited
Speaker 1: for you to listen to this one. There's so many
Speaker 1: insights that came out, like I said, that I'd never
Speaker 1: thought of before, or I hadn't put into words. I
Speaker 1: really hope you enjoy it. I can't wait. Well, thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on, Jay. We like to start off every
Speaker 1: episode with a prompt from our journal. Obviously, journaling is
Speaker 1: like such a huge practice with so many mentalth benefits,
Speaker 1: so we always like to start off the show with
Speaker 1: that to kind of get us all on the same page.
Speaker 1: Today's prompt which Payment wants or first? Then you go
Speaker 1: and I'll close this out is what are you proud of?
Speaker 1: Yourself for I think for me, just I've been trying
Speaker 1: to use my phone less, especially at night, and I've
Speaker 1: been doing a little bit better. I would say I'm
Speaker 1: still not all the way there, but that's one thing
Speaker 1: I'm proud of myself for. So yeah, what about you, Jay,
Speaker 1: I'd say that the thing I'm proud of myself for
Speaker 1: recently is I haven't seen my wife for around four months,
Speaker 1: and I think we're so used to obviously during the
Speaker 1: pandemic being together with each other every day. We loved
Speaker 1: hanging out for like a solid two years. But she's
Speaker 1: been working in London and I've been in LA and
Speaker 1: traveling and we haven't been able to find time to
Speaker 1: see each other. She's coming back in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: which I'm excited to see her after that long. But
Speaker 1: I'm really proud that. I'm proud of both of us
Speaker 1: for having just communicated really effectively while being apart for
Speaker 1: that long, and not having moments where we argued about
Speaker 1: silly things, so we were able to understand if the
Speaker 1: other person wasn't available when we were free. There's an
Speaker 1: eight hour time gap between London and LA so it
Speaker 1: might be around five months. By the time we've seen
Speaker 1: each other, and I'm really proud that we've continued to
Speaker 1: feel more in love and I miss like anything and
Speaker 1: I just can't wait to have a back. Yeah, that's amazing,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. That's a good answer. Yeah, for me, I
Speaker 1: recently started working out for like the first time in
Speaker 1: my life. I think physical activity and exercise has always
Speaker 1: been kind of hard for me. I think because of
Speaker 1: my ongoing depression, it's just hard to really like motivate.
Speaker 1: And I went to the doctor for the first time
Speaker 1: in a while and he said that I should start
Speaker 1: to put onto muscle. So I've been lifting for the
Speaker 1: first time. And I never felt like that guy or
Speaker 1: really felt like masculine or strong in that way. And
Speaker 1: I think it's it's really given me a lot of
Speaker 1: confidence and has made me feel a lot happier and
Speaker 1: payment gives me my workout, so so I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: him for being my little pseudo trainer. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of myself for keeping that up for a few
Speaker 1: weeks now. Yeah, I love that I can relate to
Speaker 1: that too. This was the first year that I really
Speaker 1: started getting in the gym for physical health too, as
Speaker 1: opposed to I love playing sports. Yeah, that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what I've done my whole life. But this was the
Speaker 1: first year, so I can very much relate to everything
Speaker 1: you just said. Well, that's a great way to kick
Speaker 1: it off. Jay, I'm wondering if you could give us
Speaker 1: a picture of your childhood and your upbringing. We always
Speaker 1: like to start there because so much of your early
Speaker 1: lifehood life and childhood experiences shape your life. So curious
Speaker 1: about your early life. Yeah, So I was one of
Speaker 1: two kids. My parents were immigrants. They moved to London.
Speaker 1: My mom moved from Yemen to London when he was sixteen.
Speaker 1: My dad moved from India to London when he married
Speaker 1: my mom, so probably he was probably in his like
Speaker 1: mid twenties. And I went to a school in my
Speaker 1: area which was pretty rough and tough. I was bullied
Speaker 1: for being one of the only Asian kids school and
Speaker 1: being overweight as well when I was growing up, So
Speaker 1: I went through a lot of bullying, got beat up
Speaker 1: a bunch of times. I'm talking about like when I
Speaker 1: was like six seven years old through till about probably
Speaker 1: about like yeah, about ten years old. At elementary school
Speaker 1: or primary school as we call it, but what I
Speaker 1: remember from that time is my mom just giving me
Speaker 1: all the love in the world, working super hard, cooking breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and dinner, dropping us to school, picking us up, helping
Speaker 1: me with my homework. Just I've I've always felt this
Speaker 1: flood of love from my mom, and I think that
Speaker 1: my capacity to love today comes from the fact that
Speaker 1: I received so much love from her and still do
Speaker 1: till this day. And my dad was more aloof and
Speaker 1: disconnected from my life, and at the time it was hard.
Speaker 1: You know, it was hard when I'd be at a
Speaker 1: swimming class and I'd look up to see if my
Speaker 1: dad was in the stands it he'd be like reading
Speaker 1: his newspaper, or you know, completely uninterested. Or you know,
Speaker 1: when I was playing rugby for my school and I'd
Speaker 1: looked to the sidelines, but my dad wouldn't show up
Speaker 1: to the games. And when I was growing up, I
Speaker 1: think that affected me at the time, and I would think, well, look,
Speaker 1: everyone else's dad's there, everyone else's parents are there. And actually,
Speaker 1: as I grew up, I now feel a sense of
Speaker 1: gratitude for it, because it allowed me to do what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do for myself. And so now when
Speaker 1: I look in hindsight, it's a different experience. But during
Speaker 1: that time, I think I went through a lot of
Speaker 1: common things that people go through, whether it's bullying, disconnection.
Speaker 1: But the thing I remember most from my childhood is
Speaker 1: my mum's love for sure. Yeah, And I'm curious, is
Speaker 1: I actually immigrated to the US when I was six
Speaker 1: from Italy and my parents are from Iran. They immigrated
Speaker 1: to Italy and then to hear and I always talk
Speaker 1: about just like that feeling of feeling different, and even
Speaker 1: though you weren't an immigrant, I'm sure you felt that
Speaker 1: and like probably internalize that through the bullying. Is that
Speaker 1: how you were thinking about it growing up? Like damn,
Speaker 1: Like why am I different? Like why is my skin
Speaker 1: like this? Why is everyone like you know the same?
Speaker 1: Like how are you thinking about that? At that time,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I had the capacity to
Speaker 1: ask those questions because I was so young, and so
Speaker 1: now when I think about it, I almost feel like
Speaker 1: at that time I just thought I didn't even ask
Speaker 1: why is my skin or why is that? It was
Speaker 1: just like why is this happening? Right? Like in general?
Speaker 1: Or or like why am I going through this? And
Speaker 1: I remember one incident where one of my best friends
Speaker 1: in school. We were in grade four, so I would
Speaker 1: have been like, well like seven years old or something
Speaker 1: like that. And I remember that one girl at school
Speaker 1: told him that I was talking bad about him, which
Speaker 1: I definitely was not doing that. That's not the kind
Speaker 1: of person I am. And he had a really short temper,
Speaker 1: so he stormed in. This is my best friend at school,
Speaker 1: storms in to the field, comes up to me, starts
Speaker 1: punching me in the face. I'm on the floor, I've
Speaker 1: got bruises all of my eyes. And I remember looking
Speaker 1: back at that just thinking like wow, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I almost started to observe human behavior. Eleon, I'd say
Speaker 1: where I was like, wow, it's so interesting to see
Speaker 1: how people get triggered. It's so interesting to see how
Speaker 1: people act out of character when they're insert and scenarios
Speaker 1: and situations. I thought, how incredible is it that? What
Speaker 1: is it that that person's going through that's making them
Speaker 1: behave that way? I think those were the questions I
Speaker 1: started asking. So rather than asking the questions why me,
Speaker 1: or why am I going through this? Or what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? I think I started looking at what's happened
Speaker 1: to them, Yeah, right, Like what's going on with them
Speaker 1: that's making them act that way with me? Because I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to be a good kid. I was teacher's pet,
Speaker 1: I worked hard, I was well behaved, I followed all
Speaker 1: the rules up until fourteen, And so for me at
Speaker 1: that time in my life, it was more like, well,
Speaker 1: what happened to them? Like what did they not have?
Speaker 1: What structure do they they'll have? What support do they
Speaker 1: not have that making them act in that way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can relate to you with your dynamic with your parents.
Speaker 1: I also kind of moved around a lot as a kid.
Speaker 1: My biological father left me and my mother before I
Speaker 1: was one years old, and then she remarried this man
Speaker 1: who technically my stepdad but raised me as my dad.
Speaker 1: And even growing up, I was so close with my mom,
Speaker 1: and she really modeled what it was to show love
Speaker 1: and care about people and like how to go about
Speaker 1: your life. And my dad, who I found out later
Speaker 1: that he was gay at the time, but like was
Speaker 1: experiencing a lot of rage and like things that were
Speaker 1: very confusing to me while he was dealing with his
Speaker 1: own stuff and he wasn't that kind of model for
Speaker 1: me was a bit more absent, like how you were explaining.
Speaker 1: And I feel like the way that that's manifested for
Speaker 1: me and my life has really been to be much
Speaker 1: more kind of empathetic and sensitive. And like I said
Speaker 1: at the beginning during the prompt, right, I growing up,
Speaker 1: I never really felt like a man quote unquote or
Speaker 1: I have a problem with anger. I've never yelled at
Speaker 1: anyone in my entire life. Right, all these things that
Speaker 1: I'm still unpacking, because it really was my mom who
Speaker 1: was modeling the world for me and how to behave
Speaker 1: I'm curious for you just with that dynamic between your
Speaker 1: mother and your father, how you feel like that kind
Speaker 1: of manifested into your adult life and like how you
Speaker 1: grew your personality and way to see the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's such a great question, and thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: your experience too. I really feel like it was similar
Speaker 1: where my mom had this big heart, she was highly understanding,
Speaker 1: very compassionate, very empathetic, and I think I adopted a
Speaker 1: lot of those traits as well. And because I saw
Speaker 1: her working hard, like you know, she was working a job,
Speaker 1: she was the main breadwinner. She's taking care of me
Speaker 1: and my younger sister, Like she's supporting us. I gained
Speaker 1: so much empathy and compassion for women, mothers, people who
Speaker 1: are just trying to make everything possible. And I also
Speaker 1: saw that my mom was quite non judgmental and non critical,
Speaker 1: and so I think I adopted some of those traits
Speaker 1: as well, where I looked at the world for what
Speaker 1: it was, and I didn't try and judge your place,
Speaker 1: my opinion on to other people, but observed why they
Speaker 1: behaved they were. I think my mum was highly forgiving,
Speaker 1: and I think so I developed a great deal of
Speaker 1: forgiveness and tolerance by again, like you said, mirroring her behavior.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's the natural unlearning of certain
Speaker 1: parts that don't work as well or that don't fit
Speaker 1: so beautifully as well. And so I think what I've
Speaker 1: learned is that you have to go through this journey
Speaker 1: where at one point in life, you take stock of
Speaker 1: the values that you practice and you have to ask
Speaker 1: yourself two questions, where does this value come from? And
Speaker 1: do I want to keep it? Do I want to
Speaker 1: make it mine? Because most of our values are adopted
Speaker 1: from our parents, our teachers, our friends, our family. And
Speaker 1: so getting to that point of saying, well, what are
Speaker 1: my values? Do I like them? Do I want them?
Speaker 1: And do I want to keep them in my life?
Speaker 1: And so I think when I started to make that transition,
Speaker 1: that's when you start becoming your own person, and you
Speaker 1: start to recognize that you know our parents and will
Speaker 1: do the same when we become parents. Your parents give
Speaker 1: you what I call gifts and gaps. Sometimes you're trying
Speaker 1: to give you gifts and they're beautiful, and then some
Speaker 1: of those gifts have gaps, and some gaps don't have
Speaker 1: any gifts, and it's up to you in life to
Speaker 1: fill the gaps, to repeat the gifts, to make the
Speaker 1: gifts yours passed them along. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: I've found most interesting about the journey of life, that
Speaker 1: everything was designed for me to learn something specific, and
Speaker 1: when I'm able to learn that, that experience now becomes
Speaker 1: meaningful and a powerful part of my story. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like you're pretty in tune with like yourself and
Speaker 1: your emotions, especially as a child. And I'm curious, like
Speaker 1: as you got older, right, Like mental health is not
Speaker 1: something you think about when you're six, but you said,
Speaker 1: like when you're fourteen, and I think you sort of
Speaker 1: like misbehaving in class, And was that like the first
Speaker 1: time that you like consciously remember like going through a
Speaker 1: challenging time in your life, and can you paint that
Speaker 1: picture for us? And then how that led to college
Speaker 1: and beyond that. Well, I think I had this model
Speaker 1: of life where I'm like, I've been a teacher's pet,
Speaker 1: I've ticked every box, I've worked hard at school, but
Speaker 1: I'm still bullied. I still deal with racism, and teachers
Speaker 1: are still you know, picking on me or taking shots
Speaker 1: at me, and it doesn't feel fair. And so it
Speaker 1: was almost like, I've been good and that hasn't got
Speaker 1: me anywhere. So let me be mischievous and silly and
Speaker 1: playful and rebellious and see if that goes anywhere. And
Speaker 1: so I think I was chasing a thrill, but I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that the greatest thrill of life was purpose.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that at fourteen. And so at fourteen,
Speaker 1: thrill came from being the class clown. It came from
Speaker 1: being the class rebel. It came from being involved in
Speaker 1: the wrong circles. It came from going against what your
Speaker 1: parents say. It came from doing the opposite of what
Speaker 1: was the right thing. To do, and so I think
Speaker 1: that came from a sense of seeking purpose without me knowing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I would say that at that time, I wasn't
Speaker 1: being myself. I was now playing up to be like
Speaker 1: the people that I thought were cool, or that I
Speaker 1: thought were the right people to imitate, or the people
Speaker 1: that were ending, or the people that had influence or
Speaker 1: cloud And so you spend your whole teens kind of
Speaker 1: trying to mirror that person. I almost feel like zero
Speaker 1: to ten you end up trying to be the person
Speaker 1: your parents want to be, and ten to twenty you
Speaker 1: try and be the person that your friends want you
Speaker 1: to be, and then twenty to thirty you realize you
Speaker 1: don't want to be either of those things, and then
Speaker 1: hopefully in your thirties you start being the person who
Speaker 1: want to be right. It's kind of like that's that's
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm stereotyped thin and simplifying, but I feel
Speaker 1: like that's been the journey that I've been on at least,
Speaker 1: and I realized that you have to go on that
Speaker 1: journey in that way because you learn valuable lessons at
Speaker 1: each steps. So for me, those teens were very much
Speaker 1: me trying to be like people that I thought were
Speaker 1: cool or respected and recognizing that that that didn't quite
Speaker 1: have it either. Yeah, I had a similar experience where
Speaker 1: I was really good at school. Even when I moved here.
Speaker 1: I didn't speak English, but I learned it quickly, and
Speaker 1: I was really good in school, And I think I
Speaker 1: was bored with that in some ways, and like we're
Speaker 1: still trying to like act with other people. So I
Speaker 1: was doing like the class clown things too all the
Speaker 1: way through like eighth grade. And it was funny because
Speaker 1: the purpose thing you just brought up. I think I
Speaker 1: could really relate with that, because like I got purpose
Speaker 1: from like doing well in school and from like making
Speaker 1: jokes and like people thinking I was funny and like
Speaker 1: more of the external validation, which I think is like
Speaker 1: pretty normal early on. I'm curious and then, like I
Speaker 1: also had a similar experience where I went to undergrad
Speaker 1: business school. I'm curious, like how you made that decision
Speaker 1: and then eventually how that led to you like going
Speaker 1: on that journey to becoming a monk, because obviously those
Speaker 1: two things seem very opposite. Yeah, I think I did
Speaker 1: what every sane person does after going to undergrad business school,
Speaker 1: which is becoming a monk man. I'll explain it. I'll
Speaker 1: track back to be honest, when I was in my teens,
Speaker 1: the subjects that resonated with me most were art, design
Speaker 1: and philosophy. Like, that's what I fell in love with,
Speaker 1: and so I would spend more time at art class
Speaker 1: and in the studio, and I would spend more time
Speaker 1: on online on Photoshop, and you know, I'd going to
Speaker 1: be working on art. It's what I fell in love
Speaker 1: with and what I was attracted to. But then there
Speaker 1: was still that voice inside my head that said art
Speaker 1: is not a career, right, Design is not a career,
Speaker 1: Philosophy is not a career. And because I'd had that
Speaker 1: ingrained so deeply within me, I was like, well, then
Speaker 1: I should go get a degree that has a career
Speaker 1: behind it. I would say. In my teens, I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was possible to be anything else apart from
Speaker 1: a doctor, a lawyer, or a business person. Like I
Speaker 1: almost didn't know, as silly as it sounds, I just
Speaker 1: wasn't aware that there were that many careers beyond a
Speaker 1: few set careers that had been laid out by friends,
Speaker 1: family members, and people around me. And so I went
Speaker 1: there honestly, just because I thought it would line up
Speaker 1: a safe career opportunity. Now, when I went there, I
Speaker 1: still realized that there were things I was more interested in.
Speaker 1: So I got deep into behavioral science and I started
Speaker 1: doing electives and arts and antiques markets, and like all
Speaker 1: of my dissertations and thesis were all about fascinating subject
Speaker 1: matters even though I was there. But I think the
Speaker 1: most important thing that happened is I would go and
Speaker 1: hear people speak. And this is before podcasts, right, this
Speaker 1: is before podcasts, it's before YouTube. This is when you
Speaker 1: actually had to go to physical spaces to hear people speak.
Speaker 1: And it was before TED was big. TED was obviously around,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't a big deal at the time. And
Speaker 1: so I would go to my university to hear people speak,
Speaker 1: or go into the city to hear people speak. And
Speaker 1: I was invited to hear a monk speak by some
Speaker 1: of my friends that had been getting involved in meditation
Speaker 1: and mindfulness. This is back in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: so very early days, and I was just like, what
Speaker 1: am I going to learn from a monk? Like I
Speaker 1: was super skeptical, super cynical, didn't know what monks did.
Speaker 1: Didn't know what value monks could add, but I made
Speaker 1: my friends promise that we'd go to a bar afterwards.
Speaker 1: Like that was my state of consciousness at the time.
Speaker 1: My friends were highly persuasive, so they agreed, so we
Speaker 1: went to this event. I'm thinking, I'm just gonna be
Speaker 1: looking at the clock, trying to get out of this space.
Speaker 1: And the opposite happened, where I was staring at this
Speaker 1: monk as if he was the most beautiful woman in
Speaker 1: the world, Like that's how fixated I was. And he
Speaker 1: was wearing robes, he were you know, he was from India.
Speaker 1: You know. It wasn't that there was anything externally attractive
Speaker 1: about him. It was just that it almost felt like
Speaker 1: I'd met someone who had the frequency and energy that
Speaker 1: I didn't even know I was looking for. And this
Speaker 1: is something that I really believe in that not everyone
Speaker 1: needs to meet a monk, but I do believe today
Speaker 1: that we rarely meet people of different frequency and different energy.
Speaker 1: We followed the same people, we watched the same people.
Speaker 1: We hear from the same people. The media covers the
Speaker 1: same people, and we could hear deeper stories about those
Speaker 1: same people, but we don't often hear those, So I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that the same people are the issue. You
Speaker 1: could hear deeper journeys and deeper elements of their background
Speaker 1: and walks of life. All we need to be exposed
Speaker 1: to new minds and new thinkers and people that we
Speaker 1: don't recognize, because that's what gives you the opportunity to go, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something out there that I know nothing about, but
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to. And that's how I felt when I
Speaker 1: met a monk. If you asked me, if anyone ever
Speaker 1: said to me, Jay, you're probably going to become a
Speaker 1: monk for three years of your life, I probably would
Speaker 1: have thrown my beer bottle at them, right like. That
Speaker 1: would have been, like you know, it would have been.
Speaker 1: I would have laughed. I would have thrown at them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hurt them. I would have laughed.
Speaker 1: It would have been It would have been ridiculous, is
Speaker 1: what I mean. It would have been, you know, preposterous
Speaker 1: to imagine that that would be a path I would take.
Speaker 1: But I got so attracted to him. And then during
Speaker 1: my time at college, I was interning at investment banks
Speaker 1: and consulting companies, and I was going to spend time
Speaker 1: at the monastery in India, and so I did my
Speaker 1: first split test or a b test, and I realized
Speaker 1: when I graduated that the life of living as a
Speaker 1: monk was far more fulfilling than the life of working
Speaker 1: in this city. So I turned out my corporate job
Speaker 1: offers and I went and lived as a monk. And
Speaker 1: it was because of two things. Two things were important
Speaker 1: to me when I chose to become a monk. The
Speaker 1: first is I wanted to understand how I could purify
Speaker 1: my ego, master my mind and live a life where
Speaker 1: I could actually manage my emotions. And I saw that
Speaker 1: monks could do that, and I wanted to learn to
Speaker 1: do that. I felt that that would be one of
Speaker 1: the most valuable skills for myself and my experience of life.
Speaker 1: And the second thing, and the reason I did it,
Speaker 1: is because monks were serving, They were helping others, they
Speaker 1: were contributing to society, and I thought to myself, that
Speaker 1: seems like a worthy cause. That's what I want to
Speaker 1: do with my life. So those are the two reasons
Speaker 1: that that took me in that direction. I think that
Speaker 1: the note of being of service is something that I
Speaker 1: think about a lot. Being in sobriety and recovery. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's a huge part of the program. And I think
Speaker 1: where I've found myself feeling the most fulfilled and the
Speaker 1: most connected and really the most myself. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of what we try and do at Matt
Speaker 1: Happy Too is obviously giving back and educating people and
Speaker 1: sharing our own experiences to inspire other people to speak up.
Speaker 1: And I think being of service is truly how the
Speaker 1: life that I want to lead when I really think
Speaker 1: about what makes me happy. And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could just explain kind of what that monk was
Speaker 1: saying that day a little bit, and then almost what
Speaker 1: life as a monk kind of looks like. I think
Speaker 1: when I think of a monk, you know, I think
Speaker 1: of just kind of like a Buddha on a hill,
Speaker 1: like just like not talking all day, and like that
Speaker 1: might be what a lot of people think of it
Speaker 1: as well. And what was it actually like And what
Speaker 1: were those first things that you were hearing from him
Speaker 1: that were really kind of opening your mind? Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was saying that the greatest thing that a human can
Speaker 1: do is to use their gifts in the service of others,
Speaker 1: that you use this life this body, this mind, this
Speaker 1: heart that you have in order to improve the lives
Speaker 1: of others. And you can only do that when you
Speaker 1: learn to purify yourself of ego, of arrogance, of pride,
Speaker 1: of elements in your life that block you, of envy,
Speaker 1: of illusion, of these things that block you from serving
Speaker 1: people with a full heart. And that really deeply resonated
Speaker 1: with me, because I could see people who are well intentioned,
Speaker 1: but then their ego got the better of them. Well,
Speaker 1: I could see people who wanted to do good in
Speaker 1: the world, but then they couldn't take care of themselves
Speaker 1: at the same time. And so those were some of
Speaker 1: the things that resonated with me, And obviously I had
Speaker 1: to spend more time with him. And there are different
Speaker 1: monk paths, So what you just said about a particular
Speaker 1: monk path, there are those paths. I chose this particular
Speaker 1: path because it was about self and service. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of paths where it is just about being silent,
Speaker 1: so our mornings would be silent and our days would
Speaker 1: be service, but a lot of parts will be fully
Speaker 1: silent or fully serviced. And I chose this path because
Speaker 1: I felt that both were important tracks in our life.
Speaker 1: And so we'd wake up at four am every day
Speaker 1: and mourning meditations collectively would be four thirty to five,
Speaker 1: then five to seven would be individual meditation, then seven
Speaker 1: till about eight to eight thirty would be a class
Speaker 1: on the spiritual literatures, and then eight thirty would be breakfast.
Speaker 1: And then from like nine thirty onward, it would be
Speaker 1: a mix of daily chores, going out and building sustainable villages,
Speaker 1: going and helping villagers with their daily tasks. It could
Speaker 1: be going out and feeding the homeless or children at school.
Speaker 1: So the day would be spent being with society and
Speaker 1: being present with people who needed that support. And of
Speaker 1: course there were elements where we would go on pilgrimage
Speaker 1: and visit these five thousand year old temples and go
Speaker 1: to these incredible places across India that you know, haven't
Speaker 1: been visited or seen for thousands of years. Or it's
Speaker 1: this beautiful thing that I read about recently which I'm
Speaker 1: encouraging more people to experience. Scientists call it the or effect,
Speaker 1: and or is something we all get to experience. We
Speaker 1: experience it when we see a beautiful scenery, or you're
Speaker 1: in nature, or like I'm saying, when you visit a
Speaker 1: five thousand year old temple and always defined as when
Speaker 1: you feel small but connected to something bigger at the
Speaker 1: same time, so you feel really insignificant. You get to
Speaker 1: experience humility but connectivity at the same time. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I got to experience a lot of that as a monk,
Speaker 1: where you felt so tiny, but you felt so big
Speaker 1: and powerful and capable. And I think that that juxtaposition
Speaker 1: of ideology is is what we're all searching for. We
Speaker 1: don't want to be big on our own alone on
Speaker 1: a mountaintop. No one wants that. No one who has
Speaker 1: achieved success is happy being lonely at the top. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, no one wants to be
Speaker 1: depressed and alone and left with nothing and feel like
Speaker 1: they have nothing to offer the world. So I think
Speaker 1: if we can all experience, or not just through external visuals,
Speaker 1: but through the cultivation of that inner space of I'm
Speaker 1: really tiny, but I'm apart of something really big, which
Speaker 1: makes me really significant and insignificant all at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think that's just a really beautiful place to live.
Speaker 1: And I'd say that that's one of the key things
Speaker 1: I learned during that time from an internal standpoint, Yeah.
Speaker 1: As soon as you said that, I thought about the
Speaker 1: first time that I went to Yosemite and just like
Speaker 1: standing in that valley and it was such a significant
Speaker 1: artifact of I feel so small but so connected, and
Speaker 1: I find myself with nature, especially because it's so kind
Speaker 1: of mysterious and there's no answer for how this got
Speaker 1: here or what it means or any of that. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's where I really feel the awe
Speaker 1: effect so strongly, when there's not a clear answer. I
Speaker 1: think that those are the most beautiful parts of life
Speaker 1: to me, where I can feel the most connected, where
Speaker 1: there's not like there's no right or wrong, there's no winning,
Speaker 1: it's just it can't be explained, And like that's where
Speaker 1: the most kind of beauty I find is for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what you just sparked something for me. I
Speaker 1: mean we are nature, and I don't think we observe
Speaker 1: nature enough. I think we observe machines more than we
Speaker 1: observe nature, and so we are starting to think like machines,
Speaker 1: i e. Productivity, goals, targets, list checks, systems, processes. But
Speaker 1: we are nature. And if you look at a tree,
Speaker 1: a tree has all different branches going off in different directions.
Speaker 1: It has roots getting nutrients. It sometimes is giving out
Speaker 1: fruits and flower is sometimes it's shedding, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: do that like a tree is not confused in autumn
Speaker 1: or fall going why are my leaves falling? The tree
Speaker 1: does that naturally. But if we go through a phase
Speaker 1: in our life where we feel like we're shedding or
Speaker 1: things are transitioning, we get scared because machines don't change. Right,
Speaker 1: This microphone looks the same in January, and it looks
Speaker 1: the same in December. But nature doesn't look the same
Speaker 1: in January in December. And if we're in nature, then
Speaker 1: that's more of what we're going to be like. But
Speaker 1: we're trying to be like this microphone. We're like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to change. I just want to remain the
Speaker 1: same the whole time. And so I think there's so
Speaker 1: much more than even or to be gained from nature,
Speaker 1: where it's like we are nature. If we observe nature deeply,
Speaker 1: we can actually flow and live life much more naturally
Speaker 1: and simply than being attracted and attached to machines and machinery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, the power of being able
Speaker 1: to spend time along I think it's like something that's
Speaker 1: like a lot harder. And even I talk about this
Speaker 1: a lot, like even when I'm alone, I'm like listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast or like doing something where it's like
Speaker 1: you're not actually alone, just with your thoughts. And like
Speaker 1: the challenge for me of just like driving home not
Speaker 1: playing music or not. You know, it's always like so
Speaker 1: hard for me, and I try to do it every
Speaker 1: once in a while to just because I know it's
Speaker 1: good for me, and it always feels good when I
Speaker 1: get to my final destination because I obviously thought about
Speaker 1: a lot of things that wouldn't have come up in
Speaker 1: my own head without giving myself that space. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious about your time as a month, because it seems
Speaker 1: like the morning time was spent like being more by yourself,
Speaker 1: even if you're surrounded by others, and then the second
Speaker 1: part of your day was like being around others and
Speaker 1: like in service. So I'm curious like what you began
Speaker 1: to think of that and the importance of spending time
Speaker 1: alone in that process. Yeah, I think that's really fair
Speaker 1: what you've said. We've made loneliness and being alone the
Speaker 1: enemy since we were young. If you went to school
Speaker 1: and you didn't have someone to sit next to you,
Speaker 1: you were called the Lona, right. Or if you threw
Speaker 1: a birthday party and not many people showed up, you
Speaker 1: were considered unpopular, even though today as adults, if we
Speaker 1: had five people show up to our birthday, we'd be
Speaker 1: happy because we realize that that's probably the amount of
Speaker 1: people that actually know us. If you get invited to
Speaker 1: a wedding and you don't have a plus one, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't bring a plus one. You didn't want to
Speaker 1: bring someone. Right. Even now, when I haven't seen my
Speaker 1: wife for a few months and I go somewhere, the
Speaker 1: number one question I get asked is where's your wife? Right,
Speaker 1: it's so abnormal for people to see people alone. And
Speaker 1: there's an amazing author called Paul Tillick who writes that
Speaker 1: there are two words in the English language for being alone,
Speaker 1: but we only use one of them, so it's loneliness.
Speaker 1: And he says there's another word, and it's called solitude.
Speaker 1: And when we were monks, we were taught to practice solitude,
Speaker 1: not loneliness or being alone. And so Paul Tillick writes
Speaker 1: that loneliness is when you feel weak on your own
Speaker 1: and solitude is when you feel strength when you're by yourself.
Speaker 1: We've been getting so many amazing reviews for The Daily Jy,
Speaker 1: my new daily guided meditation series on the car Map.
Speaker 1: You might have heard a couple of snippets on the
Speaker 1: podcast for a few weeks, so in case you haven't
Speaker 1: had the chance to check it out, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share this review from Caitlin, an elementary school teacher
Speaker 1: from New Jersey. He's what she had to say. I
Speaker 1: have over nine years of experience in the American public
Speaker 1: school education system, including teaching throughout the pandemic. Over the
Speaker 1: past two years, I've seen extreme cases of anxiety and
Speaker 1: my students like never before. Many of these children have
Speaker 1: never experienced these feelings before, and most are not even
Speaker 1: sure of what they are feeling. My school district has
Speaker 1: spent a great deal of time focusing on social emotional
Speaker 1: learning SEL through this school year. We try to teach
Speaker 1: coping skills and focus on teaching kids how to deal
Speaker 1: with their feelings and become the best version of themselves.
Speaker 1: As someone who has also been experiencing the many anxieties
Speaker 1: of the world today, I have recently downloaded the car
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Speaker 1: for the Daily Jay, a daily guided meditation where I'll
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Speaker 1: on Calm. What I find is really fascinating about solitude
Speaker 1: is that it's a time in your life where you
Speaker 1: get to make sense of your own thoughts, your own feelings,
Speaker 1: and your own emotions. Most of the time we're using
Speaker 1: other people as sounding boards for our thoughts, our emotions,
Speaker 1: and our feelings. Now, that is healthy in therapy, that
Speaker 1: is healthy in coaching, that is healthy in conversations like this.
Speaker 1: But we also need time and space to do that
Speaker 1: with ourselves, to refresh, to recalibrate, to resynchronize with ourselves.
Speaker 1: That's what solitude allows you space to do. Solitude also
Speaker 1: allows you to hear your inner voice. If you're only
Speaker 1: always listening to music or TV or shows, that voice
Speaker 1: becomes your voice, or that noise becomes your voice, and
Speaker 1: you lose the ability to check in with yourself and go,
Speaker 1: how does that feel for me? So often when I'm
Speaker 1: in solitude, and when we were monks, it was the
Speaker 1: idea of could I sit with a thought and genuinely
Speaker 1: discover how I feel about it at the core, regardless
Speaker 1: of how everyone else feels about it. And you can
Speaker 1: only do that in illness and silence. You can't do
Speaker 1: that when you're constantly surrounded by lots of people, and
Speaker 1: so we've never been trained to do that. We've been
Speaker 1: made to believe that you'll be happier, you'll be more
Speaker 1: social when you're around people, which is true. But what
Speaker 1: I find is that if I want to make my
Speaker 1: mind up about something, I find it, you're much more
Speaker 1: likely to hear your inner voice and nowhere to be
Speaker 1: guided by learning that practice. I'd say everyone has that
Speaker 1: loud voice in their head when they're young, and we've
Speaker 1: drowned it out or pushed it aside so much that
Speaker 1: it's got quieter and quieter and quiet. When someone says, Jay,
Speaker 1: I don't hear that voice, I don't hear myself, it's
Speaker 1: because it was so loud when we were young, when
Speaker 1: it was like, don't do that, do that, try this,
Speaker 1: don't hang out with that person, do this, You don't
Speaker 1: need to do that. We just went no, no, no no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this because I think it's the
Speaker 1: right thing, or I think it's cool, or I think
Speaker 1: it's the thing I'm meant to do for me, Solitude
Speaker 1: is about building that habit of asking yourself, how do
Speaker 1: I feel about this, what's important to me, what's meaningful
Speaker 1: to me? What do I truly want to pursue without
Speaker 1: the noise, without anyone else's voice or opinion. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: me and P I'm curious how you feel about this?
Speaker 1: Like I feel like as i've gotten older, and we've
Speaker 1: grown this business, and I've gotten into a relationship, and
Speaker 1: I have five brothers and sisters. Like anytime I'm expressing
Speaker 1: myself for making a decision or thinking, it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: for me not to consider these other people right, or
Speaker 1: like well, how's it going to make my girlfriend feel?
Speaker 1: Then what are my business partners going to think of me?
Speaker 1: Than like what about my siblings? And just like all that,
Speaker 1: And I find it really difficult as I get older
Speaker 1: and there's more kind of stakes and pressure of life
Speaker 1: to be able to really be selfish in that way
Speaker 1: and like make a decision just for myself and not
Speaker 1: really worry about anybody else because it could potentially have
Speaker 1: such a direct impact on so many others. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: I want to respond to that because I think that's
Speaker 1: a healthy trait that you have, and I wouldn't discourage that.
Speaker 1: So to give a nuance to what I said, I
Speaker 1: think it's less about even making the decision, but it's
Speaker 1: about being aware of what it is that you want
Speaker 1: a need, yeah, and then being able to process the
Speaker 1: discussion on the outer layers of who else is involved,
Speaker 1: rather than what we do is we usually ignore are
Speaker 1: completely unaware of what we need. Yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: just avoid it. Right, So I agree with you. I
Speaker 1: think what you're sharing I actually find beautiful and wonderful.
Speaker 1: I think it makes someone a wonderful human when they're
Speaker 1: aware of other people's needs and other people's concerns and interests.
Speaker 1: But I think you can't be fully yourself in that
Speaker 1: if we're not aware of the first thing is what
Speaker 1: I meant. So thank you for sharing that because that
Speaker 1: helps me contextualize a little more for sure. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: wanted to hit from you as well. Yeah, I'll go Aheady,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing you just brought up. You know,
Speaker 1: I started going to therapy the last January, which I
Speaker 1: always talked about on this show, and it's been very
Speaker 1: informative for me because my therapist is like the science
Speaker 1: side and like the spiritual side, which I found amazing.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's like a big meditator, talks a
Speaker 1: lot about the energy stuff that you brought up earlier, Jay,
Speaker 1: And I think for me, when Mason just brought it up,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, oh wow, like I only think in
Speaker 1: the way of like me and everyone else versus like
Speaker 1: just me first, which I think like could be a
Speaker 1: very valuable skill to develop and just see like how
Speaker 1: often that is the same decision I would have made
Speaker 1: otherwise versus not, you know, and like I could still
Speaker 1: keep going with that decision. That's more the middle ground
Speaker 1: for now. But I think the awareness piece, like you said, Jay,
Speaker 1: is the most important part. We just think of life
Speaker 1: is like yes and no black and white this or that. Right,
Speaker 1: It's very binary. So it's like I either focus on
Speaker 1: myself or I focus on everyone else. And actually life's
Speaker 1: more like that logo behind you where it's circles yea,
Speaker 1: And so you have you, then you have your family,
Speaker 1: then you have your friends, then you have your community,
Speaker 1: and then you have your podcast audience, and then you
Speaker 1: have the wider world. And life's more like that. So
Speaker 1: life isn't either role. It's almost like starting from this
Speaker 1: central point and then cascading and emanating outwards, right, And
Speaker 1: so I think the challenges we've been brought up to
Speaker 1: believe that it's binary, and it's not binary. It's almost
Speaker 1: like concentric circles that keep expanding out and that energy
Speaker 1: that's created within is is going to move outwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, Like I know that after a few years,
Speaker 1: you decided to leave the monastery reenter society, and at
Speaker 1: the time, like, how are you thinking about one? How
Speaker 1: do you make that decision? But too, how are you
Speaker 1: thinking about like what your life? You know, what was
Speaker 1: in store for your life? Because I imagine before, you know,
Speaker 1: you had a different view of like success and like
Speaker 1: happiness and life. So how did you come to that decision? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think leaving was I've always described it as one
Speaker 1: of the hardest decisions of my life, because you know,
Speaker 1: when I became a monk, it wasn't this celebratory thing.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, most my extended family were like,
Speaker 1: you're never going to make money again, You're never going
Speaker 1: to get a job again, You're never gonna no one's
Speaker 1: ever going to date you again. Like you're committing career suicide.
Speaker 1: Like you've been brainwashed. Like you're wasting away your parents'
Speaker 1: hard work, you're wasting away your education. Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: I didn't become a monk under like happy circumstances. I
Speaker 1: became a monk against the grain. I had friends who
Speaker 1: didn't understand my decision and didn't want to talk to
Speaker 1: me anymore because they didn't understand what I was trying
Speaker 1: to do. They were just like, you've changed, and you
Speaker 1: know now we can't talk about the same thing, so
Speaker 1: we have nothing to talk about. So I lost friends
Speaker 1: from that decision, and so when I left, I was like,
Speaker 1: was everyone right? And the decision I left for was
Speaker 1: actually that spending time as a monk gave me so
Speaker 1: much self awareness that I realized I wasn't meant to
Speaker 1: be a monk, that I wanted to share what I'd learned,
Speaker 1: that I wanted to pass it on, that I wanted
Speaker 1: to speak about it in lots of interesting, exciting ways.
Speaker 1: I wanted to pair it up with science because I
Speaker 1: loved the behavioral science growing up, and so I had
Speaker 1: all these ideas of how I could help people who
Speaker 1: came from the same backgrounds and walks of life that
Speaker 1: I did. And I recognized I was like that desire
Speaker 1: wasn't a monk desire in terms of the journey of
Speaker 1: a monk. And so that's like one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things where you feel like you left everything to get
Speaker 1: married to the love of your life. I either part
Speaker 1: of being a monk, and now you go, a wait
Speaker 1: a minute, but that doesn't make me a monk, I
Speaker 1: might need to break up or get divorced, and that's
Speaker 1: what it felt like. It felt like a divorce. And
Speaker 1: I remember that my teachers saying to me as well
Speaker 1: that they felt I could share what I'd learned better
Speaker 1: if I moved on. And that was a really stressful,
Speaker 1: pressurized situation because I now moved back to London to
Speaker 1: my parents' home, aged twenty six, and I was in
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars worth of death eighteen thousand pounds
Speaker 1: roughly at the time. I hadn't had a job for
Speaker 1: that amount of time, so I had no work experience.
Speaker 1: All my friends were like getting mortgages, you know, dating
Speaker 1: and serious relationships or growing. They were doing well in
Speaker 1: their careers, they were getting promoted, and I'm coming back
Speaker 1: with nothing to offer. Then I applied of forty companies
Speaker 1: and get rejected by every single one of them before
Speaker 1: an interview because surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire
Speaker 1: a reform a monk. Right, They're like, what are your
Speaker 1: what are your transferable skills like sitting still and being silent?
Speaker 1: We don't need that. So I'm almost like, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: was everyone right? Everyone was right? I did waste my life.
Speaker 1: I did mess up, you know, and so it was
Speaker 1: a very And again I didn't know who the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister of England was, I didn't know who won the
Speaker 1: old Cart, and you know, I hadn't listened to music
Speaker 1: or a TV show, like, I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: do small talk anymore. Imagine, imagine you haven't done small
Speaker 1: talk for three years, like you literally yet how to
Speaker 1: have a conversation, Because so I was. I felt really
Speaker 1: out of touch. And on top of that, my health
Speaker 1: had taken a hit because as a monk, I'd been
Speaker 1: like practicing all sorts of fasts and crazy meditations and
Speaker 1: my health was quite depleted. So I was also low
Speaker 1: on you know, from a physical point of view, and
Speaker 1: we all know that that can massively impact you from
Speaker 1: a chronic fatigue point of view and even depression, and
Speaker 1: so I was in quite a difficult space. And so
Speaker 1: leaving was Yeah, leaving was one of the most toughest
Speaker 1: things I've ever done. And it's only all in you,
Speaker 1: like it was all for me. But yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: easy at all. Yeah, and then after that, I guess,
Speaker 1: what was the moment where you kind of got back
Speaker 1: on the horse so to speak, or like kind of
Speaker 1: had your first big break of realizing, all right, there's
Speaker 1: something here and I can kind of take what I've
Speaker 1: learned and really build something out of this. So it
Speaker 1: took ten months when I left to get a job.
Speaker 1: I took ten months of applying, being unemployed, figuring it out,
Speaker 1: living in my parents' home. It took ten months to
Speaker 1: get a job. And those ten months included the first
Speaker 1: month I just didn't do anything at all, And then
Speaker 1: the next nine months I was waking up and meditating again,
Speaker 1: practicing everything I learned as a monk, going to the library,
Speaker 1: reading books about business, studying philosophy again, trying to just
Speaker 1: get back into the world. And I remember ten months later,
Speaker 1: I went to this I got this job. Finally. I
Speaker 1: went to this networking event at the beginning of the job,
Speaker 1: and I remember that activity was pizza making, so it
Speaker 1: was like pizza making groups so you can network and connect.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what am I doing here? Like
Speaker 1: it was the biggest culture and I was like what
Speaker 1: am I doing? Like I didn't know what to wear.
Speaker 1: I was like, is this too? There was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like business casual, and I almost I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what do I wear? Like what's in today,
Speaker 1: what's not? And that was the moment when I started
Speaker 1: that job, I realized something really important. I realized that
Speaker 1: I wasn't five years behind everyone. I realized that I'd
Speaker 1: learned lessons that put me ahead. And when I say ahead,
Speaker 1: I don't mean ahead of others. I meant ahead in
Speaker 1: my own understanding. And so even though I was twenty
Speaker 1: six and everyone who started that job was twenty one,
Speaker 1: I was like, no, the lessons I learned is a
Speaker 1: monk are going to be my armor. They're going to
Speaker 1: be my strength. So now let me recognize how to
Speaker 1: apply this. So I've always realized that my life became good.
Speaker 1: That moment changed when I started applying everything I'd learned
Speaker 1: rather than trying to push it away. And I think
Speaker 1: you talk about this idea of like conscious capitalism, which
Speaker 1: I think in many ways, like very much is aligned
Speaker 1: with what we're doing, because, like we always say, like,
Speaker 1: we're a business, and we hope through having a successful one,
Speaker 1: we can make a big impact in the world. We
Speaker 1: could spread awareness, raise money for mental health, all of
Speaker 1: those sorts of amazing things. I'm curious how you came
Speaker 1: to that realization. Was that sort of like the bridge
Speaker 1: of your earlier interests. How did you come to that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really great question, and I'm glad we're talking
Speaker 1: about it, because I think spirituality and money or often
Speaker 1: uncomfortable conversations for me what I have, And I would
Speaker 1: say it was an uncomfortable situation for me because when
Speaker 1: I started what I was doing, I honestly started with
Speaker 1: the intention of I just want to help people. I
Speaker 1: just want to serve. I'm just going to create stuff
Speaker 1: that's going to improve people's lives. And as I started
Speaker 1: to do that, I realized that if I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to create a business or a venture, I couldn't create
Speaker 1: structures to scale, amplify, grow both the message or a
Speaker 1: team of people that also get to live their purpose.
Speaker 1: So today, when I've been able to connect and synchronize
Speaker 1: those two worlds of spirituality and business or conscious capitalism,
Speaker 1: as you said, you start recognizing that, oh, actually, I
Speaker 1: can do more good with money and use money for
Speaker 1: more good. That includes living a life for myself that
Speaker 1: allows me to live in abundance, creating jobs and opportunities
Speaker 1: for other team members who now get to live in
Speaker 1: a purpose led organization. Like everyone who works with me
Speaker 1: on my team loves what we do. They believe in
Speaker 1: mental health, they believe in conscious business. They want to
Speaker 1: create opportunities and products and businesses and content to help people.
Speaker 1: So now you've got all those people who are helping, right,
Speaker 1: and then on top of that everyone else who gets
Speaker 1: to be impacted. So for me, I recognize that if
Speaker 1: I lived in a world where I didn't connect spirituality
Speaker 1: in business or impact in business, then what would end
Speaker 1: up happening is I would have enough for me. But
Speaker 1: then I wouldn't be able to scale, grow, or make
Speaker 1: a difference in the world to the extent that I
Speaker 1: wanted to. And so I had to rewire my relationship
Speaker 1: with money because I grew up in a family where
Speaker 1: we always had enough. So I grew up plenty of
Speaker 1: days in my life, months, years, having zero dollars or
Speaker 1: zero pounds in my bank account like consistently, and I
Speaker 1: always had just enough. And when I started to realize
Speaker 1: that just enough is fine for you, but what about
Speaker 1: all the people you want to serve and create opportunities for,
Speaker 1: It's been fun figuring it out, and I'm still figuring
Speaker 1: it out and I think you have to be you know,
Speaker 1: careful with it. But you know, last year, this was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things. Last year, my wife and
Speaker 1: I read a statistic that you know, one person was
Speaker 1: I think dying from COVID every five minutes in India.
Speaker 1: It was it was pretty bad. And we decided to
Speaker 1: organize a fundraiser within twenty four to forty eight hours
Speaker 1: with all of our friends and community and you know
Speaker 1: amazing people that we had that supported it. And you know,
Speaker 1: we had like everyone, like you know, Sean Menders got
Speaker 1: involved and Ellen got involved, and then we led this
Speaker 1: online fundraiser and our audience deliver it and we've raised
Speaker 1: like across twenty four hours, literally twenty four to forty hours,
Speaker 1: we raised five million dollars. That event costs like fifty
Speaker 1: to sixty k to put on online production all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I was just thinking, like, we
Speaker 1: would never been able to do that, and I just
Speaker 1: felt so grateful. I mean, that was nothing. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, India had far more challenges than five million
Speaker 1: dollars could solve, but I just felt grateful that that
Speaker 1: made me feel like, this is what we were able
Speaker 1: to do because of everything else that existed. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this like notion of like money can actually do good.
Speaker 1: I think people are just like not as open to
Speaker 1: it right now, and that's fair. I think everyone has
Speaker 1: their own relationship with it. But I think some of
Speaker 1: the companies who have made the biggest differences, like a
Speaker 1: Patagonia for example, like they've done very well as a
Speaker 1: business to be able to give back more and more
Speaker 1: every year to make the planet a better place to
Speaker 1: live for everyone. And so I think it definitely is possible,
Speaker 1: and it seems like you're doing a great job of it.
Speaker 1: So Congress, Well, no, I think I'm trying, I'm learning,
Speaker 1: I'm growing, I'm trying to figure it out. And it's
Speaker 1: definitely my tension, like it's intention and action is there,
Speaker 1: Like it's what we believe and it's what we want
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, we worked. We've worked very closely with
Speaker 1: Pencils of Promise, which builds schools across the world right
Speaker 1: to provide education. And I've worked with them consistently over
Speaker 1: the last few years, and we've provided education for thousands
Speaker 1: of children across the world. Like stuff like that gets
Speaker 1: me so excited, and I'm like, yes, because of our
Speaker 1: platform because of our this is what we get to do, right,
Speaker 1: So it's almost like you have to do all these
Speaker 1: things that you have to do to get to do
Speaker 1: what you want to do. And I think we live
Speaker 1: in a world where we only want to do what
Speaker 1: we want to do, and often isn't that easy? Often?
Speaker 1: You like, you know, I interviewed Matt Damon recently on
Speaker 1: the podcast on my podcast on Purpose, and he's been
Speaker 1: directing all of his profile and energy and passion to
Speaker 1: providing clean water and access to water and sanitized water
Speaker 1: to people across the world. Like that's what he's directing.
Speaker 1: His brand is fame is popularity too, and I think
Speaker 1: it's incredible right to see that. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that I admire in this space. One more
Speaker 1: question I had going back to the ego thing. I
Speaker 1: know you said that was one of kind of the
Speaker 1: first principles that really drew you to the monk during
Speaker 1: that conversation. Obviously, you can't explain it in a short
Speaker 1: amount of time, and it takes a lot of work,
Speaker 1: But what are sort of the practices and the steps
Speaker 1: to really being able to work on quieting your ego
Speaker 1: and kind of diminishing that in a way to be
Speaker 1: more of service and live a life more for others,
Speaker 1: because I feel like that's a real struggle for me.
Speaker 1: And obviously it sounds very easy and peaceful to say,
Speaker 1: but in practice, what are some of the tangible steps
Speaker 1: that that actually looks like? Well, I think what I
Speaker 1: might say, or at least the step one might sound
Speaker 1: kind of counterintuitive, but ego is fed. The ego is
Speaker 1: fueled by validation and the chasing of validation and clout
Speaker 1: and external or people things making us feel good about ourselves, right,
Speaker 1: and to really the first step to taming the ego
Speaker 1: is self validation, is learning to validate the things you
Speaker 1: love about yourself, appreciate about yourself, acknowledging your own weaknesses,
Speaker 1: acknowledging things that you're working on. The antidote to ego
Speaker 1: is honesty, because the ego lives in a lie and
Speaker 1: an amplified version of self, whereas true living is in
Speaker 1: living an honest life of these are my weaknesses, these
Speaker 1: are my strengths, these are my flaws, these are my skills.
Speaker 1: And I think we're scared we actually think ego means
Speaker 1: I don't even think I have skills. I don't even
Speaker 1: think I have anything to offer, and that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: The truth is saying I do have these skills, and
Speaker 1: I also have these challenges. I do have these strengths,
Speaker 1: and I also have these weaknesses. That's how you start
Speaker 1: breaking down the ego, because what's really tricky about the
Speaker 1: ego is it can make you feel like the best
Speaker 1: of the best. It can make you feel like I'm
Speaker 1: the best in the world, and it can do the opposite.
Speaker 1: It can make you feel like you're the worst in
Speaker 1: the world. It's just inverted the ego and so and
Speaker 1: neither of those are true. You are not the best
Speaker 1: in the world, right me included all of us. And
Speaker 1: you're not the worst in the world either, because no
Speaker 1: one's the best of the worst. We're aldest humans with
Speaker 1: complex emotions, and so acknowledging and embracing your complexity and
Speaker 1: the juxtaposition of things that you end up becoming is
Speaker 1: the first step in order to purify your ego, because
Speaker 1: you're honestly embracing and accepting yourself. Yeah, my last question
Speaker 1: that Mason will ask the two questions we ask everyone.
Speaker 1: But if you know you said you know zero to ten,
Speaker 1: ten to twenty twenty to thirty thinking now back to
Speaker 1: your thirty year old self, like one bit of advice
Speaker 1: that you would give yourself if you could go back,
Speaker 1: what would it be if I could go back to
Speaker 1: what age to your thirty year old self? Okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm thirty four right now, So I guess not that
Speaker 1: more years. I guess that's not that much time. But
Speaker 1: still yeah, no, four years ago. I feel like, I
Speaker 1: think it's always been trust your inner voice, like, trust
Speaker 1: your intuition, you know, trust your gut. Don't get distracted
Speaker 1: by shiny things, new things, other people's opinions, expectations, obligations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just you know, trust, trust what you always wanted
Speaker 1: to do. It's always good advice. Pee, What would be
Speaker 1: your advice to your twenty year old self? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think it was pretty pretty dead on Jay
Speaker 1: when you said earlier, just like zero to ten, it's
Speaker 1: like more parents, ten to twenties, more friends. I think
Speaker 1: when I was twenty was when I was first starting
Speaker 1: to like begin to think for myself and less about friends.
Speaker 1: I always think like the first few years of high
Speaker 1: school and the first few years of college, I was
Speaker 1: still getting acclimated. So it was more just like doing
Speaker 1: things because like it made me fit in more. And
Speaker 1: I think towards the end of college just just starting
Speaker 1: to like branch out on my own more. And I've
Speaker 1: done more of that each year. So I would just
Speaker 1: again tell myself to like, don't be afraid to start
Speaker 1: that earlier. I think, like I thought I had to
Speaker 1: follow this path. I went into banking before we started
Speaker 1: this also, and a lot of that was just following
Speaker 1: a path instead of like understanding what I wanted to
Speaker 1: do for myself. And I think I understand that more
Speaker 1: and more each year now. So I feel good about
Speaker 1: that now at twenty eight, and hopefully I can keep
Speaker 1: that up. Good. All right, Jay, Our final two questions.
Speaker 1: The first is if you could nominate anyone to come
Speaker 1: on the Mad Happy podcast who's been a big inspiration
Speaker 1: for you or who you feel like has a really
Speaker 1: powerful mental health story or journey, whether you know them
Speaker 1: or not, who would it be. I think what Simone
Speaker 1: Viles did. I don't know her, but I thought what
Speaker 1: you did in sport last year was pretty credible, and
Speaker 1: Naomi Osaka as well, Both of them like for what
Speaker 1: they did in terms of sports and performance and mental
Speaker 1: health again, don't know either of them, but I think
Speaker 1: they would be totally. Yeah, definitely two two leaders in
Speaker 1: the space that are that are huge inspirations for us.
Speaker 1: And and finally, Jay, what makes you mad happy? I'm
Speaker 1: going to give an answer that hopefully it is less
Speaker 1: predictable football soccer. I'm a massive ninety United fan, playing soccer,
Speaker 1: playing FIFA, being on a soccer field, watching a game
Speaker 1: of soccer, like anything soccer related makes me mad happy.
Speaker 1: Did you catch that Madrid come back on the other day?
Speaker 1: I did, I did, highlight didn't what's the game that
Speaker 1: was inane? Yeah? I love those moments. I love those
Speaker 1: moments of comebacks on the Yeah. Yeah, you talk about
Speaker 1: an affect like being in that crowd. That's an affect
Speaker 1: right there, Kelly. That's mad happy for Jay. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. We really really appreciate you coming on. I
Speaker 1: know that our audience will love this one. We love
Speaker 1: it and thank you for everything you do. We listen
Speaker 1: to a lot of the podcast episode, so keep it
Speaker 1: all up and hopefully next time we'll do it in person. Definitely,
Speaker 1: I'd love to meet you both from person. Congrats on
Speaker 1: everything you're doing with the brand, and I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: to have been on. Thank you to your amazing community
Speaker 1: who's listened to today, and I really look forward to
Speaker 1: hanging out more man. Thank you so much to both
Speaker 1: of you, and congrats on everything you're doing. Thank you likewise,
Speaker 1: thank you everyone, Thanks guys, Thank you so much. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening to my conversation with the guys,
Speaker 1: are mad happy? I really hope you enjoyed it, And
Speaker 1: just thank you so much for all the reviews that
Speaker 1: are coming in. I hope you saw me posting a
Speaker 1: ton of them to my stories on Instagram. And if
Speaker 1: you don't already follow us on TikTok as well, make
Speaker 1: sure you do because we're posting a lot of great
Speaker 1: clips from the video episodes on TikTok. Thanks so much everyone,