Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome back to our Purpose, the number one
Speaker 1: health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every
Speaker 1: single one of you. I am so excited to share
Speaker 1: this very special conversation with you today. I know that
Speaker 1: I usually dive into a theme, but this podcast was
Speaker 1: super deep. I think I opened up like I haven't
Speaker 1: for a long long time in a conversation with my
Speaker 1: dear friend Stephen Bartlett on his podcast Diary of a CEO.
Speaker 1: And I know you're going to love this conversation. I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the journey I've been on, mistakes,
Speaker 1: I've made flaws, I have things I'm personally working on,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to give you a deeper
Speaker 1: insight into our relationship. So I'm excited for you to
Speaker 1: listen to this makes you tag me share your insights,
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to see them. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This is a really difficult question to ask, but it
Speaker 1: is the best question you can ask yourself. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: being a monk as much as I enjoy understanding media,
Speaker 1: and that's really paradoxical for a lot of people, but
Speaker 1: that's just my truth. I've always wanted to share meditation
Speaker 1: at scale with the world. If you just keep trying
Speaker 1: to change your environment, hoping that your life's going to improve,
Speaker 1: You're going to feel dissatisfied at the next place. And
Speaker 1: I feel we're just conditioned to say, Okay, you don't
Speaker 1: like your job, quit your job. You don't like your relationship,
Speaker 1: quit your relationship. And I think we just keep saying
Speaker 1: that it's this external shell that we're in, when it's
Speaker 1: actually this shell and what's happening inside of it that's
Speaker 1: defining all of these perspectives. I believe that to create
Speaker 1: happiness day to day, in one year, in one month,
Speaker 1: in a week, you have to have quick one. Can
Speaker 1: you do me a favor if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and hit the subscribe button, the follow button, or wherever
Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast, thank you so much. Jet
Speaker 1: is a household name all around the world. Here's someone
Speaker 1: that's provided inspiration, wisdom, and insight to billions of people
Speaker 1: using social media. I don't need to tell you who
Speaker 1: he is because his reputation precedes himself. In his early years,
Speaker 1: he was lost. Becoming a monk helped him to find himself,
Speaker 1: and through service, he's gone on to touch the lives
Speaker 1: of billions of people through social media, but who is
Speaker 1: he really? Who's the guy behind the following? Me and
Speaker 1: Jay have a connection that I'm yet to experience with
Speaker 1: pretty much any guests that's sat here with me, and
Speaker 1: I know you're going to feel that today. This is
Speaker 1: a truly special, honest, open conversation between two men about
Speaker 1: so many things that I genuinely think the world needs
Speaker 1: to hear. Thank you, Jay, And when I say thank
Speaker 1: you to Jay, you're going to understand why. Shortly, so,
Speaker 1: without further ado, I'm Stephen Butlett, and this is the
Speaker 1: diver CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are,
Speaker 1: then please keep this to yourself. First of all, you
Speaker 1: know I usually start these podcasts in a much more serio.
Speaker 1: But it's good to see you back in the UK. Mat,
Speaker 1: It's good to see you. And I was just saying
Speaker 1: this to you offline that I think the first time
Speaker 1: we met was around three years ago, three or four
Speaker 1: years ago New York, and I think we had this
Speaker 1: plan to become best friends. We're like, we're going to
Speaker 1: see each other, this is this, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden I moved to La Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: moved back to London too. But it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you, man, It's great to be real and I
Speaker 1: do feel like we've got so much in common in
Speaker 1: so many unbelievable ways. But the reason why I was
Speaker 1: so excited by this conversation is because we've also got
Speaker 1: so many We've walked a different path in our lives,
Speaker 1: and you're such a self aware, sort of self analytical
Speaker 1: human being. So the wisdom that I've gained from watching
Speaker 1: you online over the years is someone that comes from London,
Speaker 1: is from the UK as well, and is speaking to
Speaker 1: the world through their content and channels. I find I
Speaker 1: found truly inspirational. So let's get into it. So one
Speaker 1: of the things I always start with people, and I
Speaker 1: think this comes from my experience with like studying childhood psychology,
Speaker 1: is trying to understand what it was in that early
Speaker 1: years that that has led them to go on the
Speaker 1: path they went on and ultimately to be sat here.
Speaker 1: When you look back at those early years in your
Speaker 1: life in growing up in London, what were the formative
Speaker 1: things that you point out in hindsight and go to
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't be who I am now A
Speaker 1: bit of an anomaly if that hadn't happened. I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things would be that I felt
Speaker 1: I mediated my parents' marriage when I was younger, and
Speaker 1: so I was there go to person for my mom
Speaker 1: and my dad, and I have a really good relationship
Speaker 1: with both of them and love them both, and they
Speaker 1: would come to me with their challenges and their issues
Speaker 1: and their pain points, and as I was growing up,
Speaker 1: I felt that I was always trying to reconcile, discuss, converse,
Speaker 1: and negotiate for both of them on either side. And
Speaker 1: one thing I realized very early on as a young
Speaker 1: child was I never wanted to take a side. I
Speaker 1: never wanted to make one of them win and one
Speaker 1: of them loose. I never saw one of them right
Speaker 1: and one of them wrong. I really saw them both
Speaker 1: as two humans who are trying their best, but just
Speaker 1: like me, were naturally flawed and fallible and made mistakes.
Speaker 1: And I think that gave me a sense of compassion
Speaker 1: that runs through to today for myself and for others
Speaker 1: and for people that I work with and the people
Speaker 1: that we communicate through the podcast and videos, because I
Speaker 1: just saw very early on in my life that people
Speaker 1: could mean well, people could try their best people could
Speaker 1: try to be loving and share kindness, but they could
Speaker 1: still feel that things weren't working out for them. So
Speaker 1: I look at that as a massive moment in my past,
Speaker 1: because now when I look back at it, I think
Speaker 1: I've just been doing this for so long, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like I started doing this when I was probably
Speaker 1: six seven, maybe ten years old, and now to be
Speaker 1: still doing it today, it feels like something that was
Speaker 1: a natural role that I embodied at that time, and
Speaker 1: it's now a role that is evolved into looking internally
Speaker 1: for myself, also looking at the things that I adopted
Speaker 1: from that time that were uncomfortable and things that made
Speaker 1: me question my own self worth and my own meaning
Speaker 1: of life. I would say that for me, I realized
Speaker 1: that we either try to repeat or avoid what we
Speaker 1: saw in our childhood, and that happens either unconsciously or consciously.
Speaker 1: So you could be unconsciously repeating what you saw in
Speaker 1: your childhood, or you could be consciously avoiding it. And
Speaker 1: I found that there were parts of me that were
Speaker 1: really great at avoiding some of the negative things, but
Speaker 1: there were also subconscious parts of me that adopted some
Speaker 1: of those behavior traits that I only discovered in the
Speaker 1: last two years, and so I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: My wife, I sometimes played the role of sacrificing and overgiving,
Speaker 1: but then expecting her to give the same amount back. Now,
Speaker 1: the way I see sacrifice now is that if you
Speaker 1: sacrifice something for someone and then you want it back,
Speaker 1: it's not a sacrifice. It's a transaction. You can't give
Speaker 1: someone a discount and then ask them to pay full
Speaker 1: price and then say it was a sacrifice, because it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was a transaction. And I saw that in my
Speaker 1: life because of the way I had received loved from
Speaker 1: extended families, or love from school or teachers or whatever
Speaker 1: it may have been. I was loved in that way
Speaker 1: where I was loved but then made to feel guilty
Speaker 1: if I didn't repay it in full. And I saw
Speaker 1: myself adopting that in my own loving relationships with my wife,
Speaker 1: with my family, with my sister. And I literally only
Speaker 1: spotted that two years ago, and I thought myself, this
Speaker 1: has to stop. I can't repeat this cycle. What is
Speaker 1: the work you do to spot those to illuminate some
Speaker 1: of those kind of subconscious behavior patterns that because we
Speaker 1: all have them going on in the back room of
Speaker 1: our lives and our minds. We have our childhood, the
Speaker 1: lessons we learn and the limiting beliefs we learn, almost
Speaker 1: acting as the puppet master of our adult lives. And
Speaker 1: so how does one become get to a point where
Speaker 1: they can spot that and go, do you know what
Speaker 1: that comes from that? What is there an exercise you've done?
Speaker 1: Is there? You know? You tell me? I think the
Speaker 1: first thing is that when you experience conflict with someone,
Speaker 1: or you experience a disagreement or a disconnect with someone,
Speaker 1: our society version is blame them. It's their fault. They
Speaker 1: upset you, they're wrong, and our friends will agree with that.
Speaker 1: When you go and tell your friend that so and
Speaker 1: so did something, they'll say, oh, yeah, well you know
Speaker 1: he or she's a x y z XYZ sorry x
Speaker 1: y z the spreading to a sturb in America the
Speaker 1: x y z of their so and so. They're like this,
Speaker 1: they're like that, And actually, in that moment, I think
Speaker 1: the best thing we can do is what's my accountability
Speaker 1: in this? What part of this have I created for myself?
Speaker 1: This is a really uncomfortable, difficult question to ask, but
Speaker 1: it is the best question you can ask yourself if
Speaker 1: every time something goes wrong or something doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: instead of blaming someone else or blaming yourself, if you
Speaker 1: can pause and say what part of this am I
Speaker 1: responsible for? And I think the reason why that's difficult
Speaker 1: is because we see everything as binary. We see it
Speaker 1: as it's either their fault or it's all my fault.
Speaker 1: It's all your fault, or it's all my fault. And
Speaker 1: the truth is there is no oil. It's all parts.
Speaker 1: It's partly your fault and it's partly my fault. But
Speaker 1: if I don't understand what my part to play is,
Speaker 1: then I can't actually understand it. So the first step
Speaker 1: is what's my part? That's the first part of the exercise.
Speaker 1: The second part of the exercise is, now that I
Speaker 1: know what my part is, let me focus on what
Speaker 1: skill I'm missing, Let me focus on what growth I
Speaker 1: haven't had. Let me focus on what part of my
Speaker 1: life feels incomplete that makes me act in my incomplete
Speaker 1: way with others. So what part of me is missing?
Speaker 1: And I found that when I was over sacrificing or overgiving,
Speaker 1: that's because I was trying to demand love from someone
Speaker 1: else and demand validation from someone else. So I was
Speaker 1: almost trying to achieve or earn that love and validation,
Speaker 1: and so I realized I wasn't giving it to myself.
Speaker 1: And so now I've realized that whatever you want from
Speaker 1: someone else, give it to yourself first. If you want
Speaker 1: compliments from someone else, give them to yourself first. If
Speaker 1: you want validation from someone else, give it to yourself first,
Speaker 1: because no matter how many of them they give you,
Speaker 1: if you never gave it to yourself in the first place,
Speaker 1: it will never be enough. So that's the second step.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want from someone else, give it to yourself first.
Speaker 1: And the third step, I'd say to get to that
Speaker 1: self awareness is simply sitting down and plotting the three
Speaker 1: most difficult times in your life. So sit down and
Speaker 1: write down what would have been the three most difficult
Speaker 1: times in my life for the most painful decision making
Speaker 1: points of transition in my life, And then ask yourself,
Speaker 1: when you made good decisions, what was the environment like,
Speaker 1: who are you listening to? What were people saying around you?
Speaker 1: And when you made poor decisions, what was the environment like?
Speaker 1: What were people saying? Who are you listening to? And
Speaker 1: you'll start to spot a pattern. And I found that
Speaker 1: in my life, anytime I make a good decision, most
Speaker 1: people disagree with me. I have to listen to my
Speaker 1: inner voice, and I'm usually doing something against the grain.
Speaker 1: Now that's my pattern, but everyone has to find their own.
Speaker 1: You've reached a point of self awareness where you can
Speaker 1: literally pinpoint the steps of doing that, and obviously you're
Speaker 1: coaching and all the work you do has exacerbated that extremely.
Speaker 1: Is there like a practical day to day habit you've
Speaker 1: installed in your life to be able to look back
Speaker 1: at how Jay's behaving on like is it a notepad,
Speaker 1: is it voice notes in your phone? Is it meditation?
Speaker 1: What is the day to day practice that's got you
Speaker 1: to this point? So I would say that over time,
Speaker 1: I've done journaling. I love voice notes because I like
Speaker 1: speaking sometimes more than writing. But I'd say the biggest one,
Speaker 1: if I'm completely honest with you, Stephen, like sitting here
Speaker 1: with you and you're looking in my eyes asking me
Speaker 1: that question, I'm like, the honest answer is I talk
Speaker 1: to myself a lot while driving. I talk out loud
Speaker 1: to myself a lot, and I will sit there while
Speaker 1: I'm driving and I will talk through that day about
Speaker 1: a situation where I didn't like how I behaved, or
Speaker 1: a situation where I was really happy about how I behaved.
Speaker 1: And so I'll pin point. And I always think it's
Speaker 1: really powerful to pinpoint a point where you were below
Speaker 1: your expectation and a point where you were above your expectation.
Speaker 1: And I'll sit there and ask myself, why was it
Speaker 1: that I was above my expectation? Why did I have
Speaker 1: the ability in that moment to act in that way.
Speaker 1: I'll give an example of where I was below my expectation.
Speaker 1: The other day. I was going to play tennis with
Speaker 1: a friend in the morning, and I was running late
Speaker 1: because I woke up. I was figuring things out that morning.
Speaker 1: I had a few work emails from the night before.
Speaker 1: I'm eight hours ahead of LA right now, so I
Speaker 1: had things to catch up on. I'm running late to
Speaker 1: play tennis. We've got the court booked and it's only
Speaker 1: booked for an hour, so we might be late something
Speaker 1: really insignificant. By the way. I turn up and I
Speaker 1: meet the lady at the front and they haven't been
Speaker 1: able to give me a membership card because I'm only
Speaker 1: here for ten days. And then I'm like, here's my
Speaker 1: membership number, and they can't figure it out, and they
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm in the system, and I were
Speaker 1: getting later for the court, and I'm holding my own
Speaker 1: and I'm on the verge of just being like, get
Speaker 1: on with it, like can't we This is not that complicated,
Speaker 1: and I resist from that. But in my head, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: why did that even happen? Like why am I even
Speaker 1: feeling the urge to put a simple person trying to
Speaker 1: do their job? Why am I thinking to release my
Speaker 1: anger and anguish onto them? And when I thought about
Speaker 1: that later that day, it was all because I was late.
Speaker 1: I was frustrated that my friend's going to be upset
Speaker 1: that we're thirty minutes late for the court. I was
Speaker 1: upset that we're going to get even less time, and
Speaker 1: I was about to take it out on an innocent
Speaker 1: person who actually has nothing to do with any of it,
Speaker 1: who's trying to do their job. And so for me
Speaker 1: talking out loud when I'm on my own spending time, actually,
Speaker 1: now what I'm answering your question, spending time alone is
Speaker 1: the only place where you get to have these conversations.
Speaker 1: And most of us are spending time away from being
Speaker 1: alone because we're scared of having these conversations. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've seen. They did that study where they asked men
Speaker 1: and women whether they either wanted to be alone with
Speaker 1: their thoughts for fifteen minutes or give themselves an electric shock. Now,
Speaker 1: the results will surprise you. Thirty percent of women gave
Speaker 1: themselves an electric shock and sixty percent of men gave
Speaker 1: themselves an electric shark, and the reason was because they
Speaker 1: didn't want to be alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: We struggle so much with the idea of being present
Speaker 1: in our own minds and bodies and hearts that we
Speaker 1: distract ourselves. So really the habit is being present with myself,
Speaker 1: with my thoughts and working through when I'm happy with
Speaker 1: myself and when I think I could have done better.
Speaker 1: You know, I really really can relate to that point
Speaker 1: about not wanting to be alone with your thoughts, not
Speaker 1: from my own experiences, but because I've got friends around me,
Speaker 1: specifically over the last year when we've been in this
Speaker 1: lockdown who have really struggled, and even over the Christmas period,
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of friends who really really struggle
Speaker 1: because they are alone with their thoughts. And You've spoken
Speaker 1: there to the value of sitting alone with your thoughts
Speaker 1: and silence and self contemplation. But what is it in
Speaker 1: the in a human that makes them not want to
Speaker 1: be alone with their thoughts? Wife For some o their
Speaker 1: thoughts so such an unpleasant place to be. I think
Speaker 1: it's because we've equated loneliness and being alone with abandonment,
Speaker 1: and those are two completely different ideas. You can be lonely,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you've been abandoned, and we confuse
Speaker 1: this so much. Paul Tillott writes about this, and he
Speaker 1: says that the challenge today is that we think that
Speaker 1: there's only one word for being alone, and we call
Speaker 1: it loneliness. And he says we've forgotten about a second word.
Speaker 1: It's called solitude. Solitude and loneliness externally look the same,
Speaker 1: but they're completely different things. And he says that solitude
Speaker 1: is the strength of being alone and loneliness is the weakness.
Speaker 1: And to me, it's because being alone feels like abandonment.
Speaker 1: It feels like everyone has left us. It feels like
Speaker 1: we're alone at the end of the party and no
Speaker 1: one's going to stay. We've created a feeling of being
Speaker 1: enamored and being forced to admire being together, my other half,
Speaker 1: my better half, the person who completes me. It's like
Speaker 1: all of this language is phrased in a way to
Speaker 1: make you feel half and incomplete. When someone came to
Speaker 1: school and they didn't have someone to sit next to them,
Speaker 1: that person was considered the loner. If you had a
Speaker 1: birthday party and no one showed up, you were unpopular.
Speaker 1: All of our self worth since we were young has
Speaker 1: been defined by do you have people around you? Not
Speaker 1: the quality of those people, not the depth of those people,
Speaker 1: not how much those people actually love you, just did
Speaker 1: you have people around you? And so we've just been
Speaker 1: conditioned to believe that being alone means being lonely, means
Speaker 1: being abandoned, when actually being in solitude could be the
Speaker 1: most beautiful thing we could do. So it's just as
Speaker 1: a society we've got to unlearn that conditioning that's made
Speaker 1: us forcefully believe that if you don't have someone else,
Speaker 1: If you turn up to your wedding and you don't
Speaker 1: have a plus one, that's like one of the most
Speaker 1: stressful things for people. I don't know who I'm going
Speaker 1: to take. Why is it that prom if you don't
Speaker 1: have a date. Every single major life event, graduating weddings,
Speaker 1: they're all based around having someone else there to celebrate you. Why, like,
Speaker 1: why why why can't we just celebrate ourselves? And I
Speaker 1: think that's where we've lost it. We've lost the idea
Speaker 1: of celebrating ourselves. Do you think that I was just
Speaker 1: thinking that, thinking that through, and I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: if ten thousand years ago on the in the tribes
Speaker 1: of Africa, if I was without if I was without
Speaker 1: a tribe, I would have been, from a reproductive standpoint
Speaker 1: less attractive. No woman would want to have been with me,
Speaker 1: because a tribe speaks to the resources I can provide
Speaker 1: in bringing up, you know, a baby for our family.
Speaker 1: But also you know, I would have been in a
Speaker 1: great danger. My social status would have decayed. And typically
Speaker 1: they see this in tribes, I think in monkeys, where
Speaker 1: if you if you fall out of the tribe, eventually
Speaker 1: you get sick or die. So do you think that's
Speaker 1: a prehistoric part of our conditioning or is it like
Speaker 1: a social New Age social construct? I think prehistorically it
Speaker 1: makes sense, But I think the social construct has been
Speaker 1: that equating solitude or loneliness with isolation, seclusion, and separation,
Speaker 1: and I think we confuse the two ideas. Spending time
Speaker 1: every day in solitude is not me saying to you,
Speaker 1: don't talk to anyone or yeah, you're good enough, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's not like me saying spending some time talking
Speaker 1: to yourself and being alone with your thoughts means never
Speaker 1: go to a party or an event, like I think.
Speaker 1: I just think we've got really poor as humans as
Speaker 1: entertaining two ideas that are supposedly conflicting but recognizing that
Speaker 1: there's a middle ground, like we're poor at saying okay, well,
Speaker 1: Jay and Stephen aren't saying be alone or be surrounded
Speaker 1: by people. We're saying, spend some time alone and be
Speaker 1: intentional about who you spend your time with. And for
Speaker 1: some reason the human mind goes, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: think you're telling me that I have to go live
Speaker 1: in a forest and be away from everyone. But that's
Speaker 1: not really what solitude is. Solitude is I am comfortable
Speaker 1: spending time with myself for a few moments a day,
Speaker 1: enjoying my own company, and speaking of spending time with people. Then,
Speaker 1: so one of the concepts you write a lot about
Speaker 1: is this kind of seven five percent rule people often
Speaker 1: discuss the importance of the company you keep, whether it's
Speaker 1: their wisdom, their attitude, their positivity, their optimism, whatever, and
Speaker 1: the effect that can have on you as a human being.
Speaker 1: What have you done in your life? And also what
Speaker 1: is the importance from what you've experienced of surrounding yourself
Speaker 1: with people that have good values, that are equally ambitious,
Speaker 1: that share a sort of similarities as it relates to
Speaker 1: who you want to become. Is it important? Does it matter?
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made, and
Speaker 1: I think we make as humans, is we often look
Speaker 1: for divinity in humanity. You're looking for that divine person
Speaker 1: that has all the answers and that is infallible and perfect.
Speaker 1: And when you seek divinity in humanity, you're left with
Speaker 1: insecurity and anxiety because no one fulfills that divine search.
Speaker 1: And So, for me, what I really had to understand
Speaker 1: as I went down that road and felt like I
Speaker 1: was let down and felt like people made me feel
Speaker 1: unworthy or unequipped, was I recognized that there were four
Speaker 1: pillars of relationships, and they are care, competence, consistency, and character.
Speaker 1: Every single person in your life is going to be
Speaker 1: able to give you, or should be able to give you,
Speaker 1: at least one of these four characteristics. Very rarely, if ever,
Speaker 1: will one person give you all four. And if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you might have a few people in your life that
Speaker 1: give you two or three. So let's talk about each
Speaker 1: of them. Care my mom. There is no one in
Speaker 1: the world who cares for me more than my mom.
Speaker 1: She would do anything for me. She'd be there for
Speaker 1: me all. She wants to make sure. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what I've achieved or what I've done. If she picks
Speaker 1: up the phone to me, her first question is have
Speaker 1: you eaten? What did you eat? Are you safe? Are
Speaker 1: you healthy? Right Like, that's all she cares about. Now,
Speaker 1: my mum isn't the person that I go to for
Speaker 1: business advice, or she's not the person I'm saying hypothetically
Speaker 1: that I go to for social media advice. That's not
Speaker 1: her competence. But she doesn't need to be. She cares
Speaker 1: for me, and that's what I get from her. Now,
Speaker 1: let's go to competence. If I'm thinking about starting a business,
Speaker 1: you dragon over here, right like, you'd be a great
Speaker 1: friend to call up. You're someone who understands what it
Speaker 1: takes to get investors, scale a business, build teams, manage internationally,
Speaker 1: grow scale cell Like you have that journey and you
Speaker 1: have that network, you have that career. I'd also care
Speaker 1: about you. I know you also care about me. So
Speaker 1: I've got two out of four in you, and you've
Speaker 1: got good character. You don't have the consistency because we
Speaker 1: don't see each other enough. So so three out of four, yeah,
Speaker 1: seventy and so for that, for me, is that perfect
Speaker 1: example of there's competence there, and there is care there,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful, and there's character there. I believe you're
Speaker 1: someone of good character, and that's the next one. Character.
Speaker 1: There are some people in our life that hold us
Speaker 1: to higher values. They help us grow with greater integrity.
Speaker 1: They help us see things beyond what we're chasing. They
Speaker 1: make us look beyond our desires and make us recognize
Speaker 1: that there's so much more to life. And those people
Speaker 1: who are massively important, and those people may not be
Speaker 1: the people we see every week. They may not be
Speaker 1: the people we see every day, they may not be
Speaker 1: the people that we call up. But you need them
Speaker 1: as your compass, the people with character or your compass.
Speaker 1: And then Finally, you have the people that are consistent.
Speaker 1: You have some mates that you just know are always
Speaker 1: going to pick up the phone. You know that if
Speaker 1: you need to move house, you've got a family emergency,
Speaker 1: you know which friend you call. They may not be
Speaker 1: the competent business advisor. They may care about you, but
Speaker 1: they don't care about you as deeply as your mom does.
Speaker 1: But they are consistently, always there for you. And that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: But the problem is when we look at our consistent friend,
Speaker 1: we think, well, why are you not competent? We look
Speaker 1: at our and friend we think, why don't you have
Speaker 1: a good character. We look at our character friend and say, well,
Speaker 1: why are you always there? And so we're always looking
Speaker 1: for which see they don't have, rather than appreciating for
Speaker 1: them for exactly what they bring to our life. You know,
Speaker 1: I met your wonderful wife. Yeah you do, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you yeah. Honestly, in a room full of hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of people, if there was a light, like if
Speaker 1: she felt like a physical like a light in the room,
Speaker 1: just her energy was just unbelievable. And it's it's remarkable
Speaker 1: because she felt so much like you in so many ways.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing when you were talking about that third point
Speaker 1: about character and values and showing you things in life
Speaker 1: that are beyond what you might have thought and the
Speaker 1: meaning of life. And you know, from my own ten minutes,
Speaker 1: you know, conversation with her, I feel like she must
Speaker 1: be in that category, right, Yeah, right, I always used
Speaker 1: to say to people late, so people become friends with me,
Speaker 1: and I hope they liked me, and then I introduced
Speaker 1: them to my wife, and then I never hear from
Speaker 1: the beginning. So she steals all my friends. And I'm
Speaker 1: not even just saying that, like that's genuinely true. She
Speaker 1: has stolen every single one of my friends as soon
Speaker 1: as they meet, so I can't introduce anyone to her anymore.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she's just I don't know how. And it's
Speaker 1: it's been interesting because my wife has taught me so
Speaker 1: much more about me and life than I ever thought
Speaker 1: a partner could. And it's because as my so, my
Speaker 1: wife and i've been together since before my external career
Speaker 1: took off, and so she was with me when I
Speaker 1: had no money, no job. She introduced me to her
Speaker 1: family when I had no money, no job. I met
Speaker 1: her parents, I met her extended family, I had no
Speaker 1: career plan. So I've been with her for around eight
Speaker 1: years now, and far before everything kind of took off externally.
Speaker 1: And what was really really phenomenal was as my life
Speaker 1: took off externally, I started to develop this need a
Speaker 1: validation from her for what I was achieving. So if
Speaker 1: I'd get a big deal, I'd been like, look look
Speaker 1: at look what I did, like look what I did,
Speaker 1: Like isn't this amazing? And she wouldn't be impressed by it.
Speaker 1: And then if I did something and it went viral,
Speaker 1: I'd be oh, look at this, look at this, like
Speaker 1: look how cool this is? Like isn't this amazing? And
Speaker 1: she wasn't impressed by it. And then if I was
Speaker 1: on the front cover of a magazine or something, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, look how cool this is? Like look
Speaker 1: look at this and she wouldn't admire it. And for
Speaker 1: a long time I started to think did I marry
Speaker 1: the wrong person? And I was thinking to myself, did
Speaker 1: I am I with the wrong person? Because I know
Speaker 1: plenty of people who are telling me that that covers
Speaker 1: amazing and that video is amazing, and that podcast is amazing,
Speaker 1: and that person's amazing, Like am I? Like? Am I
Speaker 1: not worthy of respect. And I realized as I and
Speaker 1: I reflected on that. As I said earlier, I was like,
Speaker 1: what part of this am I accountable for? And the
Speaker 1: answer was really simple, my life. My wife loved me
Speaker 1: for everything that came before that. She loves me despite
Speaker 1: all of that. If all of that was to go
Speaker 1: away tomorrow, she'd still love me. And I was like,
Speaker 1: isn't that the most beautiful thing? Like, isn't that what
Speaker 1: we all want? Isn't that what we're truly craving is
Speaker 1: that we are loved beyond our appearance, our achievements, our ambitions,
Speaker 1: and our goals. And I had that, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: seeing that because I wanted to be loved for my ambitions,
Speaker 1: my achievements, my goals. And so yes, when you talk
Speaker 1: about my wife being a light, she's one of those
Speaker 1: people for sure, because she's been my guide and my coach,
Speaker 1: my teacher without even knowing you. If you asked her
Speaker 1: this question, she wouldn't say that she was doing it intentionally,
Speaker 1: But she's been such a great teacher ENLiGHT in my
Speaker 1: life in so many ways, and so I'm always just
Speaker 1: trying to anytime she annoys me, I'm like, there's a
Speaker 1: lesson in this for me, and there's going to be
Speaker 1: something really profound in this for me, because she's she's
Speaker 1: she's cut from a different class. She's she's remarkable. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how she's like her parents. Her parents
Speaker 1: are incredible and you know they've they've given her a
Speaker 1: lot of love, and so I see that kind of
Speaker 1: flow through her. It's so funny. I burst out laughing then,
Speaker 1: because it reminds me a lot of my girlfriend. And
Speaker 1: I've said this on this podcast a lot, and it's
Speaker 1: I've never actually realized the kind of fundamental truth in
Speaker 1: what you said there. But whenever I talk about my girlfriend,
Speaker 1: I say, she doesn't really care it when I if
Speaker 1: I'm number one in the charts or if I'm number
Speaker 1: one here. Of that, the reaction I get from her
Speaker 1: versus other people like my boys is kind of a
Speaker 1: bit more mute. I think maybe she just doesn't care
Speaker 1: about my you know, my like preferce. But you've what
Speaker 1: you've highlighted there is in fact that is somebody that
Speaker 1: values something else. Yes, in you so, but my girlfriend
Speaker 1: would be very very happy and very very impressed with
Speaker 1: me doing a bunch of other things that would maybe
Speaker 1: a bit more pure in their views, she would celebrate
Speaker 1: those things. It's not like she's not celebrating me. It's
Speaker 1: I don't get the euphoria from the like number one
Speaker 1: in the podcast chart. Yes, and it's a question of values,
Speaker 1: and in fact, as you say, that's what we should
Speaker 1: all be looking for. But society has taught me that
Speaker 1: you clap when you get big numbers on stuff, or
Speaker 1: you go number one, or the bank balance is big.
Speaker 1: So that's so interesting. It's probably I guess someone's going
Speaker 1: to draw the conclusion from that. They're going to look
Speaker 1: at their partner who's been clapping because they've got like
Speaker 1: a promotion at work. You've got a bad value enough
Speaker 1: and not at all we should should we should be
Speaker 1: supportive partners about everything that our partners do. But it
Speaker 1: is beautiful that you get an opportunity to learn about
Speaker 1: your partner's values by what they value in your own success.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that, like you just said, like
Speaker 1: your girlfriend or my wife is not happy when something
Speaker 1: goes number one or does great. Of course they're happy,
Speaker 1: but there's something deeper than that that makes them happier.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really special and that's that character
Speaker 1: in that life. When I was reading through your story
Speaker 1: and from what I've observed with your story, there was
Speaker 1: some interesting similarities that really reminded me of mine. But
Speaker 1: I feel like our an exception, and it's it's you.
Speaker 1: And you know what you said it before we started talking,
Speaker 1: you said, um, we were talking about various business things
Speaker 1: and business decisions you've made, and also we were talking
Speaker 1: about you moving to la after just going there with
Speaker 1: your wife for a week, and you said, well, it
Speaker 1: just felt like the right thing to do. We were
Speaker 1: there for one week and it felt like the right
Speaker 1: thing to do it. So, although you were leaving New
Speaker 1: York where you had all of this stuff and you
Speaker 1: were starting to build your presence there, you used your
Speaker 1: your compass became how you felt. And when I looked
Speaker 1: through your your history from your very very early days
Speaker 1: from a teenager to school to university, to going off
Speaker 1: and becoming a monk, to getting a job at a
Speaker 1: centure then pick getting picked up by Arianna Huffington at
Speaker 1: Huffington Post and quitting after six months because you were
Speaker 1: doing this other thing. You are a remarkable quitter and
Speaker 1: you seem to be one that's guided by this compass
Speaker 1: of how does this feel? Not what will people think?
Speaker 1: Talk to me about that, and is that observation accurate.
Speaker 1: It's such a hard way to live in one sense,
Speaker 1: and such an easy way to live in one that observation.
Speaker 1: I never put it in those words, but I love
Speaker 1: those words. And I've heard you talk about that before,
Speaker 1: about being a good quitter, and I love that. I
Speaker 1: think what you're saying is true. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I've never articulated in the way you just did, but
Speaker 1: it feels so true. I, from a very young age,
Speaker 1: just felt there was this strong inner voice, and I
Speaker 1: believe everyone has it. This isn't me being religious or
Speaker 1: spiritual or woo woo. This is me saying that there
Speaker 1: is a voice that we all hear in our minds,
Speaker 1: in our hearts, in our heads, wherever you want to
Speaker 1: say it is, it's there. And the challenge that happens
Speaker 1: is in our early years, you're told to tell it
Speaker 1: to be quiet. So term that voices, well maybe no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, Just do what they're saying, Do what they're told.
Speaker 1: Get on that conveyor belt, get on that assembly line,
Speaker 1: stick that barcode on your back, become a machine, go
Speaker 1: be a robot, and and it's almost programmed. And so
Speaker 1: that voice that is not machine like, that voice is
Speaker 1: the human inside of us is being trained to be
Speaker 1: a machine. And so we start treating ourselves like machines.
Speaker 1: And machines you just programmed them and then press enter
Speaker 1: and then it gives you what it wants. But we
Speaker 1: don't function that way. We're a conversation in the universe.
Speaker 1: We're not a program. And so if you're a conversation
Speaker 1: and you're an interaction, you're dynamic. That in a voice
Speaker 1: becomes so squashed that now by the time we're twenty thirty, fifty, sixty, seventy,
Speaker 1: whatever age you are, you can't hear it anymore. So
Speaker 1: you say, oh, that's some spiritual mumbo jumbo stuff because
Speaker 1: I don't hear that voice. But that's just because we
Speaker 1: quiettend it. So for me even till this day, and
Speaker 1: by the way, I have more things trying to quiet
Speaker 1: that voice today. I had a conversation with my team recently.
Speaker 1: I was talking about a few new things I wanted
Speaker 1: to try out this year, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: said to me, they said, Jay, don't you think that's
Speaker 1: a risk to the brand you've created. Don't you think
Speaker 1: that's a risk to who you are? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I haven't worked this hard to not do what I
Speaker 1: truly want, Like, I haven't got this far by being
Speaker 1: someone else. I've got this far by being true to myself.
Speaker 1: So I can only continue to do that. And so, yes,
Speaker 1: there are things that I do that are slightly unconventional
Speaker 1: for people who've been monks in the past. There are
Speaker 1: certain ways that I live my life, and there are
Speaker 1: certain things that I enjoy. And I always say this,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed being a monk as much as I enjoy
Speaker 1: understanding media. And that's really paradoxical for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but that's just my truth. I enjoy building a business
Speaker 1: and learning about what it takes as much as I
Speaker 1: learned trying to understand how to meditate deeper and go internal.
Speaker 1: I enjoy and appreciate what I gain from all these pursuits,
Speaker 1: and I see them as being this beautiful, you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful symbiotic, synergetic combination of learning in life and experience.
Speaker 1: But the problem is our mind has said, no, those
Speaker 1: things are paradoxical. That's an oxymoron. You can't connect those
Speaker 1: two things. Those two things are unconnectable. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs said that creativity is connecting things, and connected
Speaker 1: thinkers will rule the futures. So if we can't spot
Speaker 1: connections in anomalies, then I think we actually sell ourselves short.
Speaker 1: And so when you say being a remarkable quitter, I
Speaker 1: see that as me saying I only have trained myself
Speaker 1: to know that I can only do what I really
Speaker 1: feel like doing with the awareness that this could be
Speaker 1: a risk. But I'm okay with that. Does that answer
Speaker 1: your question? Yeah? Yeah, And you know you brought up
Speaker 1: another point there, which I think is equally This sounds
Speaker 1: a bit like a pun but equally connected, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, society will give you a label. They'll say, hey,
Speaker 1: you're a monk, so act I can behave like a monk.
Speaker 1: We know what monks I here's the instruction manual of
Speaker 1: being a monk. And if you do anything other than
Speaker 1: the instruction manual there, then they'll say contradiction. Yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: say you're a monk. How do you live in laj Yes,
Speaker 1: you have, you have a nice home, you make money,
Speaker 1: And then and so is what is it about these
Speaker 1: labels that we give people and then we society then
Speaker 1: tries to enforce and if you step outside of the
Speaker 1: implicit instructions of the box that we've labeled you in,
Speaker 1: we go fraud. Yeah, what is that? There's a really
Speaker 1: good meme on social media that I've seen fly about
Speaker 1: for years and it says society says, be yourself and
Speaker 1: then it says no, not like that. And I don't
Speaker 1: know who invented it, but it's been out there in
Speaker 1: the meme world for years and I love it because
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's exactly it. And I the way you
Speaker 1: just explain what you said, I've actually never heard it
Speaker 1: said better than that. So you've just explained in thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: I've running around them about for the past three minutes.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly it. That we want to label people,
Speaker 1: we want to label things, we want to label everyone. Now,
Speaker 1: let's take the rock to wind the Rock Johnson. We
Speaker 1: could label him a wrestler, but that wrestler is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest actors in the world today, and forget actors,
Speaker 1: he's a brand beyond that. Now, if we labeled him
Speaker 1: as a wrestler and said no, no no, no, you just
Speaker 1: have to stay a wrestler. You never get to see this.
Speaker 1: If you look at Steve Jobs, well, you started by
Speaker 1: making computers. You're a computer maker, so just make computers.
Speaker 1: Why are you inventing iTunes? Why are you inventing the phone? Now?
Speaker 1: I think it gets harder when it gets to things
Speaker 1: that are spiritually intertwined. And I grew up with a
Speaker 1: belief for a long time that if you were truly spiritual,
Speaker 1: you had to be poor, you had to have nothing,
Speaker 1: you had to be completely detached and disconnected. And I
Speaker 1: found that that's a worthy pursuit and has some beautiful
Speaker 1: rewards at the end of it as a journey. But
Speaker 1: I also saw, having lived that life as a monk,
Speaker 1: that there were certain areas of impact, certain conversations that
Speaker 1: we never got to be a part of. There were
Speaker 1: certain things in mainstream society that we never got to shift.
Speaker 1: And that's something that called out to my heart personally,
Speaker 1: where I felt, well, what if mental health was mainstream,
Speaker 1: that that was a mainstream conversation, that everyone in the
Speaker 1: world had access to the tools to help themselves for
Speaker 1: free through podcasting, through interviews, through books, through videos, through content.
Speaker 1: What if everyone in the world had access to what
Speaker 1: I have access to as a monk. But what does
Speaker 1: that need? That needs staff? It needs employees, it needs
Speaker 1: eight cameras, it needs a microphone, it needs people, it
Speaker 1: needs teams, It needs a business. So what looks like
Speaker 1: a business on the outside is just purpose on the inside.
Speaker 1: But we're so scored and trained to judge things for
Speaker 1: what they externally look like what they internally are that
Speaker 1: we don't give ourselves that expansive, abundant mindset to say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this could be more now. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: I don't have imperfections, and I'm not saying that I
Speaker 1: don't love things as well. Like I like nice things.
Speaker 1: I like nice clothes, I like fashion, I like I
Speaker 1: like living in a nice space. So I like nice
Speaker 1: things and I would never shy away from that. But
Speaker 1: I'm also fully aware that I don't depend on my
Speaker 1: happiness on those things. I'm not putting what I believe
Speaker 1: is going to make me joyful on those things. But
Speaker 1: I appreciate having them, but I've also appreciated life when
Speaker 1: I didn't have them, So they've never defined whether I've
Speaker 1: worked hard or worked on my purpose, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's two times in this conversation where you've you've made
Speaker 1: points where the kind of conclusion that my head has
Speaker 1: arrived at is we have to meet in the middle
Speaker 1: list if we're going to make progress. The first time
Speaker 1: you did that was when you were talking about having
Speaker 1: like an argument with a wife or a partner or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. And you've got to actually like
Speaker 1: meet in the middle. And this is maybe where I
Speaker 1: can improve. And maybe this is where you know, you
Speaker 1: stepped a file and then you said it again there
Speaker 1: with the example of spirituality, and probably like the business world,
Speaker 1: they're seen as polar opposites. One is all about, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a less less of a desire for material possession
Speaker 1: and attainment and climbing in capitalism, and the other is
Speaker 1: the definition of it. And you're saying, well, really, if
Speaker 1: we are to spread the message of spirituality around the world,
Speaker 1: we're going to need to learn a little bit from
Speaker 1: the other side about building and scaling. And and I
Speaker 1: just think that phrase the truthers in the middle, has
Speaker 1: haunted me for the last couple of weeks since I
Speaker 1: came back from Indonesia, because it seems to be the
Speaker 1: nature of everything and we're actually moving away from that
Speaker 1: as a polarized society, black, white police, the people rich
Speaker 1: poor exactly. And it's beautiful you said that actually because
Speaker 1: the Buddha always talked about the middle path, so he
Speaker 1: called it the middle path. Into that reason, from what
Speaker 1: you just said that it was always about the middle path,
Speaker 1: that the answer was somewhere. I interviewed Kristen Bell recently
Speaker 1: and she wrote a book called Why the World Needs
Speaker 1: More Purple People, And that's because of the red and
Speaker 1: Blue States. So the idea of this idea of like
Speaker 1: meeting in the middle, that there's some answers that you
Speaker 1: only come across if you can entertain this idea and
Speaker 1: this idea and look for the connection. And what I
Speaker 1: love is that for everything we're talking about, someone's thought
Speaker 1: about it and talked about it before. And when I
Speaker 1: think of someone who defined what we're talking about really well.
Speaker 1: And this is a quote, a thought, that an insight
Speaker 1: that I try and live my life by, and it's
Speaker 1: from Martin Luther King, and he said that the people
Speaker 1: that love peace need to learn to organize themselves as
Speaker 1: well as the people who love war. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's what's been missing for so long in spirituality, and
Speaker 1: wellness and health is that we can speak about these
Speaker 1: things in this really organic, beautiful way. But if it
Speaker 1: doesn't get organized and doesn't get strategic, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: get focused, it just kind of feels like splattered pain
Speaker 1: and it doesn't allow people to practically apply in their life.
Speaker 1: So sometimes when people say, Jay, what you're saying is
Speaker 1: so simple, it's so basic, I'm like, yeah, I'm choosing
Speaker 1: to do that because that's what we all need. Like
Speaker 1: don't we all need to make this really simple and
Speaker 1: easy and practical. I know that's what I need. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I love getting caught up in a
Speaker 1: heady intellectual conversation and I've studied the Vaders that are
Speaker 1: five thousand years old, and I can reloff versus and
Speaker 1: talk about philosophical intricacies. But I don't think that's going
Speaker 1: to help people at this stage, and that doesn't help
Speaker 1: me when I started. So for me, I like to
Speaker 1: focus in on how can we get focused around powerful
Speaker 1: simple ideas And a powerful simple idea that loads of
Speaker 1: my guests come here and talk about, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: that they do because they are incredibly successful people. Typically,
Speaker 1: is this idea of meditation and the power of meditation. Now,
Speaker 1: I've heard this meditation for many a year, and increasingly
Speaker 1: over time I've become more compelled by it and started
Speaker 1: doing it, thanks a lot to my girlfriend as well. So,
Speaker 1: and you write about it a lot in your book,
Speaker 1: I mean a couple of the chapters mentioned, I mean
Speaker 1: pretty several of the chapters mentioned. The para of meditation.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about this simple idea of meditation and
Speaker 1: what the impact has been for you and can be
Speaker 1: for those listening. So in the book, I present three
Speaker 1: different types of meditation that I was trained in as
Speaker 1: a monk and that I was exposed to, and they
Speaker 1: are breathwork, visualization, and mantra. So if you look at
Speaker 1: all types of meditations that exist today in the world,
Speaker 1: there are three tools or three formats in which you
Speaker 1: can do it. Breathwork obviously, naturally, it says it in
Speaker 1: the name. It's all about your breathing, and breathwork is
Speaker 1: generally aimed at body and physical So if you're having
Speaker 1: physical anxiety, physical stress, if you're rushing around, your heart
Speaker 1: rate's gone up, breathwork is a beautiful way to come
Speaker 1: back into a life. Now, visualization is really interesting because
Speaker 1: visualization is used by everyone, from Lewis Hamilton when he's
Speaker 1: driving his car around a track through to David Beckham
Speaker 1: before he took a free kick. Visualization was the art
Speaker 1: of sitting in one place, closing your eyes and visualizing
Speaker 1: what's that track going to look like, what's that turn
Speaker 1: going to feel like, how's that ball going to move?
Speaker 1: It's visualizing the process, not the result, and that's what's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Western society has made it all about visualizing the result.
Speaker 1: Visualize yourself at the top of the podium and the goal.
Speaker 1: The smartest people in the world of visualizing the process
Speaker 1: and the work and the journey. And that's where manifestation
Speaker 1: has gone wrong. We can get back to that and
Speaker 1: then finally mantra or sound. So the oldest text on
Speaker 1: meditation believe that sound has the power to transport and
Speaker 1: connect us in a way that no other type of
Speaker 1: meditation can. Now we all have experience of this. When
Speaker 1: you hear a song from your past, you're taken back
Speaker 1: there immediately. When you hear a song that has maybe
Speaker 1: some ego in it, or there's a song that you
Speaker 1: listen to on your way to a party or a
Speaker 1: nightclub because it pumps you up and it makes you
Speaker 1: feel good. There are songs that makes you feel violent.
Speaker 1: Sound has the ability to wake you up in the morning.
Speaker 1: You don't wake up by sight, you don't wake up
Speaker 1: by scent, you don't wake up by taste. You wake
Speaker 1: up by sound. Sound has the power to awaken deeper
Speaker 1: parts of us depending on what level it's at. So
Speaker 1: when you look at meditation, you have breathwork, you have visualization,
Speaker 1: you have sound. You can try a mix, you can
Speaker 1: try one or the other. Ultimately, for me, meditation is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to build a relationship with yourself. That's truly
Speaker 1: what it is. To build your relationship with your body,
Speaker 1: with your mind, with your heart, and with your consciousness.
Speaker 1: And as you continue to meditate through breathwork, through visualization,
Speaker 1: through mantra and sound, that's all that's doing. It's just
Speaker 1: deepening your relationship with yourself. It's almost like saying, oh,
Speaker 1: when I'm with my girlfriend or my wife, what do
Speaker 1: I do? Oh? There is a few activities and experiences
Speaker 1: that you do. You go out for dinner, you watch
Speaker 1: a movie, you go for a walk. Okay, well what
Speaker 1: do I do on my own? Well, when I meditate
Speaker 1: on my own I get to know myself better, and
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of what meditation is. But the greatest
Speaker 1: benefits of meditation come from using the right tool for
Speaker 1: the right part of your life. So before I'm coming
Speaker 1: on a podcast like this or going on stage, if
Speaker 1: I'm feeling nervous or my heart rates going up, I've
Speaker 1: recognized that that's because I care. It's because I really
Speaker 1: really care what I'm about to do, and I want
Speaker 1: to be of service to others. I want what I
Speaker 1: say to help someone. I want what I say to
Speaker 1: hopefully start someone's meditation journey potentially, And if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then I need to be aligned. So I'll practice breathwork.
Speaker 1: I'll breathe in for four and out for four. This
Speaker 1: simple practice just brings me back into alignment. See Stephen,
Speaker 1: we all have this experience. How many times have you
Speaker 1: ever woken up and you feel your mind is ahead
Speaker 1: of your body every day your body was in bed
Speaker 1: and your mind is racing, Or you experience the opposite,
Speaker 1: your body is racing and your mind is still in bed.
Speaker 1: So most of our stress and tension in life comes
Speaker 1: from a lack of alignment in our body and our mind.
Speaker 1: Our body's racing one hundred miles per hour and our
Speaker 1: mind is slow, or our mind's racing one hundred miles
Speaker 1: per hour and our body is slow. To bring them
Speaker 1: back into alignment, you breathe in for the same amount
Speaker 1: of time as you breathe out. Simply doing that brings
Speaker 1: you back into alignment. Visualization I use for when I
Speaker 1: think I'm about to start a difficult journey and I
Speaker 1: think I may lose a bit of patience or I
Speaker 1: feel like I really need to practice this. Imagine this
Speaker 1: is I'm about to go on stage doing something that's
Speaker 1: really big deal and important for me. I'm going to
Speaker 1: visualize myself pacing back and forth on stage. I'm going
Speaker 1: to visualize myself communicating that message. I'm going to visualize
Speaker 1: myself being really energetic on stage. Notice I'm not visualizing
Speaker 1: people clapping. I'm not visualizing people saying that was amazing,
Speaker 1: because that's just setting a false expectation. I'm visualizing my
Speaker 1: performance being the best that it possibly can. And the
Speaker 1: mantra and sound, which is a big part of my
Speaker 1: meditation every day, I do to connect with my deeper self.
Speaker 1: I do to awaken parts of me that are forgotten
Speaker 1: and to feel a connection to a higher power in
Speaker 1: the divine. There's so many people listening, right, And you
Speaker 1: said that so beautifully and eloquently. Who I imagine listen
Speaker 1: to me doing these podcasts and they maybe tuned in
Speaker 1: it because they wanted a business podcast, and they go out,
Speaker 1: here go Steve again talking about meditation or whatever. And
Speaker 1: that reaction is probably caused by the I don't know,
Speaker 1: the historic kind of snobbery that surrounds spirituality. It can
Speaker 1: be quite an exclusive club, right, and the terminology can
Speaker 1: feel very exclusive to normal people and chakras and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff in alignment. It can and when words
Speaker 1: like that are said to some people who are who
Speaker 1: aren't near the middle, who are very much at the
Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum, they just turn off to it.
Speaker 1: So if I was to be someone who's listening to
Speaker 1: this now driving in my van on my way to
Speaker 1: work this morning, and I see a lot of people
Speaker 1: in their vans driving listening to the podcast, what would
Speaker 1: you say, is a really good just a first step
Speaker 1: to investigate for themselves subjectively if meditation can add value
Speaker 1: to their life. Where would they start? Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say that the first thing you want to do is
Speaker 1: put something in your schedule, in your calendar, which is
Speaker 1: time for you. If you look at your schedule, you
Speaker 1: would never cancel an important meeting with someone else. But
Speaker 1: we don't even schedule one with ourselves. There is nothing
Speaker 1: in the calendar that time with myself, time for me,
Speaker 1: time for you, time for just this, this whole thing
Speaker 1: that's going on right now. Literally put it in for
Speaker 1: five minutes a day. It's kind of five minutes for
Speaker 1: two minutes a day. Just put it in there, because
Speaker 1: if you start putting that in there, you might then
Speaker 1: tomorrow Okay, well what am I going to do with
Speaker 1: this time? I've got five minutes? Wow? Okay, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do with it? So start putting it
Speaker 1: in there. That's the first step. The second step, I
Speaker 1: would say, it's definitely focused on your breath. I think
Speaker 1: the breath is just something we can all relate to.
Speaker 1: Its tangible by the way athletes have to learn how
Speaker 1: to control their breath. Musicians have to learn how to
Speaker 1: control their breath. Whether you're adele or whether you're a
Speaker 1: football player, you have to learn how to breathe in
Speaker 1: order to perform. Me, you and everyone. We're all athletes
Speaker 1: in different ways. We all use our bodies, we all
Speaker 1: use our minds, whether you're a business person or whether
Speaker 1: you're an actual athlete playing on a court or a pit.
Speaker 1: But are you saying that I don't know how to breathe?
Speaker 1: I am saying you don't know how to breathe, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not used specifically. I'm saying that most people don't
Speaker 1: know how to breathe. And I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: breathe until I was taught how to breathe. And I
Speaker 1: know that sounds ridiculous, But how many times a day
Speaker 1: do you get out of breath? I know there's dams
Speaker 1: of days that I get out of breath. How many
Speaker 1: times of the day do you feel that when you're
Speaker 1: experiencing an emotion, your breath changes, Like when you're crying
Speaker 1: or you're sad, or you're upset, your breath changes. When
Speaker 1: you're happy and elated, your breath changes. So our breath
Speaker 1: is connected to every single emotion. So if we want
Speaker 1: to navigate our emotions in our life, we have to
Speaker 1: train our breath. So I would just say to everyone,
Speaker 1: take out two to three minutes and just take a
Speaker 1: moment to breathe. In and out and breathe in for
Speaker 1: four and out for four. Just try it as simply
Speaker 1: as that. Now, if you're someone who struggles to get
Speaker 1: to sleep, which can often be something that I think
Speaker 1: everyone struggles with, that's when you want to breathe out
Speaker 1: for longer than you breathe in. So if you're breathing
Speaker 1: in for four, breathe out for more than four to
Speaker 1: relax and rest your body. And if you're one of
Speaker 1: these people that goes Jay, I've got you know, I've
Speaker 1: got like you. I've got to do a delivery today,
Speaker 1: I've got to run to this meeting. I've got to
Speaker 1: get to this, and you need more energy. Breathe out
Speaker 1: for less time than you breathe in. So you may
Speaker 1: breathe in for a second and breathe out for a millisecond.
Speaker 1: It's a really sharp breath out and if you do that,
Speaker 1: you'll feel this pumping energy in your body. And so
Speaker 1: to me, it's these are really practical tools that I
Speaker 1: think we all need to sleep. So everyone knows their
Speaker 1: meditation for sleep. We all need to get energized. So
Speaker 1: that's a simple meditation of energized, and we all need
Speaker 1: to just feel like we're not rushing, So I think
Speaker 1: those are hopefully quick things that feel practical to anyone
Speaker 1: and everyone. Yeah, I mean, I'm I think my natural
Speaker 1: position on things is to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a skeptic. And I when I was in Indonesia the
Speaker 1: last time, my girlfriend brought me to see a breathwork
Speaker 1: coach and before we did the breathwork, he explained it
Speaker 1: to me. And so this is as a logical guy
Speaker 1: like I am, the explanation matters a lot. And he
Speaker 1: was talking to me about how we pretty much live
Speaker 1: most of our lives these days because of the overstimulation,
Speaker 1: because of the stress, because of the screens in this
Speaker 1: kind of like permanent state of fight or flight. And
Speaker 1: when you look at what happens in flight, and I
Speaker 1: studied biology, I know what happens to the body and
Speaker 1: anatomically and physically what happens to your digestive tract. And
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what a lot of people say
Speaker 1: when they say I'm nervous and they've lost their appetite.
Speaker 1: That's your body preparing and keeping the minerals and nutrients
Speaker 1: it needs to expend energy to help you in a situation.
Speaker 1: On the Sarah getty when a line is running at you.
Speaker 1: That's a very prehistoric, innate part of our conditioning. And
Speaker 1: we do live on edge. Our notifications, run our lives
Speaker 1: and all of these things. So when we think about
Speaker 1: why people might be getting a little bit more anxious
Speaker 1: day to day, it's probably because we're living in like
Speaker 1: a heightened state or fight or flight. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that happens in fight or flight, as well
Speaker 1: as your breathing changes. So yeah, and and then I
Speaker 1: think about the moments where I'm feeling a little bit
Speaker 1: stressed and one thing I've done my funny say funny,
Speaker 1: my head went straight to New York City. As I'll go,
Speaker 1: I'll stop, and I'll go. And whenever I do that,
Speaker 1: someone turns to me and goes, Okay, I guess I'm yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, I completely agree. And I think it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that I think everybody listening, regardless of
Speaker 1: who you are or how much of a tough guy
Speaker 1: you are, you should definitely a tough guy. Yeah, not really,
Speaker 1: not really, I'm a bit soft around the edges this.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about fear then, because we
Speaker 1: talked about that there in your book In chapter three,
Speaker 1: you talk about there being good fear and bad fear.
Speaker 1: How can fear be a good thing? I realize that
Speaker 1: fear could be healthy or unhealthy based on how I
Speaker 1: used it, And most of us don't realize that we
Speaker 1: get consumed by fear instead of using fear. So fear
Speaker 1: becomes our being in the sense that fear becomes what
Speaker 1: controls us. It tells us what we should do and
Speaker 1: what we shouldn't do. It tells us how we should
Speaker 1: think and we shouldn't think. It stops us from doing
Speaker 1: stuff that's really important to us, and it makes us
Speaker 1: do things that we would never ever do. It makes
Speaker 1: us say things to people that we love that we
Speaker 1: would never want to say to them. And on the
Speaker 1: other end, it stops you from saying things you really
Speaker 1: want to say to someone because you don't want to
Speaker 1: appear weak and your ego won't let you. So fear
Speaker 1: takes this really magnetic controlling effect on our whole lives.
Speaker 1: But fear, at the same time can be one of
Speaker 1: the healthiest things because it's basically giving you a signal
Speaker 1: as to what's important. It's basically giving you as a
Speaker 1: signal as to how you feel and when you use
Speaker 1: it as a signal, not as a suggestion or a push,
Speaker 1: it changes everything. So let's beg that practical. When you
Speaker 1: are in your home, and if the fire alarm goes off,
Speaker 1: that gives you a signal to say, check for the fire.
Speaker 1: Check if there's a fire right now. If you go,
Speaker 1: or just turn it off, it doesn't matter. Let's let's
Speaker 1: avoid my fear. Let's avoid it. Let's just turn it off.
Speaker 1: Let's forget about it. Your house could burn down, or
Speaker 1: if you're lucky, there was nothing and it's fine. But
Speaker 1: the odds are that there could be a fire. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're someone who goes well, let me inspect it.
Speaker 1: Let me be curious about that. I am scared that
Speaker 1: there's a fire in my house now that I've heard
Speaker 1: the fire alarm. But let me be curious, let me inspect,
Speaker 1: let me check. Imagine we are our fear in that way.
Speaker 1: Imagine every time I felt scared of something, I said, well,
Speaker 1: let me get curious about this. Why am I scared
Speaker 1: of this? Why is it affecting me so much? What
Speaker 1: about this scares me? Is it all of it or
Speaker 1: is it just a part of it. When you start
Speaker 1: doing it, you start to break that fear down. And
Speaker 1: that's the healthy way of looking at fear rather than
Speaker 1: the unhealthy way of saying, forget about it, keep it
Speaker 1: away from me. I don't want to go there. And
Speaker 1: so for me, I really feel that fear is what
Speaker 1: blocks us from these beautiful breakthroughs in life, and it
Speaker 1: has such a chokehold on us, like it's such a
Speaker 1: strong hold on us. And I think most of us
Speaker 1: are living our lives because we're scared of what someone
Speaker 1: will say, what someone will think, or what someone will do.
Speaker 1: And that feels like something that we're going to regret
Speaker 1: when we're at the end of our lives. Well, they do, right,
Speaker 1: So the interview people, as you know, on their deathbed,
Speaker 1: and this is the number one regret of they're drying
Speaker 1: your dms. They must be full of people that are
Speaker 1: exhibiting exactly that behavior, because I know mine are ye
Speaker 1: a young person saying I'm in this job, I'm in
Speaker 1: this relationship. It sucks, but yeah, fear, right, yes, fear
Speaker 1: of change, fear of uncertainty, whatever it might be. What
Speaker 1: do you typically say to those people that you know
Speaker 1: they hate the situation they're in, but the fear is
Speaker 1: kind of imprisoning them into an action. I think I
Speaker 1: always meet it. I always. I'm saying this to someone
Speaker 1: on my team this morning. Actually, I always try and
Speaker 1: meet everyone with compassion and not judgment, because I know
Speaker 1: what it feels like to experience that, and I still
Speaker 1: experience that in different areas of my life, so it's
Speaker 1: always there. And I think if you don't meet it
Speaker 1: with compassion, you can kind of say something really energetic
Speaker 1: in the moment and kind of make them feel like
Speaker 1: they've solved it, but that isn't really wearing it down.
Speaker 1: I think for me, the first thing is to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that that fear is real, to acknowledge that there potentially
Speaker 1: will be backlash, that there potentially will be someone who's upset,
Speaker 1: because I think often we're told just do what you
Speaker 1: want and it doesn't matter, and I'm like, well, it
Speaker 1: does matter, because maybe you are a good person. You
Speaker 1: don't want someone to be upset, or you don't want
Speaker 1: to let your parents down, or you don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt someone right, or you don't want to ruin your
Speaker 1: reputation by quitting your job, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to acknowledge that that's real
Speaker 1: and that may happen. But I think what I try
Speaker 1: and do next is say, okay, well, let's say you
Speaker 1: didn't change anything, how are you going to feel in
Speaker 1: five to ten years? And that's my favorite question to
Speaker 1: ask someone. Let's not change anything about your life. How
Speaker 1: does it feel in five to ten years, And if
Speaker 1: it feels worse then what you think it is now.
Speaker 1: Chances are that even if you're going to hurt someone,
Speaker 1: that's probably the better way to go. But if you
Speaker 1: say you're going to feel the same or better, then sure,
Speaker 1: just accept that. And most people will say, well, no,
Speaker 1: if I don't change anything, if I don't get out
Speaker 1: of this, my life's going to be worse. But here's
Speaker 1: the other thing. I think we're always conditioned to think
Speaker 1: that we need to change our situation to create a
Speaker 1: change in our life, and actually, with what both of
Speaker 1: us believe, it's all about a change in perspective and mindset.
Speaker 1: I have learned things from jobs that I hated but
Speaker 1: that are so useful to me right now. I have
Speaker 1: learned things from relationships with people I've had and those
Speaker 1: people that I didn't get along with, but those lessons
Speaker 1: are still serving me today. I've been in countless situations
Speaker 1: where I wanted to get out that situation, but that
Speaker 1: situation was perfectly designed to show me something. And the
Speaker 1: problem is we're constantly trying to just move and get away.
Speaker 1: And so really, what I say to everyone is, I
Speaker 1: want you to find out what is the perspective shift
Speaker 1: that this situation is trying to create in your life,
Speaker 1: because if you take that with you, that perspective is
Speaker 1: going to stay with you no matter the situation. But
Speaker 1: if you just keep trying to change your environment hoping
Speaker 1: that your life's going to improve, you're going to feel
Speaker 1: dissatisfied at the next place and the next place on
Speaker 1: the one after that. And I feel we're just conditioned
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, like your job, quit your job. You
Speaker 1: don't like your relationship, quit your relationship. It's not the
Speaker 1: job of relationship, it's the way you see it. And
Speaker 1: I think we just keep saying that it's this external
Speaker 1: shell that we're in, when it's actually this shell and
Speaker 1: what's happening inside of it that's defining all of these
Speaker 1: perspectives so much. I mean, that was an unbelievably beautiful answer,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to one hundred percent still that answer.
Speaker 1: I want you to know, especially that five year point,
Speaker 1: because it is a really good sort of mental gain
Speaker 1: to role play. One of the things I was thinking
Speaker 1: when you know you were talking then, is about a
Speaker 1: lot of those messages that will get on Instagram or
Speaker 1: wherever it might be. They're centered in insecurity, some kind
Speaker 1: of insecurity. And because we have a lot of followers,
Speaker 1: you significantly more than me, and because we have a
Speaker 1: big audience, what people will assume is that we have
Speaker 1: all the answers, but we've got it all figured out,
Speaker 1: and that we live our lives like saints. And I
Speaker 1: always want to be really clear on this podcast that
Speaker 1: I absolutely do not say. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: How about we go back and forward and we just
Speaker 1: say a couple of things we're really really bad at
Speaker 1: we want to improve on. Whether they are insecurities, they
Speaker 1: are lessons wisdom we know but we don't follow, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: You please be my guests. However, this one's been the
Speaker 1: one that the universe keeps teaching me. So when if
Speaker 1: I think about this question, this is the first thing
Speaker 1: that came into my mind, I keep believing that I'm
Speaker 1: going to meet someone who's going to help me take
Speaker 1: my work to the next level. And so I always
Speaker 1: have had this belief and I don't know where it
Speaker 1: comes from. It's it's one of those ones that I
Speaker 1: still need to figure out, where every year I'll be like, oh, well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I'm working with that person, that person like as
Speaker 1: a manager or an agent or whatever, it was like,
Speaker 1: that person's going to help me get to another stage.
Speaker 1: And the universe just keeps teaching me every year that
Speaker 1: it's you. It's you, it's you, it's you. Like You've
Speaker 1: got to do it for yourself. There's not going to
Speaker 1: be anyone that comes into your life and changes your life.
Speaker 1: But my naivety every year is to try and look
Speaker 1: for that person. And if someone asked me and said, well, Jay,
Speaker 1: who's going to be that person for me? I would
Speaker 1: tell them not what do you talk about to you?
Speaker 1: That's what I would say to them. Off the bat.
Speaker 1: I would say to someone, stop depending on other people.
Speaker 1: Stop waiting for someone to change your life. You have
Speaker 1: to change your life. But then in my own life,
Speaker 1: I keep my action show that I'm still looking for that.
Speaker 1: So that's the first thing I'm sure that let's go
Speaker 1: back and forth. I like this, Yeah, there's going to
Speaker 1: be plenty more. Okay, so loads came to mind, So
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll try and start from the top. So
Speaker 1: the first thing that came to mind that I know
Speaker 1: the truth upon and I would preach about on this podcast,
Speaker 1: but I find out hard to do is I still
Speaker 1: kind of impose my own bias and beliefs on the
Speaker 1: world onto others. And I still loosely don't understand why
Speaker 1: everybody doesn't want to do what I want to do
Speaker 1: with their life. So I don't understand why everybody doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be successful and climb the ladder and pursue
Speaker 1: and have nice things and build wealth and build an empire.
Speaker 1: So sometimes there's this real bias in the advice I
Speaker 1: give people, and this real kind of like naivety and
Speaker 1: lack of understanding that happiness is the north star. We
Speaker 1: will have our own path to getting there. I can
Speaker 1: even exhibit that as an employer, A voice can sometimes
Speaker 1: question why team members might not behave in the same
Speaker 1: way as me, And it's fundamentally because again, the north
Speaker 1: star is happiness, and their path to being happy is
Speaker 1: not the same as mine. And that's a really dangerous
Speaker 1: game to play, especially when you've got a big platform,
Speaker 1: because you'll make people feel inadequate for their journey to
Speaker 1: happiness because it doesn't resemble your own. And so I
Speaker 1: really need to get better at understanding we will have
Speaker 1: different paths. And if I just say to myself, the
Speaker 1: north star is happiness and we will have our own
Speaker 1: ways there, then I can stop preaching upon people or
Speaker 1: assuming that because they are not following my path they
Speaker 1: are incorrect. Yes, yes, I love that. I think one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things I obviously talk about is asking
Speaker 1: people to take time for themselves and make time for themselves.
Speaker 1: You only know where this is going, and I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I think I try, and I
Speaker 1: think I do, but I know that this year when
Speaker 1: it came to so I try and take a full
Speaker 1: month off every year for myself, and usually I go
Speaker 1: to India, and because of COVID, I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to go for the last two years. And I usually
Speaker 1: go and live with the monks again and take part
Speaker 1: in all the meditations and practices for a month, and
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite things to do, and I
Speaker 1: haven't been able to do it for the last two years,
Speaker 1: so I still decided I would take a month off,
Speaker 1: and it came and I said I would do from
Speaker 1: the fifteenth of December to the fifteenth of Jan and
Speaker 1: then I found out a week before that I kind
Speaker 1: of had to stay for an extra week in LA
Speaker 1: for work, so I delayed it and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a twenty second of December to
Speaker 1: the seventeenth of Jan. And then I got to London.
Speaker 1: I started taking that break off, but it was like
Speaker 1: I got to a point where I could see that
Speaker 1: I'd been delaying my self care and I kept delaying
Speaker 1: it even by that week, and in that week before
Speaker 1: I left, I could tell that I needed a break,
Speaker 1: like I needed to switch off. And my advice to
Speaker 1: everyone is, don't let it get to that point. You've
Speaker 1: got to take it. Just before that, I was planning
Speaker 1: on doing that, it was scheduled, but because of commitments
Speaker 1: and priorities and important things, I had to push that
Speaker 1: extra mile. And sure, I'm fine and I'm okay, and
Speaker 1: I feel great, but I don't think that that's sustainable,
Speaker 1: and I think it was a different journey. And this
Speaker 1: is being honest too. I don't think I'm a proponent
Speaker 1: of work life balance, although it may appear that way.
Speaker 1: So this may actually be a perception thing. I think
Speaker 1: people may perceive that Jay believes imperfect work life balance,
Speaker 1: and the truth is, I don't. I believe in purpose.
Speaker 1: And purpose to me is being obsessed about what you
Speaker 1: care about and what's important to you. And so for me,
Speaker 1: what I do is my purpose, and so I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: about it. I care about it. I love it, I
Speaker 1: breathe it, I live it. And when I was building,
Speaker 1: I was working eighteen hours a day. I was you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of those were meditations, sure, but then I
Speaker 1: was sleeping for six hours. But I was working eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a days for two to three year straight, seven
Speaker 1: days a week. And I think the perception is often
Speaker 1: people may feel that, no, J, you live a perfectly
Speaker 1: balanced life, and I'm like, well, no, no, I haven't.
Speaker 1: Like there's a different skill required to go upwards, then stay, maintain,
Speaker 1: create momentum, Like it's a different gear that you're in
Speaker 1: all the time. And so today my life is far
Speaker 1: more disciplined in my health and wellness than it's ever
Speaker 1: been before. But there have been periods of the years
Speaker 1: getting here that didn't look like that at all. If that, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I completely get that. Thank you for showing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's super valuable. My next one would be what you
Speaker 1: described at the tennis court, which was some days, especially
Speaker 1: because I mean, these are probably everything I say now
Speaker 1: is probably going to be an excuse, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to say it anyway, but I've presented it as an excuse,
Speaker 1: so hopefully that kind of is okay. I think I've
Speaker 1: geared my mind to care so much about the like
Speaker 1: being time efficient. Yes that in situations where things aren't
Speaker 1: moving with the efficiency that I demand from my business life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bring your hand up here, that I might because because
Speaker 1: of my expectations are of efficiency and speed. When I
Speaker 1: encounter a situation, maybe like the people that were bumbling
Speaker 1: around with the clipboard at the tennis court that you described,
Speaker 1: trying to find your membership or whatever, my expectation goes on, Matt,
Speaker 1: frustration arrives, and then I might compromise on the way
Speaker 1: that I behave and that might mean being abrupt, being
Speaker 1: too forward with somebody, or being too harsh, or lacking
Speaker 1: compassion in the way that I say something. People don't
Speaker 1: know this about me but when I'm alone, I think
Speaker 1: about this. It's probably the number one thing I think about.
Speaker 1: I reflect on how I treated people that day. Yes,
Speaker 1: and there's been too many days in a row where
Speaker 1: I've gone, you fucked that up against THEE. Be better tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And then I'll come into tomorrow. The expectation will go in, Matt,
Speaker 1: I'll become a person I don't want to be, and
Speaker 1: I'll say to myself in my private time, I say,
Speaker 1: you fuck that up again. And I've been doing that
Speaker 1: too much for too long. I think we all have.
Speaker 1: I talked about in my book. I had this. I
Speaker 1: had this moment the same thing as you just said.
Speaker 1: I this was a couple of years ago in La
Speaker 1: and I was traveling around in ubers and going here
Speaker 1: and there and getting in or lift and calling one
Speaker 1: and jumping in and going on. And I got in
Speaker 1: and I was on my phone and doing whatever. And
Speaker 1: then five minutes later I realized we hadn't moved. And
Speaker 1: and that's how consumed I was on my phone, whether
Speaker 1: I was scrolling or texting or emailing. And I said
Speaker 1: to the driver, I said, is everything okay? And he said,
Speaker 1: you didn't say hello? And he said I said a
Speaker 1: hello to you five minutes ago and you didn't say hello,
Speaker 1: and I just it was such a like I was
Speaker 1: late for my meeting. I was late for a big
Speaker 1: thing where I felt terrible. I felt so so bad,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I really want people to connect
Speaker 1: with everyone as a human. And I said, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: What's your name like? And then and he started driving in.
Speaker 1: He wasn't trying to he wasn't even trying to be
Speaker 1: abrasive like some people say, oh, well, that's a bit,
Speaker 1: he's not doing this. I actually don't think it's his
Speaker 1: fault at all. I think he taught me such a
Speaker 1: valuable lesson because I was just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: yeah's as booked it. Treating him like a robot, treating
Speaker 1: him like a machine. And yet one day we'll have
Speaker 1: driver this cars and I won't have to say hello. Sure,
Speaker 1: But treating a human in that way, I think that
Speaker 1: goes against everything I stand for. Is that I want
Speaker 1: us to become more human and I want us to
Speaker 1: not lose our humanity as technology advances. And I love
Speaker 1: technology and it's great, but let's not lose our ability
Speaker 1: to have human connection, which is what brings so much
Speaker 1: joy to our lives, and so yeah, I you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of those moments that I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're really trying to teach me a lesson here, because yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, this this whole back and forward, if
Speaker 1: it's taught us anything, it's that even people that you
Speaker 1: presume to have the answers from the outside, in fact,
Speaker 1: maybe the correct answer is to understand one's own faults,
Speaker 1: understand we're all really really imperfect, to be self aware
Speaker 1: about those faults, and then make a commitment to being
Speaker 1: better every day. I think I'll die imperfect trying to
Speaker 1: be better. I don't think i'll die perfect. And I
Speaker 1: think I think that is maybe there'll probably be people
Speaker 1: that view the work that you do and say, God,
Speaker 1: he's got it all figured out one hundred percent of things,
Speaker 1: and I don't. So I'm inadequate. Yes, I need to
Speaker 1: be Jay. And if I'm not Jay, then I'm inadequate.
Speaker 1: I'm morally wrong my values about I'm a bad person.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of I love that. I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: I love the back and forth. Two you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's it's always wonderful to talk about these things, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what our generation is changed in this
Speaker 1: space because I think we did live at a time
Speaker 1: when gurus and guides and coaches were revered as flawless
Speaker 1: perfect and you never really saw the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: And I think I always say to my team, like
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to I don't want I don't even
Speaker 1: want that pressure. It's it's pressure, and it actually stops
Speaker 1: you from being sincere and genuine and authentic. And I
Speaker 1: feel that pressure sometimes, like I feel that pressure when
Speaker 1: someone has a question and I need to rush off,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I want to answer it, but I
Speaker 1: also need to rush off, and I feel that pressure,
Speaker 1: and it's just I've realized they don't want that pressure,
Speaker 1: like because I'm not perfect and I don't want to
Speaker 1: try and pretend I am, or I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to live up to it because it will just
Speaker 1: let someone down. And it's really interesting because this was
Speaker 1: around probably around eleven years ago now, and I was
Speaker 1: mentoring before I became a monk. When I was a monk,
Speaker 1: I was a mentor, and then I became a coach,
Speaker 1: And whenever I took on a mentee or a coach,
Speaker 1: coaching client or anyone. One of the first things I'd
Speaker 1: say to them in our first meeting is I just
Speaker 1: want you to know that I will let you down.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know that there will be
Speaker 1: something I do that upsets you, disappoints you, or lets
Speaker 1: you down. If you're okay with that, let's get started, like,
Speaker 1: let's get going. And I saw the amount of people
Speaker 1: that walked out that door. Really yeah, there were people
Speaker 1: that left because they were expecting divinity and humanity and
Speaker 1: they were expecting perfection. And I'm really happy that they
Speaker 1: left because I would never have been able to live
Speaker 1: up to that. And I don't even want the pressure.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really clear with people even now, like
Speaker 1: I work with so many clients and that's one of
Speaker 1: the first things I'll say to them. And you see
Speaker 1: that the people that stay recognize that because they understand
Speaker 1: they have flaws and we all do. And I also
Speaker 1: took off the pressure, especially in coaching, where a lot
Speaker 1: of people think you can change their life, and as
Speaker 1: an immature coach or therapist, you may think you can
Speaker 1: change someone else's life. And the more I've coached and
Speaker 1: the more hours I've wrapped up with coaching, the more,
Speaker 1: I've realized I can't change someone's life. I don't have
Speaker 1: what it takes to change someone's life. I don't have
Speaker 1: to say something profound every word I say, and not
Speaker 1: everything I say is going to be perfect and incredible
Speaker 1: and insightful. And if I can let go of that,
Speaker 1: I actually might allow something beautiful to happen. Actually trying
Speaker 1: to do all those things, trying to say something profound
Speaker 1: every sentence, trying to magically solve someone's problems, trying to
Speaker 1: be perfect, all of these things actually lock something beautiful
Speaker 1: from happening. Kind of interesting because it very much links
Speaker 1: to what you said about not putting the expectation on
Speaker 1: the outcome. You said that earlier. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: try and change your life today, but let's just focus in,
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, on the process of what we
Speaker 1: can do today. I guess part of my point. The
Speaker 1: first thing that came to mind there was we both
Speaker 1: write quotes and put them out on the internet and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But I'm going to be completely honest.
Speaker 1: When I write quotes on Instagram, I have no expectation
Speaker 1: that it's going to change the life of pretty much.
Speaker 1: I actually don't think even if people agree with it,
Speaker 1: most of them won't actually do anything, probably over ninety
Speaker 1: maybe ninety nine of them. But what does it take
Speaker 1: to have an impact on someone's life. Is it something
Speaker 1: that you can do as a coach or is it
Speaker 1: something inside them that is you're just the oxygen to
Speaker 1: their flame? What is it? I believe that we need
Speaker 1: different language, different perspectives, different faces, different voices to connect
Speaker 1: with every person on the planet. You're going to say
Speaker 1: the same thing in your own way, from your own
Speaker 1: mind and heart and your experience, and that's going to
Speaker 1: touch someone in a way that what I said can't.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to say something in a context
Speaker 1: that's going to impact someone else that your words may
Speaker 1: not speak to. Because I've heard truth again and again
Speaker 1: and again and again and again, and then I hear
Speaker 1: it again last week and it clicks because I heard
Speaker 1: it from someone that said it in a way that
Speaker 1: speaks to the language of my soul. Let's speak to
Speaker 1: the language of my mind and heart. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what's so fascinating about needing more voices and more
Speaker 1: faces and more people trying to serve. But when you
Speaker 1: talk about what creates change in coaching. There's four steps
Speaker 1: to making a change in someone's life. It goes theoretical, meaningful, practical,
Speaker 1: and applicable. So most people when they like a post
Speaker 1: on Instagram or maybe they comment, that's them saying theoretically,
Speaker 1: I agree with this, and I understand it. I understand
Speaker 1: the theory that what you're saying is true, and I
Speaker 1: like it and I agree with it theoretically. But that
Speaker 1: theoretical understanding doesn't create transformation. That theoretical understanding doesn't change
Speaker 1: someone's life. It may hit them here and hit them here.
Speaker 1: The next step actually is from here too here, which
Speaker 1: is is it meaningful to them? So I'll give an example.
Speaker 1: Let's say someone reads a quote but they just lost
Speaker 1: their parent or they just lost a family member they love.
Speaker 1: I know I've had that happen to me in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. I'm sure many people listening have.
Speaker 1: Now it's not theory, it's meaningful because it's hit your heart.
Speaker 1: It's gone from here to here, and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: that really resonated. But again, that doesn't change your life
Speaker 1: because now it's meaningful, it's emotional, it's internal, but that
Speaker 1: hasn't changed in your action or your behavior. So the
Speaker 1: next step is making that practical. Okay, Stephen wrote that
Speaker 1: amazing quote, how do I make that practical? Let me reflect,
Speaker 1: this is the work that the coachee or the client
Speaker 1: needs to do. Okay, Stephen presented it beautifully. It connected
Speaker 1: with my head, It hit my heart. How do I
Speaker 1: actually make that practically in my day to day life?
Speaker 1: I'm not Stephen, I'm not Jay. How do I actually
Speaker 1: practically do that? And then finally, what's the part that
Speaker 1: I apply and take action on? So as a receiver
Speaker 1: of wisdom and knowledge, you have to do half that journey.
Speaker 1: All you can do is the theoretical and the meaningful,
Speaker 1: and you may even help with practical tips and application,
Speaker 1: But someone still has to sit there and go, how
Speaker 1: do I do that? Unless you're sitting there with the
Speaker 1: one on one obviously, and you can't do the practical
Speaker 1: bit for someone else forever. Ever. Yeah, you could help
Speaker 1: them today or tomorrow, totally, not for a lifetime. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be the fishing rod. Over the years,
Speaker 1: I've tried to kind of simplify what happiness is and
Speaker 1: I sit here with my guests and Mogadat was great
Speaker 1: at that as well. Yeah, of course it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Kind of the concept of happiness. What are the kind
Speaker 1: of simple fundamentals that Jay Shetty requires in his life
Speaker 1: to live a happy life. I'm going to use the
Speaker 1: word happy. I know it's a shitty word in many respects,
Speaker 1: but I just want to use that as the word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say that I look at happiness as daily habits
Speaker 1: and then deeper purpose. So there's things you can do
Speaker 1: daily that keep that happiness kind of moving and feel
Speaker 1: it's growing. And then there's almost the objective, the compass,
Speaker 1: the reason why you live and why you exist. And
Speaker 1: for me, it's been really clear that finding your passion
Speaker 1: and using it in the service of others is what
Speaker 1: creates the greatest, deepest happiness. When you find what you love,
Speaker 1: what you excel at, what you're brilliant at, and then
Speaker 1: you can actually use that to improve people's lives and
Speaker 1: you can use that skill, that passion, that energy to
Speaker 1: make a difference in someone's life. There is no better
Speaker 1: feeling than that. And what I find is I meet
Speaker 1: a lot of people who've mastered their passion, but not
Speaker 1: for service. They mastered it for business. They mastered it
Speaker 1: for money. They are mastered it for success and they
Speaker 1: have all of that, but they haven't got the service
Speaker 1: element in their life. They don't understand how to use
Speaker 1: their passion for a purpose, and so they feel unequipped.
Speaker 1: And then I know lots of people who are trying
Speaker 1: to serve or trying to make a difference, or trying
Speaker 1: to do charity work. They're trying to do all this
Speaker 1: good work and they feel good about it, but they
Speaker 1: still don't feel fulfilled because they're missing what is my
Speaker 1: special role, Like what's my position, what's my offering? In
Speaker 1: this space? You kind of get lost after a while.
Speaker 1: And so to me, happiness is where both come together,
Speaker 1: where it's like I know what I love and what
Speaker 1: makes me happy, and when I do that for others
Speaker 1: to improve their lives, it makes them happy. So if
Speaker 1: you can do what makes you happy and do it
Speaker 1: for others and it makes them happy, that's going to
Speaker 1: give you happiness. And I have tested that principle time
Speaker 1: and time again with clients, with friends, with family, with myself,
Speaker 1: and I've seen it to be true again and again
Speaker 1: and again. But that's that bigger happiness piece. Let's go
Speaker 1: to the daily habits daily stuff, and I want to
Speaker 1: try and avoid the stuff that I think people have
Speaker 1: heard and people have probably come across before in many
Speaker 1: different places. Maybe I've spoken about the maybe other people have.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest ones for me is I
Speaker 1: read a book a few years ago about flow state,
Speaker 1: and that book really transformed how I felt about things,
Speaker 1: and it talks about how being in flow is the
Speaker 1: intersection where your skills and your challenge match. So if
Speaker 1: your skills are higher than your challenge, you'll feel bored, lethargic,
Speaker 1: and maybe feel stuck. But if your challenge is greater
Speaker 1: than your skills, you feel overwhelmed, potentially depressed and disconnected
Speaker 1: and disappointed. So most of us are living in one
Speaker 1: of those discrepancies, and I find on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: I'm playing around with that equation for happiness because that
Speaker 1: flow state when you know you have a skill and
Speaker 1: your challenge is met, and even if you lose, you
Speaker 1: still get such a joy out of it because you
Speaker 1: know that you're still working in the right direction. And
Speaker 1: I think that is an underplayed part of happiness because
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like something predictable or obvious because people go, well,
Speaker 1: that's achievement. That's ambition. It's actually not. It's just saying
Speaker 1: for most people, it's either all their challenges are greater
Speaker 1: than their skill or their skills greater than their challenge.
Speaker 1: So I would ask everyone to say, look at your life.
Speaker 1: Do you need to improve your skills or do you
Speaker 1: need to broaden your challenge? Is this a year of
Speaker 1: expanding your challenges or is this a year of broadening
Speaker 1: your skills? And I promise you if you start with that,
Speaker 1: you're going to get so busy and active changing one
Speaker 1: of those that happiness is going to naturally flow. This
Speaker 1: comes into a little model like created of creating happiness
Speaker 1: for my year, and that one sits in one of them,
Speaker 1: so I'll explain which one it's in. I believe that
Speaker 1: to create happiness day to day, in one year, in
Speaker 1: one month, in a week, you have to have three things.
Speaker 1: You have to learn something every year, you have to
Speaker 1: launch something every year, and you have to love something
Speaker 1: every year. And that's how I've lived for the last
Speaker 1: three to five years. Every year I'm learning something, every
Speaker 1: year I'm launching something, and every year I'm loving something.
Speaker 1: And I'll give you an example. So when I talk
Speaker 1: about flow state that comes into the idea of grazing
Speaker 1: your challenge is like launching something. The reason why launching
Speaker 1: something creates happiness is because it creates a feeling of nervousness,
Speaker 1: It creates a feeling of butterflies, creates a feeling of excitement,
Speaker 1: like I don't know what's going to happen. We all
Speaker 1: need a feeling of surprise in life. We all need
Speaker 1: that feeling of I don't know. The sense of the
Speaker 1: unknown can actually cause happiness. And so launching something is
Speaker 1: such a powerful way. And I think too many people
Speaker 1: will think for five years, and think for ten years
Speaker 1: and maybe launch one thing in their whole life. And
Speaker 1: me and you have both. I mean, i'd love to
Speaker 1: I can't wait to interview on my podcast, but I
Speaker 1: have launched so much stuff. That's fair. We're going to
Speaker 1: get into that. Yeah, but that launch creates so much joy,
Speaker 1: It creates so much happiness. So launch something and we
Speaker 1: can dive into that. Then there's learn something, which is
Speaker 1: what we just talked about learning as skills. So that's
Speaker 1: the that's the idea of creating a flow state by
Speaker 1: saying what skill do I want to learn? And every
Speaker 1: year I pick a skill, and it's usually based on
Speaker 1: what I want to launch the next year. So I'll go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to learn podcasting. So twenty eighteen I studied podcasting.
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen we launched the podcast. So what you learn
Speaker 1: turns in what you launch, and what you launch turns
Speaker 1: into what you love. And what we try and do
Speaker 1: is you try and do it the other way around.
Speaker 1: We try and love something before we learn and launch.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. You've got to learn about something
Speaker 1: first and then you can fall in love with it.
Speaker 1: You can't love something and then learn about it. You can,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't always work that way. So I try
Speaker 1: and plan my years out in that way. I go,
Speaker 1: what am I going to learn, what am I going
Speaker 1: to launch, and what am I going to love? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's how I try and create happiness on
Speaker 1: a daily, weekly, monthly basis without diving into things like
Speaker 1: gratitude and meditation, which are huge parts of my daily happiness.
Speaker 1: But I think those are ideas that are out there
Speaker 1: and that we've talked about before, probably, And you've launched
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about some of those
Speaker 1: things that you've launched. I mean, you've got your Genius Community,
Speaker 1: which which has been going for a long time now, brilliant,
Speaker 1: a really brilliant business and really a standout business in
Speaker 1: this whole industry in terms of the way you executed
Speaker 1: it and the I mean even the design of the programs.
Speaker 1: And I remember going on the website and trying to
Speaker 1: I thinking to myself, would I be able to make
Speaker 1: something as quality as this in the future, and sort
Speaker 1: of modeling myself on that. You've got your certification score
Speaker 1: for coaches as well, You've launched your tea business, and
Speaker 1: there's also really I guess this is a bit of
Speaker 1: an exclusive, your partnership with Calm, the mindfulness meditation app,
Speaker 1: and I think they also call themselves a sleep app
Speaker 1: as well. Now I think that's a more modern description
Speaker 1: of them. So why did you partner with Calm? So
Speaker 1: Michael and I Michael was one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of Calm podcast, Yes exactly, yes, And we got introduced
Speaker 1: probably around four years ago now, and he came over
Speaker 1: for lunch to my place. We were hanging out, connecting,
Speaker 1: getting to know each other. He was being told that
Speaker 1: he should really connect with me, and I was being
Speaker 1: told I should connect with him, and finally we got together.
Speaker 1: So we had lunch at my home. My wife made
Speaker 1: us this incredible lunch and we sat down and he
Speaker 1: brought a friend and I had a couple of people
Speaker 1: there and we just hung out. And in that meeting,
Speaker 1: I met someone who I really believed was not trying
Speaker 1: to build an app, and I met someone who was
Speaker 1: not trying to build a platform, and I met someone
Speaker 1: who was not trying to build technology. He was trying
Speaker 1: to build an experience. He was trying to build a
Speaker 1: journey for people to go on. He was trying to
Speaker 1: build a practical daily habit for each and every single
Speaker 1: person in the world. And that was really beautiful for
Speaker 1: me to hear because I've been an admirer of Calm
Speaker 1: when it first started out, and I first heard about
Speaker 1: it probably eight years before we met, and I've been
Speaker 1: seeing what they were doing and creating, and to meet
Speaker 1: the person behind it, and for them to be as genuine,
Speaker 1: sincere and wonderful as Michael as you've met him, so
Speaker 1: you know what he's like. I was really blown away
Speaker 1: by that. I was just blown away by that vision
Speaker 1: and having spent hours and years meditating in the monastery
Speaker 1: and then meditating afterwards. I've always wanted to share meditation
Speaker 1: at scale with the world. I think it's a habit
Speaker 1: that eighty to ninety percent of the world's most healthy, wealthy,
Speaker 1: and successful people live by. So if we could make
Speaker 1: it accessible, practical, and relevant to each and every person's
Speaker 1: daily life, can you imagine the transformation that they'll have.
Speaker 1: And I've prints that as a monk. I saw it
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. I've seen it. Last year,
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, I went live for twenty days on
Speaker 1: Instagram and taught meditation just to everyone and anyone. Because
Speaker 1: I felt quite inadequate. I was like, I'm not a
Speaker 1: frontline worker. I can't save lives. I'm not a delivery person.
Speaker 1: I'm not helping people with their groceries and their food.
Speaker 1: I was like, what can I offer? And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe if people are going to have a minute of
Speaker 1: peace and calm, then that might be worth it. And
Speaker 1: across forty days, I end up doing fourteen instead of
Speaker 1: twenty across forty days with twenty million people tune in,
Speaker 1: and it was just so mind blowing to me and
Speaker 1: most of the people were saying they'd never meditated before,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, how beautiful that was. And
Speaker 1: one of the biggest piece of feedback I get from
Speaker 1: my audiences, Well, Jay, we want to meditate with you
Speaker 1: every day. Why can't we keep doing that? And I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, those forty days of live meditations were
Speaker 1: really intense and a lot of work went into them.
Speaker 1: So I wanted a home for where I could share
Speaker 1: meditation every single day, a new piece of meditation insight
Speaker 1: that each and every single person could build a daily
Speaker 1: habit every day of seven minutes a day. You're going
Speaker 1: to do seven minutes a day, every day, seven minutes
Speaker 1: a day, every day, five days a week, five days
Speaker 1: a week, not weekends. You get days off. Everyone gets
Speaker 1: two days off. You don't have to meditate on the weekends.
Speaker 1: You can sleep in, but you're going to You've recorded
Speaker 1: a meditation in camp. We haven't recorded all again, we
Speaker 1: haven't recorded all of them because they're fresh and they're moving,
Speaker 1: and they're based on my weekly inspiration, so we record
Speaker 1: them monthly. Nice, So we record them monthly. So I've
Speaker 1: recorded for the next month ahead because I have to,
Speaker 1: because everyone's going to need them. But I'm basing it
Speaker 1: on like what my inspiration is that week and what
Speaker 1: my day is that week. But it's a seven minute meditation,
Speaker 1: and I truly believe that everyone can find seven minutes.
Speaker 1: And if everyone could just find seven minutes in their
Speaker 1: day in their calendar, as I said that they put
Speaker 1: aside for themselves, I believe in those seven minutes, everyone
Speaker 1: could build a beautiful habit. Now, the difference with our
Speaker 1: meditation is that the meditations we've created, we believe that
Speaker 1: meditations that inspire action. So all of them are not
Speaker 1: just sitting there on your own with yourself breathing. They're
Speaker 1: interconnected with a change in your daily behavior. So each
Speaker 1: and every single one of them have a takeaway, have
Speaker 1: an insight that you can go and apply no matter
Speaker 1: what you do across the world. So the goal is
Speaker 1: where meditation meets action, where meditation can actually help you
Speaker 1: change how you feel that day through your real life.
Speaker 1: And so why I chose Calm Words, I wanted a home.
Speaker 1: I wanted to work with Michael and the team who
Speaker 1: I just believe are dreaming beautifully about how to bring
Speaker 1: meditation to the world. And so sincerely and genuinely care
Speaker 1: about each and every person. And I just love how
Speaker 1: I would say, I love how universally they approach meditation.
Speaker 1: I think they approach meditation in this universal, expansive, abundant
Speaker 1: mindset way, which makes story be a part of meditation,
Speaker 1: which makes visualization be a part of meditation. And that's
Speaker 1: how I was trained in meditation as a monk. So
Speaker 1: it feels very philosophically aligned as well. You know, you've
Speaker 1: done so much, and really from what I observed, even
Speaker 1: you really started in two thousand and i'd say the
Speaker 1: sort of external social media content channel he started in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen. Yes, that is mad. That is mad.
Speaker 1: You've gone from two thou sixteen making your first content
Speaker 1: to ruin two and twenty two now just and you're
Speaker 1: this global household name as it relates to content, self improvement, meditation,
Speaker 1: all of these topics. Right, that's a short period of
Speaker 1: time when you look back and you try and connect
Speaker 1: the docks, as Steve Jobs often did, about how Apple
Speaker 1: came to be in the little moments and the little things,
Speaker 1: whether it was a moment of good fortune or whether
Speaker 1: it was something that you have spotted in hindsight and
Speaker 1: your character, Why was jay Chetty successful in such a
Speaker 1: short period of time in such a big way. Give
Speaker 1: me the honest, practical answer. Don't want anything I want
Speaker 1: why why were you successful? So I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: the I'm gonna give you my monk answer, and then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give then I'm gonna give the media answer.
Speaker 1: So and I live by both, right, like you have to.
Speaker 1: You have to see things as both. And that's why
Speaker 1: I love my monk answer is I was really fortunate
Speaker 1: to meet incredible people when I was young. I met
Speaker 1: a few people that absolutely transform my life. I'm eternally
Speaker 1: indebted to them, grateful to them, and I owe it
Speaker 1: all to them, and so I give all my success
Speaker 1: to them, you know, without meeting those amazing mentors and
Speaker 1: those phenomenal thought leaders and thinkers who are not famous,
Speaker 1: who are not known, who are not present like they're
Speaker 1: not they're not in the social media world, they're not
Speaker 1: big names or whatever. Those people, you know, those people,
Speaker 1: If I never met them, none of this would have happened.
Speaker 1: And I can see that's the emotion in your face
Speaker 1: when you say this. Yeah, I just I really, you know,
Speaker 1: we skipped it earlier, but I just feel like the
Speaker 1: gratitude that I have for people who saw potential in
Speaker 1: me when I didn't see it in myself. That is
Speaker 1: just the greatest gift you can give to someone. Like
Speaker 1: I today have self awareness and I have confidence and
Speaker 1: I know who I am, and I wasn't always like that,
Speaker 1: Like there were tons of years where I was insecure,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was bullied for being overweight, and
Speaker 1: I was bullied for being the only Indian at school,
Speaker 1: and there was so much like baggage to do with
Speaker 1: just my body language I used and all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And to have someone noticed that you may
Speaker 1: have something, I mean, you've had that and that is
Speaker 1: just you. You like, honor that person for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. And the best thing is those people
Speaker 1: don't even want it. So you know, the best thing
Speaker 1: about all of this is the people they are not going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did that. They're actually saying no, no, no, it's
Speaker 1: not us, like it's you. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of that. So I have to say that it's
Speaker 1: important that I share that answer, not because I'm trying
Speaker 1: to give a more strategic answer, but I think it's
Speaker 1: important because it is a big part of it, and
Speaker 1: so that would be the monks that I met, it
Speaker 1: would be the coaches that I met, the guys that
Speaker 1: I met. Looking at it from a very practical strategic standpoint,
Speaker 1: shifting now, my parents forced me to go to public
Speaker 1: speaking and drama school when I was eleven years old,
Speaker 1: and I really didn't want to go because I was shy,
Speaker 1: I was unconfident, I was insecure about being on stage
Speaker 1: or being in a public setting. I actually loved acting
Speaker 1: growing up. I really enjoyed acting and doing theater and
Speaker 1: things like that where I was playing another character, but
Speaker 1: being myself on stage that was the last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And my parents saw that, and they
Speaker 1: saw that as something that I should work on. So
Speaker 1: they forced me and my school to enroll me in
Speaker 1: a public speaking course. So from the age of eleven
Speaker 1: through to the age of eighteen, for three hours a day,
Speaker 1: three days a week, so nine hours a week for
Speaker 1: seven years, I went to public speaking school. Really for
Speaker 1: seven years of my life, I went to public speaking school.
Speaker 1: So when I look back at my ability to communicate,
Speaker 1: my ability to understand ideas, and by the way, public
Speaker 1: speaking school is examination based too, so we had exams
Speaker 1: where they would give you a topic fifteen minutes before.
Speaker 1: You have fifteen minutes to research a topic from the
Speaker 1: books in the room that they give you because there
Speaker 1: was no smartphone at the time when we were eleven
Speaker 1: twelve years old, and you'd have to create a speech
Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes about that subject from the books that
Speaker 1: were in the room. You had to read from a
Speaker 1: book that you'd never read before. They'd pick a random
Speaker 1: page and they'd ask you to read it out. So
Speaker 1: the examination of a public and this was at the
Speaker 1: London Academy of Music, Drama and Arts, it's called Lambda,
Speaker 1: and that's where I studied for seven years. So that's
Speaker 1: a very strategic skill set that I had the time
Speaker 1: to develop thanks to my parents, you know, like without
Speaker 1: my parents that none of that would have ever happened.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a big part of why people
Speaker 1: hopefully appreciate how I communicate ideas because I've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time understanding communication. But when I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: I had nothing to talk about. So even though I
Speaker 1: had all these tools and skills, I didn't really use
Speaker 1: them because I didn't care about anything. So sure I
Speaker 1: gave a good presentation at university and work experience and
Speaker 1: an internship, but it was never something that brought me
Speaker 1: to life. And so then when I met the monks
Speaker 1: and I got an opportunity to study the Vaders, which
Speaker 1: are five thousand years old, and again we were put
Speaker 1: through rigorous study. We sat down, we had to learn verses,
Speaker 1: we had to analyze purports, commentaries on ancient scriptures, We
Speaker 1: had to do comparative analysis of religions and tradition. Like
Speaker 1: when I was a monk. We were massively trained in
Speaker 1: philosophical analysis, and that to me gave me a real
Speaker 1: strength and confidence in these ideas. So some of the
Speaker 1: ideas I present today that may sound simple, they're based
Speaker 1: on these really ancient, deep truths that I've had the
Speaker 1: time to grapple with the greats who really understand them.
Speaker 1: So that to me is a big benefit I've had
Speaker 1: where I've had three years of complete dedication to studying philosophy,
Speaker 1: and not just studying the intellectual areas, but the practical
Speaker 1: and the applicable areas as well. So thanks to my
Speaker 1: monk teachers who gave me there. And then when I
Speaker 1: went to accenture where people were like JU was just
Speaker 1: a monk, Why did you go to accenture. I had
Speaker 1: to pay the bills. I couldn't rely my parents, and
Speaker 1: you know, my parents are not wealthy that they could
Speaker 1: pay my way through life, and I moved back into
Speaker 1: their I moved back into my childhood bedroom. When I
Speaker 1: was twenty six, living with my parents with twenty five
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand pounds worth of debt and just feeling that,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, what do I do now?
Speaker 1: And I applied to forty companies that would have given
Speaker 1: me a job. I'm a first class honors degree student,
Speaker 1: I'm a straight A student, and I was rejected from
Speaker 1: forty companies because, surprise, surprise, no one wanted to hire
Speaker 1: a monk. So everyone goes, what are your transferable skills?
Speaker 1: Sitting quietly and sitting on the floor like no one
Speaker 1: needs that. So forty companies say no to me. Excentia
Speaker 1: finally give me a shot, and I meet someone called
Speaker 1: Thomas Power. And Thomas Power I don't know if you
Speaker 1: ever met him. Actually he's London based. He started up
Speaker 1: like an early LinkedIn kind of version called Academy, and
Speaker 1: he's very networked in London in the business space. Definitely
Speaker 1: want to introduce you guys. He's awesome and he was
Speaker 1: brought in by Accentia to train us in social media
Speaker 1: and train us in this new wave of this new
Speaker 1: thing that was happening. And it's really interesting because we've
Speaker 1: talked about it, me and him many times. I'm going
Speaker 1: to have him on my podcast soon. And I realized that.
Speaker 1: I was like, you didn't really teach me much about
Speaker 1: social media, but you've really taught me about breaking my mindset.
Speaker 1: And he would always repeat Napoleon Hill, You'd become what
Speaker 1: you think about, and he'd always tell me that. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, keep saying that to yourself, and I'd keep
Speaker 1: saying that to myself. And you've become what you think about,
Speaker 1: you become And I was like, oh, what am I thinking?
Speaker 1: Abou I'm not thinking about anything, So what am I
Speaker 1: going to become? Nothing? And it was just really interesting.
Speaker 1: And so he would give me these little tools and
Speaker 1: little things to play with. He had another one called ours,
Speaker 1: which he would say that successful people have to be open, random,
Speaker 1: and supportive, and he'd say that most unsuccessful people are closed,
Speaker 1: selective and controlling CSC. And he was saying that when
Speaker 1: you live in a CSC mindset, you limit your growth.
Speaker 1: But when you live in an ours mindset, open, random,
Speaker 1: and supportive, you expand your growth. So you would encourage
Speaker 1: me to be open with strangers on Twitter. He'd encourage
Speaker 1: me to be open with random people would meet at
Speaker 1: a conference, and he would just training me in behaviors
Speaker 1: and mindsets. It wasn't like how to post and what
Speaker 1: time to post, and this is how you make It
Speaker 1: wasn't how to make something go viral like that wasn't it.
Speaker 1: It was how to engage, how to push your comfort zone,
Speaker 1: how to challenge your fear. Why are you so uncomfortable
Speaker 1: to walk up to that person and tweet them? You know,
Speaker 1: all of those kind of things. And I saw that.
Speaker 1: My mind just became just open to the idea. So
Speaker 1: he always told me, you're an entrepreneur. I'd be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not. I'm meant to work for someone.
Speaker 1: And so he would keep pushing me until I'd get
Speaker 1: really angry with him, like you don't even know who
Speaker 1: I am. Only for me to realize he saw something
Speaker 1: in me that I never saw. And then I'd say,
Speaker 1: from there on, that's kind of what gets me to
Speaker 1: the beginning of it. I would say that for ten
Speaker 1: years before twenty and sixteen, I was making content and
Speaker 1: delivering it in small venues in London. So I had
Speaker 1: an event in London at university called Think out Loud.
Speaker 1: Every single week, I would design a poster on photoshop.
Speaker 1: I taught myself photoshop, and I would make a post
Speaker 1: and I would talk about a movie from a philosophical, psychological,
Speaker 1: and spiritual perspective. So I'd take a movie like Inception
Speaker 1: and I'd break it down, and ten students would come
Speaker 1: every week. And then I'd teach meditation, which I'd learned
Speaker 1: from the monks, and then twenty students would come. And
Speaker 1: then by the time I finished university, a hundred people
Speaker 1: came every single week to hear me break down. And
Speaker 1: this was no followers. The events were free. I was
Speaker 1: preparing for free, doing everything for free, and I loved
Speaker 1: it and I got so much joy. And then afterwards,
Speaker 1: when I was at Accenture, I ran an event in
Speaker 1: London called Conscious Living and it was just it was
Speaker 1: an event which was probably like five pounds on a
Speaker 1: Friday night, and again I was teaching philosophy, spirituality and meditation,
Speaker 1: and I was lucky. If five people turned up, it
Speaker 1: wasn't university anymore where you could go and deck the
Speaker 1: halls with flyers and posters in the common room in
Speaker 1: the community area. So we'd get like five to ten
Speaker 1: people every Friday night, paying five to ten quidge just
Speaker 1: for the food that we gave and the posters that
Speaker 1: we made, just to cover the costs. So for ten years,
Speaker 1: before I ever made a piece of content online, I've practiced, rehearsed, experimented, grappled,
Speaker 1: challenged these ideas again and again and again and again
Speaker 1: and again, without any followers, without any money, and without
Speaker 1: anything else coming from it apart from the fact that
Speaker 1: I love it. I love the idea of reading a
Speaker 1: book and trying to make it relevant. So I would
Speaker 1: say that the biggest reason is because I've done this
Speaker 1: for ten years offline before it ever went online. So
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for like sixteen years, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't count the eleven year old public speaking classes. It's
Speaker 1: really there's something really beautiful about that because I think
Speaker 1: it gives a sense of it's incredibly inspiring, but it
Speaker 1: also gives a sense of peace to people who are
Speaker 1: at a stage in their journey where they sat on
Speaker 1: the phones in a call center selling I don't know,
Speaker 1: double glazing like I was, and they're thinking this is
Speaker 1: a waste of time. They're thinking picking up this phone
Speaker 1: and trying to persuade Margaret to buy some windows is
Speaker 1: a waste of time and it's not serving where I
Speaker 1: want to go. And it's only in hindsight when you
Speaker 1: speak to people like yourself, where you hear about Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs Journey, or really anybody that sits aron this podcast
Speaker 1: New Yeah, like those are some of the most unbelievably
Speaker 1: formative and most pivotal experiences as it relates to the
Speaker 1: thing you will go on to do, and you never
Speaker 1: know when that's going to happen, right, You never know
Speaker 1: when opportunity is going to meet preparation in your life totally.
Speaker 1: And that also speaks to something you said earlier, which
Speaker 1: is it's about the mindset you have when you're doing
Speaker 1: those things. And if you believe, I think, if you
Speaker 1: believe that sitting on that phone is going to be
Speaker 1: the rest of your life forever, you're increasing the chances
Speaker 1: of that being the case. And I'm not putting down
Speaker 1: people that do call center jobs. It's actually one of
Speaker 1: myne one of my favorite and the job I did
Speaker 1: the longest. But I just think that's such an important
Speaker 1: mindset shift that can inspire and not to demotivate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we have to look at our life as
Speaker 1: a series of things that add up each other, rather
Speaker 1: than like this is a waste, this is a waste,
Speaker 1: and that's not a waste. And by the way, you
Speaker 1: said call center that sparked memory. I had a internship
Speaker 1: when I was sixteen years old at the Business Design
Speaker 1: Center in angel And I was working for a company
Speaker 1: called Upper Street Events that sold events space two companies
Speaker 1: for these big exhibitions and events that happen in the venue.
Speaker 1: And I remember at sixteen having to call up Nissan, BMW, VW, Audi, Vauxhall, etc.
Speaker 1: Because they're doing a big car exhibition. Now, by the way,
Speaker 1: I was a sixteen year old kid who didn't really
Speaker 1: know I was doing, but the people trained me really
Speaker 1: well and would I was cold calling. And I completely
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think that gave me so much
Speaker 1: confidence to be able to pick up the phone to
Speaker 1: anyone and everyone, to tweet anyone and everyone, to DM
Speaker 1: anyone and everyone. By the way, Krishano Ronaldo has the
Speaker 1: longest list of dms from me that he's never seen. Right,
Speaker 1: he has the longest list of dms from me that
Speaker 1: he's never seen. But I'm hoping that one day he's
Speaker 1: going to see them and I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: interview him. And it's the idea of like, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not worried if he doesn't see them. I'm not
Speaker 1: upset if one day he sees thirty dms from me,
Speaker 1: because I know that that's what it takes, and I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. There's no ego that I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: If Krishana Ranada opened it up and saw, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy's desperate, I would take that all day, because I
Speaker 1: think he's a I think he has a phenomenal mind,
Speaker 1: and I would love to sit down with him what
Speaker 1: did you lose? Right? But that comes from when you're
Speaker 1: cold calling in the call center. You learn that mindset
Speaker 1: of what did I lose if this person said no?
Speaker 1: And there's three hundred people on this list, and that
Speaker 1: person might be the one that wants and now and
Speaker 1: that person might come back around, and you get to
Speaker 1: develop those skills. So I just I just hope that
Speaker 1: wherever you are listening to this right now, wherever you're
Speaker 1: watching it, you just take a moment to realize that
Speaker 1: that place can teach you everything you need to know
Speaker 1: about your purpose. And if you just approach it in
Speaker 1: that way, you're going to walk to work with a
Speaker 1: pepper in your step and like this energy that's going
Speaker 1: to be so electric and so magnetic that everyone's going
Speaker 1: to know what's going on with you. And all it
Speaker 1: is is that you're looking at life as an addition
Speaker 1: rather than a subtraction, and you're receiving a completely different way. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a long standing tradition on this podcast where
Speaker 1: the previous guest writes a question for the next guest
Speaker 1: in the diary. That's genius additions. But I love it.
Speaker 1: What the reason why we did it, and I've never
Speaker 1: really explained this is we want to basically connect the
Speaker 1: episodes together and the guests together in some way, and
Speaker 1: by question written in the diaries our way. Um, who
Speaker 1: came up with that great idea? It's brilliant, It's absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell my team, I'm not happy with
Speaker 1: my team from what we were talking about. It's funny
Speaker 1: can message my team It's funny because this question is
Speaker 1: actually when I think I asked you already, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask me another one. Everyone you can pick a big,
Speaker 1: a random one, can just make one up. So the
Speaker 1: question asked, what is your definition of true success? I'd
Speaker 1: say my definition of true success is that there are
Speaker 1: four important decisions we make in our life, and if
Speaker 1: you can make every decision intentionally with the desire to
Speaker 1: learn and serve, then that's all you can do. So
Speaker 1: the fore most important asions we make in our life
Speaker 1: are how do I feel about myself, what do I
Speaker 1: do for money? Who do I give my love to?
Speaker 1: And how do I serve others? And if you spend
Speaker 1: your life focusing on intentionally making those choices, then your
Speaker 1: life is a success because all you can do is
Speaker 1: try to live intentionally and try to hope that it
Speaker 1: helps other people. Amen, listen, Jay, I can't thank you
Speaker 1: enough for coming here and doing this. I know you
Speaker 1: are very in demand, very very very successful man who's
Speaker 1: only in the UK for a short period of time,
Speaker 1: so it's a true honor that you would come here
Speaker 1: and sit with me and have this conversation for me.
Speaker 1: You've been a real role model in many many ways,
Speaker 1: and you know, you've led the way in the content
Speaker 1: the self development that helping people change their lives domain,
Speaker 1: especially as someone that comes from the same country as
Speaker 1: me for the longest time. So I've always looked to
Speaker 1: you for the last i don't know seven years since
Speaker 1: i've I've started doing this, and I think your success
Speaker 1: has propelled and enabled mine from a point of inspiration
Speaker 1: but also from giving me a blueprint on how to
Speaker 1: to serve. So I've never got to say that to
Speaker 1: you before, but i really want to say thank you
Speaker 1: because that's um. You know, you've helped You're probably the
Speaker 1: reason I get to help people as well in my
Speaker 1: own way, So that means you know, it means a
Speaker 1: ton to me that you'd come here and sit with
Speaker 1: me and yeah, it's you. That's probably one of the
Speaker 1: most humbling things anyone's ever said to me. Because I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of the podcast. I think you do
Speaker 1: an incredible job, and I think you have some amazing
Speaker 1: guess guests that I've never sat down with or you know,
Speaker 1: may not be in my rate, my radar or radius,
Speaker 1: and you've shared things with them that I've just been
Speaker 1: phenomenal and so when I'm listening and watching, I want
Speaker 1: to get my hairdcut. Yeah. I was talking to my
Speaker 1: hairdresser about you, and I was like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: on this podcast tomorrow and you know, and he listens
Speaker 1: to you as well and knows who you are, and
Speaker 1: and I was just like yeah, And the easiest thing
Speaker 1: that came back to me was just yes, even was
Speaker 1: a really nice guy, Like he's really down to earth,
Speaker 1: he's really humble, And I find that phenomenal because of
Speaker 1: your age, because of what you've achieved, I've never felt
Speaker 1: like even a drop of ego around you. And whether
Speaker 1: that's in your online presence, whether that's when we met
Speaker 1: in New York, whether that's on Twitter all those years ago,
Speaker 1: whether it's today before we were on cameras, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that. I think as monks, we were trained
Speaker 1: that the most admirable quality in a humanist humility like
Speaker 1: that was seen as like the if we could say
Speaker 1: that in the material world, the highest thing about someone
Speaker 1: is whatever it is. The currency in monk life was humility.
Speaker 1: And so when I meet people who have humility, I
Speaker 1: really they're like, they're like the people that I get
Speaker 1: drawn to the most and you just have it in
Speaker 1: bags for and I just think you're going to go
Speaker 1: off and do even more incredible, successful, phenomenal things for
Speaker 1: the world. And I'm excited to watch. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: be a fan of a friend, and hopefully we get
Speaker 1: to do stuff together too. But this was beautiful, man,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank thank you for having I
Speaker 1: wanted to come on. This is beautiful, this brilliant. I
Speaker 1: hope we do it more and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: have you one. I'm very exciting now that you're coming
Speaker 1: to a Lacy, We're gonna have you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to that conversation. Make sure you tag
Speaker 1: me and Stephen, letting us know what you learned from this,
Speaker 1: what you took away, maybe something that made you reflect
Speaker 1: and introspect. And I'll see you again next week. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.