Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be
Speaker 1: adding a really special offering onto the back of my
Speaker 1: solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily
Speaker 1: series on Calm and it's meant to inspire you while
Speaker 1: outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress
Speaker 1: free life. We dive into a range of topics and
Speaker 1: the best part is each episode is only seven minutes long,
Speaker 1: so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter
Speaker 1: how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the
Speaker 1: on Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for
Speaker 1: you this year, so I'll be playing a handpicked Daily
Speaker 1: Jay during each of my Friday podcasts. This week, we're
Speaker 1: talking about your relationships and how to create the most
Speaker 1: meaningful connections with the people that matter to you. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you want to listen to The Daily Jay every day,
Speaker 1: you can go subscribe to Calm. So go to calm
Speaker 1: dot com forward slash j for forty percent off your
Speaker 1: membership Today.
Speaker 2: Jay Shess you welcome to How to Fail.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much for having me And that
Speaker 1: was a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to be in your presence.
Speaker 1: No, I'm so grateful to be in yours. This is
Speaker 1: so wonderful, and I'm really excited to have this conversation. Hehito.
Speaker 2: I wanted to end on that quote because it's so interesting.
Speaker 2: I feel that we live in a culture which often
Speaker 2: it lies happiness with success, and that can be very
Speaker 2: confusing when you're growing up in that culture, because you
Speaker 2: think you want one thing and then you might get
Speaker 2: it and you realize it actually hasn't made you feel content.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that you've got both yourself today? Do
Speaker 2: you feel happy and successful?
Speaker 1: If I'm honest, I feel at this stage in my
Speaker 1: life I can say that I'm genuinely on the path
Speaker 1: of both. I say on the path because I don't
Speaker 1: think any of them are ever a place that you
Speaker 1: arrive or finish or complete. It's not like a level
Speaker 1: in a game where you say, okay, well I've made
Speaker 1: it now and there's nothing else to do. But definitely
Speaker 1: I've pusedsued both paths very intentionally and consciously, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what I was trying to get across when
Speaker 1: I said that statement originally. Whereas this idea that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people by confusing the two lose
Speaker 1: out on both often. So just as we sometimes think
Speaker 1: of success as happiness, we also think of just happiness
Speaker 1: as success, and both of untrue. And so I feel
Speaker 1: at this point in my life I intentionally pursue them,
Speaker 1: but for different reasons. I think that intentionally pursuing joy
Speaker 1: and presence and connection creates happiness in my life. And
Speaker 1: if I wasn't to pursue that, my external pursuits wouldn't
Speaker 1: give me that, I wouldn't just one day find those things.
Speaker 1: And similarly, I love the idea of how much I
Speaker 1: grow and learn by trying to do more things in
Speaker 1: the external world. The idea of building a podcast or
Speaker 1: writing a book, or building a company, and having a
Speaker 1: team of individuals who I learn from every day and
Speaker 1: growth from every day. That to me creates a growth
Speaker 1: in the form of success. And so I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: both those parts, and I'm on both those parts even now.
Speaker 2: Do you think you're competitive?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, definitely, I'm definitely competitive. I'd say that I
Speaker 1: constantly focus on how I can do better than myself
Speaker 1: rather than how I can do better than others, And
Speaker 1: so I'm competitive with myself in am I improving my process?
Speaker 1: Am I improving my understanding and analysis? Am I improving
Speaker 1: how I perform? Because I think that the outward form
Speaker 1: of competition, which is largely based on comparison, just makes
Speaker 1: your worst version of yourself, or it makes your worst
Speaker 1: version of someone else, And that's not the kind of
Speaker 1: competition I'm interested in. So I'm honestly every day trying
Speaker 1: to be better than myself. And I think that that
Speaker 1: creates a really healthy relationship with being competitive, rather than
Speaker 1: living in a world of comparison based competitiveness, which I
Speaker 1: think is really unhealthy and can really hurt you.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I've fallen into that trap. It's something I
Speaker 2: strive against every day to try not to be comparatively competitive.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that I have found very
Speaker 2: helpful is the idea that being successful is actually about
Speaker 2: being the fullest, the most version of you, that that's
Speaker 2: our purpose on this earth. What for you? I know
Speaker 2: your podcast is called on Purpose, which is such a
Speaker 2: great name. Does your purpose shift day to day or
Speaker 2: do you have one consistent purpose for your life?
Speaker 1: I have one underlying purpose that has been developed over many,
Speaker 1: many years. So it's not that I one day arrived
Speaker 1: in it because I was journaling and I was just
Speaker 1: doing a quiz and I ended up with it. And
Speaker 1: I always try and loosely help people recognize that purpose
Speaker 1: isn't this thing that you have to figure out in
Speaker 1: your head and then you live it. It's something that
Speaker 1: you collect over time. You collect skills, you collect experiences,
Speaker 1: you collect feelings, you collect emotions, and then when you
Speaker 1: curate them together, it creates a purpose. If I look
Speaker 1: at my purpose today, I collected public speaking and drama
Speaker 1: school training from age eleven to age eighteen. I collected
Speaker 1: business experience during my time at Cast Business School. I
Speaker 1: collected the years of experience I had as a monk.
Speaker 1: I collected years of digital social media experience from extension.
Speaker 1: Then today, when you look at what I live, it's
Speaker 1: like a beautiful mocktail of all of those things. And
Speaker 1: so I think purpose is collected. But my underlying purpose
Speaker 1: is to dedicate my life to helping other people find theirs,
Speaker 1: and I do that by making wisdom and ideas and
Speaker 1: habits more accessible, relevant and practical. That's my goal. To
Speaker 1: make education spread as fast as entertainment, and if we
Speaker 1: can make enlightening educational ideas in an innovative way. Then
Speaker 1: people will absorb it and consume it like entertainment and
Speaker 1: it will actually improve their lives. A lot of entertainment
Speaker 1: is escape, but I want to create entertainment that elevates
Speaker 1: our minds, and I really believe it can be done,
Speaker 1: and so that's my purpose. So those are the areas
Speaker 1: of my life that I'm dedicated to and that fuel
Speaker 1: me and wake me every morning. And that's been how
Speaker 1: I felt for probably the majority of the last ten
Speaker 1: years now or ten years plus. But the way the
Speaker 1: vehicle changes, so the format changes. So originally I was
Speaker 1: doing that through doing events in the city of London
Speaker 1: when I lived here, and maybe two people would show
Speaker 1: up or maybe five people would shop, and I was
Speaker 1: living my purpose because I was making wisdom accessible, relevant
Speaker 1: and practical, and I was trying to make it innovative.
Speaker 1: So I was still living my purpose then. And then
Speaker 1: when I first started creating my videos, that was four
Speaker 1: minute videos. Then we launched a podcast and the podcasts
Speaker 1: was one to two hours. Then I wrote my first book,
Speaker 1: second book, So the medium and the format changes, but
Speaker 1: the vision and the purpose behind each one was exactly
Speaker 1: the same, and the purpose satisfied me because the purpose
Speaker 1: was never attached to a number or scale, or to
Speaker 1: followers or likes or sales, because it started when none
Speaker 1: of that existed for me. And so the purpose is
Speaker 1: something that will fuel you. I think Albert Einstein has
Speaker 1: this beautiful thought where he says, if you want to
Speaker 1: be happy, don't tie it to a person, tie it
Speaker 1: to a goal. And I changed that to or add
Speaker 1: to it to by saying, don't tie it to a person,
Speaker 1: tie it to a purpose. And that purpose is something
Speaker 1: that can fuel you forever, regardless of the external result.
Speaker 2: You must get an enormous amount of offers that come
Speaker 2: your way. So do you have a shortcut? Do you
Speaker 2: have a way of checking in with your instincts and
Speaker 2: being like, does this align with my purpose? That's an
Speaker 2: easy now or an easy yes?
Speaker 1: Yes? Absolutely So. I have a three step method. It's
Speaker 1: called ESM Energy Strategy Money. It's very very simple, and
Speaker 1: I do this all the time with any opportunity that come.
Speaker 1: The first thing I ask myself is is this energetically
Speaker 1: aligned with my purpose? What I mean by that is
Speaker 1: when I'm in this person's presence or this brand or
Speaker 1: company's presence, when I connect with them, I see how
Speaker 1: they speak about themselves. Is it aligned with improving people's lives?
Speaker 1: Are they building this product? Are they creating this opportunity
Speaker 1: because they genuinely believe they want to improve the lives
Speaker 1: of others? Do they want to make people happier, healthier,
Speaker 1: and more healed? So that's the energy point. Now, if
Speaker 1: I don't feel that airlines on that level, we don't
Speaker 1: go through to the next point. So that's door number one.
Speaker 1: It's stages. That's door number one. So if you made
Speaker 1: it through door number one, door number two is strategy. Okay,
Speaker 1: someone can have really good intentions and really good energy,
Speaker 1: but do they have this strategy to know how to
Speaker 1: actually implement this? Do they actually know how to develop
Speaker 1: this idea further? Because someone can be really wonderfully intentioned,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that it's going to work, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: get there. And obviously we're talking about this from a
Speaker 1: professional point of view. This is not about I don't
Speaker 1: do this with people. We're talking about professional opportunities. The
Speaker 1: next is strategy, and then the final one is money.
Speaker 1: Is the money aligned with what they're saying energetically and
Speaker 1: strategically does it make business and financial sense. And I
Speaker 1: think that those three doors have always helped me in
Speaker 1: any decision making because they allow you to really focus
Speaker 1: on what's most important to you, which is the energy,
Speaker 1: but then making sure that the strategy of money is
Speaker 1: backed up by that as well.
Speaker 2: So interesting because I have a rule of three I
Speaker 2: love it, which is passion, pay, prestige.
Speaker 3: Oh, very curious, very close like your words. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: love an alliteration.
Speaker 1: Energy strategy. Money has just always been that way. I
Speaker 1: guess they all end and why but yes, that's true.
Speaker 2: Let's get onto your brilliant book, which is Eight Rules
Speaker 2: of Love, and it is so everything that you have
Speaker 2: just spoken about. It makes wisdom so accessible and relevant.
Speaker 2: And I told you before we started recording, I wish
Speaker 2: that i'd this in my twenties. It would have saved
Speaker 2: me a lot of trouble. Having said that, I'm now
Speaker 2: married for the second time to a wonderful but thank
Speaker 2: you to a wonderful person. But the road to get
Speaker 2: there was strewn with failure and taught me a lot.
Speaker 2: And that's why I wish i'd read your book because
Speaker 2: it's so profoundly wise about so many things I want
Speaker 2: to ask you back.
Speaker 1: I'd love to add that, first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing that with your own experience, and second of all,
Speaker 1: congratulations on believing that love was possible and you still
Speaker 1: had the full permission to love again and you were
Speaker 1: lovable and you could find it, which is incredible. And
Speaker 1: also i'd add that I'm not ever concerned that someone
Speaker 1: may have failures in love, because, like you said and
Speaker 1: me included, I've made a lot of mistakes in love
Speaker 1: early on in my life, which is what led to
Speaker 1: this book as well. But it makes you appreciate what
Speaker 1: you have so much more now, and that gratitude that
Speaker 1: I have for my wife, I'm sure you feel that way.
Speaker 1: That gratitude you have, it actually makes this even better.
Speaker 1: And so if any one's out there and they've been
Speaker 1: through a lot of pain, or they've been treated really horribly,
Speaker 1: or they've had the worst experiences and had their heart broken.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's okay.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you deserve that at all. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that when you do find it, you will have
Speaker 1: this deep appreciation and gratitude in a way that you
Speaker 1: could never have had it if you didn't have those experiences.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to point out that no
Speaker 1: one should ever feel discouraged that if they've failed or
Speaker 1: lost love too many times that that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2: I could not agree more. That's so beautifully put tell
Speaker 2: us about breakups, because that is one of the things
Speaker 2: that really affects listeners to this podcast and massively affected
Speaker 2: me when I was going through them, because there is
Speaker 2: no grief quite like heartbreak. It's such a specific and
Speaker 2: individual thing, and you have some great advice for it.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that I found most beautiful
Speaker 2: in this book is that idea that you might be
Speaker 2: broken up with, but you're not broken. Your soul is unbreakable.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a bit more about.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, definitely. So first of all, I want to
Speaker 1: say that if anyone's had their heart broken or has
Speaker 1: gone through a breakup that was painful because of what
Speaker 1: someone said or how they treated you, the truth is
Speaker 1: that it will always hurt because when you look at
Speaker 1: the science behind heartbreak, it says that we feel the
Speaker 1: same chemical shift as when someone's trying to detox from cocaine.
Speaker 1: And so if you think about that, It's like being
Speaker 1: addicted to a drug that was fueling you and filling
Speaker 1: you up that wasn't good for you, but it was
Speaker 1: still an addiction. And now that it's been removed from
Speaker 1: your physical or even emotional presence, you now literally have
Speaker 1: this feeling of what's craving for another human, just as
Speaker 1: you crave back for cocaine. And so the fact that
Speaker 1: it hurts is real and true, and we should validate that.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't feel bad that it hurts, or that you're
Speaker 1: a weak person, or that you're someone who doesn't have
Speaker 1: a backbone, or if anyone says to you like, oh,
Speaker 1: just get over it. The fact that you can't get
Speaker 1: over it is a very real emotion. We shouldn't just
Speaker 1: shun it or push it aside. And then to answer
Speaker 1: your question, I think what we often find is that
Speaker 1: we believe that someone's love for us is what makes
Speaker 1: us lovable. So we believe that if someone values us,
Speaker 1: then we're valuable, if someone likes us, then we're likable,
Speaker 1: and so all of our self belief, self value, and
Speaker 1: self esteem is based on someone else's view towards us.
Speaker 1: So then when that person leaves, we feel broken because
Speaker 1: they just took what we so deeply needed. And I
Speaker 1: approach this from a very spiritual point of view in
Speaker 1: the book, which is what you just mentioned now, and
Speaker 1: I have reference often the Bug with Geta, which is
Speaker 1: the book that I deeply studied during my time as
Speaker 1: a monk, and the book is over five thousand years old.
Speaker 1: It's originally in Sanskrit. There are some English translations which
Speaker 1: are beautiful to read and understand. And that book talks
Speaker 1: about how consciousness, or our first self as I like
Speaker 1: to call it, we have so many selves, but our
Speaker 1: first self is unbreakable. It's insoluble, it's unburnable. And the
Speaker 1: idea that there's this part of you that existed before
Speaker 1: this person, during this person, and after this person will
Speaker 1: always be there. There is a you before every relationship,
Speaker 1: during every relationship, and there will continue to be one
Speaker 1: of you after every relationship. And yes, this doesn't solve
Speaker 1: the heartbreak, but it's something you should know inherently and deeply.
Speaker 2: That's very moving that because you can apply it so
Speaker 2: many things, you can also apply it to grief, that
Speaker 2: there will still be a soul as you're experiencing this horror,
Speaker 2: you will get through it and you will still exist.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very meaningful thing for people to
Speaker 2: hear talk to us about trust and the expectation we
Speaker 2: have that love should be quite unquote magic, and so
Speaker 2: we sort of scatter all of our trust tokens immediately.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love the language of trust tokens. That's that's
Speaker 1: really that's that's really great. I love that. Trust fascinates
Speaker 1: me because I consider myself to be someone who always
Speaker 1: wants to trust others, who generally has positive feelings towards others,
Speaker 1: and I want to like others and be liked and
Speaker 1: do good things with them. And I think that's most
Speaker 1: of us. Most of us feel like we want to
Speaker 1: trust others. But I think what I found throughout life
Speaker 1: was just how trust was something that shouldn't just be
Speaker 1: given away. It should be something that's earned, both by
Speaker 1: ourselves and by others. I should feel I have to
Speaker 1: earn my trust with you because we have a new relationship,
Speaker 1: and the other person should feel they have to earn
Speaker 1: my trust back. But what often happens is that the
Speaker 1: halo effect creates this idea where we just give trust away.
Speaker 1: Someone's attractive, we believe they're trustworthy if someone's smart, we
Speaker 1: believe they're organized. If someone's well spoken, we believe they're kind.
Speaker 1: So what we start doing is we start ascribing qualities
Speaker 1: of trust to qualities we perceive. And that's where it
Speaker 1: starts to go wrong. Because that person hasn't shown you that,
Speaker 1: you just assume that they have that quality because they
Speaker 1: have another quality, or they went to a good school,
Speaker 1: they must be really reliable, they must come from a
Speaker 1: good family. We start giving them all of these trust tokens,
Speaker 1: as you said, without actually letting them earn it. So
Speaker 1: in my first book, Think like a Monk, I broke
Speaker 1: down the four levels of trust. The first level is
Speaker 1: zero trust when I meet someone new, and when you
Speaker 1: meet someone new, as painful as it sounds, please start
Speaker 1: at zero trust. Often we think of trust as binary.
Speaker 1: We often think I either trust you I don't trust you.
Speaker 1: I actually have four levels. The first is zero trust
Speaker 1: when I meet someone, they're starting there. The second level
Speaker 1: of trust is transactional trust. This is when I say
Speaker 1: to you, especially in the dating world, I'll be there
Speaker 1: at nine pm. Does that person sharp at nine pm?
Speaker 1: I'll call you the first thing in the morning. Did
Speaker 1: they call first thing in the morning, now, of course,
Speaker 1: there may be a couple of times this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: That's forgivable. But do we have a level of transactional
Speaker 1: trust with them or not? Oh yeah, I'll make sure
Speaker 1: I send that email to you. Oh yeah, definitely, I'll
Speaker 1: be there at twelve on the dot. These are the
Speaker 1: moments where we get to see transactional trust. And often,
Speaker 1: if we like the way someone looks, or we believe
Speaker 1: that they might be an amazing partner, even if they
Speaker 1: completely don't follow transactional trust, we'll give them that that
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt because there's something else we find
Speaker 1: attractive and fascinating about them. The third level of trust
Speaker 1: is what I call reciprocal trust. This means you've ever
Speaker 1: had really good experiences of the first two, and now
Speaker 1: you do nice things for each other without counting. You're
Speaker 1: not checking every time a transaction's made, you're not having
Speaker 1: to watch whether it happens or not. You've gained that
Speaker 1: level of trust where we do nice things for each
Speaker 1: other but no one's counting. And the fourth level, and
Speaker 1: the highest level of trust, is unconditional trust. And I
Speaker 1: call that god like trust or parent like trust, which
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily going to have immediately with anyone, and
Speaker 1: that's something that could take years to develop. And it's
Speaker 1: a divine level of trust where I trust you with
Speaker 1: my whole life. But after what we do is we
Speaker 1: start there with people and then we fall back down.
Speaker 1: And basically, the higher level of trust you give to someone,
Speaker 1: the more levels you have to fall. So if you
Speaker 1: gave someone unconditional trust just after three months, then you're
Speaker 1: going to end up at zero after three months, which
Speaker 1: means you just topple down four levels, and that's what hurts.
Speaker 1: Whereas when you say, okay, they were at one and
Speaker 1: I expected one, or I thought they would be at
Speaker 1: one but I got zero, then it's not going to
Speaker 1: hurt as much. And so it's a really tactical, practical
Speaker 1: way of measuring trust.
Speaker 2: Super clever. And I think that there's a misapprehension that
Speaker 2: people BELI leave that sort of attitude is somehow unromantic.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think everything I'm sharing sounds really unsexy, unromantic, unmagical,
Speaker 1: But it's all designed to save you from pain. It's
Speaker 1: all designed to save you and protect you from setting
Speaker 1: yourself up for a failure. Often we say, oh, that
Speaker 1: person misled me. And I'm not saying there aren't people
Speaker 1: that mislead you, but often we mislead ourselves by giving
Speaker 1: away trust without anyone earning it. I mean, I looked
Speaker 1: at it again. I'm looking at research. So I'm not
Speaker 1: basing this on my opinion. I'm not basing this on
Speaker 1: my personal experience. I'm basing on research. Studies showed that
Speaker 1: around sixty to seventy percent of people feel too pressured
Speaker 1: to say I love you or hear the words I
Speaker 1: love you in the first month. Now that's challenging because
Speaker 1: sure we all want to fall in love, but I
Speaker 1: promise you there's no one who can truly stand by
Speaker 1: that statement after one month. Men say I love you
Speaker 1: within one month, and women say I love you within
Speaker 1: three months. Then studies go on to say that it
Speaker 1: takes forty hours to can cosider someone a casual friend,
Speaker 1: one hundred hours to consider someone a good friend, and
Speaker 1: two hundred hours to consider someone a great friend. So
Speaker 1: if you need two hundred hours to consider someone a
Speaker 1: great friend, you can't have done that in one month.
Speaker 1: It's just not realistic. If you saw someone once a week,
Speaker 1: even if you saw someone once a day for two hours,
Speaker 1: only sixty hours in a month, so we're almost giving
Speaker 1: away really high levels of love for very low levels
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 2: So interesting. So I had an expectation when I met
Speaker 2: my now husband. We met online, we met on Hinge,
Speaker 2: and I was thirty nine at the time, and because
Speaker 2: I had grown up on a diet of nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: rom coms. We're coming on to that, don't you worry.
Speaker 2: But I I was in love with the idea of
Speaker 2: love as it had been portrayed on screen in fiction.
Speaker 2: And it took him six months to say that you
Speaker 2: loved me, and I thought, gosh, it's taking ages. It's
Speaker 2: taking ages. And I refused to say it first, ridiculous paraclay.
Speaker 2: And I always remember when he said it, he said,
Speaker 2: I've taken this long because when I say it, it's
Speaker 2: a commitment. And I felt so safe then that he
Speaker 2: had said it within those parameters, and it was so
Speaker 2: beautiful and so romantic, precisely because we've gone through those stages.
Speaker 2: And you write in the book about how we mean
Speaker 2: different things when we say I love you, and we
Speaker 2: have to check in with each other what that actually
Speaker 2: quantifies when we say that statement.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I have a rule in the book. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite rules is define love before you say
Speaker 1: it or feel it, because so many of us our
Speaker 1: definition of love is based on someone else's experience. It
Speaker 1: could be movies, could be, media, could be our parents,
Speaker 1: could be a family friend that we saw. Love is
Speaker 1: such a interesting word because someone could say I love
Speaker 1: you and it means I want to spend my life
Speaker 1: with you, and someone else could say I love you
Speaker 1: and it means I want to spend a night with you,
Speaker 1: and everything in between that spectrum, and so the challenges
Speaker 1: when we hear the words I love you, we hear
Speaker 1: our own definition when it came out of someone else's mouth,
Speaker 1: and obviously we want to say it back so badly
Speaker 1: we don't stop and go, oh, wait a minute, can
Speaker 1: you explain what that means? What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: What you would never do that? And I don't recommend
Speaker 1: anyone should. But before you hear it and before you
Speaker 1: say it, make sure you've understood what love means to
Speaker 1: that person. What does a relationship mean to that person?
Speaker 1: The fact that your now husband said to you to me,
Speaker 1: it means a commitment that's so beautiful that you knew that,
Speaker 1: which meant when he said it, hopefully he felt he
Speaker 1: could live up to that commitment. Now, if someone else
Speaker 1: to them, love just means I feel attracted to you,
Speaker 1: I'm really into you, I really like you, And they
Speaker 1: say I love you. You may take it to be Oh,
Speaker 1: that means they're committed, but that's in your head. That's
Speaker 1: not what they've said. And I think there's so many
Speaker 1: definitions in between. So I'm not saying you have to
Speaker 1: go up to your person you're dating and say what
Speaker 1: does love mean to you on your first date? But
Speaker 1: I think you have to decipher and understand as time
Speaker 1: goes on. How does this person view relationships? Are they
Speaker 1: scared of commitment? Do they have a history of that
Speaker 1: as a challenge, these are all things that we have
Speaker 1: to discover because otherwise we set ourselves up to believe
Speaker 1: that everyone wants the same love we want, and they don't.
Speaker 1: Not everyone does, And that's okay too.
Speaker 2: Now. I know you watch Selling Sunset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my guilty pleasure.
Speaker 2: I wonder if you've ever watched Love Island.
Speaker 1: I have, so my wife's watched Love Island, and I've
Speaker 1: watched her watching Love Island. But I've watched maybe bits
Speaker 1: and pieces, but not something I've watched myself yet.
Speaker 2: I only ask because I watch Love Island, I love
Speaker 2: reality TV, and they say I love you very very quickly,
Speaker 2: and so that I was interested, But in a way
Speaker 2: that sets up a false expectation of love in the
Speaker 2: same manner as romantic comedy is that we love to
Speaker 2: watch what's your favorite romantic comedy of all times? Oh?
Speaker 1: As a good one? So I really do appreciate he's
Speaker 1: just not that into you. It's it's really good. It
Speaker 1: shows a lot of how we perceive things, how we
Speaker 1: make challenges. Like all the characters in that movie are
Speaker 1: really far more realistic than most wrong cooms, and I
Speaker 1: think the scenarios are far more realistic, where you assume
Speaker 1: someone likes you because they message, or you kind of
Speaker 1: push someone away because you're talking about the wrong things.
Speaker 1: I think that movie's probably got the best examples in it.
Speaker 2: Before we get onto your failures. I know you've got
Speaker 2: an issue with the Notebook.
Speaker 1: I talked about that recently only because I had an
Speaker 1: ex girl friend that made me once the Notebook a
Speaker 1: million times. But I think I really sat because of it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it at the time. But I think I
Speaker 1: really sat and analyzed it because of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you mostly don't watch movies again and again and again,
Speaker 1: but I must have watched that movie like at least
Speaker 1: ten times during that relationship, and I sat down to
Speaker 1: analyze it because I felt it had so much power culturally.
Speaker 1: Notebook is such a big movie. And by the way,
Speaker 1: just to point out, I love Ryan Gosling and Rachel
Speaker 1: mccaddam's in actors. They're phenomenal actors. The movie is great.
Speaker 1: I think it was just the writing of the story.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't think it was wrong. It's just
Speaker 1: how people did confess their love. And there are so
Speaker 1: many scenes in that movie. But one of the scenes
Speaker 1: is he's like chasing her on the street and she
Speaker 1: looks uncomfortable because of it. He's like running around her, walking,
Speaker 1: moving really fast, and you look at it and go, wow,
Speaker 1: he's so smooth, he's so into her wish you know,
Speaker 1: because he's a good looking guy and well spoken. And
Speaker 1: he says to her, he says, I'll be anything you want.
Speaker 1: I can do it. Tell me what you want, I'll
Speaker 1: be it. That's such an unhealthy misconception to say I'll
Speaker 1: be anything you want, whatever you want, I'll be it.
Speaker 1: Well most people a can't live up to that and
Speaker 1: be if we want someone to become whatever we want,
Speaker 1: then do we really love them or do we love
Speaker 1: an idea. The second ones that I really have a
Speaker 1: struggle with is she's on the ferris wheel like the
Speaker 1: London I I guess, but the old school ones, and
Speaker 1: he's hanging off of it literally like by his arms,
Speaker 1: and he says, if you don't go on a date
Speaker 1: with me, I'll let go. And it's like, can you
Speaker 1: imagine someone threatening to take their own life? Like that's
Speaker 1: really like quite a toxic, unhealthy idea to put someone
Speaker 1: under that pressure. She goes, yes, yes, I will, just
Speaker 1: don't let go, and it's like that's uncomfortable for her too.
Speaker 1: She's been put in that. And I think so many
Speaker 1: movies over time have built this idea of the damsel
Speaker 1: in distress and the savior and the knight in shining armor.
Speaker 1: The woman has to wait for her prince. That whole
Speaker 1: idea naturally has made so many people think, one day,
Speaker 1: my prince will come and save me, even if you
Speaker 1: don't think about it in those words. And I want
Speaker 1: you to be very careful. I'm I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: sit there and wait for a prince, but there's a
Speaker 1: part of you that believes that someone will come and
Speaker 1: save you. And if you have to be saved, that
Speaker 1: means you're the one who is saved, which means you're broken,
Speaker 1: which means you need to be fixed. And so it
Speaker 1: perpetuates all these ideas of I'm broken, I'm unlovable until
Speaker 1: I'm loved, I'm unlikable until I'm liked, I'm not valuable
Speaker 1: until I'm valued.
Speaker 2: You do talk a lot about unlearning, which I think
Speaker 2: is such a powerful word, because we do, all of
Speaker 2: us have that task of unlearning what society has conditioned
Speaker 2: us to believe, what our families of origin might have
Speaker 2: conditioned us to believe, and working out who we are
Speaker 2: and what we are for ourselves. And I see failure
Speaker 2: very much as part of that. So, actually, what is failure.
Speaker 2: Failure is when life doesn't go according to plan? Whose
Speaker 2: plan is it?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Actually yours?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes?
Speaker 2: And I wonder I'm going to ask you about your
Speaker 2: failures now, but just broadly speaking, how do you feel
Speaker 2: about the concepts of failure?
Speaker 1: Can I rewind a little because I wanted to comment
Speaker 1: on what you just said, because it sparked the thought
Speaker 1: for me something really interesting that I came across. So,
Speaker 1: when we think about these milestones that society places I
Speaker 1: studying hard, getting a good degree, getting a good job,
Speaker 1: getting married, having kids, often we go through those without
Speaker 1: even questioning whether that choice is something we actually want.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, of course you have to get married.
Speaker 1: Of course you have to have kids. That's what happens
Speaker 1: after marriage. Of course, of course, of course, of course.
Speaker 1: And I think often people ask or feel, I'm running
Speaker 1: out of time. Oh my gosh, I'm so late to
Speaker 1: getting married. I'm so late to having kids, And especially women,
Speaker 1: of course have that pressure because of their body clock,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So that pressures even felt more by women.
Speaker 1: And when I look at that strongly and deeply, I
Speaker 1: often encourage people stop asking the question is this the
Speaker 1: right time, because timelines are based on society's definition mostly,
Speaker 1: and instead ask do I understand how this decision will
Speaker 1: change my life? And the second question is do I
Speaker 1: like how it will change my life? So if you
Speaker 1: think about getting married, it's not about whether you should
Speaker 1: get married or not. It's not about whether it's the
Speaker 1: right time or not. It's do I understand how getting
Speaker 1: married to this person is going to change my life?
Speaker 1: Do I like how that will change in my life?
Speaker 1: That's when you know, and the problem is we're thinking, well,
Speaker 1: do I need to get married? It's the wrong question.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I just wanted to interject there and add that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to help give people a practical talter
Speaker 1: to use for decision making. How do I feel about failure?
Speaker 1: I've gone silent because I want to give a very thoughtful,
Speaker 1: reflected answer, because I don't think there's anyone who could
Speaker 1: truly say they enjoy failure or they like failure. I
Speaker 1: think that would be a very bold statement with some
Speaker 1: fiction attached to it. But I would say that I've
Speaker 1: just learned that it is unavoidable, so I'm no longer
Speaker 1: surprised by it, and I'd say that if it happens
Speaker 1: to me, I no longer see it as a sign
Speaker 1: of my inadequacy. I see it as an opportunity to grow,
Speaker 1: an opportunity to pivot, or potentially a chance to say
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't my path, and so I no longer
Speaker 1: see it as a reflection of my worth, my self esteem.
Speaker 1: But I also know it's always going to happen no
Speaker 1: matter how hard I try, or no matter how perfectly
Speaker 1: I execute something. It's always a part stability. And I
Speaker 1: think we live in a world where we think, well,
Speaker 1: it's not even a possibility, or we can avoid it.
Speaker 1: And now I've learned, and I remember studying and this
Speaker 1: is this is something I wish they taught in school,
Speaker 1: and I really hope that we find a way to
Speaker 1: teach it more. In school, we learn history of a
Speaker 1: country or a nation, but we don't deeply study the
Speaker 1: history of human beings, of actual people. And I got
Speaker 1: really lucky because I got so into autobiographies and biographies
Speaker 1: when I was in my teens. So I'd read Malcolm
Speaker 1: X Martin, Luther King all the way through to David
Speaker 1: Beckham and Dwaine the Rock Johnson by the time I
Speaker 1: was around eighteen years old. And I loved the spectrum
Speaker 1: of those individuals because they've all inspired me in different ways,
Speaker 1: and you can learn so much from anyone's story. And
Speaker 1: then many years later, I read Steve Jobs's biography by
Speaker 1: Walter Isaacson, who I've had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Isaacson,
Speaker 1: and when I saw Steve Jobs's life and to think
Speaker 1: that he was kicked out of his own company only
Speaker 1: to go and build Pixar in the meantime, to then
Speaker 1: go back to that same company to lead it again
Speaker 1: to further glory. When I look at the people I
Speaker 1: look up to and i'm inspired by, they've all constantly
Speaker 1: failed and faced rejection. And that's what convinces me that
Speaker 1: if I'm failing, it's absolutely normal. But if you never
Speaker 1: study those lives, and you never studied those stories, all
Speaker 1: you ever see is, oh, yeah, Steve Jobs was really smart,
Speaker 1: he was really successful. He was worth like one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars by the time he was thirty or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But it's like, that's really not the story.
Speaker 1: And so what you're doing with your podcast is really
Speaker 1: beautiful and wonderful because and I know we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about failures. As you said, I think that's
Speaker 1: a really healthy way to think about people's stories. I
Speaker 1: think we look at what people did right, yes, but
Speaker 1: we don't look at where things went wrong exactly.
Speaker 2: We look at their cvs. Your first failure is about
Speaker 2: when you were seven or eight years old tell us
Speaker 2: what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this failure is probably the and I really
Speaker 1: tried to think what was the earliest failure I had,
Speaker 1: because I think our failures as children often affect us
Speaker 1: much worse, and we often, obviously at that age, do
Speaker 1: not have the ability to process and say this is
Speaker 1: part of my path. Like obviously I did not have
Speaker 1: that perspective. So, yeah, I was around seven or eight
Speaker 1: years old in primary school in London, and we used
Speaker 1: to have something my school did that was beautiful, as
Speaker 1: we would celebrate every culture and so there would always
Speaker 1: be a celebration of everyone's religious holidays and all of
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff in primary school, which I really appreciated.
Speaker 1: I think it was a great education in that sense.
Speaker 1: So this one was an assembly where I was going
Speaker 1: to have to sing something in my mother tongue, and
Speaker 1: I was going to have to not only read, but
Speaker 1: sing in a language that not many people in my
Speaker 1: school recognized. And I was dressed in traditional Indian clothing.
Speaker 1: Now I was overweight as a kid, and the clothes
Speaker 1: didn't quite fit right. I didn't necessarily look good in them,
Speaker 1: but my mother was hope that I was representing my
Speaker 1: culture and it would be a really proud moment, and
Speaker 1: I went out onto the stage at school. They're around
Speaker 1: I don't know, four hundred people in the assembly hall,
Speaker 1: and everyone pretty much started laughing or giggling or from
Speaker 1: the moment I walked out because I just didn't look
Speaker 1: like I fit in that day, and I look different
Speaker 1: to how I usually looked. I then started to sing.
Speaker 1: I've never had a good singing voice. I don't sing
Speaker 1: till this day. I won't even do karaoke. I have
Speaker 1: a terrible voice. I then start to sing, and everyone
Speaker 1: just is in stitches, like completely laughing, because not only
Speaker 1: am I singing, I'm singing in language they don't recognize.
Speaker 1: All the kids start laughing, even some of the teachers
Speaker 1: were laughing. And then I forget the words because now
Speaker 1: I'm distracted by everyone else's laugh and you know, pointing
Speaker 1: and whatever else they're doing that. I look down at
Speaker 1: my piece of paper that I'm holding to try and
Speaker 1: remember the lines, and I can no longer read the
Speaker 1: lines because my tears smudged the words, and so now
Speaker 1: I've forgotten the words and I can't read them, and
Speaker 1: I know I'm crying, and now everyone's laughing even more
Speaker 1: because I'm crying, and so my teacher now walks on
Speaker 1: stage to comfort me. She puts her arm around me
Speaker 1: and walks me off stage. And now everyone's laughing even
Speaker 1: more because I've had to be comforted off stage. This
Speaker 1: was my first ever experience of public performance or public speaking.
Speaker 1: I felt like such a failure that day because for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day people were pointing, laughing. I
Speaker 1: felt like I'd let my mom down because I hadn't
Speaker 1: represented my culture properly. I felt like I'd let my
Speaker 1: teachers down because they trusted me to go on stage.
Speaker 1: I felt like I'd let my friends down because obviously
Speaker 1: I was the laughing stock of the school. I'd forgotten
Speaker 1: the words, and I felt like a failure that day
Speaker 1: because in all sense of the word, it was a failure.
Speaker 2: Shay. I actually I find stories like that so heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: The powerlessness of being a child and wanting to make
Speaker 2: your parents and your culture proud. The fact that you
Speaker 2: don't do karaoke to the saying is that because is
Speaker 2: that because of it?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just I have done karaoke like
Speaker 1: I would never do a solo Carrioklet's say that's okay.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm just I'm being honest in the sense
Speaker 1: that I've never felt I've had a good singing voice.
Speaker 1: I definitely don't have a good singing voice. I'm very
Speaker 1: okay with that. I have no no trauma attached to
Speaker 1: having a good singing voice. Others i'd be a singer, no,
Speaker 1: I think. More so, it was at that time this
Speaker 1: feeling of just I don't know if I ever want
Speaker 1: to go back on stage ever again. You know, that
Speaker 1: kind of feeling of I don't think I'll ever ever
Speaker 1: step back in front of a group of people again.
Speaker 1: And usually when I tell that story, not between me
Speaker 1: and you, but if I share it on stage, usually
Speaker 1: people are laughing in the audience too, and so it's
Speaker 1: really nice to have your compassionate empathy for it. It
Speaker 1: was my mind with my inner child, definitely. Mean.
Speaker 2: Was there an element of not fitting in that you
Speaker 2: were fearful of at that time?
Speaker 1: Definitely. I think that I was one of the few
Speaker 1: Indian people in my primary school, and so people already
Speaker 1: didn't know Indian people. I was already bullied for having
Speaker 1: smelly foods sometimes in school or things like that. Because
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five now. Yeah, I'm thirty five right now.
Speaker 1: So there was that, there was not being open to
Speaker 1: obviously Hindu dress and Indian clothing, and then of course
Speaker 1: me being overweight on top of all of that, and
Speaker 1: so there was you know, I can understand it too.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. You know, kids are fascinating
Speaker 1: because they're adorable and beautiful, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: so many of us do things as kids that we
Speaker 1: would never do as adults, and so it's always interesting.
Speaker 1: But I have a lot of empathy and compassion, even
Speaker 1: just for all the kids in the room, because it
Speaker 1: was just new to them. What did they know. They
Speaker 1: didn't they weren't educated in it, they didn't understand. As kids,
Speaker 1: you never get told to encourage others or support others.
Speaker 1: You may say, be friends with that person, But I
Speaker 1: don't think we teach our kids to be encouraging and
Speaker 1: supportive and accepting. I don't think you hear about those
Speaker 1: words as a kid, at least I didn't, even even
Speaker 1: though my parents loved me. I don't think I heard
Speaker 1: those words and said, oh, when you see another kid
Speaker 1: do something difficult, encourage them. I don't think I was
Speaker 1: ever told that by anyone by my teachers either. So
Speaker 1: I also have a lot of compassion and empathy for
Speaker 1: the fact that you have to train these ideas to
Speaker 1: teach people these things they're not I think we assume
Speaker 1: that everyone should just be nice to each other, but
Speaker 1: why would they if they've never heard that.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that this incident in and of itself
Speaker 2: had this effect, but do you think you ended up
Speaker 2: feeling unlovable at a time in your life.
Speaker 1: I think that there's another experience that happened a few
Speaker 1: years after that made me feel not unlovable. I've never
Speaker 1: felt unlovable because my mom's love has pierced through every
Speaker 1: pressure layer or whatever else exists. I think my mom
Speaker 1: has loved me so deeply that I feel so safe
Speaker 1: in a deep sense that I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: thought myself to be unlovable. But I have thought myself
Speaker 1: to be unlikable or unwanted or unattractive, And I think
Speaker 1: those are very different things, and I think we often
Speaker 1: mesh them all into one, but they're not. And so
Speaker 1: I remember at ten eleven years old, end of primary school.
Speaker 1: All of the boys in school had their first crush
Speaker 1: around that age, and we all had the same first
Speaker 1: crush at school. There was this one girl at school
Speaker 1: that everyone had a crush on, and no one told
Speaker 1: her because we were all scared. We didn't want her
Speaker 1: to know. You know, ten years old, what do you know?
Speaker 1: And I walked in late to school one day. I
Speaker 1: think had a doctor's appointment. I was running late or
Speaker 1: something like that. And I walked in and everyone was
Speaker 1: again pointing and laughing at me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, what's going on. And then one of my
Speaker 1: friends sent me a note and I opened up the
Speaker 1: note and it said she knows. I was like, she
Speaker 1: knows what? And then I realized that everyone in the school,
Speaker 1: the girls and the boys, have all told this girl
Speaker 1: that I'm into her and that I'm the only person
Speaker 1: in the class that has a crush on her. And
Speaker 1: then for the rest of the day in the playground,
Speaker 1: all these girls stood behind the goal. I was only
Speaker 1: a goalkeep. I was only allowed to be a goalkeeper
Speaker 1: because I wasn't very athletic growing up. And all the
Speaker 1: girls stood behind the goal and they kept shouting out,
Speaker 1: she's out of your league. I can't believe you thought
Speaker 1: you could be with her. You're so fat, you know,
Speaker 1: all these words. And I think that was more that
Speaker 1: feeling of unlike or I'm unattractive, or I'm not attractive
Speaker 1: to the opposite sex, etc. And all of that. And
Speaker 1: I think when in my teens, when I became more
Speaker 1: athletic and I played sport and I felt like I
Speaker 1: became more cool in my teens, I think that's where
Speaker 1: I really sought validation from the opposite sex, where I
Speaker 1: really wanted the women I dated to really believe that
Speaker 1: I was a good guy and I was amazing and
Speaker 1: I was attracted. And I think my teens I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time trying to understand I wanted to
Speaker 1: be liked and validated. I didn't even want to be loved.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of us accept the currency
Speaker 1: of validation and attention as love will take attention and validation,
Speaker 1: and will even believe that it's love. But it isn't
Speaker 1: attention and validation isn't love. It's a form of liking
Speaker 1: and attraction. Love is far more deeper. Love is full
Speaker 1: of care, it's full of character, it's full of commitment,
Speaker 1: it's full of support. And so I think I in
Speaker 1: my teens was looking more for attention and validation than
Speaker 1: I was for love, even those under the guise of love.
Speaker 2: How do you see fame fitting in with what you've
Speaker 2: just said there, because I think the reason that many
Speaker 2: people seek fame and then the reason why it's harmful
Speaker 2: for them is because they are yearning that validation and
Speaker 2: mistaking it for love. And actually it's pretty hollow, I understand.
Speaker 2: But you are globally famous, you have celebrity best friends,
Speaker 2: you are highly successful, extremely handsome. I suppose what I'm
Speaker 2: asking is how do you protect yourself against being drawn
Speaker 2: in by that?
Speaker 1: So I think I got really fortunate because the monk
Speaker 1: experience is a master class in detachment. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that I have complete detachment or that I am
Speaker 1: immune to any of the things you just mentioned, but
Speaker 1: I believe I have a master class training in how
Speaker 1: to deal with it. So it's not credit to me
Speaker 1: or who I am. It's credit to this very special
Speaker 1: experience I had. And so what was really interesting is
Speaker 1: when I went to the monastery, Initially I sought the
Speaker 1: validation of the monks. Yes, because we're always seeking validation, right,
Speaker 1: We start by seeking validation of our parents, then our teachers,
Speaker 1: then people were attracted to We literally keep just projecting
Speaker 1: our desire for validation onto different people. So I even
Speaker 1: ran and projected on the monks. The interesting thing was
Speaker 1: the monks were the first people not to validate it
Speaker 1: back or to reject it. Right, So, when you are
Speaker 1: attracted to someone and you want them to validate you,
Speaker 1: they either validate you or they reject you. The monks
Speaker 1: don't validate you, and they don't reject you. They train
Speaker 1: you and how to deal with that. They teach you
Speaker 1: and how to validate yourself. And so during my time
Speaker 1: as a monk, I started to learn that the deepest
Speaker 1: form of validation was validating myself in becoming the person
Speaker 1: who I wanted to be. If I was becoming the
Speaker 1: person I wanted to be, that was the best validation.
Speaker 1: And the only person who could tell me that was me.
Speaker 1: And so I really got to a place during my
Speaker 1: time in the monastery where I was very comfortable with
Speaker 1: who I had become. I was very honest about my values.
Speaker 1: I was okay with those, I was accepting of those,
Speaker 1: and I didn't need someone else to agree or disagree
Speaker 1: to make me feel better or worse about them. Not
Speaker 1: that I finished it or mastered it. I'm saying it
Speaker 1: felt real, that idea felt tangible to me. And I
Speaker 1: actually remember around that time I organized a charity event
Speaker 1: when I left, and I remember two very distinct experiences
Speaker 1: where before my time in the monastery, if I was
Speaker 1: leading a project and people were criticizing me, I took
Speaker 1: that to heart. And I remember after the monastery, when
Speaker 1: I organized this event, I got a lot of people
Speaker 1: congratulating me, and it was really interesting because the same
Speaker 1: people that criticized me were the same people that were
Speaker 1: congratulating me. And I remember having a very deep, profound
Speaker 1: moment in myself that day and saying to myself, I
Speaker 1: can't let either dictate the course of my life, because
Speaker 1: people change their mind at the drop of a hat,
Speaker 1: and I can't let criticism or celebration dictate my values
Speaker 1: to the course of my life. Again, this is something
Speaker 1: that's tested every day. It's not something that I've made
Speaker 1: peace with and I'm done and I've mastered it. It's
Speaker 1: something I'm constantly doing. So i'd say that now because
Speaker 1: I've been doing my purpose for so many years, like
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been living the same purpose without success.
Speaker 1: I live doing what I do today for ten years
Speaker 1: before it ever became noticed. It's been noticed in the
Speaker 1: last six to seven years, but I've been doing it
Speaker 1: for ten years before that. So this has been like
Speaker 1: a seventeen year journey. Doing something you love for ten
Speaker 1: years and not being noticed for it by more than
Speaker 1: ten twenty, maybe fifty people is a beautiful training ground
Speaker 1: because you do it for the love of it, and
Speaker 1: so today I still do it for the love of it,
Speaker 1: because that's all I've ever known. I've done it for
Speaker 1: so long when I wasn't successful, and then at the
Speaker 1: same time, when you get tempted by fame and you
Speaker 1: get tempted by pride and ego, which comes naturally to
Speaker 1: any one of us who's in a human body and
Speaker 1: has a human mind. It's really beautiful to be married
Speaker 1: and be humbled by your wife in very beautiful ways,
Speaker 1: not in judgmental or critical ways, but out of love.
Speaker 1: And I feel that my wife has been an incredibly
Speaker 1: grounding force because I think as I became more externally successful,
Speaker 1: I metaphorically held up my achievements to my wife metaphorically,
Speaker 1: not physically, and I said, love me for this. Look
Speaker 1: what I just achieved. Love me for this. Look how
Speaker 1: cool I am. Look how amazing I am. Love me
Speaker 1: for this. Look at my best seller list. Love me
Speaker 1: for this. Look how many views I got. Love me
Speaker 1: for this? Look at how what my podcast is doing.
Speaker 1: Love me for this. And every time I asked for
Speaker 1: that from my wife, she didn't love me more for
Speaker 1: that or less for that. She's only ever loved me
Speaker 1: for who I am. And I think that if my
Speaker 1: wife had loved me for what I achieved, I think
Speaker 1: I would have started loving myself for my achievements. But
Speaker 1: because my wife loves me for who I am, I
Speaker 1: think I'm constantly reminded to love myself for who I
Speaker 1: am because that's what she values, and that reminds me
Speaker 1: of what to value in myself. And that's the beauty
Speaker 1: of a good relationship, where what someone values in you
Speaker 1: can actually be a beautiful thing. I also spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time. Sorry, I know it's a long answer,
Speaker 1: but there's just so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also spend a lot of time meditating on irrelevance
Speaker 1: and insignificance. And I recognize the inevitability of everyone's irrelevance
Speaker 1: and insignificance. At some point in their life. There is
Speaker 1: no one in the world who has held the same
Speaker 1: level of significance for their entire life and when they
Speaker 1: finally die and leave the planet. So why would I
Speaker 1: believe that that would be any different from me. There
Speaker 1: will be a day when I will be absolutely irrelevant
Speaker 1: and insignificant, and I've made peace with that now. If
Speaker 1: I can make peace with that now, then I'll make
Speaker 1: peace with it then. But if there's a part of
Speaker 1: me that believes that I have to be significant forever
Speaker 1: or relevant forever, then I'm going to feel a lot
Speaker 1: of pain when that day comes. And my monk training
Speaker 1: is to detach myself before the day comes, not to
Speaker 1: wait for the moment when it inevitably will come, and
Speaker 1: then deal with it. Then we'd often talk about how
Speaker 1: you know, living is a monk, and this is a
Speaker 1: very popular Zen teaching. It's not not my words, but
Speaker 1: life is not about learning to live, it's learning how
Speaker 1: to die, because you're preparing for the inevitable. And so
Speaker 1: I take that to be well, sure, death is inevitable,
Speaker 1: but there's lots of other things that are inevitable, and
Speaker 1: preparing for those early on mentally and emotionally sets you
Speaker 1: up for success. So I'm making peace with that now.
Speaker 1: The friends that I have are genuine friends. I don't
Speaker 1: spend time with them because they're famous, or even if
Speaker 1: that's the context we met in. I have some really
Speaker 1: beautiful relationships with people in the same way as I
Speaker 1: would count my best friends from London that I've been
Speaker 1: my friends for my whole life. Who other people I
Speaker 1: still speak to the most. My videographer. I've known my
Speaker 1: videographer since I was fourteen, so twenty years nearly. He's
Speaker 1: been my videographer for seven years whenever I'm in London.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a daily practice. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's something you achieve. I think I have to think
Speaker 1: about these things every day, and I have to constantly
Speaker 1: detach and disconnect myself because it's so easy to get
Speaker 1: swept up, and so I'm very vigilant of that. It's
Speaker 1: something I'm very cautious of, and I think the day
Speaker 1: I stopped becoming cautious will be the day that I
Speaker 1: lose it.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Let's get onto
Speaker 2: your second failure, which is that when you left the monastery,
Speaker 2: you reapplied for jobs in consulting and banking.
Speaker 1: Yes, and what happened. So leaving the monastery felt like
Speaker 1: a failure because since I was eighteen years old, that
Speaker 1: became my dream, and I fought so hard to get there.
Speaker 1: I had to first get through being eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: one without thinking about settling down or moving into a job.
Speaker 1: I had to turn down a corporate job offer, had
Speaker 1: to break up with girlfriends at the time. I had
Speaker 1: to leave my friends and family behind. So many of
Speaker 1: my extended family said to me, you're brainwashed, you're wasting
Speaker 1: your parents' education, you're letting your parents down, You're never
Speaker 1: going to get married again, You're never going to get
Speaker 1: a job again. Like this is what I heard before
Speaker 1: I became a monk, And it's really interesting to me
Speaker 1: today because so many people say to me, they're like, Jay,
Speaker 1: you have such a cool story, and maybe you did
Speaker 1: it for the story. I even get some of that
Speaker 1: criticism sometimes where it's like, oh, Jay, like you know,
Speaker 1: did you just become a monk so that one day
Speaker 1: you could do all of this? And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't think you understand how uncool it
Speaker 1: was for me to become a monk. It's something hopefully
Speaker 1: that I've made more culturally interesting. But at the time,
Speaker 1: it's like everyone in my life looked to me as
Speaker 1: I was weird, Like why would you do that? Everyone's
Speaker 1: going to work for a company and they're in a relationship,
Speaker 1: they're thinking about having fun, and you're thinking about becoming
Speaker 1: a monk. And so I left with a lot of
Speaker 1: negativity surrounding the decision, but I felt really confident in it.
Speaker 1: And then when I came back, I came back to
Speaker 1: that noise. Severyone's like I told you, so, I knew
Speaker 1: you wouldn't make it. Look, no one's going to give
Speaker 1: you a job. Now you're never going to get married again.
Speaker 1: Look at all your friends, they're promoted. Did you know
Speaker 1: so and so just got promoted. Did you know so
Speaker 1: and so just moved into a new flat. Did you
Speaker 1: know that so and so is about to get engaged.
Speaker 1: Did you know so and so is making this much money?
Speaker 1: Now you're twenty six years old without a job and
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand pounds in debt. It was a really depressive moment,
Speaker 1: depressive because I'd felt like I failed at being a monk,
Speaker 1: which was my dream, which really felt like I'd failed
Speaker 1: at marriage because I felt like I got married to
Speaker 1: being a monk and it felt like a divorce, Like
Speaker 1: it really felt like a breakup. And it was the
Speaker 1: lowest point of my life because I felt that was it.
Speaker 1: I felt like I'd made it and I felt like
Speaker 1: I'd found something, only for me to realize that wasn't
Speaker 1: my path. And that's really hard to think something's your
Speaker 1: path and then realize it's not. That's so challenging. And
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people who tried to become
Speaker 1: athletes and then they had an injury and then they
Speaker 1: can pursue it. That stuff really messes with your mind.
Speaker 1: And then when I came back, I'm coming back to
Speaker 1: all this stress and pressure in these and they're right
Speaker 1: because I'm applying to forty companies. I'm writing individuals, CVS resumes,
Speaker 1: cover letters. I'm a first class honors degree, straight A student.
Speaker 1: I have nothing lacking on my resume apart from I've
Speaker 1: been a month for three years, and no one will
Speaker 1: even give me an interview in London, like I won't
Speaker 1: even get through. I will just get the automatic response
Speaker 1: that says your application's not going further. So now everything
Speaker 1: everyone's saying is true. Three years ago or four years ago,
Speaker 1: when I became a monk, it wasn't true. Now it's true.
Speaker 1: Now it's real, And that feels like a massive failure
Speaker 1: because now I'm going not only did I fail it
Speaker 1: becoming a monk, I now can't even reintegrate into society,
Speaker 1: and now I'm behind this idea of I've fallen behind
Speaker 1: and I've got debts to pay, my parents are not
Speaker 1: well off. My parents are being wonderful and supporting me,
Speaker 1: let me move in again. But now I feel like
Speaker 1: a failure in my parents' eyes, even though they didn't
Speaker 1: make me feel that way. I felt like a failure
Speaker 1: in my extended family's eyes, who definitely had that rhetoric.
Speaker 1: I felt like a failure in my friend's eyes because
Speaker 1: I hadn't followed through and now they were ahead. And
Speaker 1: I felt like a failure in my career because I
Speaker 1: couldn't get a job. And so that was definitely one
Speaker 1: of the lowest moments in my life. Not the lowest.
Speaker 1: That said, it's the one before the lowest.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what's the lowest.
Speaker 1: The lowest was I have this really big high in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, when my videos first get noticed.
Speaker 1: I moved to New York because Arianna Humhlington sees my
Speaker 1: content and I move over there and she wants me
Speaker 1: to come there and work as half Post. The day
Speaker 1: I get there, she leaves to start a new company
Speaker 1: called Thrives. And she's amazing. I love her and I'm
Speaker 1: still very good friends with her. But it took so
Speaker 1: long to get my visa that it never quite works,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't at half Post for very long, and
Speaker 1: I ended up being in the US, in a new city,
Speaker 1: four months away from being broke, and thirty days left
Speaker 1: on my visa. Otherwise I'd have to move back to London.
Speaker 1: And that's the most stress and pressure I've ever felt.
Speaker 1: I don't count that as a failure because there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a failure there. It's just a situation, hence why
Speaker 1: I didn't include it. But it was just a really
Speaker 1: stressful position to be in where I just got married.
Speaker 1: We're in a new city, I've got four months away
Speaker 1: to pay for rent and groceries, and then I'm out
Speaker 1: of money and I have thirty days to renew my visa,
Speaker 1: which I can't afford, and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: get a lawyer, and I don't understand the process. And
Speaker 1: so that was the most stress and pressure I ever felt,
Speaker 1: more than even coming back from being a monk. And
Speaker 1: it was after that so it felt even harder.
Speaker 2: But so just rewinding a little bit, you got rejected
Speaker 2: from over forty companies that right, Yeah, before you even
Speaker 2: got an interview.
Speaker 1: Before I got an interview. Yeah, that's right. So all
Speaker 1: the normal all the financial companies, consulting companies, like just
Speaker 1: any professional services company in London that I was applying
Speaker 1: to jobs for that were not out of my education
Speaker 1: but because of my age. Yeah, we're saying no.
Speaker 2: Finally do you get a job? But at accentsion so grateful.
Speaker 2: We'll never be more grateful.
Speaker 1: When I got that call back to the when I
Speaker 1: got the call for the first interview, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the best interviewe of all time.
Speaker 1: And then when I got a call back, because it's
Speaker 1: like a three or four stage interview, it's not like
Speaker 1: a one and done. Got through to the first part.
Speaker 1: When I got through the second part, I was Okay,
Speaker 1: this could be real. Got through to the third part
Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, three or four something like that. Yes,
Speaker 1: and while you were there.
Speaker 2: You started making these videos which were helping employees with
Speaker 2: their mental health.
Speaker 1: Is that right? So I didn't make videos, but you know,
Speaker 1: when you join a new company, at least I loved
Speaker 1: how extented it. They had a great onboarding practice and
Speaker 1: you know, really really good culture and how they set
Speaker 1: us up for success. One of the questions was, what's
Speaker 1: an interesting fact about yourself? My interesting fact was I
Speaker 1: used to be a monk and I can teach meditation.
Speaker 1: And so my colleagues would come up to me and
Speaker 1: be like, that's weird or that's really interesting, like people
Speaker 1: that have different views. And so I started teaching meditation
Speaker 1: and mindfulness classes at ect Centure in my lunch breaks
Speaker 1: after work at a client office, and literally two people
Speaker 1: would turn up, but three people would turn up. And
Speaker 1: I loved it because I was getting to do what
Speaker 1: I loved and there were people who wanted to learn.
Speaker 1: And I started to do this, and I set up
Speaker 1: meditation mondays and people at the company would meditate at
Speaker 1: the start of a meeting. And one of the managing
Speaker 1: directors took a real liking to that work that I
Speaker 1: was doing because they were really prioritizing mental health. This
Speaker 1: is end of twenty thirteen in London, really prioritizing mental
Speaker 1: health at the company, which was incredible to see. And
Speaker 1: she said to me, she said, Jay, I'd love for
Speaker 1: you to teach a session like this to your colleagues
Speaker 1: at the summer event, the annual event, and there'll be
Speaker 1: a thousand of your colleagues there. You'll be speaking on
Speaker 1: stage at twicken And Rugby Stadium and would you want
Speaker 1: to do this? And I was just like, this is unbelievable,
Speaker 1: what an amazing opportunity. And then Jilly Bryant grateful to
Speaker 1: her till this day for giving me that opportunity. And
Speaker 1: so I went there that day and gave this presentation
Speaker 1: and I was so stressed out because I was in
Speaker 1: between the sea of the company and Will Greenwood, who
Speaker 1: won the Rugby World Cup and he was invited as
Speaker 1: a guest speaker. I'm just an employee at this point,
Speaker 1: like when.
Speaker 3: You have the Breweries of the Duwali before, and I've
Speaker 3: done a lot of speaking in between, but not to
Speaker 3: that size. I've there a ton of talks and presentations
Speaker 3: in between, but not to that scale. But I'm sitting
Speaker 3: there the whole time going I'm not Will Greenwood, I'm
Speaker 3: not Oli Benzacree, who is our CEO. At the time,
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not those people, Like what do
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 1: What do I do? What do I do? And then
Speaker 1: I said to myself, I remember, I just got to
Speaker 1: be myself, like you know, I've just got to be
Speaker 1: myself authentically and everything will be okay. And then after
Speaker 1: that presentation, Jilly came up to me and she said,
Speaker 1: I've seen a group of millennials be that present with
Speaker 1: anyone else on stage or be that silent. It was
Speaker 1: pindrop and you can She was like, you couldn't hear
Speaker 1: a thing. And that day I started. From that day,
Speaker 1: I started teaching meditation across the whole company. And so
Speaker 1: that was like a real moment of just incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so relief.
Speaker 2: I also wanted to ask you and I want to take
Speaker 2: you back to New York and those four months where
Speaker 2: your four months from going broke and what happened next,
Speaker 2: because it feels to me that your purpose was calling
Speaker 2: to you. It was almost dragging you through. Yep, it
Speaker 2: was just this fateful light. Yes that was guiding you.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, it felt like another thing that had gone wrong,
Speaker 1: but it actually was an opening. I think if that
Speaker 1: moment never came, maybe I would have just continued making
Speaker 1: videos on the side, or it would have been a
Speaker 1: nice hobby. And by the way, I would have been
Speaker 1: really happy with that, because at that time I didn't
Speaker 1: know what was possible. So I would have happily had
Speaker 1: a hobby of giving talks on the evenings and making
Speaker 1: videos on the weekends. I I wouldn't have been an
Speaker 1: issue with that. One of my mentors, Thomas Power, who
Speaker 1: lives in London, who was part of training us at
Speaker 1: accenture or on social media. He doesn't work at Extension,
Speaker 1: but Accentuon brought him in and he often would say
Speaker 1: to me. He said, Jay, you'll realize your potential when
Speaker 1: you're in pain. He said, that's when you'll realize your potential.
Speaker 1: He said, you will never realize your potential when things
Speaker 1: are going well. And I used to always be like,
Speaker 1: am proactive, Like when you're proactive, you always know your potential.
Speaker 1: And those four months are being broke, like being away
Speaker 1: from being broken, having nothing and being married newly. That
Speaker 1: made me realize how much potential I had because I'd
Speaker 1: never been under that much pain, and so I got
Speaker 1: the most disciplined I'd ever got. I got the most
Speaker 1: focused I'd ever got. I sent probably like a thousand
Speaker 1: emails in that first week letting people know what I
Speaker 1: could do for them. I would edit videos if they
Speaker 1: needed it. I could make training videos for their company.
Speaker 1: If they needed it, I would. I was doing anything
Speaker 1: just to survive, just to live. But it brought this
Speaker 1: energy out in me that I didn't even know I had,
Speaker 1: which was this relentless, resilient, consistency and pursue of excellence
Speaker 1: that until that point was not really realized. And now
Speaker 1: I live off that energy like I think it's been
Speaker 1: the same energy that's fueled so many of the last
Speaker 1: few years, which is really beautiful. It's almost like you
Speaker 1: discover a gear you didn't know you had, and now
Speaker 1: I know which gear I can get to, and that's
Speaker 1: a really special, special thing that I got from that experience.
Speaker 2: Your final failure goes back to when you were eighteen
Speaker 2: and you were leading a team and someone gave you
Speaker 2: some advice.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, Yeah, I was leading a community youth group
Speaker 1: that organized retreats and events, and we'd taken a group
Speaker 1: of students to Italy and I was new to this,
Speaker 1: and I was new to management and new to leadership.
Speaker 1: But I was getting a lot of criticism from the
Speaker 1: senior leaders in the youth group. It wasn't the most
Speaker 1: encouraging atmosphere, and a lot of people were saying to me, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're not a good manager, You're not a good leader.
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen years old, I have no idea what management
Speaker 1: and leadership even mean. And I'm getting a lot of criticism.
Speaker 1: And to me, they're the ones who did this before,
Speaker 1: so they must know again, this idea that they are authority,
Speaker 1: they must know more than me. So I'm listening very carefully,
Speaker 1: and one of them said to me, they said, you know, Jay,
Speaker 1: you're not very assertive. You're like not a very assertive person.
Speaker 1: That's why you'll never be a good manager, you never
Speaker 1: be a good leader. And really what they were saying is, Jay,
Speaker 1: you're not tough enough. And then they went on to
Speaker 1: say that they say, you're not tough enough. You're not
Speaker 1: you're not like, you don't know how to delegate and
Speaker 1: tell people what to do, and so people never listen
Speaker 1: to you. And I've never been that way because I
Speaker 1: think I've always been loved by my mum in such
Speaker 1: a sweet, compassionate, caring way that I consider my leadership
Speaker 1: style today to be that way. I can be assertive,
Speaker 1: for sure, I've had to learn to be assertive, but
Speaker 1: I think at that time I didn't know the balance
Speaker 1: between affectionate and assertive, and I think I was very
Speaker 1: out of character with someone. For someone who would have
Speaker 1: thought that Jay's quite a gentle person, he's, you know,
Speaker 1: even if he's saying something that's hard to swallow or
Speaker 1: be very thoughtfully shared. And I think I was very
Speaker 1: out of character with one of my team members. And
Speaker 1: not only did I hurt him so much that he
Speaker 1: didn't talk to me for the rest of the retreat,
Speaker 1: he never has till this day, has never talked to
Speaker 1: me ever again. I called him, I left messages, I
Speaker 1: asked people to talk to him. I tried anything possible
Speaker 1: to get through to him. After we came back from
Speaker 1: the retreat, realizing I'd made a horrible mistake, and he
Speaker 1: never got back to me, never applied, never messaged back.
Speaker 1: And it was a really tough experience because it was
Speaker 1: really upsetting because that wasn't me and I knew that
Speaker 1: it probably hurt him more because it wasn't me. It
Speaker 1: was so out of character, and it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have said to him something along the lines
Speaker 1: of like, oh, you've been really unorganized, you haven't been
Speaker 1: thinking about it. We need your help, you're not working
Speaker 1: hard enough. Like it was something to those that extent.
Speaker 1: It wasn't I didn't swear at him, or I wasn't
Speaker 1: rude it. You know, it was along the lines of
Speaker 1: just being quite forceful when that wasn't who I was.
Speaker 1: And that's always been a reminder to me of don't
Speaker 1: act out of character for anyone, and don't just trust
Speaker 1: someone knows better than you, especially when it comes to people.
Speaker 1: Lead with your heart, lead with what you know best.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that failure is a tough one because it's
Speaker 1: hard when you can't turn it around. I think when
Speaker 1: most people tell their failure stories, it's conveniently stuffed. That
Speaker 1: also works out. Yes, it can be a humble it
Speaker 1: can be a humble brand, but that one's like, there's
Speaker 1: no brand, there's no brag because I don't now have
Speaker 1: a relationship with him. It's not like, oh, no, we're
Speaker 1: best friends and we just went out for drinks yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's like I still hasn't talked to me. I obviously
Speaker 1: stopped pursuing an apology after probably maybe six months. I
Speaker 1: think there's six months of time that I let go
Speaker 1: by where I was really pursuing him and trying to
Speaker 1: get through to him through different people, and then I
Speaker 1: just said, Okay, you know what I was wrong. I'll
Speaker 1: take it as a moment of you know, there's that
Speaker 1: famous quote that says that the best apology is changed behavior.
Speaker 1: I don't know who said it, but it's a beautiful thought,
Speaker 1: and I really like that statement. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's the only way I can forgive myself, and that's
Speaker 1: the only way that I can improve for the future
Speaker 1: is change behavior. And my main change behavior is don't
Speaker 1: listen to anyone else just because you think they know
Speaker 1: a bit more than you, and do something out.
Speaker 2: Of character and act in alignment with your soul values.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly, Like even till this day, I
Speaker 1: just I wouldn't talk to anyone like that. It's just
Speaker 1: not how I've been raised, It's not how I've been
Speaker 1: trained by my mum. I'm not you know, that's not
Speaker 1: who I am, And I don't want to act out
Speaker 1: of alignment. Again.
Speaker 2: I'd love that person to be listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be incredible, and that would be
Speaker 1: a beautiful story. But I've also just let go of
Speaker 1: the idea that that even has to happen for closure.
Speaker 1: And I think I'd like people to think of breakups
Speaker 1: that way. I'd like people to think of endings that way,
Speaker 1: that not all endings have to have a fairy tale,
Speaker 1: and not all endings have to have a magic moment.
Speaker 1: Some of them just teach us something special for the
Speaker 1: future and benefit other people. And you can't let one
Speaker 1: person's experience define the rest of your life. You just can't.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean I don't feel sorry. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I don't feel bad about it still. I mean,
Speaker 1: even talking to you about it, there's part of me
Speaker 1: that feel guilty. But at the same time, we have
Speaker 1: to understand that different between guilt and growth, and guilt
Speaker 1: can keep to you blocked forever from growth, and growth
Speaker 1: is far more the healer of guilt.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's so good understanding the difference between guilt and growth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm more focused on growth. I'd rather become
Speaker 1: better and be better and choose better moving forward than
Speaker 1: make myself feel bad and criticize myself and judge myself
Speaker 1: to feel guilty. And I think often we stay in
Speaker 1: that place of like, I'm going to criticize myself, I'm
Speaker 1: going to judge myself. I'm going to make myself feel
Speaker 1: guilty because somehow that makes me feel better that I
Speaker 1: feel bad about it. Yes, but actually growth is me
Speaker 1: really saying that I feel bad about it because I'm
Speaker 1: choosing to become better now for the future.
Speaker 2: J Chesse, I could talk to you for hours.
Speaker 1: I can talk to you.
Speaker 2: Really, this has been an education in enlightenment. I'm so
Speaker 2: grateful to you for how you are in the world,
Speaker 2: for the books that you write, for taking the time
Speaker 2: to talk to me, and for ensuring that I'll never
Speaker 2: watch the Notebook in the same way again.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to thank you because I I really
Speaker 1: and I don't just say this. I say this when
Speaker 1: I feel it. And there's an energy that you create
Speaker 1: in this room. There's a space, there's a tone of
Speaker 1: your voice, there's a presence in your questioning, and I
Speaker 1: really love observing all these like very micro moments, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel that way and I feel I've gone
Speaker 1: inward to answer a question versus going outward. And I
Speaker 1: felt like that today and this in your presence and
Speaker 1: in your space and the wonderful atmosphere you've created, I
Speaker 1: just want to acknowledge that, because, Yeah, if anything's been
Speaker 1: good in this conversation, it's because you can be in
Speaker 1: a room sometimes and you can feel that there's so
Speaker 1: much space and there's so much pace, and this room
Speaker 1: feels so slow right now, and it feels so present,
Speaker 1: and it feels so there's just like a beauty in
Speaker 1: this room that you know, and that's your energy. So
Speaker 1: energetically great, strategically great. And I'm not getting paid for this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really I really appreciate you. Thank you. Appreciate you,
Speaker 1: thank thank you, thank you. When you go into a
Speaker 1: dance studio, at least one wall is usually lined with mirrors.
Speaker 1: That's because it can be really helpful to see ourselves
Speaker 1: so we can notice our missteps, yes, but just as important,
Speaker 1: so we can also see what we're doing well, and
Speaker 1: mirroring the positive is also something we can do for
Speaker 1: one another. I'll explain the next seven minutes are about
Speaker 1: your relationships and how a little reflection can help spread
Speaker 1: the light. I'm Jay Sheddy. Welcome to the Daily Jay. Now,
Speaker 1: as per usual, let's pause to get centered with three
Speaker 1: deep breaths inhaling and exhaling, arriving and settling, connecting with
Speaker 1: this moment, and dropping in. It was a typical afternoon
Speaker 1: on a typical day. My friend was standing in line
Speaker 1: at a regular neighborhood grocery store waiting to check out.
Speaker 1: As usual, she stepped up to the cashier and smiled,
Speaker 1: and the cashier smiled back. Then something surprising happened. You know.
Speaker 1: The cashier said to my friend, I'm always so happy
Speaker 1: to see you in my line. Really, my friend said,
Speaker 1: why is that? Well, the cashier replied, it's just that
Speaker 1: you're always so friendly, and it really brightens my day.
Speaker 1: My friend was taken aback. She had no idea. But
Speaker 1: my friend isn't the focus of this story. It's the
Speaker 1: cashier because she did something that's so simple that actually
Speaker 1: pretty rare. She reflected my friend's light back to her.
Speaker 1: Writer Edith Wharton once said, there are two ways of
Speaker 1: spreading light. To be the candle or the mirror that
Speaker 1: reflects it. Most of the time we try to be
Speaker 1: the candle. We do whatever we can to spread our
Speaker 1: own light. Yet there's an easy and powerful way we
Speaker 1: can do even more. We can also be the mirror.
Speaker 1: When my friend had that exchange with the cashier, it
Speaker 1: shifted something inside her. Suddenly she saw herself as a
Speaker 1: person who could improve someone else's day just by being herself.
Speaker 1: This is how mirroring magnifies. It encourages people to lean
Speaker 1: into the good they're doing and amplify their positive traits.
Speaker 1: The truth is everyone has a light inside them, but
Speaker 1: when you see it, how often do you acknowledge it?
Speaker 1: Maybe your mother always helps you feel better when you're stressed.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a colleague whose consistent compassion makes your experience
Speaker 1: at work that much better. Maybe you think back to
Speaker 1: how a certain teachers mentorship made a huge impact on
Speaker 1: your life. But have you ever told them, Have you
Speaker 1: ever held up that mirror and help them see that
Speaker 1: about themselves. We often underestimate the impact we have on
Speaker 1: other people. But your appreciative words and actions have the
Speaker 1: power to make someone's day, even to change their life,
Speaker 1: and it causes their light to spread. It doesn't take much,
Speaker 1: Plus it feels really good to do it, and so
Speaker 1: your light amps up to now. I'm not suggesting that
Speaker 1: you be insincere or over the top, but the next
Speaker 1: time you catch a glimpse of someone else's brightness, consider
Speaker 1: reflecting it back to them, because if each of us
Speaker 1: could help others shine a little bit more, ultimately we
Speaker 1: might be able to light up the whole world. On
Speaker 1: that note, let's do a short meditation and then reflect
Speaker 1: on how you can spread the light. So first, get
Speaker 1: comfortable wherever you are, maybe stretching your neck or shaking
Speaker 1: out some tension, closing your eyes if that feels good,
Speaker 1: and giving your mind permission to embrace a sense of calm.
Speaker 1: Beginning to notice your breath. Here, your natural breath as
Speaker 1: it flows in and out, No force, no fight, simply
Speaker 1: observing your body doing the simplest of acts, being and
Speaker 1: breathing gently, resting your attention there. If your mind ever
Speaker 1: starts to wonder, well that's to be expected, considering you're
Speaker 1: human and all. Just see if you can catch it
Speaker 1: before it drifts too far away, and bring your awareness
Speaker 1: back to your breath in and out, rise and fall
Speaker 1: in your own time, at your own pace, Keep breathing
Speaker 1: and keep tuning in and now let's open it up.
Speaker 1: Think about someone in your life who inspires, comforts, or
Speaker 1: supports you. What about them do you find motivating or uplifting?
Speaker 1: How can you mirror their light? Can you commit to
Speaker 1: getting in touch with them today now? If you're looking
Speaker 1: for another way to spread the light, you can go
Speaker 1: ahead and share this message with a friend. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for your energy and focus here. I'll see you
Speaker 1: tomorrow