Speaker 1: So when I had to disconnect from that. It's like
Speaker 1: how we say, oh, my marriage is my purpose, and
Speaker 1: then when you get divorced, you're like, oh, well, I
Speaker 1: don't have an identity anymore, or my job is my purpose.
Speaker 1: When you get kicked out of your job, you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have an identity anymore. That's what it felt like.
Speaker 1: It felt like a divorce or losing the job of
Speaker 1: my dreams, which actually led me to find my real purpose. Morning.
Speaker 1: Everybody is DJ Envy, Angela Yee, Charlomagne the guy. We
Speaker 1: are to Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
Speaker 1: the building, absolutely, Jay Shatty. Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to be here. Man. He's a very
Speaker 1: familiar voice. Because you got the number one health and
Speaker 1: wellness podcast, Spiritual mindfulness podcast on Purpose. I've had the
Speaker 1: pleasure of being a guest on it. You're a phenomenal guest.
Speaker 1: I loved the episode with Kobe Bryant. I loved the
Speaker 1: episode with Jada Pick. You got at a lot of
Speaker 1: great episodes. Yeah, it's I'm really grateful. We've got an
Speaker 1: amazing community. They keep showing up and we've had some
Speaker 1: phenomenal guests. I was just saying, you were one of
Speaker 1: our first guests and like the first three to six
Speaker 1: months of the show, and it's brand new, so I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful you did that. Then I really appreciate thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. And I've been hearing a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about meditation lately, and so you actually
Speaker 1: help guide people through how to meditate, right, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I spent three years living as a monk in
Speaker 1: India and across Europe, and so I was trained in
Speaker 1: how to meditate from monks who'd been practicing for decades,
Speaker 1: and they were practicing ancient meditation techniques for thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of years. And so when I was trained in
Speaker 1: that school, I felt this responsibility to want to share
Speaker 1: that with the world because it changed my life. And
Speaker 1: I'm just an average kid born and raised in London,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, if it can help me, then
Speaker 1: I'm sure it can help a lot of people. Would
Speaker 1: lead the young man want to be a monk. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I did not grow up wanting to be a monk.
Speaker 1: And if someone if someone told me that I was
Speaker 1: going to grow up and become a monk, I probably
Speaker 1: would have thrown a beer bottle at them that I
Speaker 1: would have been holding. But I was born and raised
Speaker 1: in London, and I would go in my teens to
Speaker 1: go and hear from people who'd gone from nothing to something.
Speaker 1: So I was fascinated by rags to riches stories. I'd
Speaker 1: go and hear CEO's entrepreneurs, athletes, celebrities. And this is
Speaker 1: before podcasts and YouTube, so you actually had to go
Speaker 1: to events. And so I'd go to these events. And
Speaker 1: once my friends told me that a monk was speaking,
Speaker 1: and I was skeptical. I was like, what am I
Speaker 1: going to learn from someone who's gone from nothing to nothing? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are they going to teach me? And
Speaker 1: so I said to my friends, I'd only go if
Speaker 1: we go to a bar afterwards. I was eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: and they were being very persuasive, so they agreed. So
Speaker 1: I end up at this event at my university waiting
Speaker 1: to hear this monk speak. I go there, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the clock, like just waiting to leave, and I
Speaker 1: was just mesmerized. And I don't mean that in like
Speaker 1: a spiritual experience, where I just mean like I was
Speaker 1: captivated by every word that he said and there was
Speaker 1: nothing externally attractive about him. He was wearing robes, he
Speaker 1: was from India, he wasn't connected to me in any
Speaker 1: other way. But he spoke about service, and he spoke
Speaker 1: about purpose, and he spoke about how serving others and
Speaker 1: helping others with your skills and your strengths is the
Speaker 1: greatest thing you can do. My eighteen year old self
Speaker 1: was just completely penetrated my heart and I was just like,
Speaker 1: that's what I want. And now when I look back,
Speaker 1: I realized that when I was eighteen, I'd met people
Speaker 1: who were rich. I've met people who were famous, and
Speaker 1: met people who are beautiful and strong, but I don't
Speaker 1: think i'd met anyone who is truly happy. And that
Speaker 1: day I felt like I met someone who was truly
Speaker 1: happy and that you just felt that energy in the
Speaker 1: space of being a monk. So the process is you
Speaker 1: wake up at four am every day, and what is
Speaker 1: a monk? Okay, but I don't so a monk is
Speaker 1: someone who dedicates themselves to a particular spiritual tradition and
Speaker 1: you genuinely practice celibacy during the time that you're a monk,
Speaker 1: But beyond that, you're waking up every day four am
Speaker 1: meditating for four to eight hours a day, So the
Speaker 1: morning meditation finishes about eight thirty, then you get some breakfast,
Speaker 1: then you do your daily chores, and then the rest
Speaker 1: of the day we were out serving. So we were
Speaker 1: serving food to the homeless, building sustainable villages, helping out
Speaker 1: in schools and this is all out in India, so
Speaker 1: a lot of the philanthropy work as well. So the
Speaker 1: morning was about self mastery and the afternoon was about
Speaker 1: serving others. And so that's kind of like the rough
Speaker 1: framework of what a day looks like. You know, you
Speaker 1: said you wanted to be a monk because it led
Speaker 1: you to public service. I feel like that's our true
Speaker 1: purpose in life, service to others. Yes, you can do
Speaker 1: that without being a monk. So what made you want
Speaker 1: to go full fledge and be a monk? Absolutely? And
Speaker 1: I think the truth is that I didn't see anyone
Speaker 1: living a life of service at that time who wasn't
Speaker 1: living from a spiritual place. It just wasn't as common.
Speaker 1: And now I feel so happy that this conversation is
Speaker 1: happening in the mainstream. But when I was eighteen, that's
Speaker 1: you know, roughly like sixteen seventeen years ago. That wasn't there.
Speaker 1: You didn't see that. You saw the Forbes Rich List,
Speaker 1: you saw that list. You didn't really see a service
Speaker 1: list or a purpose list. And I think that's changing.
Speaker 1: But it was also the idea that the self mastery
Speaker 1: part was you're actually going to work on purifying your ego.
Speaker 1: You're actually going to work on your own mind, so
Speaker 1: you're not just going to go out there and try
Speaker 1: and help other people, but you're actually going to deal
Speaker 1: with everything that's going on in here. And I think
Speaker 1: that attracted me that, Wow, I'm going to get X
Speaker 1: amount of time every day to figure out the mess
Speaker 1: that's in here? When am I ever going to get
Speaker 1: that time again? Like? Who's going to give you to
Speaker 1: do it? Like? You know, because if you want to
Speaker 1: be if you want to join the army, you can
Speaker 1: enlist in the army. If you want to be a
Speaker 1: police officer, you can fill out that application if you
Speaker 1: want to be there. So where do you go to
Speaker 1: be a monk? So there are lots of different monks schools,
Speaker 1: if I can use that word, across the world. There's Tibet,
Speaker 1: there's India, there's you know, there's multiple ones. And I've
Speaker 1: visited many of them. I think it's about finding. As always,
Speaker 1: it is a teacher, a guide that you connect with.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I speak about this gentleman Garangadas
Speaker 1: in my book. He was the monk that I felt
Speaker 1: an affection and affinity with, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: study in his school. And so when I was part
Speaker 1: of his institution two hours outside of Mumbai in India,
Speaker 1: in that space, they had they had a system what
Speaker 1: you have to practice, what you have to process why.
Speaker 1: So for example, a big part of it was, you know,
Speaker 1: practicing silence. And when you practice silence, people think, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds terrible, and it does for like seven days,
Speaker 1: and then after that you stop worrying about all the
Speaker 1: noise outside. You start hearing the noise inside, and then
Speaker 1: you go deeper and deeper and deeper. A part of
Speaker 1: it was practicing fasting, right, we were practicing fasting for
Speaker 1: since control and being able to master the tongue and
Speaker 1: master the desire to eat and talk. And so there's
Speaker 1: so many practices and methods that were set up, and
Speaker 1: service was a big part of it to help us
Speaker 1: actually grow as humans. And I really feel that those
Speaker 1: three years a monk school have massively impacted how I
Speaker 1: lived that life now and I left nine years ago,
Speaker 1: so it's been a fair amount of time. Once you're
Speaker 1: out of school, what was the first thing you did? Like?
Speaker 1: What do you how do you apply for positions? What
Speaker 1: did you do after three years? After three years as
Speaker 1: being a monk? So I thought I was going to
Speaker 1: do it for the rest of my life, and after
Speaker 1: three years it almost felt like a failure, Like I
Speaker 1: felt like I messed up because all of that self
Speaker 1: awareness led me to the feeling that I wasn't meant
Speaker 1: to be a monk, that I wasn't actually qualified to
Speaker 1: live the life of a monk. I realized that monk
Speaker 1: life required a certain sense of letting go of the
Speaker 1: rebellious nature that I had inside of me, and also
Speaker 1: that this calling and desire I had in my heart
Speaker 1: to want to share this wisdom and message in a
Speaker 1: certain way. I always when I learned about all these
Speaker 1: ancient teachings and scriptures, I was like, how cool would
Speaker 1: it be if we could share that in a modern, relevant,
Speaker 1: practical way for the people that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: who maybe wouldn't do this, who wouldn't go as far
Speaker 1: as I did, and So when I shared that with
Speaker 1: the monks, they said, you know, they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we agree that we think you might be
Speaker 1: able to help people more if you left. I think
Speaker 1: they were like saying, yeah, it's cool, leave get out
Speaker 1: of it. But they encouraged it, and for me moving
Speaker 1: on as was actually really difficult. So when I left,
Speaker 1: the first thing I did was come back start listening
Speaker 1: to Drake. Yeah, I did that first thing. Ate a
Speaker 1: lot of chalk that I had any and for three
Speaker 1: years I went back into all my old bad habits
Speaker 1: for the first month that I was back, and moved
Speaker 1: back with my parents twenty six years old, because I
Speaker 1: felt like I'd failed and I was losing this life
Speaker 1: I'd committed to in Yeah, I was in debt twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars in debt eighteen thousand pounds. School no no,
Speaker 1: no no no from my university days, like going to college.
Speaker 1: I've gone to college before. Yeah, what did your parents
Speaker 1: think about you going to monk school and then coming
Speaker 1: back home? So when I first told them, my mom
Speaker 1: was like, where did we go wrong? Right? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what do we do wrong? And luckily my you know,
Speaker 1: my parents are very forward thinking and they supported me
Speaker 1: because they could see my heart was in it. And
Speaker 1: I can't really you know, I can't really blame them.
Speaker 1: They did a great job and they were really, really supportive.
Speaker 1: But my extended family was like, you're never going to
Speaker 1: get a job again. You've been brainwashed, You're never going
Speaker 1: to make money again, You're never going to be you know,
Speaker 1: all that noise from society basically saying you've just committed
Speaker 1: career suicide, and what are you going to do when
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out? So when it didn't work out,
Speaker 1: I almost like I had made what they were saying true,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of came with a lot of
Speaker 1: pain and a lot of stress and pressure thinking all
Speaker 1: these people were right and maybe I was wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: it's only interesting, man, it's I mean, it's you became
Speaker 1: a monk because you felt like it gave you a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose, Yes, But then as you were being
Speaker 1: a monk, you felt like you might have been suppressing
Speaker 1: your purpose. You felt like something it was bigger out there.
Speaker 1: So that's got to be psychologically. That's a great observation.
Speaker 1: That is a great You phrased it way better than
Speaker 1: I did. That is a great observation, and that's a
Speaker 1: psychological mind mess because you're like, wait, this is And
Speaker 1: that's when I realized that your purpose is not what
Speaker 1: you wear, where you live, what you think everyone thinks
Speaker 1: of you. Because to some degree, I'd become attached to
Speaker 1: living as a monk and that becoming my purpose. So
Speaker 1: when I had to disconnect from that, It's like how
Speaker 1: we say, oh, my marriage is my purpose, and then
Speaker 1: when you get divorced, you're like, oh, well, I don't
Speaker 1: have an identity anymore, or my job is my purpose.
Speaker 1: When you get kicked out of your job, you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have an identity anymore. That's what it felt like.
Speaker 1: It felt like a divorce or losing the job of
Speaker 1: my dreams, which actually led me to find my real purpose,
Speaker 1: which is what I get to do today. So when
Speaker 1: did you get out of that depression that you were in.
Speaker 1: I think it took and it was like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even accept the word. I was in massive denial, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't even want to say the word to myself
Speaker 1: because I was so scared that if I said it
Speaker 1: that that would make it worse. Yeah. Yeah, at the time,
Speaker 1: And then I realized I was thinking. I think I
Speaker 1: was in that space for about ten months. Wow, And
Speaker 1: it was I came back out and I was trying
Speaker 1: to practice all the principles I learned as a monk again.
Speaker 1: And that's when I realized that I'd actually been trained
Speaker 1: in all the principles I needed to get out of
Speaker 1: this space, but I was ignoring them and avoiding them
Speaker 1: and going back to my old habits. So I started
Speaker 1: waking up again, meditating every day again, reading the scripture again,
Speaker 1: studying again, working hard again, putting in those same routines
Speaker 1: that I had as a monk. And that's when I
Speaker 1: started to feel like I was getting out of it again.
Speaker 1: And what was the voice that you heard? I told
Speaker 1: you this is what you should do. Is it the
Speaker 1: direction you should go in? I feel like I had
Speaker 1: it even when I was there where it was just like,
Speaker 1: there are people who will never ever think And this
Speaker 1: is why I love what you all do and what
Speaker 1: you've done with your work, is there are people that
Speaker 1: will never ever think about their mental health, their mental
Speaker 1: world being about the word meditation or mindfulness because it
Speaker 1: wasn't part of their upbringing. It wasn't a word that
Speaker 1: they heard, same as me, and if I can help
Speaker 1: make that accessible and relevant and practical and simple for
Speaker 1: that person, then my life's going to feel like a success.
Speaker 1: And so I just started to share it with everyone.
Speaker 1: So now I came back. My friends were all working,
Speaker 1: they were making money, they were buying homes, they had
Speaker 1: nice cars, maybe they were in a relationship, but a
Speaker 1: lot of them were stressed. They were working in big
Speaker 1: city jobs, but they were burnt out. And so they
Speaker 1: started coming to me for advice. And this is back
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and they were saying, which
Speaker 1: you learned about mindfulness and meditation, can you help us
Speaker 1: with our stress? And so very naturally I started working
Speaker 1: with people inside big corporate organizations because that was my background,
Speaker 1: and so now I was seeing that impact on these people.
Speaker 1: And so I was speaking at companies, working with people,
Speaker 1: coaching people. And then finally I took a corporate job
Speaker 1: back to understand what the setup was like. And my
Speaker 1: executive that was my lead, she discovered that I learned meditation,
Speaker 1: so she put me on in front of all my
Speaker 1: peers to teach meditation to a thousand people at our
Speaker 1: company event. This is before any of my online work
Speaker 1: and I'm stressing out because I'm no one. They're like,
Speaker 1: this is one of our guys, where he's our peer.
Speaker 1: What are we going to learn from him? And it
Speaker 1: was just a beautiful experience where everyone appreciated it, and
Speaker 1: so I got to see how this work could be
Speaker 1: practical with people from all different backgrounds and walks of life.
Speaker 1: Meditation is a game change. Could you tell people just
Speaker 1: some of the benefits of meditation, Yeah, I mean meditation
Speaker 1: as a ton of benefits. Some of my favorites are that,
Speaker 1: of course, it boosts your mood, boost your immune system.
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting parts about meditation that people
Speaker 1: don't obviously realize is our life is completely infiltrated by dopamine. Right,
Speaker 1: whether it's our phones, whether it's money, whether it's purchases,
Speaker 1: whether it's instant buying. Dopamine is that constantly being released.
Speaker 1: A meditation helps us balance because it creates serotonin and oxytocin.
Speaker 1: So those are the three chemicals that your brain needs
Speaker 1: to balance, and meditation is one of the key things
Speaker 1: that actually brings about the other two. It helps with
Speaker 1: making sure that your brain's in sync. It makes sure
Speaker 1: that you sleep better. I mean meditation benefits go on
Speaker 1: and on and on of course with anxiety, stress and pressure.
Speaker 1: But to me, that balancing of the chemicals we need
Speaker 1: is it's probably one of the most powerful. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to like find that stillness and that
Speaker 1: that silence, you know, on your own. I tried it
Speaker 1: for years and couldn't grasp the concept until like like
Speaker 1: December of twenty twenty. But you helped with the Calm
Speaker 1: at Yeah. So I literally just two days ago we
Speaker 1: launched the Daily Jay only on Calm and it's a
Speaker 1: daily meditation for seven minutes that I truly believe is
Speaker 1: going to be a meditation that each and every person
Speaker 1: on the planet can tune into and start their practice.
Speaker 1: And the goal of it was to make it as
Speaker 1: simple so that you can actually practice it while you're
Speaker 1: folding your laundry, while you're doing your dishes, while you're
Speaker 1: making your bed. The goal was, how can we bring
Speaker 1: meditation into people's lives rather than saying, take out time
Speaker 1: out of your day to do this. And so we
Speaker 1: build this program and it's exciting. I'm really excited that
Speaker 1: it's out there. So, what are some things we should
Speaker 1: know about breathing when it comes to meditation, you know what.
Speaker 1: I was just speaking to Chris at security and he
Speaker 1: came up to me and he was saying how when
Speaker 1: he was in the Army they learned box breathing, and
Speaker 1: I was saying, that's fascinating, as I learned that when
Speaker 1: I was a monk, and so what I loved was
Speaker 1: that in both senses. He was saying that actually to
Speaker 1: fire a gun, they had to learn how to breathe.
Speaker 1: And you do think about breath that way. And so
Speaker 1: when I hear someone like him, a military man telling
Speaker 1: me that, I love hearing that because it helps us understand.
Speaker 1: Athletes have to learn how to breathe. Musicians, singers all
Speaker 1: have to learn how to breathe. And so the importance
Speaker 1: of breath came to me when on my first day
Speaker 1: when I went to learn to be a monk, I
Speaker 1: saw a ten year old monk teaching like five to
Speaker 1: six year old monks. And India, they start really young
Speaker 1: and they look adorable. Right, You've got these little monks
Speaker 1: being taught by his ten year old monk, and I'm
Speaker 1: watching them, and when he finishes the class, I was
Speaker 1: like fascinating. I was like, what did you teach them
Speaker 1: and he said, I taught them how to breathe. I
Speaker 1: was like, what do you mean. He was like, that's
Speaker 1: their first day of school. He said, what did you
Speaker 1: learn in London? And I was like, I learned the
Speaker 1: ABC's one two threes. And I was like, why do
Speaker 1: you teach him how to breathe? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: what's the one thing that stays with you from the
Speaker 1: moment you're born to the moment you die. He's like
Speaker 1: your breath. And he said, when you're happy, what changes
Speaker 1: your breath? When you're sad or you're crying, what changes
Speaker 1: your breath. Every single emotion in your life is connected
Speaker 1: to your breath. So if you learn how to navigate
Speaker 1: your breath, you know how to navigate life. Bear in
Speaker 1: mind is a ten year old and I'm just blown away, thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm learning less since from a ten year old. This
Speaker 1: is beautiful. And so the power of our breath is
Speaker 1: that it really is. If you see yourself when you're nervous,
Speaker 1: your breath gets shallower, it gets faster, and if you
Speaker 1: know that that's all that's happening, and you can slow
Speaker 1: it down, then you can change how you feel in
Speaker 1: the moment. Just through your breath. I wonder with COVID
Speaker 1: because a lot of that affected a lot of people
Speaker 1: and they're breathing who contracted it. So have you seen
Speaker 1: things like with people talking to you about that when
Speaker 1: it comes to some of the effects of COVID. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's been really interesting to hear. I've had
Speaker 1: so many people talk to me about long COVID or
Speaker 1: them having breath challenges or breathing challenges after COVID, and
Speaker 1: I see those people practicing breathwork. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: been enough time to see whether it can help that.
Speaker 1: I believe it will, but I don't want to claim
Speaker 1: anything because I haven't There hasn't been enough studies. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen it for long enough. But breathwork is something
Speaker 1: we all need. I think we all have days. Even
Speaker 1: our language, right, we say things like I'm out of breath,
Speaker 1: let me take a breath, like you take my breath away,
Speaker 1: like these are all breath related, whether it's positive or negative.
Speaker 1: So I do believe that whatever challenges we have in life,
Speaker 1: learning to breathe is probably the best skill we can learn.
Speaker 1: What is meditation? Right, And the reason I'm asking is
Speaker 1: like Charlemagne said, it took him a while to get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for people out there, what is getting meditation? What
Speaker 1: should they be feeling? What should they be seeing? What
Speaker 1: should they be doing? What should they you know, should
Speaker 1: they be sitting in the corner, should they be you know,
Speaker 1: criss cross apple cross apple sauce. So they have their
Speaker 1: hands up like, what is it? Yes, so no, it's
Speaker 1: a great question. It's a great question. I think it's
Speaker 1: so important. I think the first thing I'd like to
Speaker 1: say is that meditation is making time to spend with yourself,
Speaker 1: as simple as that. Right. You make time to check
Speaker 1: him with your friends, your family, your partners, your kids.
Speaker 1: When was the last time you checked him with yourself.
Speaker 1: Some people to say I meditate when I drive because
Speaker 1: I'm just driving, And that's a great example as they
Speaker 1: go off no phone, And that's a great example. And
Speaker 1: I actually agree with you. I love thinking about life
Speaker 1: when I'm driving and talking to myself and figuring things out.
Speaker 1: That is a form of meditation. That is a big
Speaker 1: getting step towards meditation. Now, when you start getting into
Speaker 1: meditation as a tool, it goes beyond that because now
Speaker 1: you're bringing your awareness to three different types of things
Speaker 1: in the way I was trained. So you have breathwork,
Speaker 1: which we just talked about. When you're focusing on your breath,
Speaker 1: you're learning to navigate your emotions. Second one is visualization.
Speaker 1: A lot of athletes use this before big games. Lewis
Speaker 1: Hamilton I've heard used it before he's driving a car.
Speaker 1: Soccer stars use it before they take a free kick.
Speaker 1: Where you're visualizing what's happening in your life or what
Speaker 1: you're about to do. What it does is it prepares
Speaker 1: your body, It prepares the mind, right, So visualization is
Speaker 1: a way of meditation. And the third one is mantra
Speaker 1: or sound. So we all know, I mean you're in
Speaker 1: the heart of music. We all know that music can
Speaker 1: make you feel different things. Music can make you feel
Speaker 1: like you want to beat someone up, and music can
Speaker 1: make you feel calm. Sounds and mantra really are defined
Speaker 1: to help you have sounds that bring peace and calm
Speaker 1: to the mind and body. So those are three different
Speaker 1: types of meditation. Doesn't matter where you're sitting, It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how you're sitting, It doesn't matter whether you're wearing
Speaker 1: a yoga suit or on a yoga mat. That really
Speaker 1: isn't the point. The point is are you taking time
Speaker 1: to build that practice in that habit. Yeah, mantra slew
Speaker 1: my good sister, deVie Brown mantra and the beach is
Speaker 1: what got me to able meditation. So I count my
Speaker 1: bees and I do my mantra, and it's just like
Speaker 1: that's what got me. Like, oh okay, you I mean
Speaker 1: you just know, like you know when you when you,
Speaker 1: when you when you when you come to and you're like,
Speaker 1: where was That's how it feels like. You're like just
Speaker 1: like you went into a sleep while you're sitting up,
Speaker 1: like you just like like everything just went still for
Speaker 1: a moment, like nothing is on your mind. You just
Speaker 1: hear yourself repeating your mantra over and over and over,
Speaker 1: and it's just like I call it like a sinking
Speaker 1: feeling almost. Yah, I feel like you're just sinking, sinking, sinking,
Speaker 1: And I always jump before I go too deep. That's
Speaker 1: that's what makes me come back. Yeah, imagine imagine you
Speaker 1: actually felt like you are where your feet are, Like,
Speaker 1: imagine you actually felt like that that we right now,
Speaker 1: if we've all put our feet on the ground, you
Speaker 1: actually felt like and what Charlomagne's saying about sinking. If
Speaker 1: I actually felt like I was actually here? How many
Speaker 1: times during this conversation, while I've been talking and we've
Speaker 1: been thinking about what have I got for lunch later on?
Speaker 1: Or what am I doing later on? Or who am
Speaker 1: I meeting? Or what's this going? What if I was
Speaker 1: actually here? How much could I actually have an impact
Speaker 1: on the people around me? How much could I actually
Speaker 1: feel people's energy? How much power and strength would I
Speaker 1: have if I was actually where my feet are? Which
Speaker 1: is a common phrase and statement that's used in meditation language.
Speaker 1: If like, be where your feet are, if we were
Speaker 1: actually here, just how powerful would that be? And that's
Speaker 1: what you feel. You actually feel like, I am happy
Speaker 1: to be here. I am only here because think about it.
Speaker 1: When you wake up in the morning, how many times
Speaker 1: have you ever woken up and your mind is ahead
Speaker 1: of your body. Your body's like I don't want to
Speaker 1: go anywhere, and your mind's like racing trying to do
Speaker 1: a million things, or you experienced the opposite. You wake
Speaker 1: up and your mind is like, oh, come on, I
Speaker 1: can't do this, but your body's like, come on, we
Speaker 1: gotta go, we gotta go. So what we're experiencing at
Speaker 1: all times is our body and mind are completely out
Speaker 1: of sync, completely out of sink. They're never in the
Speaker 1: same place. So meditation, and it's simplest form, is saying, well,
Speaker 1: let's start here, let's bring them back into sync. Let's
Speaker 1: start with them being aligned, and imagine how powerful we
Speaker 1: could do. But if it's somewhere you don't want to
Speaker 1: be because I know you talk about how people are
Speaker 1: really stressed at work, yes, and so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are like, I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 1: How does meditation help with that? So that feeling of
Speaker 1: I can't take this anymore can often create more stress
Speaker 1: and pressure than we actually think. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is, let's say you're at work, but you're
Speaker 1: thinking about vacation. Then when you're on vacation, you're going
Speaker 1: to be thinking about work because you've trained your mind
Speaker 1: to not be present. And that's why even when we're
Speaker 1: with our kids or our family or the people we love,
Speaker 1: we're stressing about other stuff because we've trained ourselves to
Speaker 1: not be where we are. And so what I would
Speaker 1: say in that situation, of course, it's different for people
Speaker 1: with different jobs, and I work with healthcare professionals and nurses,
Speaker 1: and I work with people who I believe have some
Speaker 1: of the most difficult jobs on the planet. There was
Speaker 1: an incredible reset study that was done by Yale where
Speaker 1: they tried to discover what they believed was the most
Speaker 1: difficult job in the world, and they discovered that it
Speaker 1: was hospital nurses and sorry, hardened, that was hospital cleaners. Sorry,
Speaker 1: hospital cleaners. Hospital cleaners had the most difficult Definitely not rappers.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe maybe I don't know, you know better
Speaker 1: than me, but hospital cleaners had the most difficult job
Speaker 1: in the world because they clean up toilets, bathrooms, plates, beds,
Speaker 1: they clean up after people pass away. So they yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So they went and interviewed hospital cleaners, and some of
Speaker 1: the hospital cleaners described their job like that. They said
Speaker 1: it was toff, it was hard, it was dirty, they filthy,
Speaker 1: and they said, we're cleaners, that's all. We are low
Speaker 1: skilled labor in their own words. And then they interviewed
Speaker 1: another set of cleaners, and when they asked themselves to
Speaker 1: describe themselves in one word, they said, healers. These cleaners
Speaker 1: worked in the same jobs as the other cleaners, but
Speaker 1: some sort themselves as cleaners and some sort themselves as healers,
Speaker 1: and when they ask them why, the cleaners said, we
Speaker 1: believe that we create a clean environment where patients can
Speaker 1: feel better. We know that if we create a beautiful room,
Speaker 1: their family will want to spend time with them. We
Speaker 1: see ourselves as integral to their healing journey. They did
Speaker 1: the same job, they clean the same toilets, but they
Speaker 1: saw it differently. They said a different intention. And Wayne
Speaker 1: Dyer said that when you change the way you look
Speaker 1: at things, things you look at change. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: rest in peace, Wen Dyer, And that beautiful principle is
Speaker 1: exemplified by these cleaners. No one better than them to
Speaker 1: teach us how to be. So you know, they could
Speaker 1: be sitting there going I don't want to be here,
Speaker 1: but they're going, well, actually, even this job helps me
Speaker 1: impact someone's life. And I think that's the part that
Speaker 1: if we look beyond our laptops, our screens, our phones,
Speaker 1: and we look up and we go, how does my
Speaker 1: job actually help someone's life? That's what helps us find
Speaker 1: some meaning in that job. I feel like we skipped
Speaker 1: a step right. Yeah, you went from being a monk
Speaker 1: sir for a monk for three years. You couldn't find
Speaker 1: a job. He said, you got rejected about forty different
Speaker 1: forty companies. Yeah, at what point did the On Purpose
Speaker 1: podcast start? Between that? In So I left being a
Speaker 1: monk in twenty thirteen. I started in twenty ten On
Speaker 1: Purpose lawns in twenty nineteen, okay, so six years later,
Speaker 1: and my online video content started in twenty sixteen. So
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, after I'd been sharing meditation and mindfulness
Speaker 1: with corporations, coaching people behind the scenes and never made
Speaker 1: any content, I just felt that I was sitting in
Speaker 1: a lot of boardrooms, which was fantastic, but I felt
Speaker 1: this message had to get further than the boardroom, and
Speaker 1: at the time, I was thinking how do I do this?
Speaker 1: And so I was applying to media companies that I
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, if these guys give me a job,
Speaker 1: then I can make content about mindfulness and meditation. And
Speaker 1: I was rejected from three media companies. I remember chasing
Speaker 1: an exact on his bike in London and you're too
Speaker 1: old that I guess it was the president or CEO
Speaker 1: asked you to do that, correct, So that's when you
Speaker 1: felt like that what was your calling? Yeah? Because I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I'm being asked to do this. It's working,
Speaker 1: but it needs to reach more people, and it needs
Speaker 1: to reach more people without just their organization being involved.
Speaker 1: What if it could read the person on this street right,
Speaker 1: how do you get to that person? And so I
Speaker 1: thought media is the way. And so I was applying
Speaker 1: to all these media jobs, but everyone kept telling me
Speaker 1: you're not you're too you're too old. I was twenty
Speaker 1: eight years old. The're like, you're too old. Everyone's twenty
Speaker 1: one who wants this job. They were like, you don't
Speaker 1: have any background in media, You've never been in communications.
Speaker 1: And so I ended up at a TV training day
Speaker 1: run by the BBC in London in Pinewood Studios and
Speaker 1: it was run for ethnic minorities. So they were just
Speaker 1: six brown and black people in that room and I'm
Speaker 1: one of them, and they tell me, Jay, you're good,
Speaker 1: like you're engaging, you can present well. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: give me a job, like I just want to shot.
Speaker 1: And they're like, Jay, there's no jobs in media. And
Speaker 1: so I'm like, come on, you brought me all the
Speaker 1: way here, like, you know, six brown and black people
Speaker 1: to tell us there's no jobs in media. What was
Speaker 1: what was the point of this? And They're like, well,
Speaker 1: you should start a YouTube channel. And in my head,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, yeah, that works for Justin Bieber. That's not
Speaker 1: going to work for me, you know. And I'm having
Speaker 1: that limiting a boy. I was about thank you, maybe not,
Speaker 1: maybe not yeah, and that uh and literally it was
Speaker 1: like I was like, maybe that worked for Justin Bieber,
Speaker 1: like that's and I had that limiting belief. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's not going to work for me. But literally, there's
Speaker 1: a beautiful statement by Thomas Edison. He said, when you
Speaker 1: believe you've exhausted all options, remember this you haven't. And
Speaker 1: that's how I felt. I felt I had exhausted all
Speaker 1: options and the only option I had left was YouTube
Speaker 1: if I really cared about this, So I made a
Speaker 1: video and I kept making videos every week and they're
Speaker 1: doing okay, they're getting like a thousand views or something
Speaker 1: like that. And in three months, Arianna Huffington saw my
Speaker 1: videos from the huffing In Post and so she really
Speaker 1: connected with them, and they said, hey, j look, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna pay you anything, We're not gonna do anything.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take your videos. We're gonna put them on
Speaker 1: the huffing In Post. Page because we like your content.
Speaker 1: What do you think. I'm like, great, let's get them
Speaker 1: out there right, Like, that's what this is about. Smart
Speaker 1: you recognized the opportunity when it wasn't a paycheck at Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was no pay check attacks nobody they put it out.
Speaker 1: The first video did a million views in a week,
Speaker 1: the second video did a million views in twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and those three or four videos I made for them
Speaker 1: did like a hundred million views across that year. Wow.
Speaker 1: And literally it just changed everything because now the message
Speaker 1: was reaching people. And then I sent her right hand
Speaker 1: man who's a good friend of mine now, Danny Say.
Speaker 1: He was the one who'd come out to make this
Speaker 1: contact happen. I messaged him every day saying, when are
Speaker 1: you giving me a job? When he gave me a job,
Speaker 1: when are you giving me a job? Finally, after thirty days,
Speaker 1: he sent me a visa, sent me a job off
Speaker 1: for a move to New York City in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: September to work at the HUF Post as a senior
Speaker 1: hosting producer. That lasted around six months. I mean, the
Speaker 1: way you're speaking is great because it's not even about
Speaker 1: the meditation of what you're speaking, it's just about a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't have their drive. You were told
Speaker 1: no a thousands of turns, but still did it. You know,
Speaker 1: you did something that you had no idea about YouTube.
Speaker 1: Then when they came with a situation most people now
Speaker 1: I would be like, well, how much am I getting paid? Now?
Speaker 1: You want to use my contact? How much? And he
Speaker 1: was like, nah, I understand what this could be and congratulately.
Speaker 1: I love I love stories like that. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for highlighting that. I really appreciate the way you're
Speaker 1: looking at it over time, like yeah, come up here
Speaker 1: and be like how much I'm getting paid? But I'm
Speaker 1: not doing this because I ain't get no money if
Speaker 1: the test. But something's ain't about the money. We came
Speaker 1: from a place where we both worked for a long
Speaker 1: terms about the opportunity. Yeah we knew hopefully, well we
Speaker 1: didn't even know. We did it for love. I did
Speaker 1: it for love, saying for love, and it just grew
Speaker 1: into what it grew into. So I really respect and
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Thank you for highlighting that, because I think
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, we get lost in, especially when people
Speaker 1: talk to me, we get lost in like the meditation
Speaker 1: and the mindfulness and it's like that is my heart
Speaker 1: of what I want to share. But the way I've
Speaker 1: got there has not been normal or easy or you know,
Speaker 1: it's but that's been the most fun part about it.
Speaker 1: Like I think I always wanted to serve. My whole
Speaker 1: goal was how can this reach more people? And when
Speaker 1: half Post or anyone came with that opportunity, and thankfully
Speaker 1: after six months, I built in myself. So I went
Speaker 1: off built my own channels twenty nineteen and we launched
Speaker 1: on purpose and in the beginning we can book anyone again.
Speaker 1: So by the way, I'll tell you when we launched
Speaker 1: the podcast, everyone said this to me, and this is
Speaker 1: why what you're saying has helped me go in this direction.
Speaker 1: When I wanted to launch a podcast, we had like
Speaker 1: billions of views on Facebook and YouTube, millions of views
Speaker 1: on YouTube, billions on Facebook. I had a video that
Speaker 1: did three hundred ninety seven million views on Facebook, something
Speaker 1: ridiculous like that. And I wanted to launch a podcast,
Speaker 1: and everyone said to me, Jay, you're interesting for four
Speaker 1: minutes and a four minute YouTube and Facebook video, no
Speaker 1: one wants to listen to you for over four minutes.
Speaker 1: That was the feedback cover. So I was meeting all
Speaker 1: the podcast companies. We had one podcast company that was
Speaker 1: about to sign me, and I thought it was all done.
Speaker 1: I went away for Christmas. I came back two weeks after.
Speaker 1: They had a new exec, a big podcast company. He
Speaker 1: came in and he goes, JA, I don't think this
Speaker 1: can be a big show. And so they pulled out
Speaker 1: two weeks before it launched, and I'd already invested all
Speaker 1: this money recording the episodes, videoing it. We've been traveling
Speaker 1: to get guests, and I was interviewing friends or people
Speaker 1: that I knew at the time, and we couldn't book
Speaker 1: anyone either. I remember I was getting rejected left ran center.
Speaker 1: That's what when you said yes, I was so grateful
Speaker 1: we couldn't book anyone at the time. And now when
Speaker 1: I see what's happened, I'm like, I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: that company pulled out. I'm so grateful to them. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm so blessed that they pulled out because I got
Speaker 1: to do it my way, on my own, and I
Speaker 1: got to build it on my Who was your first
Speaker 1: big guest? My first big guest was Russell Brand, who
Speaker 1: I've known for a long time. We have the same
Speaker 1: meditation teacher. We've been friends in London for a while.
Speaker 1: So Russell Brown was my first big guest. My first
Speaker 1: ever guest was my wife was my first episode. Well
Speaker 1: she was your first big guest. Yeah, that was my
Speaker 1: first yeah, oh yeah, thank you. Yeah I messed it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I messed that up. Yeah, my wife was my first
Speaker 1: big Yeah. Russell Brown was my first well known guest.
Speaker 1: Novak Djokovic tennis player who I've known for a while
Speaker 1: as well. He was one of my first big guests.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, since then, it's just been a
Speaker 1: joy to sit down with people that ryan. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: till this day, and I'm not just saying it because
Speaker 1: of what happened, and I don't I wish I didn't
Speaker 1: even have to say that, but I do because I
Speaker 1: think people try and make things a certain way. But
Speaker 1: I have never felt someone more present and grounded in
Speaker 1: his feet apart from monks, than Kobe Bryant. Like when
Speaker 1: I spoke to him, I choose there was so much
Speaker 1: gravity around him, and when he spoke his voice as well,
Speaker 1: it had so much presence. And that was two three
Speaker 1: months before the tragic event. How did you speak to him?
Speaker 1: How did that connection happen? So his team had reached
Speaker 1: out and they said, Jay, we want Kobe to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone who isn't only obsessed with basketball.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, I liked basketball, but I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up like soccer is my first sport, right football.
Speaker 1: I'm from England, that's that's my thing for you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah forever. Yeah, that's why to translate for because then
Speaker 1: my British friends make fun of me for saying soccer,
Speaker 1: so I've got to you know, but yeah, Christiano Ronaldo, like,
Speaker 1: that's that's my goat, right, That's the person I go to.
Speaker 1: But obviously I have so much respect for Kobe. Obviously
Speaker 1: I love I love basketball, genuine enjoy watching it. And
Speaker 1: so they said, but we want someone who talks to
Speaker 1: him about storytelling about him, about his heart, about meditation,
Speaker 1: about the stuff that he doesn't get to talk about
Speaker 1: because every time he goes to an interview, people just
Speaker 1: to ask him basketball questions. What would he like to
Speaker 1: play in that game? What was it like to learn
Speaker 1: from this? So they they've reached out to him, and
Speaker 1: I said, this is a dream, like I feel honored,
Speaker 1: and so we did that. That's how the podcast came about.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know him or I didn't have
Speaker 1: a relationship with him, but in that short time that
Speaker 1: we spent together, he walked into the room and he
Speaker 1: came around to my whole team and he introduced him
Speaker 1: Kobe Kobe like to my video, and you know, everyone's
Speaker 1: geeking out because everyone knows who he is. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to explain. But he was so respectful, so wonderful
Speaker 1: with the whole team. They'll never forget that experience. And
Speaker 1: you know, you're Will Smith and Jada Pinker Smith, You're
Speaker 1: very Yeah. So Will and Jada are super close friends.
Speaker 1: Consider them family that you know, beautiful people who've given
Speaker 1: me and my wife family in LA. To be quite honest,
Speaker 1: like we feel kind of adopted by them. I've been
Speaker 1: able to celebrate Thanksgiving with them many times. That all
Speaker 1: happened because I was asked by Facebook to host the
Speaker 1: launch of Red Table Talk season two, and that's where
Speaker 1: I got to meet Jada, Willow and Cammy and I
Speaker 1: got to interview them, and Jada and I had this
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation backstage. I don't think i've ever talked
Speaker 1: about this before, but we were talking and she was
Speaker 1: asking me curious questions. She said to me, what did
Speaker 1: you learn as a monk? Like that's what you asked me,
Speaker 1: kind of like you did. And I was telling her like,
Speaker 1: I learned, you know, meditation this scan and I could
Speaker 1: see that she you know, she was she was intrigued
Speaker 1: and curious, and something inspired me to go a bit deeper,
Speaker 1: and I said, I learned how to talk to God,
Speaker 1: like we learned how to pray to God. And when
Speaker 1: I said that to her, she said, I want to
Speaker 1: learn how to do that, like I would love to
Speaker 1: learn how to do that. And that's where our relationship began.
Speaker 1: It began from both of us having this enthusiasm, and
Speaker 1: then I got to understand, like they both have been
Speaker 1: studying world religions every year of their marriage together. They're
Speaker 1: deeply thoughtful, intelligent human beings, and so that relationship has
Speaker 1: just been one of the greatest gifts and blessings of
Speaker 1: my life. And it all started from a God centered
Speaker 1: intention place. Again, like, none of this started from you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting when people see pictures or
Speaker 1: see things they think, oh, yeah, that's just like it's
Speaker 1: a famous connection or it's this, and I'm like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I'd say nine nine percent of my relationships have started
Speaker 1: from a god meditation, spiritual place, because that's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to put out in the world. I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you when people meditate? Right back to meditation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how long should somebody meditate? I really believe that it's
Speaker 1: about starting with the amount of time that you can
Speaker 1: And I said seven minutes for the daily jay because
Speaker 1: most of our daily activities take around seven minutes, like
Speaker 1: I said, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, making our bed.
Speaker 1: I think five to ten minutes is a healthy amount
Speaker 1: of time to start with. But hey, if you can
Speaker 1: start with sixty seconds, start with that. It's like being
Speaker 1: on the treadmill. It's like saying, how long can you
Speaker 1: be on the treadmill for now? Tom Brady can be
Speaker 1: on the treadmill for a lot longer than I can.
Speaker 1: But he's been practicing for a lot longer than I can.
Speaker 1: And so it's like if he gets on the treadmill,
Speaker 1: if you can do one minute today, do one minute today,
Speaker 1: but commit to one minute for one month. Next month,
Speaker 1: commit to five minutes for one month, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: the point. And so I would say we started the
Speaker 1: daily jet seven minutes because I think it's a sweet
Speaker 1: spot that's doable. That's that's actually some of my favorite
Speaker 1: time to do it, Like right when I get off
Speaker 1: the elliptical machine, you know what I mean. And you
Speaker 1: know sometimes you just sit down, because you like when
Speaker 1: you just sit down and you just turn off the
Speaker 1: music and just I count my beads right there because
Speaker 1: you're catching your breath as well, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: it just really helps you to me right after you
Speaker 1: right after you work out. I love that you brought
Speaker 1: up the beads because that's how we were training as
Speaker 1: monks too, beads. And the reason was because all your
Speaker 1: senses have to be engaged. So when you when your
Speaker 1: hands are engaged, your mouth is engaged because you're saying
Speaker 1: the montra, your ears are engaged because you're hearing the mantra.
Speaker 1: And so when all of your senses are engaged, you're
Speaker 1: actually present. And so if you want to be present anywhere,
Speaker 1: if you engage all your senses, you're more likely to
Speaker 1: actually be there. And that's why the beads work like magic.
Speaker 1: At you did you ever do any therapy. I have
Speaker 1: seen therapists, I've worked with coaches. I've never done consistent therapy,
Speaker 1: but I'm a huge proponent and fan of it. I've
Speaker 1: seen it help my clients. So I'm a coach. I
Speaker 1: work with clients, and all of my clients have a
Speaker 1: therapist as well. And I always believe it's two people
Speaker 1: you need in your life. So I really believe that
Speaker 1: therapy helps you untangle your past and coaching helps you
Speaker 1: build your future. And so I really believed in both
Speaker 1: of those in our lives. And so yeah, I've seen therapists.
Speaker 1: I've had phenomenal conversations with them. I've seen them spot
Speaker 1: patterns for me and others in their lives too. And
Speaker 1: I know you've I mean we talked about this when
Speaker 1: you came on the show so much. Yeah, big fan
Speaker 1: of therapy. Therapy is the gateway drug to me, yea
Speaker 1: to me, I mean some people. We had an Nay
Speaker 1: chapter up here, and he started his healing journey through meditation. Yes,
Speaker 1: I started mind through therapy and then got into you
Speaker 1: know everything else. You know, what thing I like about you,
Speaker 1: Jay is that you never seem to scare away from
Speaker 1: your purpose like as big as your name gets, as
Speaker 1: big as your profile gets, it's always about what your
Speaker 1: purpose is. Like you're here to help people heal, and
Speaker 1: you never scare away from that. That's very kind, man.
Speaker 1: I think I think that says a lot about you
Speaker 1: more than me, because you notice that, And I think
Speaker 1: because you notice that, that says a lot about you. Genuinely.
Speaker 1: I mean that because not everyone's going to see that,
Speaker 1: And that's partly what I've understood on this journey is
Speaker 1: that you're the only person who's going to know your intention.
Speaker 1: People outside, not everyone's going to know your intention. And
Speaker 1: that's okay because as long as you know what your
Speaker 1: intention is, that's what you're living for. And when you die,
Speaker 1: you're gonna die knowing I did it for that reason,
Speaker 1: and as long as you're cool with that, I think
Speaker 1: that's That's been the biggest lesson with everything changing. I
Speaker 1: think when I started, I really believe that everyone would
Speaker 1: see that I was trying to help and I was
Speaker 1: trying to serve. And as things grow, I realized not
Speaker 1: everyone's going to feel that way, and that's okay because
Speaker 1: the only person has to feel that way is me
Speaker 1: and the people that know and love me deeply and
Speaker 1: the people that I speak to and see every week,
Speaker 1: and hearing it from you is I'm full of gratitude
Speaker 1: hearing it from you. It means the world. Honestly, what
Speaker 1: is the balance with social media? Because clearly the digital
Speaker 1: world has helped, yeah, what you do tremendously, but also
Speaker 1: the digital world is impacts our mental health in a
Speaker 1: very very very negative way. So what's the balance? You
Speaker 1: know what? It's so challenging because if technology didn't exist
Speaker 1: and it wasn't going to keep growing, it would be
Speaker 1: easy for us to say, look, let's live a technology
Speaker 1: free life. Let's all just meditate, focus, be present. But
Speaker 1: the truth is technology is already accelerating, and to sit
Speaker 1: here and work against it, I think it's too late.
Speaker 1: It's already moving too fast and it's gone too far.
Speaker 1: So my take is, how can we be in those
Speaker 1: places and give people alternatives to what they do on
Speaker 1: that technology. That's all you can do, right, You can
Speaker 1: give people a choice, and I think with the work
Speaker 1: you do, with the work I'm trying to do with
Speaker 1: what you all do here, is giving people a choice
Speaker 1: of what else can you listen to? So the fact
Speaker 1: that someone can listen to on purpose instead of watching
Speaker 1: something or hearing something that may not be great for
Speaker 1: their mindset. That's all I can do is give people
Speaker 1: a choice. And so to me, I use social media
Speaker 1: as a creator and as a sharer. I consume it
Speaker 1: only to see what my friends are up to and
Speaker 1: support them. I don't really use it for anything else
Speaker 1: other than that, So I limit my time on social media,
Speaker 1: especially in the morning in the evening. I've been avoiding
Speaker 1: looking at my phone in the morning first thing for years,
Speaker 1: because I think that's your most precious time. You get
Speaker 1: to set your day up in that thirty seconds you're awake.
Speaker 1: And if you let in the news, the notifications, the negativity,
Speaker 1: the noise, you're drowning already and now you're trying to swim.
Speaker 1: You're letting somebody else at your intention. Yeah, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: you're drowning. You're already at the bottom of the ladder again.
Speaker 1: But if you can start that. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: as a creator, I have to recognize it's a tool,
Speaker 1: it's a platform. I have to use it wisely to
Speaker 1: help give people a choice. But yeah, if you know,
Speaker 1: if people don't want to use it, when when I
Speaker 1: hear people are not on social media and they don't
Speaker 1: want to use it. I'm like, that's great, you know,
Speaker 1: power to you. What are some what are some everyday
Speaker 1: practices you think people can use to improve their mental health,
Speaker 1: Like it's regular everyday things. Yeah, paying for therapy or
Speaker 1: any like everyday thing. Yeah. So I would say there's
Speaker 1: there's five habits and they're rule free and so. And
Speaker 1: it comes in the form I like to put things
Speaker 1: in memorable ways. So it comes in the form of
Speaker 1: an acronym called times. T I M E S so
Speaker 1: T is thankfulness. I am so addicted to thankfulness and gratitude.
Speaker 1: And even though I am I realized very recently I
Speaker 1: just told you this whole story, right, I told you
Speaker 1: the whole story of everything that happened. Recently, I realized
Speaker 1: that I forgot the person who got me my first
Speaker 1: job after being a monk, after those forty rejections, and
Speaker 1: I realized I've never talked about him because he's not
Speaker 1: well known. No one would know his name. His name
Speaker 1: is Ravi Khan. No one knows that, no one knows him.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I was struggling to find a job,
Speaker 1: I realized he went to the same university as me,
Speaker 1: and so my message them and said, hey, man, i've
Speaker 1: been out there work for a while three years, monk, etc.
Speaker 1: Like can you help me get a job? And he
Speaker 1: gave me the introduction to the company that I went
Speaker 1: to work for. And I realized very recently that I
Speaker 1: say gratitude all the time and thankfulness, but I forgot
Speaker 1: him because he's not a big he's not a big
Speaker 1: part of my journey, which is not true. He's a
Speaker 1: massive part of my journey. So I sent him a
Speaker 1: message recently just to thank him, and to me, that
Speaker 1: was such an important thing because I was like, how
Speaker 1: many people do we forget that the in between people
Speaker 1: so thankfulness And the way you do this is for
Speaker 1: the next seven days, text, voice note, email message one
Speaker 1: person every day. It takes thirty seconds. But here's the
Speaker 1: way to make thankfulness work. It has to be specific
Speaker 1: and it has to be personalized. If Charlemagne a second
Speaker 1: ago just said to me, Jay, I think it's really cool, right.
Speaker 1: If that's all he said to me, that's quite generic
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't know what to do with that. And
Speaker 1: he may have just said that after cuff, but when
Speaker 1: he actually said like, Jay, I really appreciate you stick
Speaker 1: to your purpose despite all that was so specific that
Speaker 1: it really touched my heart. And so if you're going
Speaker 1: to share gratitude with someone, has to be specific, has
Speaker 1: to be personalized. Can't you just say, oh, you're a
Speaker 1: great person Like that doesn't help. Second thing I is
Speaker 1: for inspiration. Start your day with the thought that inspires you.
Speaker 1: It could be a quote next to your bed for me.
Speaker 1: At one point, I listened to Steve Jobs's Stanford commencement
Speaker 1: speech every day for nine months. There's nine months. I
Speaker 1: was depressed. Nineteen months. I listened to it every day,
Speaker 1: and I promise you that speech will change your life.
Speaker 1: I just interviewed Matthew McConaughey on the podcast. I told
Speaker 1: him for thirty days, I listened to his Oscar speech
Speaker 1: every day when he won the Oscar for Dallas Bye Club.
Speaker 1: It's five minutes long that speech. Listen to it every
Speaker 1: day for thirty days. It was so powerful free. That's
Speaker 1: when he said that line that everybody says. Kevin Hart said, well,
Speaker 1: the line, oh, I can't remember right now. It's it's
Speaker 1: the one where he talks about like he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: inspired by the person I want to be like, it's
Speaker 1: it's yeah, and so that was beautiful and then so
Speaker 1: those are free inspiration. So read a quote, put a
Speaker 1: little prayer in next to your bed in the morning,
Speaker 1: on a post it note that wake up to that
Speaker 1: third one M meditation. We talked about a lot. The
Speaker 1: daily J seven minutes E is for exercise. We have
Speaker 1: to move. We have to have to move. It can
Speaker 1: be ten thousand steps, it can be a virtual workout,
Speaker 1: can be a dance party. Have to move in some way.
Speaker 1: We have to sweat every day. And S is for sleep.
Speaker 1: I just feel that if we did these five things
Speaker 1: and especially sleep out all of them. I choose sleep.
Speaker 1: If you can just do one thing is solve your sleep.
Speaker 1: If we can just sleep well, and the best way
Speaker 1: to do it is the human growth hormone HGH is
Speaker 1: most active between ten pm and midnight, the hours before midnight.
Speaker 1: So the more hours we sleep before midnight, the more
Speaker 1: quality our sleep. So if you sleep six hours after
Speaker 1: midnight twelve to six, it's different if you slept ten
Speaker 1: to four. And that's what you want to move to
Speaker 1: is try and get a couple of hours in before
Speaker 1: midnight will change your life. So tims, thankfulness, inspiration, meditation, exercise, sleep, Jay,
Speaker 1: we appreciate. I was going to ask, but I mean,
Speaker 1: after speaking to you, realize what it is. I was
Speaker 1: going to ask. When you first got here, I was like, wow.
Speaker 1: You know sometimes when we have a preacher or reverend
Speaker 1: him here, we say, okay, can you give us a prayer?
Speaker 1: Or we have a funny until the best we say,
Speaker 1: you know, give the people some advice. Or I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you can we meditate, but we really
Speaker 1: can't because we need more seven. I mean it will
Speaker 1: be deadier for seven minutes. Oh we can do it
Speaker 1: for less and seven we can do it. Hey, yeah
Speaker 1: we can. How long do you give me your time limit?
Speaker 1: And then I'll stick to that. Thirty seconds? Thirty seconds
Speaker 1: a minute, Let's do a minute. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do a minute. Okay, let's do it. And everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening can join in as well. So what I
Speaker 1: want to get through thirty seconds were good? Okay? So
Speaker 1: what do I want ever want to do is just
Speaker 1: take a moment to look around wherever they are. So
Speaker 1: keep your eyes open and I want you to just
Speaker 1: notice five things in this space. Choose five things in
Speaker 1: your environment and bring your awareness to them. The colors,
Speaker 1: the textures, the fonts, whatever it may be. Just five things,
Speaker 1: and when you found them, close your eyes. Taking a
Speaker 1: deep breath. Now, what are four things that you can
Speaker 1: touch and just be present with it. It It could be
Speaker 1: your jacket, the chair you're sitting on, your own hands.
Speaker 1: Four things that you can touch. No, it's the difference
Speaker 1: in the coolness and the texture. Taking another deep breath.
Speaker 1: What are three things that you can hear there? Maybe
Speaker 1: some white noise, the sound of my voice, maybe even
Speaker 1: a voice in the back of your head. Three things
Speaker 1: you can hear, Just observe and be present, don't fight them.
Speaker 1: Just bring your awareness back to your breath. Breathe in.
Speaker 1: What are two things you can smell? Maybe the beautiful
Speaker 1: sage that we have here in the studio of the Palasanta.
Speaker 1: Maybe a fragrance it diffuses some food. Taking a deep breath,
Speaker 1: and what's one thing you can taste? And be water? Breakfast. Now,
Speaker 1: in a moment, when you gently and softly, in your
Speaker 1: own time, at your own pace, you open your eyes,
Speaker 1: you'll experience full presence. Can open your eyes, all right,
Speaker 1: you know, man, I love to sound a white noise.
Speaker 1: I love the things you see behind your eyelids. And
Speaker 1: I've been stressing to I Heeart that we need a
Speaker 1: mindfulness minute on all radio stations, like we need whether
Speaker 1: it's J could be Jay, it could be Debbie Brown.
Speaker 1: We need a mindful this minute, like a few times
Speaker 1: throughout the day, especially during like the ten am the
Speaker 1: two pm slot when it's mid days and people at work.
Speaker 1: Every now and then, you just got to take a break,
Speaker 1: like we got to do exactly what we did just now.
Speaker 1: So when we call you, J, answer the thank you
Speaker 1: for the opportunity. Thank you guys, Thank you. Someone go
Speaker 1: get Ja Schetty's book, Think like a monk Um, subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Um on Purpose podcast with Jay Chetty, and
Speaker 1: check out the appcom one of my favorite people to
Speaker 1: just follow and continue to be a great leader, Jack,
Speaker 1: Thank you man, Thank you so so grateful than Jetty,
Speaker 1: It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,