Speaker 1: We don't realize how much we're not experiencing in life.
Speaker 1: Like if you grew up in where I grew up,
Speaker 1: North London, it's a very specific bubble, and then if
Speaker 1: you grew up in England, it's a very specific bubble.
Speaker 1: And then if you grow up in the United States
Speaker 1: and New York, LA, it's a bubble. And the challenge
Speaker 1: with the bubble is that you never really understand if
Speaker 1: there's something out there that could change your experience of life.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be
Speaker 1: adding a really special offering onto the back of my
Speaker 1: solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily
Speaker 1: series on Calm and it's meant to inspire you while
Speaker 1: outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress
Speaker 1: free life. We dive into a range of topics and
Speaker 1: the best part is each episode is only seven minutes long,
Speaker 1: so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter
Speaker 1: how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the
Speaker 1: on Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for
Speaker 1: you this year, so I'll be playing a hand picked
Speaker 1: Daily j during each of my Friday podcasts.
Speaker 2: This week.
Speaker 1: We're talking about your habits and how to develop better
Speaker 1: daily routines. Of course, if you want to listen to
Speaker 1: the Daily Jay every day, you can subscribe to Calm,
Speaker 1: So go to Calm dot com forward slash j for
Speaker 1: forty percent of your membership.
Speaker 2: Today, Jay, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Ronan.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I was looking forward to being with you in person
Speaker 1: after having met you in La. But this is great man,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Hey, no worries at all. I always like to give
Speaker 2: a bit of perspective to people listening or watching. So
Speaker 2: I'm currently in the UK and in my garden in
Speaker 2: my brand new podcast studio. Okay, we've got a California
Speaker 2: esque day at the moment in the UK. It's nice
Speaker 2: and sunny with a cool bruise. So maybe you could
Speaker 2: share where you're chatting from. What's going on? How's your
Speaker 2: morning been so far?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, I'm actually in La, but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: exactly the same place. It's a beautiful California day, La day.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the sky's are blue, you know, the birds
Speaker 1: are tweeting away, So yeah, it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 2: Oh fantastic. Well, good bit of perspective for everyone. And
Speaker 2: you know, we met face to face when I came
Speaker 2: on your podcast, I don't know about a year ago
Speaker 2: something like that, and I'll be wanting to talk to
Speaker 2: you for a long time because the content you put
Speaker 2: out on the Internet is really transformative and has changed
Speaker 2: the lives of so many people. And you know, I
Speaker 2: was intrigued as to what I was going to get
Speaker 2: when your book turned up, because I thought, well, this
Speaker 2: guy's videos are incredible and they help us sort of
Speaker 2: reframe our perspective on life. But I've got it here
Speaker 2: in front of me, and I left you I think
Speaker 2: of what's that message a couple of weeks ago, because frankly,
Speaker 2: I was so impressed. It's such a wonderful book. It's
Speaker 2: full of insight, It's full of practical knowledge and wisdom
Speaker 2: that I think is going to help a wide variety
Speaker 2: of different people. Now what I'm looking at it in
Speaker 2: front of me, it's called think like a Monk, Train
Speaker 2: your mind for peace and purpose every day, And I
Speaker 2: think that subtitle really grabs my attention because it starts
Speaker 2: with train your mind. Now, I think most people in
Speaker 2: society are familiar with the concept that we can train
Speaker 2: our bodies right, so we know if we want to
Speaker 2: get stronger, we can go to the gym, we can
Speaker 2: lift weight, we want to get faster, build endurance, we
Speaker 2: can go running. But I'm not sure that people commonly
Speaker 2: think that their minds can be trained. I wonder if
Speaker 2: you would agree with that, and I wonder if you
Speaker 2: could expand as to why you think all of us
Speaker 2: have the ability to train our minds wrong.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right. I think you are spot
Speaker 1: on when you say that you don't believe that we
Speaker 1: all know the fact that we can train our minds.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons for that is growing up
Speaker 1: in England. Obviously, I was born and raised in London.
Speaker 1: We had pe everyone went to physical education class, we
Speaker 1: were encouraged to play sports, but there was no class
Speaker 1: for the mind. You never went to mind class. You
Speaker 1: never went to mind a school. And even when we
Speaker 1: grew up, there was no class for the mind. Even
Speaker 1: when we learned about biology, it was very much about
Speaker 1: cells and plants. And I feel as humans, we've developed
Speaker 1: such a fascination for the outer world, but we haven't
Speaker 1: developed so much of a focus on our inner space.
Speaker 1: And I think there's such a need there in what
Speaker 1: you're encouraging us to do as well, and what the
Speaker 1: book's trying to help people do is recognize that each
Speaker 1: and every single one of us need to and can
Speaker 1: train our mind. So one of my favorite examples is,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to learn how to play basketball, you'd
Speaker 1: probably want to learn from Michael Jordan, someone who's dedicated
Speaker 1: their life to the craft. If you wanted to learn
Speaker 1: how to drive a Formula one car, you go to
Speaker 1: Lewis Hamilton, because I mean, he's undisputed the best in
Speaker 1: the world of all time. If you wanted to learn
Speaker 1: how to play tennis, you'd probably go to Federer or
Speaker 1: Nadal or Djokovic, right, there's so many great players and
Speaker 1: names and athletes, or maybe you go to Serena Williams.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to learn about business, you'd go to
Speaker 1: the founder of Bumble. There are so many incredible entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: athletes in the world who are experts in what they do.
Speaker 1: But when you think about it and you say, well,
Speaker 1: I want to learn about the mind, and not just
Speaker 1: learn about the mind, but work with people who focused
Speaker 1: on mastering the mind, the true answer is that that's monks.
Speaker 1: Monks have dedicated their life to mastering the mind, to
Speaker 1: the point that studies on monk's brains show the highest
Speaker 1: form of gamma waves, which are linked to happiness, attention focus.
Speaker 1: When they scan monk's brains, they find the ability to
Speaker 1: flip focus from one thing to another like the flip
Speaker 1: of a switch. Now, most of us can experience that
Speaker 1: we don't have that ability, and so when we go
Speaker 1: to learn from monks, we realize through my journey, through
Speaker 1: other people's journey who have learned these principles and practices,
Speaker 1: that this is up for anyone and everyone, whether they
Speaker 1: live in a small village in the countryside or whether
Speaker 1: they live in a big city. Anyone can think like
Speaker 1: a monk.
Speaker 2: That's an important topic I think to really delve into
Speaker 2: because I'm sure a lot of people listening to this,
Speaker 2: watching it right now, will be thinking, Hey, good for you, mate,
Speaker 2: you went off to be a monk. You went to India,
Speaker 2: and we'll explore your story there for sure. But I'm busy.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got my kids to take care. If
Speaker 2: I'm holding down two jobs, you know, I don't have
Speaker 2: time to think like a monk. And so if somebody
Speaker 2: is skeptical and it's thinking that at the moment, what
Speaker 2: would you say to them?
Speaker 1: First of all, I'd say, if that's how you feel,
Speaker 1: then you are completely entitled to your opinion, and I
Speaker 1: respect it. I I genuine have no desire to want
Speaker 1: to convince anyone to try a new thing out or
Speaker 1: a new method that they have very little time for
Speaker 1: or don't fill the space for. But even if there's
Speaker 1: a glimpse of an opening in your mind, even if
Speaker 1: there's a tiny little bit of curiosity where you're like,
Speaker 1: I know I don't have time, but I think there
Speaker 1: could be something in this, well, then this is what
Speaker 1: I say to you. I'd say that we will continue
Speaker 1: to create the life that we currently have with the
Speaker 1: current set of thoughts, wisdom, beliefs and ideas that we have.
Speaker 1: And if we're happy on that part, if you could
Speaker 1: fast forward your life in ten twenty thirty years time
Speaker 1: and you'd be satisfied with getting the life that you
Speaker 1: have right now, then that's great. But if, like the
Speaker 1: majority of people that I know and that I speak
Speaker 1: to and that I connect with online, the majority of
Speaker 1: us would look and go, no, I really want to
Speaker 1: change life. I want to be with my kids, but
Speaker 1: I want to change how I am with them. I
Speaker 1: want to be at work, but I want to be
Speaker 1: more preyer at work. I want to improve the quality
Speaker 1: of my life. Then I'd say that it's so important
Speaker 1: that we learn and open up our minds to alternative thoughts.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. There was this great study
Speaker 1: that MIT did on people's minds, openness, and their ability
Speaker 1: to be creative and innovative. And they looked at two
Speaker 1: types of people. One person was surrounded by people who
Speaker 1: all knew the same people, right, kind of like our
Speaker 1: normal lives, and the other person was surrounded by lots
Speaker 1: of people who didn't know each other. And they did
Speaker 1: the study around who is more creative, more innovative, and
Speaker 1: has a bigger impact in the workplace, in their professional life,
Speaker 1: and then a little bit into their personal life as well.
Speaker 1: And what they found was that those people who knew
Speaker 1: people who knew each other who knew them back, lived
Speaker 1: in what was known as echo chambers. They were rarely
Speaker 1: exposed to ideas that improved their way of living or
Speaker 1: their professional performance. But people who are exposed to ideas
Speaker 1: that had no connection with other people in their life
Speaker 1: were able to be more creative, have better ideas, have
Speaker 1: more purpose, have more meaning in life. So often we've
Speaker 1: become closed in our little spaces around what we hear,
Speaker 1: what we know about, and we're not exposed to this
Speaker 1: new sense of ideas. And that's what I would encourage
Speaker 1: is just approach it with a tiny bit of curiosity.
Speaker 1: That's all you need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so beautifully put, and I absolutely whole heartedly agree
Speaker 2: with that support that I think. I think the tools
Speaker 2: in your book, frankly, will help anyone. There's tools in
Speaker 2: there that are going to help me. There's tools in
Speaker 2: there that will help someone in a different role, a
Speaker 2: different state of life. Because I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of universal themes there and I really want to explore
Speaker 2: and talk about some practical things throughout this conversation, Jay,
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm interested that many people have a
Speaker 2: crisis in their life from time to time. It might
Speaker 2: be a I don't know, midlife crisis, it's a quarter
Speaker 2: life crisis. And you know, they may go away for
Speaker 2: a weekend, they may go and buy a new car.
Speaker 2: But you had a form of crisis and you went
Speaker 2: off to be a monk in India, right, So I'd
Speaker 2: love to understand what happened there, you know what led
Speaker 2: you to that, because I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it. It's extreme, but it's going all
Speaker 2: in right, and it's fantastic because I don't think until
Speaker 2: I met you, I don't think I've ever met a
Speaker 2: monk before. So you know, maybe you could expand on
Speaker 2: what happened there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I was going to say something wrong
Speaker 1: with it from your earlier question of you know, the
Speaker 1: real premise, or the real foundation of this book is
Speaker 1: that you don't need to live like a monk to
Speaker 1: think like a monk. What I've done is I've taken
Speaker 1: the lessons and the principles and all the teachings that
Speaker 1: I had and made them really relevant and practical for
Speaker 1: modern life. So you don't have to go and do
Speaker 1: the journey that I did in order to learn some
Speaker 1: of these. Now, my journey was definitely from a place
Speaker 1: of curiosity, and it started off not with a sense
Speaker 1: of pain or stress or pressure in my personal life
Speaker 1: because I was fairly young at the time, and of
Speaker 1: course I'd been exposed to the different things you do
Speaker 1: growing up in a family and normal challenges growing up.
Speaker 1: But really, what it was for me is I was
Speaker 1: surrounded by a lot of friends that were older than me,
Speaker 1: and my friends were sometimes two years older, some of
Speaker 1: them were five years older. Some of them were getting married,
Speaker 1: some of them had great jobs, some of them were
Speaker 1: making good money. And it's really interesting that they were
Speaker 1: really honest with me, and they would open up and
Speaker 1: say to me, Jay, you know what, I've got this
Speaker 1: perfect partner, I've got this perfect job, I've got this
Speaker 1: perfect situation, but I'm still not happy. And I'd be
Speaker 1: sitting there as a young teenager, going how can you
Speaker 1: not be happy? I mean, you know, you've got a
Speaker 1: beautiful partner, you're making good money, you drive a nice car,
Speaker 1: you have a nice home. How is it that you're
Speaker 1: not satisfied? And it was so interesting to me to
Speaker 1: be exposed to a group of people that I thought
Speaker 1: had it all but felt like they didn't have anything.
Speaker 1: And then when I was invited to hear a monk's speak,
Speaker 1: and I was fascinated at the time by hearing CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes.
Speaker 1: My two first books that I ever read were David
Speaker 1: Beckham's autobiography and Dwayne the Rock johnson autobiography. When he
Speaker 1: was still in the WWF and the WWE, and I
Speaker 1: was fascinated by rags to riches stories and people who
Speaker 1: went from nothing to something. And then I was invited
Speaker 1: to hear a monk speak, and I genuinely had this
Speaker 1: complete dismissive demeanor about what monks could teach me. And
Speaker 1: my approach was, well, what am I going to learn
Speaker 1: from a monk? How to sit still? What is a
Speaker 1: monk even achieved? And so when I went to hear
Speaker 1: this monk speak, I went there with no expectations. But
Speaker 1: the amazing thing is that I found that someone who
Speaker 1: had nothing actually had everything. He had contentment, he had satisfaction,
Speaker 1: he exuded it, and when he spoke, he spoke with
Speaker 1: such compassion and empathy. And I thought, I've never heard
Speaker 1: any of my friends speak like this. I've never experienced
Speaker 1: someone have this. And now, when I reflect back, I
Speaker 1: realized very clearly that when I was eighteen, I'd met
Speaker 1: people who are rich. I'd met people who are beautiful
Speaker 1: and stunning and attractive. I'd met people who were famous
Speaker 1: and successful. I'd met people who are really smart and intellectual,
Speaker 1: But I don't think i'd ever met anyone who is
Speaker 1: truly happy and even if you reflect in your own life,
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening or watching right now, just think about
Speaker 1: it for a moment. Who in your life would you
Speaker 1: genuinely say you believe is content and happy and joyful.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you probably count them on your hand. And
Speaker 1: for me, that Monk was the first person that I
Speaker 1: met that really exuded that, and I wanted to learn more.
Speaker 1: So for me, it wasn't about being in a major
Speaker 1: life crisis. It wasn't about things not working out. It
Speaker 1: was from the perspective of learning through the challenges of
Speaker 1: my friends, who were thankfully so honest with me, that
Speaker 1: helped me question what I thought life was all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for sharing that, Jade, because you know,
Speaker 2: as you as you sort of describe that, I think
Speaker 2: many of us, I know I have throughout my life
Speaker 2: looked at various paramises of success. You know, when when
Speaker 2: you're a kid growing up, you know what, You're surrounded
Speaker 2: by influencers, so much of what you think is possible
Speaker 2: in the world. And I've you know, I've said this
Speaker 2: before and as a as a sort of fellow Indian,
Speaker 2: sort of the child of an Indian immigrant family in
Speaker 2: the UK. You know, you know the certain pressures and
Speaker 2: the certain expectations that often come with that. And you know,
Speaker 2: if I'm honest, I've often reflected back on this, and
Speaker 2: I say it to people, you know, because being a
Speaker 2: doctor is deemed and you know, by society as a
Speaker 2: successful career choice. But I say to people, you know, what,
Speaker 2: are you so lucky? You say this? And I am lucky,
Speaker 2: But really I was influenced by my childhood. I was
Speaker 2: influenced by my upbringing because all my parents' friends were doctors.
Speaker 2: So all the adults I knew pretty much growing up
Speaker 2: apart from my school teachers, were doctors. So therefore it
Speaker 2: was an you know, for me, it was a natural
Speaker 2: progression to then become a doctor. But I will tell
Speaker 2: you this, as I become more in tune with what
Speaker 2: makes people happy, with what makes me happy. Honestly, if
Speaker 2: I look around in the medical profession, I see a
Speaker 2: lot of unhappy people. I see a lot of people
Speaker 2: doing what they thought they should do, what society has
Speaker 2: told them is going to make them happy, what their
Speaker 2: parents had told them is going to make them happy,
Speaker 2: and they're doing it. And they may be making reasonable money.
Speaker 2: And as you say, have the house and have the car,
Speaker 2: but often underneath that that's a feeling of discontentments. And
Speaker 2: you know, I've been realizing this in my probably thirties,
Speaker 2: late thirties. But you, I guess, would you in some
Speaker 2: ways to experience it. I think you're in your teens, right.
Speaker 2: I was eighteen years old when I first had that interaction.
Speaker 2: I just explained, yeah, because I mean, I wonder if
Speaker 2: you sort of think back, and that is clearly a
Speaker 2: significant fork in the road for you, because had do
Speaker 2: you ever think back what would have happened had I
Speaker 2: not gone to that talk.
Speaker 1: I have thought about that a lot, and I think
Speaker 1: we should. I think we should reflect on life like that.
Speaker 1: It really makes you grateful. And I always look back
Speaker 1: at that day is a very humbling day, because you know,
Speaker 1: I went there with my egotistic, arrogant, eighteen year old
Speaker 1: nature of what am I going to learn from this guy?
Speaker 1: And then obviously that becomes the best decision of my life,
Speaker 1: And so life's humbling in that way, right, Like I
Speaker 1: don't look back that geta and go oh, I made
Speaker 1: the best decision and I'm such an amazing person. I
Speaker 1: look back and go wow, I was so so arrogant
Speaker 1: and did not realize how much I could learn from
Speaker 1: this individual. And it's almost like this ironic moment. But
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time. I think, if
Speaker 1: I didn't go that day, or I didn't meet monks,
Speaker 1: or I didn't meet people who were trying to live
Speaker 1: on a higher frequency or a high vibration, I believe
Speaker 1: that I would have ended up chasing all the normal
Speaker 1: things that I was chasing in terms of stability security.
Speaker 1: I probably would have had a comfortable job and done
Speaker 1: just okay, and you know, life would have been fine.
Speaker 1: But I really feel that the life I get to
Speaker 1: live today, which is a life of service and purpose
Speaker 1: and meaning, is what I would have missed out on.
Speaker 1: And there are so many times in my life where
Speaker 1: I wonder what life would have been like, and I'm
Speaker 1: just grateful that I met the right people at the
Speaker 1: right time. And this is really what this book is about.
Speaker 1: That the reason why I called it Think like a Monk,
Speaker 1: and the reason why I've gone into the depth around
Speaker 1: the wisdom and the practices that I have is we
Speaker 1: don't realize how much we're not experiencing in life. Like
Speaker 1: you said, we all grew up in this bubble. Like
Speaker 1: if you grew up in where I grew up, North London,
Speaker 1: it's a very specific bubble. And then if you grew
Speaker 1: up in England, it's a very specific bubble. And then
Speaker 1: you grew up in the United States and New York
Speaker 1: at LA it's a bubble. And we live in these bubbles.
Speaker 1: And the challenge with the bubble is that you never
Speaker 1: really understand if there's something out there that could change
Speaker 1: your experience of life. And for me, it's so random
Speaker 1: to have met a monk at eighteen. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you've never you know, experienced or met a monk before.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a monk anymore, so you still haven't
Speaker 1: met a monk. We have to find wrung in someone
Speaker 1: for you and me. But you know, it's that point
Speaker 1: of just what is it in the world that we
Speaker 1: haven't experienced that could expand our mind and take us
Speaker 1: on a different journey. And I think that's the goal
Speaker 1: is you may not need a monk in your life,
Speaker 1: but who or what or which idea or is it
Speaker 1: in your life that you haven't yet let in?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what you speak to there is
Speaker 2: the importance of staying curious and keeping somewhat of an
Speaker 2: open mind. And I think that is something that we
Speaker 2: see across society now that I think it's becoming incredibly problematic,
Speaker 2: where people are stuck in their little silos and you know,
Speaker 2: they don't look beyond that. They're very quick to judge
Speaker 2: other people who have a different view. They're very quick
Speaker 2: to sort of shut people down unless it fits with
Speaker 2: their narrative. And I think, really what I'm hearing from
Speaker 2: you is staying curious, staying open minded, looking listening to
Speaker 2: other people's ideas. It's like you said at the start, right,
Speaker 2: You're not trying to persuade anyone's to do anything, but
Speaker 2: if you're a bit curious, maybe there's an idea that
Speaker 2: someone's going to hear throughout this conversation that just sparks
Speaker 2: something for them, very much like I guess you had
Speaker 2: when you were eighteen. Uh Jay. I think one of
Speaker 2: the first times I came across you was a few
Speaker 2: years back. I heard you on an interview, so I
Speaker 2: can't remember what the interview was, but I remember being
Speaker 2: really impacted by what you said and think of who
Speaker 2: is this guy? I mean, this is pretty incredible what
Speaker 2: I heard and it was It wasn't one of your
Speaker 2: videos that you were talking a lot about. I think identity,
Speaker 2: and I think it was something about it really got
Speaker 2: me thinking about what is my identity? I guess I
Speaker 2: was on a journey then anyway, since I lost my
Speaker 2: father about what's seven years ago now, I think that
Speaker 2: was the one of the significant moments in my life
Speaker 2: that got me to start questioning everything, thinking about, well,
Speaker 2: who am I? You know, am I living my life
Speaker 2: or am I living somebody else's life? I think you
Speaker 2: expressed it so beautifully. But then when I read your book,
Speaker 2: I think you start off very early on with identity.
Speaker 2: So I wonder if you could expand on identity? What
Speaker 2: is it? And why do you think many of us
Speaker 2: need to spend a bit of time thinking about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think I know exactly what you interview
Speaker 1: you're talking about and what I say in it. The
Speaker 1: monks start with identity and at the root of the
Speaker 1: issue because a lot of what we experience in the
Speaker 1: world today, as you know, and I know how holistic
Speaker 1: you are in the way you advise your patients. When
Speaker 1: you were speaking on my podcast, I was so impressed
Speaker 1: by you and how you're able to tie in so
Speaker 1: many psychological and natural practices and relational exercises that can
Speaker 1: improve people's health and well being overall. I remember you
Speaker 1: talking about encouraging your clients to see more friends as
Speaker 1: a way of changing the way they feel, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, Wow, this person's got so many great ideas.
Speaker 1: And the reason is because Rung and you also have
Speaker 1: that monk mindset, or you go to the root of
Speaker 1: the issue. It's really easy to just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: just take two of these a day, or try this,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe you need to do this. But
Speaker 1: when you think about it from the rout perspective, where
Speaker 1: do our challenges arise? And our challenge is arise by
Speaker 1: how we see ourselves? And what I believe wrong is
Speaker 1: referring to is there's this quote that I begin my
Speaker 1: book with and that I've shared in interviews for the
Speaker 1: last few years, and it's from a writer named Charles
Speaker 1: Horton Cooley who wrote this in the nineteen hundreds. And
Speaker 1: what he said is that, sorry, I think it's in
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, at the end of the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: towards the nineteen hundreds, and he said, and bear with
Speaker 1: me and you've got to really listen closely to this.
Speaker 1: So what he said that the challenge today is I'm
Speaker 1: not what I think I am. I'm not what you
Speaker 1: think I am. I am what I think you think
Speaker 1: I am. Now just let that blow your mind for
Speaker 1: a moment. I will explain it. I promise, I'm not
Speaker 1: what I think I am. I'm not what you think
Speaker 1: I am. I am what I think you think I am,
Speaker 1: which means we live in a perception of a perception
Speaker 1: of ourselves. So I'll break it down. If I think
Speaker 1: Rongan thinks I'm smart, I'll say I feel smart. But
Speaker 1: if I think Rangan thinks I'm not smart, then I'll
Speaker 1: say I'm not smart. And so the challenge is that
Speaker 1: we're basing how we feel about ourselves on what we
Speaker 1: think someone thinks of us. And the greatest challenge with
Speaker 1: that is how do you have any idea if what
Speaker 1: you think someone thinks about you is even true and
Speaker 1: whether that's even the best place to start. So that's
Speaker 1: where our identity struggles. We start pursuing things in life
Speaker 1: because we think other people value them. It's almost like,
Speaker 1: let's think of the most playground version of this. If
Speaker 1: I remember wearing high tech shoes from BHS to the playground, right,
Speaker 1: I remember my mom Because my parents didn't buy me
Speaker 1: Nike trainers or Adidask trainers, which I always wanted. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't come from that background. I can afford them,
Speaker 1: and my parents didn't want me to have them. So
Speaker 1: I'd walk in with my high tech trainers from BHS.
Speaker 1: They're about ten quid or whatever they were, and you know,
Speaker 1: to me, it didn't make a difference. I didn't really
Speaker 1: know at that time whether high tech was good or bad.
Speaker 1: They were just trainers that my parents bought me. Now
Speaker 1: everyone the cool kid at school had the latest night trainers.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I start thinking that he's now
Speaker 1: surrounded by everyone. Everyone's talking about his trainers. Everyone's giving
Speaker 1: him adoration, everyone's giving him respect, everyone's talking about his trainers.
Speaker 1: So now I think that if I want to have
Speaker 1: that same experience and love from people, that I need
Speaker 1: to get that not realizing that I may be able
Speaker 1: to get deeper love from people by being kind and compassionate,
Speaker 1: that I may actually be able to build a real
Speaker 1: relationship with people. If I'm loving and considerate and empathetic
Speaker 1: and It's so crazy how your life can become about
Speaker 1: pursuing something. And that's why Jim Carrey puts it best,
Speaker 1: and I'm paraphrasing. He says, you know, everyone in the
Speaker 1: world should achieve everything they've ever wanted and accomplish everything
Speaker 1: they've ever pursued, just to realize that. It's the point. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean the Monk mindset is not about not
Speaker 1: pursuing your goals. It's actually about pursuing your truest goals,
Speaker 1: your truest self, and your most authentic aligned goals. So
Speaker 1: it's not about not having goals, it's about making sure
Speaker 1: that your goal directually yours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I get shivers when you say that.
Speaker 2: Coolly quotes me too. And I think I've had I've
Speaker 2: had a flashback. I think I can't say for sure
Speaker 2: where I was when I heard that interview, but I
Speaker 2: think I was on a train from Manchester to London
Speaker 2: or London back to Manchester, and I think I pressed pause,
Speaker 2: and I think I wrote it in my notes. I
Speaker 2: think I'm pretty sure I wrote it and I rewound it.
Speaker 2: I played it kind of thought, hold on, I've got
Speaker 2: the first part. Second part, what's that third part, and
Speaker 2: I really had to sit with it for a while,
Speaker 2: and I would urge people if they need to press
Speaker 2: pause right now, listen to it and really think about it.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, it's really interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: hearing that, and I reflect on my children, who I
Speaker 2: know you had a very brief, lovely conversation with just
Speaker 2: before we started. I might put that in at the
Speaker 2: end of the podcast.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful.
Speaker 2: But I think about this as they go through school,
Speaker 2: and you know, they start to see what other people
Speaker 2: have got, and you know, we, my wife and I
Speaker 2: were very keen to try and not put value on
Speaker 2: those things because I know I also had experiences like that.
Speaker 2: What I'd say, Oh, god, man, they're wearing those. I
Speaker 2: want to wear those because if I wear them, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be happy. I saw a maybe a year
Speaker 2: ago or so, I saw a Gary Vanerchick video online
Speaker 2: when he was telling someone at one of his conferences.
Speaker 2: He was you know, he was talking about a BMW
Speaker 2: and he basically said to the guy in his and
Speaker 2: you know, in his inimitable way, which is wonderful, that
Speaker 2: I think you own a BMW because of what other
Speaker 2: people will think of you. When you drive that BMW
Speaker 2: and the guy literally you know in that clip, he
Speaker 2: just sort of sat with it and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I do. I mean it's what it's symbolized is to
Speaker 2: people around him. And again I'm not having to go
Speaker 2: at anyone who might be doing that. You know, we
Speaker 2: all do things at times to get that validation or
Speaker 2: what we think is a validation from people around them.
Speaker 2: But I think what you're trying to get at is
Speaker 2: how do we find our own identity? How do we
Speaker 2: live our own lives? So, Jay, how do we do
Speaker 2: that if we've spent a lifetime living someone else's life,
Speaker 2: how do we in our thirties or our twenties, or
Speaker 2: our forties or our fifties, how do we just decide, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to start finding out what my life is.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And I love the tone you're sharing this
Speaker 1: in wrongon because my tone is the same. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming at this from a point of view
Speaker 1: of you know, we're wasting our lives or I've got
Speaker 1: it figured out. Like I don't want to make this
Speaker 1: about you not getting your goals or not having pursuits
Speaker 1: or not wanting to become something, because I want to
Speaker 1: do all those things too, but it's about why you're
Speaker 1: doing it, and it's also about making sure they're truly
Speaker 1: motivated by your inner desire, right, Like, that's the point.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you want to drive a BMW, drive
Speaker 1: a BMW because that's the car you love. Don't drive
Speaker 1: it because you think. If you want to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: become a doctor because you think that's how you're going
Speaker 1: to serve humanity, not because you think people will be impressed.
Speaker 1: If you want to go to Harvard or Princeton or
Speaker 1: Oxford or Cambridge, go there because you really want to
Speaker 1: study how to solve the world's problems, not because you
Speaker 1: think it looks good on your resume. Right, that's the
Speaker 1: point that we're going after. So thank you Rong for
Speaker 1: like recentering that tonal piece, and I appreciate it. But
Speaker 1: so where do we start. One of my favorite ways
Speaker 1: to start is looking at what we value you and
Speaker 1: values are a very intangible word, and so there's a
Speaker 1: very easy way to figure out what you value. There's
Speaker 1: two things you have to look at. You look at
Speaker 1: how you spend your money. The most painful thing you
Speaker 1: can possibly do, go through your bank statement and look
Speaker 1: at where your money is being spent. That is what
Speaker 1: you value. The other thing that we spend, just like
Speaker 1: we spend money, is how we spend our time. Those
Speaker 1: are the two most perfect ways to see what you
Speaker 1: currently value. Your value isn't what's in your head, isn't
Speaker 1: what's in your heart, isn't what's in your mind. It's
Speaker 1: how you spend your money and how you spend your time.
Speaker 1: And so just to give you an overview, and I
Speaker 1: share this in the book, that research was done on
Speaker 1: how we spend our time, and the research showed that
Speaker 1: we spend thirty three years in bed, right, thirty three
Speaker 1: years of our life in bed, and seven years of
Speaker 1: that is spent trying to sleep, not even sleeping. Right.
Speaker 1: We spend one year and four months ex sizing across
Speaker 1: our whole lives. These are by the way, we spend
Speaker 1: more than three years on vacation, and we spend a
Speaker 1: bunch of days trying to get ready, and we spend
Speaker 1: a bunch of time, you know, standing in lines and cues,
Speaker 1: and so much of our time just get spent. So
Speaker 1: the question we have to ask ourselves is where am
Speaker 1: I currently spending my time? And where do I want
Speaker 1: to spend it now. Studies also show that people everyone
Speaker 1: has to go to work, So this isn't about what
Speaker 1: you do for work. People who had more meaningful, purposeful
Speaker 1: lives and were healthier, wealthier, and wise invested their time
Speaker 1: in education over entertainment and wrong. And your your audience
Speaker 1: is lucky because they get education and entertainment in one place.
Speaker 1: But that's the goal, right, Like, that's the goal that
Speaker 1: you're creating an opportunity for people to find education. The smartest,
Speaker 1: the wealthiest, the most healthiest, the wisest people in the
Speaker 1: world reading books, watching documentaries, taking courses, is listening to podcasts,
Speaker 1: learning to better themselves. And so that's the first place
Speaker 1: to start. The second place when we look at that
Speaker 1: value audit is I want you to write down three
Speaker 1: things that you're currently pursuing in life. It might be
Speaker 1: a promotion, it might be a new home, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you are currently pursuing. And then
Speaker 1: I want you to ask this question, is that your
Speaker 1: desire and your dream or is it coming from something
Speaker 1: outside of you? Is it coming from a pressure of
Speaker 1: a family member, Is it coming from an expectation because
Speaker 1: your friend just bought something where is that desire truly
Speaker 1: coming from? And the third and final question you want
Speaker 1: to ask yourself is do I still want to pursue that,
Speaker 1: or do I want to change how I pursue it?
Speaker 1: Or do I not want to pursue it at all?
Speaker 1: And if you go through that three step questioning process,
Speaker 1: you'll get to the truth of what you truly want
Speaker 1: to pursue and stop yourselves from building a sand castle
Speaker 1: with the waves of time will eventually wash away. And
Speaker 1: so that's what we get lost doing. We get lost
Speaker 1: building castles that we don't even want to live in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so profound, and you know, I really think
Speaker 2: that there's something unique about the times in which we
Speaker 2: live now. There really is this dissatisfaction, this lack of contentment.
Speaker 2: You know, you put it so beautifully at the start
Speaker 2: of this conversation. I don't know if you've seen the
Speaker 2: documentary Minimalism or not, which I think you'd absolutely love it.
Speaker 2: I really really enjoy it. I've seen it a couple
Speaker 2: of times. I've watched it with my kids again recently.
Speaker 2: But again, it's these two guys in their thirties who
Speaker 2: you know, they've got success by society's definition. They've got
Speaker 2: the job, they're any good money, you know, but there's
Speaker 2: a hole inside, there's a feeling of is this all
Speaker 2: there is to life? And so I really think you're
Speaker 2: tapping on something that is that is really out there
Speaker 2: at the moment. If people can get their heads around this,
Speaker 2: I think it can transform their own lives, but also
Speaker 2: transform the lives of the people around them, which I
Speaker 2: think is really really exciting. Now you call it a
Speaker 2: value audit, and I thought that word was really interesting
Speaker 2: because I have been sort of I had sort of
Speaker 2: nearly three weeks off social media until two days ago.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't post, I went off. I made a
Speaker 2: thing of it, and I found that I found it
Speaker 2: a lot easier to go inward in my life. It
Speaker 2: was just one thing to switch off a bit of
Speaker 2: noise for me. That I'm not saying everyone has to
Speaker 2: do this. It's just something I personally find useful and
Speaker 2: I also like to. I think it's a nice example
Speaker 2: to set to people that you can do it if
Speaker 2: you want to. But what was really interesting is I've
Speaker 2: been doing a values exercise with myself. I've been trying
Speaker 2: to write down five core values that I want to
Speaker 2: live my life by and it really struck me that
Speaker 2: a lot of people, and it probably include myself this
Speaker 2: have got an idea of what we think our values are.
Speaker 2: But unless we actually go and audit the process of
Speaker 2: what are we spending our time and money doing, we
Speaker 2: have no idea if we really are living those values.
Speaker 2: So I really like the term audit because it's not
Speaker 2: your perception of how you think you're actually spending your
Speaker 2: money spending your time. It's the reality of it. And
Speaker 2: I think it's something that I haven't done it, and
Speaker 2: I think I think I'm going to do it. I
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna actually see is it aligned with what
Speaker 2: you say you stand for? Are you actually spending time
Speaker 2: like that? So is this a common thing? Do you
Speaker 2: think for people that they have that there is a
Speaker 2: gap between their desired values and their actual values.
Speaker 1: I genuine believe, first of all wrong, and thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing that too. And I genuinely believe that people
Speaker 1: are well intentioned and want to do good in the world.
Speaker 1: I believe that I believe that people have a good heart,
Speaker 1: They're smarter than we think they are, they want to
Speaker 1: do good in the world, and they want to put
Speaker 1: out good energy but you're exactly right that that intention
Speaker 1: needs to be converted and transferred into real behavior. And
Speaker 1: this is where you'll find you know, you'll hear a
Speaker 1: friend or someone you know say, oh, you know, I
Speaker 1: really value loyalty and I really don't like gossip, and
Speaker 1: then you find out that that person was gossiping about you.
Speaker 1: And how does that feel? It completely feels like someone's
Speaker 1: broken your trust. And so often the way we see
Speaker 1: ourselves or want to see ourselves is amplified compared to
Speaker 1: how we actually behave. So we'll spot something. And there's
Speaker 1: a beautiful story that I share in the book, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of these across the book, but there's these
Speaker 1: there's these old ancient Indian and Zen stories. And there's
Speaker 1: this story of the evil king that goes to meet
Speaker 1: a good king. So the evil king goes to the
Speaker 1: castle the quarters of the good king, and the good king,
Speaker 1: being a good king, invites the evil king in for
Speaker 1: some dinner. They sit down, These servers bring out the plates.
Speaker 1: The plates are placed in front of the evil king
Speaker 1: and the good king, and they're just about to eat.
Speaker 1: And it's just about as they're about to eat, the
Speaker 1: evil king switches the plates, and the good King goes
Speaker 1: what's going on? Like is that some ceremony in your time?
Speaker 1: Like why are we doing this? And the evil King goes, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You might have poisoned my food. You
Speaker 1: might be trying to kill me. You might have poisoned it.
Speaker 1: And the good King just bursts out laughing. It's just
Speaker 1: like really, like come on, this is like I've invited
Speaker 1: you for dinner, like this is my team, like you
Speaker 1: know whatever. It is, like, let's start eating right now.
Speaker 1: And just about he's about to eat, the evil King
Speaker 1: swaps it back again and the good King goes, well,
Speaker 1: now what then, and he goes, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you might be double bluffing me. And that night, the
Speaker 1: evil King doesn't eat the Good King happily eats his plate.
Speaker 1: The point is that so often we think we don't
Speaker 1: have some of the mistakes that we make, but we
Speaker 1: see them in everyone else. We see those mistakes in
Speaker 1: other people, so we'll say, oh, this person's not doing
Speaker 1: this right, or I don't like the way he or
Speaker 1: she talked to that person. But if we really do
Speaker 1: an audit in ourselves, we'll realize that we have a
Speaker 1: lot of those same challenges and feelings that we may
Speaker 1: think others have. And so for me it's sometimes a
Speaker 1: really scary and daunting task to do that values audit.
Speaker 1: But it truly, truly is a beautiful process that we
Speaker 1: all need to go through to really realign our map
Speaker 1: and get our compass right and start moving in the
Speaker 1: right direction.
Speaker 2: I mean, is it the sort of thing that people
Speaker 2: do once or is it the sort of thing that
Speaker 2: people should revisit? And I guess, you know, if I
Speaker 2: was to ask you, when was the last time you
Speaker 2: did that exercise on yourself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. So I'd say that you have to revisit.
Speaker 1: Like gardening. If you look at your garden outside and
Speaker 1: I can see a bit, I can see a light
Speaker 1: glimpse of Rungin's garden. But if you have a garden,
Speaker 1: how often do you have to garden? Maybe you mow
Speaker 1: the lawn, I don't know, once a week, once a month,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, whatever, whatever you.
Speaker 2: I'd say, once a week, once a week. I like
Speaker 2: a nice you know, shortfish lord. I don't like it
Speaker 2: when it gets too long.
Speaker 1: So there you go, once a week. And so I'd
Speaker 1: say that you have to treat this exercise like gardening,
Speaker 1: because when you do a values audit, what you're really
Speaker 1: doing is gardening your values. And what that means is
Speaker 1: you're pulling out the weeds and you're planting new seeds.
Speaker 1: That's really the activity that's happening here. You're planting seeds
Speaker 1: in your mind values that are good values that are
Speaker 1: going to grow into fruits and trees and give shade
Speaker 1: to others and help other people. Or if you don't
Speaker 1: garden once a month, let's say rungen leaves is he
Speaker 1: doesn't bother for the last six months during COVID, he
Speaker 1: just lets it be there. What's going to happen That
Speaker 1: garden's going to be full of weeds, It's going to
Speaker 1: be full of stuff that he doesn't want there. Right,
Speaker 1: it might attract bugs or other things that are there
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want. And that's what happens with our values,
Speaker 1: that after a while, our values start to attract dust,
Speaker 1: they start to attract being covered over by so many
Speaker 1: other desires. So i'ld say it's a regular habit. I'd
Speaker 1: say that I do a refining values and intention exercise
Speaker 1: on myself about three times a week. I used to
Speaker 1: do it every day, but probably about three times a week.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying anyone has to do it that often.
Speaker 1: I do it that often because I feel I live
Speaker 1: a life that is constantly moving, constantly challenging, and I'm
Speaker 1: presented with a lot of options and opportunities that I
Speaker 1: never imagined i'd have, and so I have to really
Speaker 1: train my mind to focus on these value audits. But
Speaker 1: I also know that every year I spend two or
Speaker 1: three year, two or three weeks and I go back
Speaker 1: to the monastery in India and I spend time in
Speaker 1: the ashroom with months, and so I feel this is
Speaker 1: both an activity that happens weekly or monthly. I'd say
Speaker 1: once a month. I'd say the best way is to
Speaker 1: treat it like your accounts and your taxes. Look at
Speaker 1: it every month, look at your bankstam in every month,
Speaker 1: and then once a year, when you have to do
Speaker 1: your taxes and you're going through that tax return and
Speaker 1: getting it all right, you kind of do a deep
Speaker 1: dive on it. So I'd say if everyone could spend
Speaker 1: three days a year, five days a year going really deep,
Speaker 1: and then one hour a month, a couple of hours
Speaker 1: a month, that would be a great way to build
Speaker 1: it into your practice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I just want to contrast it with taxes
Speaker 2: and accounts, which can often be quite tedious and you know,
Speaker 2: tear your hair out type exercises for people. For the pressure.
Speaker 2: I would sort of say that the kind of practices
Speaker 2: that off that your book is jam packed for the
Speaker 2: practical tools for people. Once you get into this way
Speaker 2: of thinking, once you start thinking like a monk, these
Speaker 2: practices become fun.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: You know, like a lot of there was a doctor.
Speaker 2: One of the things that frustrates me is that everything
Speaker 2: around health, well let's say working out, for example, tends
Speaker 2: to be around you know, punishing yourself and pushing yourself
Speaker 2: and suffering, and so we start to associate things that
Speaker 2: are good for us as being difficult and as being punishing.
Speaker 2: But actually, all the tools in your book are going
Speaker 2: to be good for everyone. They're really going to help people.
Speaker 2: But I would actually say that they're fun. And if
Speaker 2: I just speak to my own experience over the last
Speaker 2: seven years of really against it's my dad. I diving
Speaker 2: into personal growth. Not because it was like, oh Dad's
Speaker 2: not here and now I'm going to do some personal growth. No,
Speaker 2: it was just in the trauma of Dad's death, in
Speaker 2: the sort of emptiness I fil afterwards, that's where I went.
Speaker 2: I would I sort of needed that pain on one
Speaker 2: level to then get me to start asking questions. But
Speaker 2: I love the process of getting to know myself better.
Speaker 2: I love doing these audits. I loved to figure out
Speaker 2: my values. I like potentially almost getting addicted to it,
Speaker 2: like it feels good. And then you start to I
Speaker 2: feel you start to switch off from the noise around you,
Speaker 2: and you really start up come tuned in to who
Speaker 2: you are and what makes you, what makes you tick.
Speaker 1: Learning about ourselves is actually the most fun thing in
Speaker 1: the world. It's the most enjoyable thing in the world.
Speaker 1: When you find out about a new way that your
Speaker 1: mind works and how this value is going to unlock
Speaker 1: this opportunity in your life, rung and spot on it.
Speaker 1: It's such a exciting thing to do, and I would
Speaker 1: encourage you to make it fun. So I'll tell you
Speaker 1: an example of some of the fun activities that I
Speaker 1: love in the book.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite ones is.
Speaker 1: I sometimes set self the challenge of not comparing, not complaining,
Speaker 1: and not criticizing, And the way I like to do
Speaker 1: this test is I keep a jar of post it
Speaker 1: notes of every time I compare, complain, or criticize. I'll
Speaker 1: put it in and then I have another jar of
Speaker 1: every time I'm collaborative, supportive to others, and grateful. And
Speaker 1: what I love doing is almost doing a competition with
Speaker 1: myself because I love being competitive too. I love engaging
Speaker 1: that in a competition with myself of how often can
Speaker 1: I make sure? So what you find is the first
Speaker 1: day you realize, oh, no, I complain ten times today.
Speaker 1: The second day you're like, oh, I only did seven
Speaker 1: times today, and the third day you're like, I only
Speaker 1: did four. In the fourth day you're like, oh, only once.
Speaker 1: And then on the weekend you binge complain again and
Speaker 1: it all goes up again. But the point is that
Speaker 1: you make it fun and enjoyable because what you understand
Speaker 1: is that you are not your criticism. You are not
Speaker 1: these negative thoughts, You are not these negative beliefs. They've
Speaker 1: just become conditioned and habits, just as your garden is
Speaker 1: not weeds. And what happens is we start thinking that
Speaker 1: we are our pain. We start thinking that we are stress.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We say things like I am just a stress person, right,
Speaker 1: I am just a negative person, And the truth is
Speaker 1: you're not. You're just going through a negative space and time.
Speaker 1: You're just adopted a negative habit or a negative thought,
Speaker 1: But you are not a negative person. It's just in
Speaker 1: the same as you are not unhealthy. You've just adopted
Speaker 1: unhealthy habits. And I think when you start making that
Speaker 1: disconnect between you and the habits you have, you start
Speaker 1: to realize, oh, if I change the habits, I naturally change.
Speaker 1: But you are separate from that. So never get into that,
Speaker 1: Never get into that rhetoric with yourself of I am
Speaker 1: a negative person, or I am a failure, or I
Speaker 1: am a loser, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's so important that Jay, that our
Speaker 2: thoughts are important, our words are important, and I think
Speaker 2: many people once you become tuned into it, when when
Speaker 2: you start to identify whey you're using negative self talk,
Speaker 2: it becomes so easy to identify and everyone around you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's something that I spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time thinking about, both of myself personally for bringing up
Speaker 2: my children. It's something we talk about a lot at
Speaker 2: the dinner table about how we're saying things because words
Speaker 2: are powerful, you know, words become the thoughts, right, and
Speaker 2: that they sort of can you know you mentioned those things.
Speaker 2: People often do think that they are their pain, they
Speaker 2: are their feelings, without realizing that these things are transient.
Speaker 2: They come and go, and you are actually separate from that.
Speaker 2: But if you define yourself by that, it becomes very
Speaker 2: hard to change. You know, you mentioned you know, I
Speaker 2: guess a lot of words that people who have a
Speaker 2: victim mindset may say, right, And I want to explore
Speaker 2: this because I want to be super clear. I think
Speaker 2: one thing I love about your approach, and certainly the
Speaker 2: approach that I sort of try and take is one
Speaker 2: of compassion. It's not one of judgment of other people.
Speaker 2: It's understanding someone behaves in a certain way. There's probably
Speaker 2: conditioning or reasons that has led to that. So what
Speaker 2: I say victim mindset, I really don't mean that in
Speaker 2: a demeaning way. I mean that in a lot of
Speaker 2: people say, oh this always happens to me. Oh god,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd never get that promotion right. And so
Speaker 2: the way we think and the way we talk, how
Speaker 2: influential is our childhoods? And you know, what can we
Speaker 2: do about it? If we've spent a lifetime practicing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a great, what a great way of guiding
Speaker 1: this conversation into because I think you're spot on that
Speaker 1: the the words we use create all of our reality. Right,
Speaker 1: we all experienced that, we know that. And there's a
Speaker 1: few things that I want to touch on here. Actually,
Speaker 1: one is the understanding. There's a Harvard study that I
Speaker 1: refer to in my book, and it's called the Emotional
Speaker 1: List or List of emotions, but I call it emotional vocabulary.
Speaker 1: And what I've realized is that we all have a
Speaker 1: very limited emotional vocabulary. For example, if you ask someone
Speaker 1: how things are going, there's literally five words that we
Speaker 1: use more often than anything else. Okay, good, bad, fine, hmmm.
Speaker 1: So someone goes, how's your day going? Okay, how's your
Speaker 1: week been?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 1: Is everything going well?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It's like, literally like those are our responses. And what
Speaker 1: this Harvard Emotional Vocabulary list does is that it shows
Speaker 1: you that inside every word that you say, there are
Speaker 1: so many more meanings. So let's take the word sad
Speaker 1: for example, and what it does is it shows you
Speaker 1: other feelings of sadness that help you better pinpoint how
Speaker 1: you actually feel. So the question then is do you
Speaker 1: feel sad or do you feel offended? Do you feel upset?
Speaker 1: Do you feel disappointed? Do you feel irritated? Do you
Speaker 1: feel all like you've been let down? The challenge is
Speaker 1: that we don't diagnose how we feel effectively. Therefore we
Speaker 1: can't articulate and communicate to the people we love effectively
Speaker 1: about how we feel, and therefore we don't get what
Speaker 1: we expect from others, and so we almost create and rung.
Speaker 1: And you probably see this all the time. Imagine someone
Speaker 1: tries to diagnose their health condition without seeing a doctor.
Speaker 1: It becomes really really challenging. And the challenging with the
Speaker 1: mind is sometimes you have to diagnose your own feelings
Speaker 1: because you can't just walk in to a doctor's office
Speaker 1: and expect them to do it because it's a little
Speaker 1: more intangible. So we have to get much better at
Speaker 1: understanding and articulating ourselves and diagnosing our challenges in what
Speaker 1: we experience. But when you spoke about childhood there, I
Speaker 1: thought that was a really important point because literally, there
Speaker 1: are so many studies that show that our belief in ourselves,
Speaker 1: our desire for love, our understanding of ourselves is formed
Speaker 1: in our childhood. So recently I recorded an episode about
Speaker 1: the psychological concept of the three attachment styles or there
Speaker 1: are four, but the three prominent attachment styles that people
Speaker 1: experience in relationships and they are avoidant, secure, and anxious.
Speaker 1: So all of us either have an avoidant relationship attachment style,
Speaker 1: we have a secure attachment style, or we have an
Speaker 1: anxious attachment style, and I'll explain what they are. If
Speaker 1: your parents were avoidant of you, if they didn't give
Speaker 1: you attention, if they didn't give you presence and intimacy,
Speaker 1: then you often will crave that from your partner. So
Speaker 1: what you want from your partner is exactly what you
Speaker 1: did or didn't receive from your parents. So sometimes you
Speaker 1: receive something from your parents and now you demand it
Speaker 1: from your partner. And sometimes you didn't receive something from
Speaker 1: your parents and you demand that from your partner. The
Speaker 1: secure attachment style is when your parents or one of
Speaker 1: your parents or a father or mother figure in your
Speaker 1: life gave you substantial amounts of love, so you feel secure,
Speaker 1: so you trust your partner naturally. And the third and
Speaker 1: final it is anxious. That's when your parents were kind
Speaker 1: of there, kind of not there, kind of let you down.
Speaker 1: Sometimes with there you are confused about their love approach
Speaker 1: to you, and therefore now you have this anxiousness around
Speaker 1: your partner and you're not sure whether they love you
Speaker 1: or not. Now, notice how all of that comes from
Speaker 1: our conditioning at childhood, and so the first step we
Speaker 1: have to do is we have to be aware of this. Right,
Speaker 1: no one's ever been taught about this in school. I
Speaker 1: saw so many negative patterns that I'd adopted from my
Speaker 1: childhood that I was projecting into my relationship. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I don't blame my parents or anyone's parents
Speaker 1: for any of this. I think the point is no
Speaker 1: one ever knows how to be a parent and what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and everyone makes mistakes. So this isn't about
Speaker 1: questioning your parents or being bitter towards them. It's about
Speaker 1: developing the emotional skills your parents didn't have, and that
Speaker 1: first of all requires awareness. Are you even aware of
Speaker 1: what patterns you've adopted from your parents that you like
Speaker 1: or don't like? Do you behave in certain irrational ways
Speaker 1: and when you think about it, you're like, that's exactly
Speaker 1: how my dad used to talk to me. Well, that's
Speaker 1: exactly how my mom used to talk to me. I
Speaker 1: often talk about a positive thing. So I love surprises.
Speaker 1: I love surprises like from forgives and birthdays and events.
Speaker 1: And the reason is my mom always surprised me with
Speaker 1: the toy I most wanted on my birthday every year
Speaker 1: growing up. So when I met my wife without explaining
Speaker 1: this to her, I expected her to know that and
Speaker 1: she would never surprise me because it wasn't in her
Speaker 1: parental background. So I used to feel on my birthdays
Speaker 1: when we first met that she didn't love me. And
Speaker 1: I know this sounds crazy, but it's literally true. It's
Speaker 1: like I literally felt like she didn't care about me.
Speaker 1: But that's because I never understood why I like surprises
Speaker 1: where that came from, and I never communicated that to her.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense wrong?
Speaker 2: Hey? More sense than you you would know for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I can think back to my
Speaker 2: own relationship and think to all kinds of ways that
Speaker 2: actually and I recently spoke to Esther Parrel on the show,
Speaker 2: and y, you know, really sort of opened up about
Speaker 2: a lot of those things. And I think the thing
Speaker 2: I'm I'm sort of I'm hearing from you telling that story,
Speaker 2: and when I think about my own relationship, it's that
Speaker 2: we often have expectations because we're used to things a
Speaker 2: certain way, so we think that's the norm. But of
Speaker 2: course someone else has got their own idea of what
Speaker 2: is normal. And you know, we we've we've explored this ourselves.
Speaker 2: And I think as your communication gets better, as you learn,
Speaker 2: as you said, to have a vocabulary around these things,
Speaker 2: as you learned to be able to articulate them, suddenly there's
Speaker 2: understanding on both sides and a lot of that friction
Speaker 2: no longer arises because you can communicate. So and I
Speaker 2: guess now your wife will go, oh, you know, Jay
Speaker 2: likes gifts, you know, even though that's not my thing.
Speaker 2: For example, it's kind of like, oh, maybe I'll get
Speaker 2: a good because that's how he experienced his love.
Speaker 1: My wife organized two surprise parties from in the last
Speaker 1: two years and and she got me both times. Like
Speaker 1: she organized these two incredible and that's what it is wrong,
Speaker 1: and like, that's what it is is that we're just
Speaker 1: you know, in every relationship, you have the ability to
Speaker 1: set the level of joy you expect and the level
Speaker 1: of pain you'll accept. But the problem is that we
Speaker 1: never tell the other person what that expectation and what
Speaker 1: that acceptance level is and we never communicate that and
Speaker 1: we expect them to be minded doesn't expect them to know.
Speaker 1: And that's really where all relationships go wrong with our parents,
Speaker 1: our children, our spouses, our partners, that there is no
Speaker 1: communication on what we expect and what we're willing to accept,
Speaker 1: and that creates so many issues that you then think
Speaker 1: you broke up over something big, when actually you broke
Speaker 1: up over words and definitions. One of the ones I
Speaker 1: like to talk about is the definition of love. When
Speaker 1: think about the first time you said I love you
Speaker 1: to someone wronging like, think about the first time you
Speaker 1: said it to someone and everyone who is listening on watching.
Speaker 1: Think about the first time you told someone you loved them?
Speaker 1: What did you mean? Did you mean I really like you?
Speaker 1: Did you mean I hope we can spend the night together.
Speaker 1: Did you mean I want to spend the rest of
Speaker 1: my life with you. I'm guessing that you meant different
Speaker 1: things at different times. And now, think about when someone
Speaker 1: says I love you back to you. Have you ever
Speaker 1: asked them what they meant by that, because chances are
Speaker 1: you projected your belief onto the word love. Even when
Speaker 1: someone said I love you back So if you said
Speaker 1: I love you, and you were thinking, I want to
Speaker 1: spend the rest of my life with you, and that
Speaker 1: person said I love you, you projected that they were
Speaker 1: saying they want to spend the rest of their lives
Speaker 1: with you as well. But actually what they were saying
Speaker 1: was they just want to spend the night with you.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, you're in this complete
Speaker 1: misalignment of values, and we end up in those scenarios
Speaker 1: because families define words differently, People define words differently, and
Speaker 1: different words mean different things to different people at different times,
Speaker 1: and so you really have to understand how that person
Speaker 1: described even being clean and tidy and organized, everyone has
Speaker 1: a different definition like this. You know, my room may
Speaker 1: seem clean to some people and my room may seem
Speaker 1: chaotic to some people because everyone has a different definition
Speaker 1: of what clean and chaotic is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very powerful, and you know certainly that the contentments
Speaker 2: that my wife and I feel in our relationship has
Speaker 2: improved dramatically since communication got better and as you know,
Speaker 2: really interesting. You know, one of the most amazing things
Speaker 2: since getting married has been getting to know my wife's family,
Speaker 2: who are just amazing, incredible, And the more time you
Speaker 2: spend with them. The more you understand how vid my
Speaker 2: wife has got her characteristics, you're like, oh, of course
Speaker 2: that's how you've been brought up. I wasn't brought up
Speaker 2: like that, right, I had a completely different upbringing. So
Speaker 2: my idea of what is normal is completely different from yours.
Speaker 2: And if we both go through life in our own
Speaker 2: heads thinking this is normal, well, of course there's going
Speaker 2: to be blow up, some friction because they are. They
Speaker 2: both are normal, but they're different normals to different people.
Speaker 2: You know, you, as you sort of talk about relationship,
Speaker 2: you reminded me of a moment in your book where
Speaker 2: you spoke about your relationship with your now wife when
Speaker 2: you first started dating her, and I think you took
Speaker 2: her out too. I think you saved up. Well you can,
Speaker 2: you can share that actually what happens. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you the reason why it made me stop and laugh
Speaker 2: is because it reminded me. Although there were different scenarios.
Speaker 2: I remember when I first met my now wife, when
Speaker 2: I when I went out, you know, when I was
Speaker 2: just dating her for a few months. I remember, like so,
Speaker 2: I'd played in bands for a few years and at
Speaker 2: the time one of my so the way EPs was
Speaker 2: being sold in HMV in Manchester and had a couple
Speaker 2: of shows and I think when we first started dacing
Speaker 2: she came along. And then I can't remember when, but
Speaker 2: a few weeks or a few months into it, I said,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, babe, I've got the show tonight. Do
Speaker 2: you want to you know, your fancy come along? And
Speaker 2: so no, I'm good. Thanks. I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you sure, you sure you don't want to coach, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm all right. Actually there's something I'll tell you I
Speaker 2: want to watch tonight. It was something something which was
Speaker 2: you know, for my ego at that time, back in
Speaker 2: the day. I was like, oh, why does she want
Speaker 2: to come? You know, does she not like me? You
Speaker 2: know what? What? You know? It was really interesting. But
Speaker 2: I think that drew me more towards her because I
Speaker 2: thought I've never had that before, like that was. I
Speaker 2: think that made me more attracted to her as like, oh,
Speaker 2: she's not bothered about that stuff. And I actually genuinely
Speaker 2: do would say, now, that's one of the best things
Speaker 2: about her, that kind of stuff she does not give
Speaker 2: to who. She likes me and loves me for who
Speaker 2: I am underneath and not for the kind of you know,
Speaker 2: not because you know, I'm on Telly or I've you know,
Speaker 2: whatever with these books or whatever. You know, she's not
Speaker 2: bothered about that sort at all. And it's the best
Speaker 2: thing ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's such a you know, it's such a
Speaker 1: blessing to have that in your life. Wronger, because you know,
Speaker 1: you meet people at different times, and people meet the
Speaker 1: love of their life at different times, and it can
Speaker 1: get really challenging. You reminded me of an interview that
Speaker 1: I think I've referred to even in the book of
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. And I think he's at Cambridge University
Speaker 1: and they're doing A and A with him and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, what does it feel like to be Iron
Speaker 1: Man and you know, be this incredible movie star and
Speaker 1: the Avengers? And he's like, yeah, you know, when I
Speaker 1: come home and I open the door back from work,
Speaker 1: it's not like my fifth kids and my family are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's Iron Man. You know. He's just
Speaker 1: like my wife's like, can you can you take the
Speaker 1: trash out? And you know, my ear and it's almost
Speaker 1: like that reality check and and yeah for my wife
Speaker 1: in similar what you were saying, you know, for us,
Speaker 1: it was this understanding that I had believed that the
Speaker 1: romance that I saw in the movies was what romance
Speaker 1: and love was about. Because again, how many of us
Speaker 1: are Our beliefs are set by movies, media, and music.
Speaker 1: So many of our beliefs and what we expect in
Speaker 1: a relationship are based on a false show. And if
Speaker 1: you think about it, movies always end with Happily ever After,
Speaker 1: where the wedding just happened, So it's almost like you
Speaker 1: see nothing after the wedding. And the funny thing is
Speaker 1: that after the is exactly what life is about. Like
Speaker 1: that's where life actually starts, like this life didn't start
Speaker 1: when you started dating. But movies end with happily ever after,
Speaker 1: and they don't tell the story, and so we all
Speaker 1: have this honeymoon happily ever after version of love. And
Speaker 1: I had that too. So my first date with my wife,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, you know, she want to go to
Speaker 1: a fancy restaurant. You know, she'll probably want to dress up,
Speaker 1: she'll want to do this, because that's what I thought
Speaker 1: from nowhere, like she'd give me no indication of that,
Speaker 1: and so again, no checking of expectation, no checking of communication,
Speaker 1: just complete me on autopilot, and so I booked. I
Speaker 1: got this reservation at this fancy restaurant I'll never forget
Speaker 1: the name. It's called Lacanda Locatelli, and it's like this
Speaker 1: really posh restaurant in London. It's like David Beckham goes
Speaker 1: there and that kind of thing. And so I'd saved
Speaker 1: up to take my wife to this restaurant and she
Speaker 1: it was the worst date we've ever been on, and
Speaker 1: it was our first date. And she was just like,
Speaker 1: you could have walked me down Tesco's, like the food
Speaker 1: isle at Tesco's, and I would have been happier. She
Speaker 1: loves she loves she loves going shopping for food. So
Speaker 1: any sort of Tescos or Whole Foods or Waitrose or
Speaker 1: whatever that she loves it. And so and it was
Speaker 1: so interesting to me to think. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I put all this effort in, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1: You start thinking your ego goes well, you put all
Speaker 1: this effort in, she doesn't appreciate it, and actually realize no,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, me speaking to her in a
Speaker 1: language she doesn't understand. And this part's the biggest part
Speaker 1: about how media and I've got to share this story
Speaker 1: so wrong. And do you remember how much? Do you
Speaker 1: remember any guidance on how much you spent on your
Speaker 1: engagement ring? Because this is really like profound for me,
Speaker 1: But do you remember anything when you proposed to your wife? What?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what. I can't remember an exact amount,
Speaker 2: but I I remember thinking, oh, how much are you
Speaker 2: meant to And I thought, really that much? That's the like,
Speaker 2: I can't remember what happened in the end, but yeah,
Speaker 2: but I know that's out there, is that there's a
Speaker 2: rule by society on what you should do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I so that was the thing.
Speaker 1: So I remember wanting to propose to my now wife,
Speaker 1: and I remember speaking to a bunch of my guy
Speaker 1: who were proposed or were married, and they all said,
Speaker 1: you spend two months salary on your engagement ring. I
Speaker 1: was like, that sounds like a lot. I had the
Speaker 1: same reaction as you, and I was like, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: what you have to spend. So I remember spending two
Speaker 1: months salary on my engagement ring for my wife. I
Speaker 1: didn't make a ton at the time, and I worked
Speaker 1: at a corporate job, and so I did that. And
Speaker 1: then when I started sharing more ideas and stuff. I
Speaker 1: really started looking into that, and this is the craziest thing.
Speaker 1: I found a de Beer's commercial from nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: And in that commercial, it's a black and white commercial.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but it was chosen to be
Speaker 1: black and white. And in that commercial, a man proposes
Speaker 1: to a woman with a diamond engagement ring. It's a
Speaker 1: de Beer's commercial, and at the end of it it says,
Speaker 1: this cat's this. This is what it says. It says
Speaker 1: the diamond engagement ring. How else could two months salary
Speaker 1: last for wherever? And I was sitting there going are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? That? That was literally the tagline in
Speaker 1: a commercial, and so many men took it seriously that
Speaker 1: by the time I proposed that was nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: I proposed in two thousand and fourteen, And so it's like,
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety one to twenty fourteen it became a rule,
Speaker 1: when actually it was just a tagline and an advert,
Speaker 1: just showing you the power of media's ability to implant.
Speaker 1: And really that's inception at its best. If you've never
Speaker 1: seen the movie Inception, check it out. But that is
Speaker 1: literally inception at its best. That that idea was planted
Speaker 1: in our mind in nineteen ninety one, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, I'm still operating by that idea and
Speaker 1: I don't even know where it's come from. That's the
Speaker 1: power of an idea, and that's why it's so important
Speaker 1: that we plant powerful ideas into our mind that are
Speaker 1: useful to us.
Speaker 2: And that's the value and how powerful stories are and narrative,
Speaker 2: even stories that we tell ourselves. So that then starts
Speaker 2: off as maybe the idea of one advertising executive and
Speaker 2: a company somewhere who gets is getting paid to do
Speaker 2: this commercial does it, and then it becomes a reality
Speaker 2: for millions of people around the world who are then
Speaker 2: a stressed out trying to think, oh, if I'm going
Speaker 2: to be a real man, I have to spend two
Speaker 2: months salary on this ring. And it goes back to
Speaker 2: everything you're talking about. This about identity, it's about stories.
Speaker 2: It's about how can we start creating the stories that
Speaker 2: are going to start to help us, you know, going
Speaker 2: to nourish us and feed us, rather than the ones
Speaker 2: that are going to keep us trapped and in prison.
Speaker 2: And I think there's two things I think your book
Speaker 2: really like when I think about it big picture, what
Speaker 2: it offers. I mean, there's so many things, but there
Speaker 2: are two themes I already think about our one. Awareness.
Speaker 2: I think every single chapter people are going to start thinking,
Speaker 2: and there's just start going to Because you shared so
Speaker 2: many lovely stories as well in it, which I think
Speaker 2: really brings it to life. People are going to start
Speaker 2: to see their own life in them. And I think
Speaker 2: you're going to help bring awareness to people. And of course,
Speaker 2: without awareness, there can be no change. Awareness is that
Speaker 2: first step, and often awareness is all you need. I
Speaker 2: find sometimes, and of course there are lots of practices
Speaker 2: you can do to help, but sometimes just being aware means, oh,
Speaker 2: I can change that now because I know where that's
Speaker 2: coming from. But the other thing I think your book
Speaker 2: offers people is freedom, because you get true in a
Speaker 2: piece and mental freedom to live the life that you
Speaker 2: want to, not the life that other people have set
Speaker 2: out for you or an advertising exec has sort of
Speaker 2: implanted as an idea. And then you know, if we
Speaker 2: sort of start to go in some of these practical
Speaker 2: tools you mentioned some exercises already. You mentioned gratitude, and
Speaker 2: gratitude has come up on the show before. But what
Speaker 2: I loved about your take on it was if I
Speaker 2: remember the chatter it right that you said gratitude is
Speaker 2: a daily practice. That's the easy part. I want you
Speaker 2: to be grateful in every aspects of your life and
Speaker 2: I love that. And I've been sitting with the idea
Speaker 2: for the last week or so. What if you could
Speaker 2: expand on it, Jay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful. I'm really glad you're asking me about gratitude.
Speaker 1: Before we do that, though, you sparked another thought, do
Speaker 1: you mind if I kind of go back?
Speaker 2: If you're okay with know where you want to go?
Speaker 1: You're You're sparking so many great thoughts in my mind,
Speaker 1: I can't ignore them. This is such a you're such
Speaker 1: a great interview. It's so much fun. Like I really
Speaker 1: feel like you've just we've gone in so many directions
Speaker 1: that I didn't even plan, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1: But when you were talking about the stories we tell ourselves.
Speaker 1: I think that's so important because there's a there's a
Speaker 1: great study there talking about the book by Amy Reznowski
Speaker 1: from the Yale University, and what they found is that
Speaker 1: they tried to find a career that they felt people
Speaker 1: may find not sharing a positive story around, and they
Speaker 1: found that hospital cleaners or hospital workers potentially at one
Speaker 1: of the toughest jobs and rung and you're a doctor,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm sure you've seen people having to
Speaker 1: do that work, and it's a tough job. And so
Speaker 1: they asked hospital workers how they defined their jobs, and
Speaker 1: the majority of them defined it as low skilled, defined
Speaker 1: it as you know, insignificant, defined it as just a
Speaker 1: way to pay the bills, and that their job wasn't
Speaker 1: useful or their job wasn't important, and their role was
Speaker 1: basically described like the personnel manual. But then they asked
Speaker 1: another set of hospital workers, the same people who did
Speaker 1: the same jobs, different people who did the same jobs,
Speaker 1: and they said, how do you feel about your jobs?
Speaker 1: And these people had completely different views. They felt they
Speaker 1: were healers, they felt they were caretakers, They felt that
Speaker 1: they were able to transform the energy of the actual hospital.
Speaker 1: They felt that they were careers for the people there.
Speaker 1: And what they found is that these same people, sorry,
Speaker 1: different people who did the same job, were telling themselves
Speaker 1: a different story. And therefore they saw their role as
Speaker 1: integral to the healing of the patient. And because they
Speaker 1: saw their role as integral to the healing of the patient.
Speaker 1: They found the work that they did to be extremely meaningful.
Speaker 1: And that's crazy to think about it that different people
Speaker 1: doing the same job could say different things about the
Speaker 1: same work. They're doing the same exact thing daily, but
Speaker 1: someone thinks it's meaningless, and the other things it's so meaningful.
Speaker 1: And this was a term by Yale that was called
Speaker 1: the It was called job crafting. The ability to assign
Speaker 1: meaning where you see it, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your life becomes meaningful. So if you're sitting in a
Speaker 1: job right now that you hate, or if you've got
Speaker 1: a boss that you really don't like, or if you're
Speaker 1: in a relationship that you don't want to be in,
Speaker 1: if you can't leave for whatever reason right now because
Speaker 1: of COVID or lockdown or whatever it is financial difficulties.
Speaker 1: If you can't leave and you really want to, one
Speaker 1: of the things I recommend you do is called job
Speaker 1: crafting from the Yel School of Management. Do you start
Speaker 1: asking yourself, where can I find meaning in this? What
Speaker 1: can I learn? What can I adopt? What is this
Speaker 1: trying to teach me? And that's actually where gratitude can
Speaker 1: be applied to every place, because you start going. There
Speaker 1: is some value in this. I remember when I wanted
Speaker 1: to leave my corporate job and I wanted to live
Speaker 1: my passion and do what I do today. But I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful I was at my corporate job because I
Speaker 1: learned so much there that it's so useful to me now.
Speaker 1: And we find it very easy to be grateful when
Speaker 1: things are going our way, but we find it very
Speaker 1: difficult to be grateful when things are not going our way.
Speaker 1: But what we have to learn to realize, which is
Speaker 1: a really hard lesson to realize, is that things are
Speaker 1: always going your way. If you're moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: things are not going to always look like they're going
Speaker 1: your way, and they could still be going your way.
Speaker 1: We've all seen curses turn into gifts, and gifts turn
Speaker 1: into curses. The the problem is wrong and this is
Speaker 1: the challenge. We have a projector up here of what
Speaker 1: we want life to look like, and then we have
Speaker 1: the reality of what life actually looks like. So there's
Speaker 1: this big discrepancy. And so sometimes you're actually going in
Speaker 1: the right direction, but because it doesn't look like your
Speaker 1: picture and your image of what it should look like,
Speaker 1: you work less. You become lazier, you become complacent, you
Speaker 1: try less harder. But this doesn't look like the right direction.
Speaker 1: But you'll get to where you want in life, just
Speaker 1: not in the way you imagined it if you keep going,
Speaker 1: if you keep pushing, if you keep learning. And that's
Speaker 1: what it means to be grateful in all areas of
Speaker 1: your life is trying to even in the toughest moment,
Speaker 1: even in a challenging situation. Not gratitude like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful to you for causing me the pain. That's
Speaker 1: not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is
Speaker 1: saying to yourself, where is their meaning in this? Where
Speaker 1: is the lesson in this? So I don't repeat this again.
Speaker 1: If I can be grateful in this challenging situation, and
Speaker 1: I can experience gratitude at all times, then I'm always
Speaker 1: going to be coming at things from a positive space
Speaker 1: and positive energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so powerful, Jay. Would you recommend people start off
Speaker 2: with a particular daily practice as a way of getting
Speaker 2: good and developing the skill before they can start applying it.
Speaker 2: Let's say to aspects of their life that maybe aren't
Speaker 2: going as well as they want to, where they have
Speaker 2: to reframe things. I mean, what has been your experience
Speaker 2: in trying to teach people about gratitude and how they
Speaker 2: should start that process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you always develop your muscles in the training
Speaker 1: center and in the gym. You don't go out and
Speaker 1: develop your muscles on game day, right, Like, no one
Speaker 1: gets thrown out onto the pitch and says, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: go and play a World Cup final and you'll figure
Speaker 1: out how strong you are. You would never do that.
Speaker 1: You train in the gym, you prepare, you get ready,
Speaker 1: and then you go. You don't go. I want to
Speaker 1: learn how to run. Maybe I should run in the
Speaker 1: marathon next year. Right, you don't. That's not how it works.
Speaker 1: And so Rungon's absolutely right that it starts in small bouts.
Speaker 1: So I want to get more practical because me and
Speaker 1: Ken about a lot of concepts today when we talk
Speaker 1: about practicing thankfulness or gratitude, and I talk about four
Speaker 1: habits in the book, one of them, one of the
Speaker 1: key daily habits or daily practices is thankfulness. Now, thankfulness
Speaker 1: isn't just about feeling. Thankfulness isn't just about thinking. It's
Speaker 1: actually about expressing. So when Rongan messaged me a few
Speaker 1: weeks back and he told me that he'd been reading
Speaker 1: my book. I sent him an early copy because he
Speaker 1: was going to interview on the podcast, and he sent
Speaker 1: me that message. I was so grateful to him, like genuinely,
Speaker 1: because he was expressing gratitude to me. And that's the
Speaker 1: amazing thing instead of just feeling gratitude. Let's say rung
Speaker 1: and felt it, but he didn't say it to me.
Speaker 1: If he didn't say it to me, he would have
Speaker 1: not had the experience a of sharing it, b of
Speaker 1: receiving my gratitude back to him, and our relationship deepening
Speaker 1: based on that simple message he sent me. And so
Speaker 1: gratitude becomes more powerful when you express it daily. So
Speaker 1: every day I ask yourself, who's a person that you
Speaker 1: want to express gratitude to you and go and tell them. Secondly,
Speaker 1: what's a place that you're grateful for and spend more
Speaker 1: time in that place, And what's a project that you're
Speaker 1: grateful for in your life? And if you write these
Speaker 1: down every single day before you go to bed, who's
Speaker 1: a person I'm grateful for and why, what's a place
Speaker 1: that I'm grateful for and why? And right now it
Speaker 1: may not be a place you can go to, may
Speaker 1: be a place that you visited and you're so grateful
Speaker 1: you got to go there before COVID. And the third
Speaker 1: thing is a project in your life. And so when
Speaker 1: you express gratitude, make sure that it's specific. So I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. Let's say rung And throws a
Speaker 1: party with his wife this weekend at their home, and
Speaker 1: their friends come over. And one of his friends rung And,
Speaker 1: give me two friends names in your life, and we'll
Speaker 1: pick on them for a bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, I say Jeremy Jeremy. Don't he'll be listening, you
Speaker 2: know what. Okay, Gareth, Gareth and Jeremy. So let's say
Speaker 2: Gareth and Jeremy. And again, I'm just going to add
Speaker 2: a this claim. And none of this reflects Gareth and
Speaker 2: Jeremy in real life. But let's say Gareth and Jamie
Speaker 2: come to this party that rang and his wife throw
Speaker 2: and it's just, you know, just gathering to get people together.
Speaker 2: The next morning, Rangon wakes up. He doesn't look at
Speaker 2: his first thing in the morning, his phone. That's not
Speaker 2: what Rangon does.
Speaker 1: Wrongon looks at his phone about three hours later, after
Speaker 1: he's exercised meditaid, spent time with his kids and then
Speaker 1: he looks at his phone and he sees these two
Speaker 1: messages from Gareth and Jeremy.
Speaker 2: Gareth sorry about this, but here we go.
Speaker 1: So Gareth had message him saying thanks mate, it was great, right,
Speaker 1: That was Gareth's message, and Jeremy's message was Roungan, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Like you and your wife just throw
Speaker 1: an amazing party and I loved all the games we played.
Speaker 1: Your kids are adorable. And oh, by the way, you
Speaker 1: know you know that food? How did you both make that?
Speaker 1: The food was amazing? Thank you so much. Thank you
Speaker 1: for letting us have this moment together. So those are
Speaker 1: two messages A l B. Which one do you think
Speaker 1: cards is Rongon more joy now wronging the grateful person,
Speaker 1: So we'll be grateful to both of them, but he's
Speaker 1: more likely, and honestly, all of us are going to
Speaker 1: be more grateful to Jeremy in that scenario because he's
Speaker 1: gone into more depth and being specific about what he
Speaker 1: actually liked and learned, and because of that, he's now
Speaker 1: going to attract more love and gratitude back from Rongon
Speaker 1: as well. So that's why expressing gratitude is actually the key.
Speaker 1: And if we can express gratitude to people, places, and projects.
Speaker 1: We start to develop more gratitude in our life, and
Speaker 1: that's something we can do daily. And it can be
Speaker 1: an email, it can be a voice note, can be
Speaker 1: a text, it could be a video call, but it
Speaker 1: can be as simple as just a text message. But
Speaker 1: specific gratitude is scientifically shown to be better for you
Speaker 1: and better for the other person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Jay, thanks so much for sharing that,
Speaker 2: because you know, gratitude gets spoken about a lot these days.
Speaker 2: But I think that specificity piece, I think that example
Speaker 2: beautifully demonstrates just I can feel it the difference. You know,
Speaker 2: you can. You can feel it viscerally as you as
Speaker 2: you hear it. It does something different. And I remember
Speaker 2: so clearly. I think I left you a a WhatsApp
Speaker 2: voice message because I was literally I was thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: he's probably a sleep now, but he won't have his
Speaker 2: phone on at nights. You know, there's that bit of
Speaker 2: insecurity at first, and I don't know, just express the
Speaker 2: damn gratitude, you know, you'd you know, I think the
Speaker 2: wrong of a few years ago possibly wouldn't have done
Speaker 2: it out of insecurity. Or will this be taken the
Speaker 2: right way or the wrong way or whatever, but that
Speaker 2: I would say the person I am today, having done
Speaker 2: a lot of the work and having practiced a lot
Speaker 2: of these tools, you know there is if not only
Speaker 2: did as you're sharing. Does it feel good for you
Speaker 2: to get it? But it feels nice to share. I'm
Speaker 2: doing a lot of voice notes these days. I'm finding
Speaker 2: I'm going in to WhatsApp pressing the mic. In fact,
Speaker 2: someone told me during lockdown that you can actually press
Speaker 2: it and flip it up, my friend Jay, Thanks, Jerdi,
Speaker 2: I didn't know you could do that. I said, you
Speaker 2: can talk without actually holding it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that either, I hold it down.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, that's actually Jeremy's wife. So so it's
Speaker 2: all coming. It's bringing it back together for those guys.
Speaker 2: But you know, I find it's really some I'm a
Speaker 2: vocal kind of person. I like talking, and sometimes I
Speaker 2: find it hard to express what I want to want
Speaker 2: a text message. I'll just do a WhatsApp voice message.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think gratitude is super powerful. One thing
Speaker 2: I'm going to add, well, I'll ask you, actually, do
Speaker 2: you do your gratitude practice by yourself or do you
Speaker 2: also do it with your wife?
Speaker 1: So I do my gratitude practice by myself, but then
Speaker 1: the expression may lead to me expressing it to my
Speaker 1: wife if she's the person that day that I'm being
Speaker 1: grateful for. And now I'm probably grateful to my wife
Speaker 1: every day, and so I express gratitude to her every day.
Speaker 1: But I really find spending some time by myself to
Speaker 1: figure out my mind first. It's almost like if you're
Speaker 1: both trying to solve a problem together, you can help
Speaker 1: each other, but one person can sometimes take shortcuts because
Speaker 1: the other person kind of carries the weight, and it's
Speaker 1: really important to really be clear about who you're grateful for.
Speaker 1: You can do it with your partner, of course, but
Speaker 1: make sure one of you are not kind of relying
Speaker 1: on the other person to come up with all the
Speaker 1: answers and do all the hard work when it really
Speaker 1: needs to be a personal feeling. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: for me, it's for me. I feel gratitude is the
Speaker 1: easiest gift you can give someone and the easiest gift
Speaker 1: for someone to receive, especially when it's genuine and specific
Speaker 1: and rung. And I would encourage you not just with me,
Speaker 1: but with anyone. You know, it was so genuine and
Speaker 1: specific that you know I recommend you continue to do
Speaker 1: that sharing of gratitude as you saw and you said
Speaker 1: it's visceral.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It boosts your mood when you're grateful to someone in
Speaker 1: a specific way and then you feel their love that.
Speaker 2: Do you feel or do you think as I do?
Speaker 2: That many people have got hang ups and insecurities, and
Speaker 2: therefore to do what I did to actually express gratitude
Speaker 2: to someone, they're fearful about doing it. Yea, because insecurity
Speaker 2: is I think we all face insecurities, right, And how
Speaker 2: would you help someone who says, hey, Jay, look I
Speaker 2: want to do that, Like I'd love to tell my
Speaker 2: work colleague that, you know, she was so helpful to
Speaker 2: me yesterday and she got me out of this jam
Speaker 2: and helped me do something. But you know what will
Speaker 2: that come across wrong? I don't really know what will
Speaker 2: they think? I mean, what would you say someone like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think you are right. I think some of
Speaker 1: our insecurity comes from Sometimes our insecurity can come from
Speaker 1: our ego, which is blocking our gratitude. So the ego says, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to recognize that someone else is doing
Speaker 1: something good because it makes me feel inferior. That's one
Speaker 1: of the ways that our ego can block us from gratitude.
Speaker 1: And I believe in some traditions and in some circles
Speaker 1: i've heard ego being translated to eliminate gratitude out right.
Speaker 1: It's like a limited ego, So you know, you can
Speaker 1: kind of lose gratitude through ego. Did you think, oh,
Speaker 1: if I tell them that they're good, then that means
Speaker 1: I'm not good, which is not true at all. The
Speaker 1: other way the insecurity comes in gratitude is like, well,
Speaker 1: what if they think I'm just trying to I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to get close to them, or I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to say something nice for the sake of it, or
Speaker 1: I'm just lying or pretending, Like what if they think
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to suck up to them?
Speaker 2: Right? Like?
Speaker 1: Is that the reason? And so sometimes we hold back
Speaker 1: how we feel. What I'd say to you is, I'd
Speaker 1: say that expressing gratitude, if genuine, if from the heart,
Speaker 1: and if well explained and thought out, should always be shared,
Speaker 1: even when you feel uncomfortable, because when it's shared from
Speaker 1: that place, you've already got the benefits of feeling grateful.
Speaker 1: And then if that person does or doesn't react in
Speaker 1: the way you expect them to. And by the way,
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be a need for them to react because
Speaker 1: you're just thanking them for what they've already done. You're
Speaker 1: not thanking them for what they're about to do. You're
Speaker 1: thanking them for what they're already done. So now if
Speaker 1: they respond in an ungrateful way, you haven't lost your
Speaker 1: gratitude because you're grateful for what they did in the past,
Speaker 1: not what they did in the future. So don't then go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they didn't even deserve me to be grateful, because they
Speaker 1: did for that moment of what they did for you.
Speaker 1: So share it because it's good for you. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about how they respond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess also if they do respond in
Speaker 2: that way, or if they do think that that's their
Speaker 2: own issue, right yeah, yeah, compa, that's not your issue,
Speaker 2: that you've expressed it from your hearts. How they react
Speaker 2: is kind of out of your control, right, And that's
Speaker 2: another key learning I think on this path to thinking
Speaker 2: like a monk, I would guess is you know you're
Speaker 2: not in control of other people's thoughts, right, not at all?
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's the biggest lesson is that
Speaker 1: you're not in charge of the results, how people respond
Speaker 1: or what they think. You never are, so wasting your
Speaker 1: time trying to change how someone thinks of you is
Speaker 1: can actually be one of the most worthless pursuits in life.
Speaker 1: But changing how you think about yourself is probably one
Speaker 1: of the most worthwhile pursuits in life, but the one
Speaker 1: we spend less time on. We're constantly trying to change
Speaker 1: how people think about us, and we think if they
Speaker 1: think highly of us, then we'll feel better about ourselves.
Speaker 1: But that's not the case. The case is we can
Speaker 1: change how we feel about ourselves by changing our behavior
Speaker 1: and being more in aligned with the person we want
Speaker 1: to be with our values. As Rangan said, going back
Speaker 1: full circle, So don't get lost in trying to change
Speaker 1: other people's perceptions of you, because that could be a
Speaker 1: never ending journey and a journey that you never reach
Speaker 1: the destination of because you never will truly be able
Speaker 1: to control it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, comes full circle. That's that coolly quote, right, I
Speaker 2: mean that is it is such a powerful quote. Everything
Speaker 2: we talk about you cann just back it up straight
Speaker 2: into that and again it brings out that the meaning
Speaker 2: of that quote so much much more. But Jay, when
Speaker 2: you were when you were just talking there about the
Speaker 2: insecurity that some people may feel when you're on express gratitude,
Speaker 2: I was really I was struck by something I wrote
Speaker 2: down from your book. And I can't remember which chapter
Speaker 2: it's sent, but you say it's impossible to build one's
Speaker 2: own happiness on the unhappiness of others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm quoting Daisaku Ikida, who's a Buddhist philosopher
Speaker 1: who says that statement. I believe, I can't remember which
Speaker 1: I think I start the Negativity chapter with that quote,
Speaker 1: So it's dysakui ikeda Buddhist philosopher, and he says exactly
Speaker 1: that that you can't build your own happiness on the
Speaker 1: unhappiness of others. And I think what that truly means
Speaker 1: is we often believe that we can only be superior
Speaker 1: if someone else is inferior, So we feel better when
Speaker 1: we say, oh, you know that birst, Did you know
Speaker 1: that couple was getting a divorce? Did you know the
Speaker 1: marriage only lasted like two years? And what you're really
Speaker 1: saying is, well, we've somehow managed to stay together for
Speaker 1: eight years, Like we've done pretty all right, right, and
Speaker 1: you're kind of gossiping about them, or another way it
Speaker 1: goes is like what did you hear about him? He's
Speaker 1: totally messed it up, like he's getting fired next week.
Speaker 1: And all you're doing is you're making someone feel inferior
Speaker 1: to make yourself feel superior. That doesn't create happiness. It
Speaker 1: creates more uncertain ground because now you're constantly looking for
Speaker 1: someone else to feel inferior for you to feel superior,
Speaker 1: and guess what, God forbid, someone's now outperforming you. You're
Speaker 1: now feeling inferior, and you're feeling all the insecurity of
Speaker 1: what you felt about someone else. So it's never a
Speaker 1: stable ground, right, I believe it's in the Bible, but
Speaker 1: you know you can't. I think it's that you can't
Speaker 1: build your home on shifting sands. But in the same way,
Speaker 1: you can't build a stable identity of yourself on the
Speaker 1: gossip or the mistakes of others. And so you've got
Speaker 1: to be really careful about not building a ground for yourself.
Speaker 1: Imagine the ground you're standing on is built on blocks
Speaker 1: of superiority, bricks of gossip and mud and cement of criticism.
Speaker 1: That's not going to hold. And so you don't want
Speaker 1: to create your joy because other people are struggling or suffering.
Speaker 1: You want to create your joy because you know how
Speaker 1: to deal with struggle and suffering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so beautifully explained. And I think we often write
Speaker 2: the quotes down that really mean a lot to us,
Speaker 2: and I certainly feel for me that was something I
Speaker 2: spent a lot of my adult life, where the trying
Speaker 2: to come to terms with and realizing, you know, I
Speaker 2: used to be so competitive, you know, you know, if
Speaker 2: I want a game of snooker or table tennis or
Speaker 2: you know, it would it would literally elevate me. And
Speaker 2: if I lost, man, I would be down in the dumps,
Speaker 2: like it would. And I've really explored this, and you know,
Speaker 2: given the time you've got left, I sort of probably
Speaker 2: can't go down this rabbit hole. But you know, I
Speaker 2: know one component is that as a kid, you know
Speaker 2: how I did at school, you know, And again I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is the same in your household.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of immigrant families have this sort
Speaker 2: of mentality. If you you know, if you got ninety
Speaker 2: eight percent, it's like, well why was it not one
Speaker 2: hundred percent? Yeah, you know, you were like, well you
Speaker 2: came second in that tess why what happened? Who was first?
Speaker 2: Why didn't you come first?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And you know, I actually think whilst I and my
Speaker 2: mum will say, because I've spoken to her about this recently,
Speaker 2: she said, well, I knew you were capable, so I
Speaker 2: wanted you to be the best you could. And okay,
Speaker 2: and I think she was doing the best she could.
Speaker 2: I would say for me, the way I interpreted it
Speaker 2: was that I can only be loved, I can only
Speaker 2: be feel good about myself when I'm number one, And really,
Speaker 2: i'd say the last sort of five years, that's pretty
Speaker 2: much almost gone from me. Now, I've I'm pretty okay
Speaker 2: with it now, like I don't feel and I think
Speaker 2: that is. I think it's such an important quote that
Speaker 2: you've shared because I sort of think now and we
Speaker 2: should probably talk about social media a bit, because you know,
Speaker 2: you're pretty much the king of social media in so
Speaker 2: many ways, and I think I'd love to know some
Speaker 2: of your thoughts on social media. But with respect to
Speaker 2: that quote, I think one of the negatives, and there's
Speaker 2: no doubt been a lot of positives of social media.
Speaker 2: You know, you have shared such amazing wisdom in your
Speaker 2: videos to millions of people around the world, which potentially
Speaker 2: may not have happened without social media, right, So it's
Speaker 2: not about saying it's either good or bad. But I
Speaker 2: do think for some people it can magnify those insecurity.
Speaker 2: So if you feel that you can build your happiness
Speaker 2: on the unhappiness of others, people can get very focused
Speaker 2: on follow accounts and likes, And I certainly know in
Speaker 2: the in the UK medic world there's a lot of
Speaker 2: medics feel a pressure to be building up their profiles
Speaker 2: and of contacts and me saying, you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what to do, and you think, wow, it's causing
Speaker 2: such discontentment, and it's just a metric that in so
Speaker 2: many levels. I'm not I'm not gonna say it's meaningless.
Speaker 2: Of course it's not meaningless, but if you're trying to
Speaker 2: do it, because how you'll be perceived by others. Going
Speaker 2: back to what we've been talking about throughout this conversation,
Speaker 2: what are you posting for? What are you hoping to
Speaker 2: achieve by posting? Is it in service? Is it to
Speaker 2: help people or is it to elevate yourself? Yea, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe you can untangle that as some
Speaker 2: for us, because I'm sure some people are listening, Will
Speaker 2: will be thinking.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, there's there's there's very few creators of content
Speaker 1: on social media that started out with a follow account
Speaker 1: in mind. So me included a lot of my peers
Speaker 1: in this space, a lot of people that I know
Speaker 1: that are extremely successful on different platforms. None of them started,
Speaker 1: at least the ones that I know, none of them
Speaker 1: started to get followers. They all started because they had
Speaker 1: something to share, whatever that was, whether it was comedy,
Speaker 1: whether it's wisdom, whether it was a workout plan, a
Speaker 1: fitness plan, whatever it was like, they had something that
Speaker 1: they did that they were passionate about they wanted to share.
Speaker 1: And I can only speak to myself fully, but when
Speaker 1: I started, I thought I was going to have a
Speaker 1: full time corporate job and I was going to make
Speaker 1: videos on the evenings and weekends to share a message.
Speaker 1: That's genuinely all I believe. And after my first month,
Speaker 1: I had about a thousand subscribers on YouTube, about four
Speaker 1: videos I'd made on YouTube had about a thousand people
Speaker 1: that had subscribed to my channel, and most of my
Speaker 1: friends were like, great, Jay, that's where it's going to end,
Speaker 1: Like congrats, well done, You've got a thousand subscribers. You're
Speaker 1: kind of just crept in there in thirty days, like,
Speaker 1: well done, that's cool, Like how far is this going
Speaker 1: to go? And that's really the reality of what it
Speaker 1: felt like. And the interesting thing is the question was
Speaker 1: never how do I get more followers? The question was
Speaker 1: always how do I make more content that impacts people?
Speaker 1: Because and that's the question with everything. It's like, if
Speaker 1: you make more content that genuinely impacts people, you get
Speaker 1: more followers. If you build a business that serves more people,
Speaker 1: you'll make more money. If you help a lot of
Speaker 1: people through your talents and gifts, you will be famous
Speaker 1: and known for it. Like it's a byproduct of doing
Speaker 1: something properly. And that's why I love the definition that
Speaker 1: Peter Demandes gives that we should redefine the word billionaire
Speaker 1: to be someone who impacts the lives of a billion people.
Speaker 1: Why is Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world
Speaker 1: because he's created a product that we all say we
Speaker 1: want and that it solves a problem that we really need.
Speaker 1: And so if you want to get followers, don't look
Speaker 1: at the number. Ask yourself, are you really creating the
Speaker 1: value that's going to help people, and they going to
Speaker 1: naturally want to follow you, and they're going to want
Speaker 1: to love your work and share it. Because to me,
Speaker 1: that's the worthwhile pursuit in life because when you do
Speaker 1: that work, that work is humbling. When you do that creativity,
Speaker 1: that's the part that makes you grateful for the success
Speaker 1: that you get because you go, wow, like people actually
Speaker 1: care about what I have to say. But if you're
Speaker 1: just obsessed about numbers and metrics without being obsessed by
Speaker 1: the content, the creation, and the service, then you'll never
Speaker 1: be satisfied because there'll always be someone better than you.
Speaker 1: So for me, when I said I to write this book,
Speaker 1: so many people are like, oh, so, do you want
Speaker 1: this book to be a best seller? And I said,
Speaker 1: I want this book to be a best seller. Of
Speaker 1: course I do, but I'm not going to focus on
Speaker 1: it being a best seller. I'm going to focus on
Speaker 1: writing the best book in the world that I can
Speaker 1: possibly write given the skills that I have. And that's
Speaker 1: why when I talk about dharma in the book, which
Speaker 1: is helping everyone find their purpose, dharma is broken down.
Speaker 1: Dharma means purpose loosely and has many different mess. But
Speaker 1: one of them is nature in purpose, your true nature.
Speaker 1: And the three aspects that I'll share now for the
Speaker 1: and there's more depth in the book. The three aspects
Speaker 1: of dharma are your passion, your skills, and your compassion.
Speaker 1: That's what it means. When you have your passion plus
Speaker 1: your skills plus your compassion, that equals purpose. But for
Speaker 1: most of us, if we're just looking at numbers and
Speaker 1: metrics and data, I mean, you'll be dissatisfied that. And
Speaker 1: I'm saying that as someone who really values numbers. I
Speaker 1: understand the value of followers, social media. I get the
Speaker 1: value of all those things, and I'm highly strategic. But
Speaker 1: I'll be completely honest with you, I'm not focused on
Speaker 1: the number. I'm focused on making content. And that's the
Speaker 1: message that if we're focused on really creating value in
Speaker 1: the world, all of the other stuff will come naturally.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to go out and separately
Speaker 1: try and get it. And you know, rang and you've
Speaker 1: done a great job of this. You've made content that's
Speaker 1: very organic to you. You've made content that's very natural
Speaker 1: to you, and and I think that's what people gravitate
Speaker 1: towards you and your podcast and your books, because it's
Speaker 1: you being yourself. You're not trying to sound like someone else.
Speaker 1: You're not trying to be someone else. And if you
Speaker 1: look at the most successful creators in the world, they're
Speaker 1: all like that. They've just really shared their raw personality
Speaker 1: with others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's just sharing that, Jay, and I
Speaker 2: will just add to that, as I have stripped away
Speaker 2: the layers of conditioning from my childhood and the insecurities
Speaker 2: and frankly used a lot of the tools and you
Speaker 2: know that are in your book, but there's a lot
Speaker 2: of new ones in there for me to be to
Speaker 2: be applying, which I'm really grateful that you've written this book.
Speaker 2: So I think it is incredible and I will sit
Speaker 2: with a lot of these as I already am, but
Speaker 2: as I have become more me and i'm you know
Speaker 2: I post frankly, you know, I'm like you, Like many people,
Speaker 2: I'm a busy guy. I've got two young kids. You know,
Speaker 2: I made it to say that I spending time with
Speaker 2: my children, spending undistracted time with my family is more
Speaker 2: important to me than other things. You know, people have
Speaker 2: heard me say before. I don't tend to let's say
Speaker 2: instant story that much, or when I'm at home because
Speaker 2: my kids are around, and for me, it doesn't fit
Speaker 2: with my values to model to them that every aspect
Speaker 2: of my life needs to be documented into a screen. Now,
Speaker 2: that is absolutely not a criticism of people who do
Speaker 2: do that. It genuinely isn't. It's just not the way
Speaker 2: I choose to do things. But really, what I was
Speaker 2: trying to say is that I think what you said
Speaker 2: about your focus on making content that changes people's lives,
Speaker 2: and of course some people are going to share it
Speaker 2: because you're giving people something of value. And I found
Speaker 2: not only particularly with this podcast, which is probably the
Speaker 2: favorite thing of all the things that I do now,
Speaker 2: because I get to be myself. I get to talk
Speaker 2: with amazing people like you. We get to have honest
Speaker 2: conversations that really, you know, often there's no real agenda,
Speaker 2: that's just about trying to share your insight, my insight,
Speaker 2: just have these sort of conversations and I and I
Speaker 2: feel I have become a happier and more content person
Speaker 2: since I started doing my podcast because it's helped me
Speaker 2: be myself. It's exhausting trying to be someone else. It's
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean, it's tiring trying to
Speaker 2: be someone else. And going back to what you said
Speaker 2: at the start, if people are trying to spend their
Speaker 2: lives living someone else's life, it's knackering.
Speaker 1: It's so tiring, it's so tiring. It's it's it's I
Speaker 1: think you know, I'm sure it's been stated before around
Speaker 1: how it's it's so hard trying to act like someone
Speaker 1: else in so much easier, it's less effort being yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's what you said, that our childhood had made
Speaker 1: has made us believe we're not enough, and so we
Speaker 1: think we have to be what's rewarded in society. And
Speaker 1: actually we're now living at a time where what's being
Speaker 1: rewarded in society as being yourself and and you know,
Speaker 1: and that authenticity, And you're right, it's it's not about
Speaker 1: whether someone's posting thirty stories a day or not. It's
Speaker 1: that's not what it's about. It's about is that authentically
Speaker 1: the life they want to live. That's the question. The
Speaker 1: question isn't do you make videos or have a podcast
Speaker 1: or have millions of followers. The question is that authentic
Speaker 1: to who you are and what you're really trying to
Speaker 1: do in the world, because by the way, I know
Speaker 1: people who've impacted the world who have zero followers. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: like I know people who've impacted the world who have
Speaker 1: no videos or content. That's not the only way to
Speaker 1: impact the world. That is a way to impact the world,
Speaker 1: and that's a way that I had to pursue, and
Speaker 1: Rungan's pursued in a different way in his life. And
Speaker 1: if you look at Rungin's journey and my journey, we're
Speaker 1: doing it in different ways. There's no sameness in how
Speaker 1: it's being done because everyone has that. So don't limit
Speaker 1: yourself to believe there's only one way to getting to
Speaker 1: where you want to go. There are multiple parts, and
Speaker 1: you probably have to test an experiment and take a
Speaker 1: few of them to see which one actually comes to fruition.
Speaker 1: And I took many parts. I tried so many things
Speaker 1: before I tried social media that social media was the
Speaker 1: only option I had left. And so for me, social
Speaker 1: media wasn't even my first choice. Social media was my
Speaker 1: last choice of how to work. But I was getting
Speaker 1: no breakthroughs from media companies and media execs and content
Speaker 1: platform I just I got no love from it all.
Speaker 1: So I had to turn to social media.
Speaker 2: Wow, just so powerful, so incredible, Jay, I mean, Jay,
Speaker 2: look that I was. I had so many things to
Speaker 2: talk to you about relationships and about service and about
Speaker 2: you know, the four c's of friendship, you know which,
Speaker 2: which again is expanding a vocabulary for people to be
Speaker 2: able to understand their lives, butter understand their friends better,
Speaker 2: get less for stray seat. But Jay, this podcast is
Speaker 2: called Feel Better, Live More, and that's because when we
Speaker 2: feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our life. Now,
Speaker 2: you shared some wonderful insights and practical tips of people
Speaker 2: in the show today. I'd always like to leave people
Speaker 2: with a few practical things that they can think about
Speaker 2: introducing into their life immediately to change the quality of
Speaker 2: the lives, to change the way they feel. You have
Speaker 2: so many tips, it's a tricky question, but do you
Speaker 2: have three or four sort of closing tips words of
Speaker 2: wisdom for people to really start changing things immediately.
Speaker 1: So they called the three s's, the sites, the sense,
Speaker 1: and the sound. So what we see, what we hear,
Speaker 1: and what we smell has a huge impact on how
Speaker 1: we feel. And we actually underestimate our senses because we
Speaker 1: rely so much on our eyes. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: Everyone's been wearing masked through through right, Like everyone's been
Speaker 1: wearing a mask recently. How many of you struggle to
Speaker 1: understand what people are saying because you can't read their
Speaker 1: looks anymore? Yeah, right. We're so used to looking at
Speaker 1: people's lips as they talk that we know what words
Speaker 1: they're saying. Now that we can't see their lips, we
Speaker 1: realize we're actually not that great listeners, and our ears
Speaker 1: are almost to sleep, so we rely so much on
Speaker 1: our eyes. So let me explain to you what you
Speaker 1: can change. Let's talk about sites what you see. Ask
Speaker 1: yourself right now, what's the first thing you see in
Speaker 1: the morning. What's the first thing? Eighty percent of people
Speaker 1: they see their phone first thing in the morning and
Speaker 1: lasting in the night, after they see their partner and
Speaker 1: before they see them in the morning. Eighty percent of
Speaker 1: us change it. I want you to see something in
Speaker 1: the morning that fills you with joy. It could be
Speaker 1: your favorite quote, It could be your favorite teaching It
Speaker 1: could be a picture that your kids drew that you
Speaker 1: absolutely love. It could be a photo of your family.
Speaker 1: It could be a work of art that inspires you.
Speaker 1: I surround myself in my studio with pictures of places
Speaker 1: I've lived, people that I'm inspired by, stories that I've told,
Speaker 1: because it fills my mind with energy when I walk
Speaker 1: into this room. If I walked in and saw a blank,
Speaker 1: white wall, of course I'm gonna go this is way
Speaker 1: more interesting. But my wall's more interesting than this to
Speaker 1: me because it's meaningful. And so the first thing you
Speaker 1: see in the morning, don't make it something reactive, don't
Speaker 1: make it a message or an email. Make it something
Speaker 1: that you've chosen to inspire you. That's the first thing.
Speaker 1: The second thing is the sense in your life. Why
Speaker 1: is it that when you walk into a spa or
Speaker 1: you get a massage you feel relaxed. It's because they
Speaker 1: have sandal wood, lavender, and eucalyptus just spraying out of
Speaker 1: diffuses and candles, and it's an instant way of feeling calm.
Speaker 1: If you just inhale on your inward breath for a
Speaker 1: count of four and excel for account of four. If
Speaker 1: you just inhale eucalyptus, lavender, sandalward, whatever scent you like
Speaker 1: from a diffuse or a candle, you will feel a
Speaker 1: natural sense of calm in your life. And feel that
Speaker 1: clarity that you need to drop out of that anxious
Speaker 1: feeling you may have. And you can have a different
Speaker 1: scent in your living room, a different scent in your bedroom,
Speaker 1: a different sent in your kitchen, one that feels right
Speaker 1: for the energy you want in that room. And the
Speaker 1: third and final one is sound. So many of us
Speaker 1: don't realize the power of sound. But whether you're listening
Speaker 1: to your favorite song or whether you listen to nature sounds.
Speaker 1: When we were monks, we would rise to nature sounds,
Speaker 1: and we found that the sound of nature is so
Speaker 1: at pace with the body and the mind. And when
Speaker 1: I lived in New York, I'd often feel exhausted mentally,
Speaker 1: and I wonder why I exercise, I meditate, why is
Speaker 1: it that I feel that way? And I realized because
Speaker 1: it's of something when I researched called cognitive load. Your
Speaker 1: brain is making sense of insignificant sounds of drilling, of construction, work,
Speaker 1: of cars and taxis and horns, and so your brain
Speaker 1: doesn't have the power to deal with what's actually it's
Speaker 1: trying to focus on. So ask yourself, what are the
Speaker 1: sounds in the background of your life? Are they songs
Speaker 1: that bring you to life. Are they music that calm
Speaker 1: you down before you go to bed? Use sites, sense
Speaker 1: and sounds to change the state and energy of any
Speaker 1: environment in your home. And if you literally walked into
Speaker 1: every room in your house and you said, what is
Speaker 1: the site that inspires me in this room? What is
Speaker 1: the scent that calms me in this room? And what
Speaker 1: is the sound that makes me feel like ease in
Speaker 1: this room? And you sound design, site design and scent
Speaker 1: design each of your rooms. We're just a candle, a picture,
Speaker 1: and a playlist. You'll transform the way you feel starting today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just brilliant tips. Jay really really great and man
Speaker 2: makes me think about my own morning. And yeah, that
Speaker 2: even sense. I like that. That is something I hadn't
Speaker 2: really thought about Otherwise. I often do come into the
Speaker 2: garden and sort of first thing. But I could come
Speaker 2: in and really pay attention to what I'm smelling rather
Speaker 2: than just being in nature. I could all say, smell something,
Speaker 2: So I'll do that tomorrow morning. You might you might
Speaker 2: even get another voice gratitude.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: But in the spirit of what you said before of gratitude,
Speaker 2: I really I do want to say that what you
Speaker 2: have done by living your life, by going on your
Speaker 2: journey is impact the lives of millions of people around
Speaker 2: the world, and I think you're continuing that path with
Speaker 2: this wonderful book that I really do hope is a
Speaker 2: bestseller all around the world because I think it's jam
Speaker 2: packed for the wisdom and I just want to acknowledge
Speaker 2: you for that, say thank you, thank you for giving
Speaker 2: up some of your precious times today we meet the
Speaker 2: listeners have loved having you off for your to live
Speaker 2: more and of looking forward to the next time, and.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I want to be grateful to
Speaker 1: you too, because you know when I got that message
Speaker 1: and you've and I can tell obviously in this interview
Speaker 1: who spend so much time with the book. It means
Speaker 1: a lot to me. And there's no greater feeling of
Speaker 1: satisfaction as a creator than when what you create is
Speaker 1: consumed and used and practiced. And you know there's nothing
Speaker 1: better than that. And so you know, you've given me
Speaker 1: a real gift today, and I'm so grateful that you've
Speaker 1: shared this with your audience and your community. And I
Speaker 1: can't wait to do lots more together. Man, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I genuinely am, like I really look forward to it.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, this, this was such a joy and such
Speaker 1: a treat, and this was my first thing of the day.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad I got to glad I got to
Speaker 1: do this with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you Anne. You're here right now listening to this.
Speaker 1: There's something beautiful about that, because no matter what you've
Speaker 1: experienced in your life, you've made it to this moment,
Speaker 1: and that, on its own is an accomplishment. The next
Speaker 1: seven minutes are about acknowledging the person most responsible for
Speaker 1: getting you here.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: I'm j Sheddy. Welcome to the Daily Jay. Let's start
Speaker 1: as usual with three deep breaths to get centered, breathing
Speaker 1: in and breathing out, feeling your body rise and letting
Speaker 1: it fall. One more and on we go. I've talked
Speaker 1: before about how much I love sending thank you notes.
Speaker 1: They're a powerful expression of gratitude, equally impactful for both
Speaker 1: the giver and the receiver. But in writing our thank
Speaker 1: you notes, there may be one important person we've been
Speaker 1: leaving out. Researchers recruited more than eleven hundred study participants
Speaker 1: and had them write one of three letters. One group
Speaker 1: wrote a thank you letter to someone who'd done something
Speaker 1: for them. Another group wrote a letter describing something positive
Speaker 1: that had happened to them, and the third group was
Speaker 1: instructed to address their letter dear passed me and express
Speaker 1: gratitude for something they had done for themselves. The traditional
Speaker 1: thank you notes and the letters describing something positive were
Speaker 1: all great and filled people with happy vibes, But the
Speaker 1: researchers noticed something interesting about the third set of letters.
Speaker 1: When people wrote to their past selves, they tended to
Speaker 1: focus on a difficult experience and thanked them solve elves
Speaker 1: for persevering through a tough time. The word brave came
Speaker 1: up frequently. Lead researcher Matt Baldwin says that thank me
Speaker 1: letters seem to bring us closer to a sense of
Speaker 1: who we really are by underscoring the good qualities we've
Speaker 1: shown over our lifetime, and they remind us how we've
Speaker 1: already demonstrated to ourselves that we can overcome challenges and obstacles.
Speaker 1: Once we recognize that we've done it, before we realize
Speaker 1: we can do it again. We tend to think of
Speaker 1: gratitude as an external practice. We direct our appreciation towards others,
Speaker 1: to our spouse, our dog, our favorite podcaster. We might
Speaker 1: even give thanks to the sun for shining, or to
Speaker 1: our car for being so reliable, and that's great. It's
Speaker 1: wonderful to acknowledge others, but don't forget yourself, because you're
Speaker 1: the person most deserving of your thanks. We're often quick
Speaker 1: to be harsh with ourselves and slow to show compassion
Speaker 1: and kindness. Conscious self gratitude helps with that. I know
Speaker 1: that life's journey isn't always pretty. Sometimes we encounter challenges
Speaker 1: that we're convinced are insurmountable. Maybe you're even experiencing a
Speaker 1: situation like that now. If so, there's no better time
Speaker 1: to reach out to your past self, recall and acknowledge
Speaker 1: your fortitude, your creativity, or your ability to hang in
Speaker 1: there and get to that next day, that next hour,
Speaker 1: even that next minute. Every single one of us is
Speaker 1: so much more powerful, capable, and resilient than we often believe.
Speaker 1: So every once in a while, stop and thank yourself
Speaker 1: for all the ways large or small that you've showed
Speaker 1: up for yourself in the past, and continue to do
Speaker 1: so each day. With that in mind, let's practice a
Speaker 1: gratitude based body scan. We're going to check in with
Speaker 1: ourselves part by part while saying thanks to our body
Speaker 1: for supporting us throughout the day. And if any piece
Speaker 1: of this practice doesn't feel right for you or your body,
Speaker 1: go ahead and modify it to best suit you. First,
Speaker 1: bring your attention to your eyes, closing them if you'd like,
Speaker 1: and observing how they feel. Maybe tired, may be alert,
Speaker 1: It's okay if you don't observe anything at all. Say
Speaker 1: a quiet thank you for all your eyes do to
Speaker 1: help you move through the world. Now, shift your attention
Speaker 1: to your ears, noticing any sounds that may be present,
Speaker 1: express gratitude for this moment and all others. Moving your
Speaker 1: awareness to your jaw and consciously letting it relax. Our
Speaker 1: jaw does a lot every day, but how often do
Speaker 1: we acknowledge it. For the next few moments, I want
Speaker 1: to give you the space to decide which body parts
Speaker 1: to scan and thank maybe the lungs for breathing, the
Speaker 1: heart for beating, the hands for working so hard. Totally
Speaker 1: your call, and now let's open this up. With our
Speaker 1: time remaining, I want you to think about how you
Speaker 1: would start your thank me note. Begin with dear past me,
Speaker 1: and express gratitude for something anything you've done for yourself.
Speaker 1: Your homework is to finish your letter today, and i'd
Speaker 1: encourage you to put it on paper. Remember you are
Speaker 1: deserving of gratitude from yourself. I should also say that
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for you and I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you tomorrow