March 8, 2021 • 35 mins
Ryan is joined by award-winning storyteller and podcast host Jay Shetty to discuss how meditation can help people tame their anxiety and focus more energy into elevating their professional and personal lives. The “Think Like a Monk” author recalls his time living in India as a monk, explains how to have a healthy relationship with money, and shares his theory on how money actually IS energy.
For more about the episode and a blueprint you can use to take action based on Jay Shetty’s story, go to bigmoneyenergy.com/podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Big Money Energy.
As you know, on this podcast, I'm talking with super
successful and self made people to learn exactly how they
did it, how they went from nothing to something, covering
all their intimate stories, their path to success, and how
they overcame obstacles on the way. And specifically, though, I'm
gonna be talking to people who not only have Big
(00:23):
Money Energy, but those who understand what it means to
wake up and actually get things done. And today we're
talking to j Shedding. So if you care about the
power of wisdom, if you care about how money is energy,
and if you want to know what it's like to
live like a monk and more importantly, to think like
(00:45):
a monk so that you can find true happiness and
peace and cut through all the bullshit that we have
to deal with in life and all the pain and
all the anxiety that we deal with. And all you
entrepreneurs who are listening right now, you better stay on
this episode because it is going to completely blow your mind.
Welcome to another episode. To day is a very very
(01:08):
special day because I'm sitting down with none other than
the Jay Chetty Jay. Thank you so much, for coming
in Ryan, thanks for having me. This is awesome. Yeah. Now,
if you don't know JT is, then you probably don't
have a phone or a computer. You're definitely not on Facebook.
You probably don't read books. Um, you might not even
have a pulse. I don't know, but I'll tell you.
JT is an Indian British internet personality, podcast or author,
(01:31):
award winning storytelling He's a former monk, which I find
really interesting, and he has a lot more patients than
I ever will have. He's interviewed some of the most
amazing people in the world, like Deepack Chopra, Russell Brand.
He has been on the Ellen Degeneras show Forbes thirty
Under thirty Total game Changer. Get a video on Facebook
that was watched by three d and sixty million people.
Were you naked and dance? You know I've seen the video, Yes,
(01:55):
and dancing with Will Smith. That is what you need
and Ellen, right, that what you gotta do. I want
to know how you create some of the greatest content
in the world. And overall you have an insane amount
of energy, which I really really care about. And I
think in the world there are two types of people.
You know, everyone can be a hard worker. Everyone could
be good or bad, but you either wake up every
day determined to get ship done and have great energy,
(02:17):
or you don't. You're either making things happen or you're
waiting for things to happen. And you are kind of
like the pinnacle of somebody who's made things happen, starting
from when you were probably a little kid, right and
going all the way into when you traveled around the
world and your journey and even just being a monk.
So the first question I have for you, and I
was trying to think about how I was going to
(02:37):
start this because I have like fifty questions for you.
One New York versus l A, New York versus l A. Yeah,
which one? L A? Get out? I lived in New
York for two years. I loved it. It was very
good to me. I've lived in l A for two years.
I loved it. It's very good to me. I prefer
like I grew up in London. I'm used to gray
skies rain, it's raining today exactly, and from my cool
(02:59):
the Little Brewery. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm very happy
at l A. I love New York. I love visiting.
It feels like home. I love the people here. It's great.
But l a LA's home. Where did you live in
New York when you lived here? I lived in Street
between First and Second. Interesting location, Yeah, definitely, first time
New Yorker to pick that location. I had no idea
I moved to New York. I think I'd come here
(03:20):
once with my family when I was like sixteen years old.
I've never been back since. And then I had a
real toist show me around. And I worked for the
Huffingham Post when I moved here, and so I wanted
to be close to the offices and the offices of
seven seventy Broadway. So I was trying to be close
to this so I could walk there, because that was
the easiest thing I could think of. So it was
very strategically chosen. Always. My first apartment was chosen where
(03:42):
I could be on top of every single train, and
I lived in Koreatown right on thirty first and Broadway,
and it was I want to be able to walk
outside my door and get to any apartment, showing that
I could. Nice. How did your realtor do though, By
the way, I think they did pretty well. Except when
I moved to New York. For I believe it was
about a month. I had to live out of hotels
(04:02):
because my apartment wasn't ready and I was I mean,
I was struggling, So I literally would check the hotel
prices every day to get the lowest price. So I
was shifting hotels like three times a week, so I
got paying sixty five dollars a night to fifty dollars
a night to like seventy dollars, and and I kept
trying to shift, so I had to switch hotels multiple
times per week for a month. Huffington Post page you
(04:22):
more money. So is that what brought you to New York?
That's what brought me to New York. I'm really grateful
Ariana Huffington and the team at Half Post at the
time they got my visa, they brought me over. They've
seen my videos and they wanted me to create the
same content for Half Post. It exposed me to this
incredible world that's out here and really kicked off my journey.
And so you credit those relationships and that platform to
(04:44):
where you are today or definitely as a first tipping point.
I think in everyone's life, and you've probably seen this
in yours too, Like everyone has multiple tipping points in
their life, and so there were tipping points before that.
That was a really important tipping point from a content
creator standpoint, and they're like, you know, meeting Ellen year
was a huge tipping point as well, like going on
Red Table Talk and doing stuff with Will Smith this year.
(05:04):
It was a huge tipping point. So I feel like
you always have more tipping points, and I think I'm
grateful to anyone who's been a tipping point and everything
in between, because guess what, there are a lot of
people who led to that big tipping point, and so
I think you gotta be very careful to not forget
the in between us, because the in between us can
often be forgotten and left behind. You've built a massive brand,
(05:25):
right that's known around the world through creating content. What
was your first piece of content you ever made? You Yeah, yeah,
I do. I do it as a video content or
content period. Video content. Okay, so video content was I
made a video called three Lessons from the Bugged geta
Now that's the book that I talked about in this book. Okay,
so that was my first video, and think like among
the first ever video I made was called three Lessons
(05:48):
from the Bugged to the bugged Geta is the one
of the oldest most spiritual wisdom texts in the world.
It's based out of India. It's five thousand years old.
And so I made this video and I have loaded
onto you Tube on third jan and I still remember
it really, really well, and I was refreshing. I was
refreshing away and I'd made it like three days before that,
(06:09):
right like, I filmed it, edited it, shot it all myself.
With my team was my friend who was a videographer
in London. We were just out in London on the streets.
I think we were out on like we still trying
to remember if it was New Year's Day or New
Year's Eve, but all I remember probably News day because
the streets of London were empty. We could shoot in
any location. This was probably guerrilla style. We had no
permits or no license. We were just we were just
(06:30):
shooting next like Saint Paul's Cathedral and London Bridge and
all this stuff. And we put the video out there
and I remember seeing the views go up and then
I realized I was just refreshing and watching video, and
then probably my mom was doing the same and I
was trying to get all my friends to see and
I think it did. I think my first video did
like five thousand views in twenty four hours, and so
it wasn't bad at all, but it was you know,
(06:51):
it was just consistency, perseverance, and and a lot of
negative feedback initially too. You know, there are a lot
of people who are just like you talked too fast,
you know, or maybe you need edit a bit better,
or maybe the music is a bit off. And I
used to get a lot of that, and I took
all of it in that I could, and at the
same time, I was like, I'm not listening to that
bit because you know, that doesn't make sense, and I
had to try and find my way. What did your
(07:11):
parents think of it when I started making videos? Yeah,
your first video. I don't think my parents even kid. Yeah,
they didn't even have an opinion. I don't think it
was like a thing. They didn't think anything of it.
They didn't think it was good or bad. I don't
think they even watched it. Yeah, I don't think they
can at the time. So if I remember my mom
when Millionaire Listening first came out Bravo, my mom called
me after the first episode. I was like, what do
(07:32):
you think what do you think? She's like, well, let
me just say the things that you think are funny
are not funny to other people, and that like, I
will never forget that because it was kind of like
a like she was like smacking me down, but it
was kind of a compliment because I was like, oh,
maybe I am funny on there, but then it wasn't.
And then I could see kind of what you were saying,
like some people thought, you know, some people have a
(07:54):
sense of humor. Some people don't have a sense of humor.
Um and it's funny, like people in my mom's uh
demographic did not think everything that I thought. Have you
kept making those jokes? Have you kept in you know what?
To be honest, it's interesting once you start seeing yourself
on television or you make content, you see what people's
feedback is. And I don't care what anybody says. It
does affect you. You do you realize, like, oh, I
should probably carry myself in a way that that doesn't
(08:17):
derive insanely negative hate. You know, I don't want to
say anything offensive, so I'm not going to totally filter myself,
but let me think things through just a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
I don't know have you thought about that at all?
Do you do you do content with a filter or
no filter? I mean, when I started creating content, we
do a lot of different styles of content, so I
think there's different styles. So I have a series called
Inside the Mind on YouTube, which is very much behind
(08:38):
the scenes, follow me around. It's it's super open transfer exactly.
And then and then I've got content that is scripted
and costed and really created so that people can have
a really amazing experience. Now, when I started making content,
I had no idea that we were ever going to
hit a million views, let around billions of views, And
so for me, I was just sharing my message to
(08:58):
help the world, like you said, and serve the world
in any way, I thought, And I'm doing the same
thing now. I don't see it's that's different. But my
big goal when I'm creating a piece of content is
how is someone going to feel after watching this? Like
That's the number one question I asked myself. It's how
I feel about every podcast, every video. How is someone
going to feel And if they're not going to feel uplifted,
if they're not going to feel like they've learned something,
(09:20):
if they're not going to feel motivated or amped. Then
for me, I'm like, Okay, well I'm doing something wrong here.
Why do you care so much? Why do I care
so much? Like? Why, I that's a real question. Why, absolutely,
why do you care about what people feel? Not just
to create good content then gets good views? Right, Because
in the influencer world that we live in, you know you,
we live by view counts is what it is. But
(09:41):
why why are you making videos that are that you
that change people's lives. Why are you making videos that
are influential for people? Why don't you just do vlog
type stuff? Put stuff out there, let's see what happens.
Like why do you care so much about other people?
I think when you come across something in your life
that you think transform your life and was extremely valuable,
I feel like you have a responsibility and a sense
(10:02):
of compassion to want to pass it on. And I
think we're the same as humans with everything. Like if
you saw the best movie in the world this week,
I guarantee you'd be recommending it to You are your friends.
If you've just heard a new album or discovered a
new artists on Spotify, you're gonna tell everyone it just
so happened that the artist I met was a monk, right, So,
and I talk about the experience in this in the
book Think like a Monk, where for me meeting a monk,
(10:23):
it's just one of those things like I met someone
who I believed had the habits, the routines, the lifestyle,
the thoughts, the ideas that transform my life, and I
really believe they have and I feel it's a responsibility
to pass them on because I see people suffering. I
see people making decisions and then regretting them. I see
people getting thirty years in a career and then feeling dissatisfied.
And I'm like, that can all be avoided, or at
(10:45):
least if it can't be avoided, it doesn't have to
be as painful as it seems. And so if we
can do that in the same ways, I'm sure you're
helping people find real estate quicker and easier and making
it simple. It's like all of us are solving a problem.
And for me, if you've got some good advice, you've
had a good experience, it's your job to pass it on.
And that's all I'm trying to do. What was your
(11:09):
first impression of the monk, tell me about the monk.
So my first impression was, here's a guy with a
thick Indian accent and he's wearing robes, he's got a
shaved head. He does not look cool, he's not trendy.
There's nothing about him that's attractive. I'm going to get
really bored in this speech. I'm going to go to
a bar afterwards and it's going to be great and
I've just got to sit through while my friends go
through this pain, right, Like that's my first experience because
(11:31):
I'm a kid growing up in London who thinks he's
really cool, listens to rap music. I was eighteen, and
I'm thinking, I'm like the best thing ever. And what
am I going to learn from? Like some monk who
went from nothing to nothing? And you know, like what's
he going to teach me? And that's what I love
about writing this book now, is I was the person
who looked at that monk and looked at it probably
even this title, and what am I going to learn
(11:52):
from this book? What am I going to learn? And
it's like that's skepticism that it's so ironic when you
take that skepticism and it gets turned into like this
amazing belief system where you're like, oh wow, Like I
learned so much from that one hour that he spoke
that I was so inspired that I was almost surrounding
him like he was the CEO of Apple or something,
(12:12):
and wanting to shadow him and spend time with him.
And I think this is just a lesson that I
feel for anyone and everyone. It's like when you get
in I'm sure there's a ton of people who approach you,
are inspired by the work you do and would love
to spend time with you. But maybe they're not saying
the right thing, maybe they're not doing the right thing,
maybe they're not getting the access because someone else had
a better way of getting through to you. And for me,
I was doing the same as wanting to shadow this monk.
(12:34):
I I would just believe that he had something that
I'd never seen someone have, which was joy, which was happiness,
which was genuine authenticity of just say that authentic joy,
just authentic joy of just like fake not fake. I
mean he's wearing saffron orange robes in the middle of
a university and and speaking so comfortably without any like
(12:54):
inhibition that he's being judged by a bunch of London
kids who think that they're really cool, and he's just
so effortless, and I'm like, why why am I not
like that? Right? And so that's what attracted me to him.
So what was your journey with him after that? Yeah,
So I took the very bold move of saying, I'm
going to spend all of my summer vacations, half of
them interning at corporate companies in London, because that's what
(13:15):
I thought I was going to do. And so I
was at financial companies and corporate companies doing analyst roles
or whatever, regular stuff or fairly successful regular stuff for
regular stuff. And I'd spend the other half of my
summer vacations living with him in India's a monk. So
I'd literally go from suits as you do, yes, suits,
steak houses and bars and doing the full works. And
I was like, I'm going to test eats lifestyle to
(13:36):
its lifestyle to it's extreme, because to me, that's the
that's what the joy of life comes from. I don't
think you ever have fun in life when you do
something in a mediocre, halfhearted, in the middle kind of way, right,
I feel like you have to dive deep. It's like
you know the analogies that was given of the ocean, like,
if you really want to see the beauty of the ocean,
you've got to go deep. On the surface, all you're
(13:58):
gonna see is like some little fish and some random colors.
But if you go deep, you'll see more. And so
for me, I've always been that way. And so I
was like, Okay, I'm going to be the best finance
person in London, and then I'm gonna be the best
monk in India, and I'm going to test which one works.
And then I found out very quickly that you don't
become the best monk, and I didn't necessarily become the
best finance person in London, but I went through that
(14:19):
process of testing, and after three years of doing that,
in my breaks, I realized that I found the life
of a monk more attractive. But I had genuinely done
the test. And the reason it was more attractive is
because I felt that I was actually useful to humanity.
We weren't just sitting there all day doing nothing. We
were serving the homeless, we were helping young children, we
(14:40):
were helping the needy, we were doing service out in
the world. And I thought, wow, this is the best
use of my skills, This is the best use of
my abilities. And when I'd come home from working a
long day in a company, I just feel hungry, tired, bored,
d energized and drained, and I was like, I don't
want to feel like that. Every time I'd come back
from the ushroom, I'd feel like I've found my purpose.
(15:01):
How did that affect your relationship to material goods? Though?
And too money into success? How do you go from
London banking world to living with the monk too, coming
back to London and then going to New York and
they go in to l a and still having to
make money and create content for a living and write
a book and do the tours and all the things
(15:21):
you do. How are you okay with that? Yeah? Absolutely?
And I think when I first came back, it took
so much time to reintegrate and to recalibrate, like what
my mind said about these things. So I've learned this
beautiful principle as a monk, which I think I've got to.
I've had an opportunity to play with an experiment with
(15:42):
more since leaving, So we learned about how nothing is
inherently good or bad. It's given a it's given meaning
and purpose by how you use it. So we know
that right this microphone, it's it's inherently neutral. It's not
good or bad. Right. You can either speech hate, abuse
and violence and race is them, or we can use
it for talking about what me and you're talking about.
(16:02):
And that's a choice. And so similarly, I think we've
either tried to idolize or demonize things. Money is one
of them. People either idolize it or they demonize it.
So they go, oh, money is everything, Money is god,
Money will change your life. And then the other option
is no, No, money is evil. Money will make you bad.
If you're rich, you stab people in the back. And
so we're very good at as humans is labeling stuff
(16:25):
as idolized or demonizers, and actually it's neutral. It's totally
what you do it. Then that's why I love the
title of your podcast, Big Money Energy, because from a
spiritual monk perspective, money is energy, bloody is editing. There
we go and you're already thinking like a monk. Oh Man,
I had no idea, but money is energy, and and
(16:46):
serve money is energy. Are we using that energy for good?
Are we using that energy for bad and I think
when you can live in that way, And in the book,
I talk about three relationships you can have with money.
So you can either have a selfish relationship, you can
have a sufficient and see relationship, or you can have
a service relationship. Simple selfish. We know what that feels like.
It's all about me. Money is for me. I'm just
(17:07):
gonna get really greedy and rich and supposedly it's gonna
make me happy. We know that doesn't work. Sufficiency, I've
got enough. I don't need more, but I've got enough
for me and taking care of the two people I
take care of, I don't care about anyone else. And
then service, I don't mind having more if it helps
me serve, and and I don't mind creating more opportunity
if it helps me serve. And so for me the
way I've been able to do it, And it took
(17:27):
me a while because I grew up in a family
where we always said we had just enough money, and
so the mindset was always like the amount of times
in my teens where I had zero in my bank
account because I had just enough. It was just enough
to make the purchase and then I'll be back at
zero again, and I realized I was like, that's just
not a healthy relationship with anything. It's like me saying
I have just enough love for my family. I have
(17:48):
just enough love for my wife. That doesn't make sense.
Just enough gas, exactly, just enough gas, great example. Yeah,
like just enough, and I have just enough data. I
have just enough. No one wants just enough. And so
I had to really remold my relationship with money and
with success and with achievements to realize I was simply
an instrument, to realize that I was doing it for service.
(18:08):
And guess what, Hey, I'm not pure, like I'm not
saying of my life is just lift for others. I
need significance. I need to feel like I matter. I
need to feel like I'm making a difference. Those are
all personal things that I need. I'm just trying to
engage them in a way that is helpful to other people.
But you also seem like somebody who's not okay with
just being okay. And you have that energy. Yeah, that
(18:32):
energy is tied to money, or to faith, or just
to your your ability to wake up and make things happen. Yeah. Absolutely, well.
I think I think we die when we don't learn
like I think you just I think you can just
die early because you're not growing, you're not learning, you're
not moving. And therefore we were just talking about it
just now, actually over lunched, me and Matt were talking
about it that it's not so much about a number
(18:54):
like I've never had. Someone always says to me, like,
when what's the number of books you want to sell?
What's the number that you want to reach fund? I
actually never had a number. What I know is that
I want to wake up and do everything within my
reach to do what I'm trying to do. And if
I've done that, and when I say everything, I mean everything,
like have I really gone to every corner of the world?
Have I really tried to touch and help every single
(19:16):
person I possibly can? If I've done that, then I'm satisfied.
And that's that's my personal metric of am I doing
my best? Have you ever failed at anything? Or loads? Man?
What's your relationship with failing? So many? I've had so
many times, Like I literally I talked about this when
I when I came back from living as a monk,
surprise surprise, forty companies rejected me. Right for I'm really
(19:38):
grateful to them that they did that, but forty companies
said no because guess what my resume said, monk for
three years? Like, what's your trumps errable skills? Silence? Like
you know what I mean? Like it's like, what's what's
your transferable skills? You can sit around for like eight
hours of it and think like a monk. I'm talking
about how monks, scientifically, and there's a ton of science
in scientifically have the happiest, car missed, and most focused
(20:01):
brains on the planet of any human. There's been studies
done on countless humans. Monks and meditators have healthier, happier,
calmer brains. Who doesn't want to be healthier, happy, and
more focused, But they don't get to do anything. No,
they do. That's the point we do. Yeah, that's that's
why thinking like I'm on, you don't have to live
like one. And that's my point that we get to
use all of that to actually make an impact, making
(20:25):
grow our businesses, whatever we want to do. We can
all do that. And you meditate every day. I meditate
every single day. Yeah. I meditated every single day since
I was eighteen years old, for two hours a day,
So that hasn't changed. When do you do that? Usually
in the morning, but I travel a lot, so it
becomes flexible. So I wake up about six every day.
I meditate from about six thirty two about thirty. That's
usually my time, but I missed that sometimes, so I'll
(20:45):
do an hour in the morning and an hour in
the evening, and nowadays, like it could be splurv in
the thirty minutes slots because my life is just changing
all the time. So just give a speech about stress
and anxiety and it's thinking like a monk. Obviously, common
sense would say that you know, if you were at
peace in your mind and at peace with your body,
then you stress and anxiety can just be something that
(21:07):
I guess comes and goes. Yeah, well see, look, no
one can avoid stress and anxiety. But what the Moong
mindset does is you actually just deal with stress anxiety
for less time. So one of my favorite examples in
productive Yeah, and you've probably heard about this before. Exactly
there you are, So you've probably heard about this before,
But I don't know if you've heard of Roger Banister
in the four minute mile. So up until like I
(21:29):
think it's like the eighteen fifties to nineteen fifty four,
there was no one had broken running a mile in
less than four minutes. For a hundred and four years,
no one broke that record. Super fact. Roger Banister comes
into and he breaks the four minute mile. He runs
it in three minutes whatever, like just underneath, and since
that day, everyone broke his record. And it's that kind
(21:52):
of thing of like, you may never get rid of
stress and anxiety, but before you stressed out for seven days,
Now you stress out for one day. Now you stress
out for one hour. Because now you just stress for
one minute, it becomes relative totally, and you've become able
to actually process and reflect. So one of our biggest
mistakes with stress and pressure is we just keep moving
and pushing. And one of my favorite examples of this
(22:15):
is just like, you're married, so you know what this
is like, and I'm guessing, I don't know who's more
ambitious or driven out of you and your wife. You're
very ambitious and driven, but she could be more driven.
How many times, like, how many times do you feel
like you just need to grab their hands or their
shoulders or whatever it is. Anyone who's listening and watching
you know what I'm talking about. And you just go.
I need you to slow down so I can just
talk to you so that we can just sound like
my wife. Can that do? I? Yeah, great moment right there,
(22:38):
her eyes. I was gonna hold your hands too, but
I'm at ten pm and I'm like, what what? What? What?
What do you want to talk about? Yeah? Yeah, everything,
everything's fine, Everything's fine. I got exactly. And that's so
that exactly that is happening with our mind and body.
Our mind and body is stressing out to hold your
hands and just say hey, I need to talk to you,
(22:58):
and we go. No, No, I'm busy right now. I
can't listen to you right now. I'm so busy. I'm
just gonna keep moving. And so when you meditate, when
you're still, when you take a moment, that's allowing your
mind and body to actually go to this is what
you're stressed about. This is how to deal with it,
take care of it, and actually you can be more
productive otherwise we can't hear that voice in all the
noise of rushing around, right like, it just doesn't happen,
(23:19):
for sure. Tell me about a time maybe when you
didn't have all this confidence and this courage that I
see sitting in front of me right now, bright eyed
and awesome and full of energy. Do you even remember
a time like that? He loads loads of times. The
best one that I can give the example of when
(23:40):
I just came back from living as a monk. So
when I came back from India, came back from the ushroom,
and I moved back in with my parents, it was
probably the most depressive time of my life. This is
it's seven years ago, so it's not that long ago
in one sense. I moved back in with my parents.
I'm going on twenty six. I have dollars worth of
debt because I went to university in London and thankfully
(24:01):
it's not as expensive as it is here, but it's
still expensive. And then, yeah, exactly, I know, I know
it's painful out here. When I think about having kids here,
I'm like, wow, I get it. It's hard. It's hard.
And so I came back and I'm lost. I got
rejected by forty companies. No one would give me a job.
I'm too overqualified for another job, and I'm now underqualified
(24:22):
for the jobs that I would have walked into three
years ago. And I'm feeling stressed and I'm feeling anxious
because guess what, all my friends are buying nice cars,
getting their first mortgage and you know, in a in
a great relationship, and I'm five years behind them. Because
I felt really left behind. I felt lost, and I
felt confused and guess why. I didn't know where to start.
I would literally come home and talk to my dad
and I'd be like, Dad, I know that I can't
(24:44):
rely on you guys forever because my parents aren't well off,
and I'm like, I don't actually know what I'm going
to do, Like I have no idea, and so I
remember being completely unconfident at that time and completely feeling
like all my charisma and energy just been snatched from
me because I thought I was going to become a monk.
And then my health was taking a toll on me
(25:05):
too because of the amount of pushing I'd done on
my sleep and experimenting with so many things. So I'm like,
I'm just like both physically emaciated and mentally like, just
I've lost it. I really lost. I would have struggled
to look you in the eye and have this conversation.
I genuinely would have, And I know now it's hard
to believe and I was like, oh, J like, I'm
sure that's true. I'm like no, trust me, Like literally,
(25:25):
if you talk to my friends from that time, they'll
tell you that I wasn't confident at the time. And
the thing that helped me build my confidence back up
is I went to the library every single week and
I would read self development books. I would read the
books that I studied as a monk. Again. I was
so deep into like what do I need to learn?
What is it that I don't have now that's going
to help me feel confident again. I had to write
(25:48):
forty individualized, personalized resumes to finally get a job at
Accenture that I broke into. And guess what, I was
twenty six and everyone was twenty one, So I was
already up against everyone who was younger than me, who
just come out of call it yeah, but you were
a monk. It helped, It did help. It did help,
and what it helped with And that's why those three
(26:08):
years I call the monks school, and the last seven
years have been the exam, and I've passed the exam
so far, because everything I learned as a monk does
prepare you for the life we all lead so actually
I got to test all of it. And that's why
I'm sharing what I tested in Think like a Monk,
because I'm like, I have literally tested all this for
the last seven years, and that's why I'm telling you
(26:28):
about it, because I had to put into practice. It.
Cover is literally if you can, for those of you
that watching as the cover is blue, it is literally
your your blueprint. I love that you're the first person
who said that, and I never thought of that print.
I'm gonna I'm gonna say that in every single interview
after this one. I'm gonna say, Ryan, did it? Ryan?
This is no, that's great. I love the blueprint for
(26:48):
how to you know, how to think like a monk? Yeah,
but it's a blueprint of life's real exam the real exams. Listen,
I can say thank you so much for going through
that so that we don't have to write super healthful
stuff to do. Absolutely no one needs to go live
like a monk. You can just think like one and
it will change your life. But I mean, if someone's
(27:11):
listening to this right now and they're at a tough
place in their life, or they are you know, they
just came out of school and they don't know what
to do, or they got out of a bad relationship,
or they fucking hate their job. Would you recommend going
to India? I don't think you have to go to India.
What I will say is you're going to have to
do something different to what you've done so far, and
what that means got you here won't get you there. Correct.
(27:33):
And So what thinking like a monk means is how
can you become more curious, open and expand your mind
to maybe entertain the idea of something that you have
never entertained. Right Like I would never have thought of
becoming a monk if I didn't meet a monk. Who
have you not met yet that could inspire you to
do something you haven't done yet? I love that. Right
(27:55):
When people ask me what my job is, I say,
my job is meeting five new people every day. I
love that. I don't sell houses, Right, That's how selling
houses for me and selling buildings and everything we do
and even making content and all that stuff is. It
is the by product of what happens when I ryan
sur aunt. Happens to meet people. I know how to
sell real estates. When I meet people, I instinctually say,
(28:16):
do you need to buy a new home. Right, if
I had your life, I would do what you're doing
it maybe something totally different, um uh and meeting more
people on a planet full of seven billion of them? Right,
I think is is our lifeblood? Like that's our job.
I want to ask you one more question before finish,
is because now I have you in my mind living
on twenty three and first between first and seconds, trying
(28:39):
to manage even before that, your hotel bills fifty sixty
bucks a night. That's crazy to me even sitting seeing
you sitting here, and what I know of you over
the last couple of years, the fact that you were
ever at that point with money, right and with your
own success in your life, Like how did you go
from nothing to who you are today? What was that journey?
And I know it took a long time, It took
a lot of hard work, but but like what is that?
(29:01):
What is that mechanism? Like? What did you do? Differently?
I decided that whatever I was going to do, I
was going to get really world class at it. Okay,
So I wasn't it wasn't good enough to be an
okay public speaker? You're okay with being okay? Yeah, I
was going to go out and become one of the
best public speakers in the way that I saw what
best meant. So that means I was studying stand up comics.
It means I was studying the best speakers of all
(29:21):
the time. It meant that I was trained from fourteen
to eighteen at public speaking and drama school because my
parents forced me to go. I want to really become
the same with social media. I don't just want to
be okay with social media. I need to really become
an excel at it. And so for me, that's the
second step. And I think that's the difference between following
your passion and actually investing in it and actually conviction. Yeah,
(29:41):
living with convictions. So that was a big part of it,
the second and then when you've done that, so much
more opens up. We don't realize that when you genuinely
excel at something, when you put yourself in the upper
group of a expertise, that naturally opens up connections network Beau.
Everyone now all of a sudden is confident to say, hey,
have you met Ryan? Did you know that he sold
that property worth whatever it is. It's like, oh, yeah, now,
(30:04):
now you should meet Ryan, right you've got, you get
recommended more. So that was one thing. The second thing
I did was I've always, like you said, built relationships,
and I would never ask unless there was a very
clear ask and there was a very specific ask, and
that person was the most specific person to ask for that.
I think half the time we asked for stuff, we're
asking the wrong person at the wrong time. And my
(30:24):
point is a good ask is I'm the right person
for the right thing at the right time, and if
those three things don't align, don't ask right I I've
never not followed that principle, So if I wanted to
ask Ryan for a favor, I would wait till he
was the right time and it was the right person
who was the right thing I was asking for. So
I remember at one point, I appreciate that. I remember
one point. I emailed a hundred people the day after
(30:46):
I decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and
I was like, Hey, these are my skills, this is
what I think I could do for you, this is
how we could work together. What do you think right?
And so it's like I went all in and asked
a ton of people who could support them. That year
when I first became an entrepreneur, I tested seven different
revenue streams and there were two things I was testing,
which one did I enjoy and which one worked? And
(31:07):
I wanted to find the ones that matched. So out
of the seven hard to do, yeah yeah, And we
test seven. Out of the seven, all of them worked. Financially,
I only enjoyed four of them, which became the bedrock
of what I did. So one of them was my
group coaching program online. So I have my coaching program Genius,
where we have thousands of amazing members from over a
hundred and forty countries that every week are learning with
(31:30):
me and I'm live with them, coaching them, training them,
guiding them, and it's been the most fulfilling thing that
we've done. We even have meetups now in a hundred
cities in the world, so we have groups of people
meeting up every week without me there and they're discussing
these themes networking, building enterprises, and growing together. So that
was one of them. The second thing that came out
of it was videos. I love making videos, and Facebook
(31:51):
finally kicked him with its ad strategy in so so
that's been great. And then I had my podcast we
launched my podcast. I love interviewing people. It's given me
a great excuse, like you said, to sit down with
people I wouldn't otherwise. And then four or three of
my book, so I chose things that I love doing
the process and that it worked, and that was a
big part it. So for me, it's always been a
(32:13):
rapid growth. Try everything, test everything, make mistakes along the way,
and just keep moving. And as soon as you find
yourself being uncomfortable and you don't like something, you don't
have to do it anymore. Like don't put you. I
don't want to make money doing stuff I hate. I
just don't want to do that. And and and that
means I've got to test more of what I love.
So I've got to work harder on that front. However,
(32:35):
just a few final questions that I want to ask you.
That it helped me get to know you just a
little bit better, and I think everybody else. What's your
favorite movie? Okay, my favorite movie is The Prestige by
Christopher no Oh. That is such a good Yeah, it's
a very good movie. Hugh Jackman, Christie Belle Scarlet, your hanswer,
That is a great, great movie with the light bulbs
when they're turning on and everything. It's got like Tesla,
(32:57):
it's got a bit of history and yeah, that's so funny.
Is my favorite movie. I'm two thousand and six. It's
on the IMDb bucket list of movies. It came out
at the same time The Illusionists came out at with
I love that movie too, which is great, and it
came out the same exact type. It's like Hollywood always
does this to come up with an idea and they're like, oh,
we gotta do it. That's a really good movie. Yeah,
it was just great, but the procedures a little bit.
And Christian Bell I just yeah, press yeah, Christian Bell
(33:19):
is my one of my favorite I've got two favorite actors,
probably Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bell. Yeah. What's your favorite quote? Oh?
My favorite quote? That is a good question. Yes, it's
probably from the bug Geta. Oh no, no, god, I've
got a debate. Yeah, okay, from the Bugta it says,
better to live your life imperfectly than to imitate the
(33:42):
life of someone else is perfectly. What's your favorite artist
right now as we listen to right now, I'd say
the person I listened to most is Drake. I'm a
big Drake fans. I can listen to Drake in the gym,
in the car. I actually love listening. Yeah, it's like
Drake Future and then Drake plus Future. Yeah, it's like
every Yeah I said Drake. I'm a big I'm a
(34:02):
big believer to like Justin's new album, A big fan
of Justin Little Changes. Yeah. Great, Well this has been awesome. Yeah,
this has been great. So much for coming. Yeah, I
think like a monk by the time this comes out,
It'll be out everywhere you are, everywhere where else should
people find you? Find me on Instagram, from me on YouTube,
from me on Facebook, wherever you are, I'll try and
be there. Yeah, good and find all the wisdom and
(34:22):
you're the best. Thank you so much. Thank you coming
to interview. It's gonna be fun. I'll let you know
what absolutely please, if you're ready to take action today
based on Ja Shetty's entire blueprint for how he got
to where he is, go to Big Money Energy dot
Com slash podcast to download an action plan I put
together for you as well as the show knows. That's
(34:45):
Big Money Energy dot Com slash podcast. Find more podcasts
like Big Money Energy on the I Heart Radio app
or wherever you get your podcasts. Big Money Energy is
hosted by me Ryan Sir Hints. It's produced by Mike
Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca and executive produced by Christina Everett.
What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Big Money Energy.
As you know, on this podcast, I'm talking with super
successful and self made people to learn exactly how they
did it, how they went from nothing to something, covering
all their intimate stories, their path to success, and how
they overcame obstacles on the way. And specifically, though, I'm
gonna be talking to people who not only have Big
(00:23):
Money Energy, but those who understand what it means to
wake up and actually get things done. And today we're
talking to j Shedding. So if you care about the
power of wisdom, if you care about how money is energy,
and if you want to know what it's like to
live like a monk and more importantly, to think like
(00:45):
a monk so that you can find true happiness and
peace and cut through all the bullshit that we have
to deal with in life and all the pain and
all the anxiety that we deal with. And all you
entrepreneurs who are listening right now, you better stay on
this episode because it is going to completely blow your mind.
Welcome to another episode. To day is a very very
(01:08):
special day because I'm sitting down with none other than
the Jay Chetty Jay. Thank you so much, for coming
in Ryan, thanks for having me. This is awesome. Yeah. Now,
if you don't know JT is, then you probably don't
have a phone or a computer. You're definitely not on Facebook.
You probably don't read books. Um, you might not even
have a pulse. I don't know, but I'll tell you.
JT is an Indian British internet personality, podcast or author,
(01:31):
award winning storytelling He's a former monk, which I find
really interesting, and he has a lot more patients than
I ever will have. He's interviewed some of the most
amazing people in the world, like Deepack Chopra, Russell Brand.
He has been on the Ellen Degeneras show Forbes thirty
Under thirty Total game Changer. Get a video on Facebook
that was watched by three d and sixty million people.
Were you naked and dance? You know I've seen the video, Yes,
(01:55):
and dancing with Will Smith. That is what you need
and Ellen, right, that what you gotta do. I want
to know how you create some of the greatest content
in the world. And overall you have an insane amount
of energy, which I really really care about. And I
think in the world there are two types of people.
You know, everyone can be a hard worker. Everyone could
be good or bad, but you either wake up every
day determined to get ship done and have great energy,
(02:17):
or you don't. You're either making things happen or you're
waiting for things to happen. And you are kind of
like the pinnacle of somebody who's made things happen, starting
from when you were probably a little kid, right and
going all the way into when you traveled around the
world and your journey and even just being a monk.
So the first question I have for you, and I
was trying to think about how I was going to
(02:37):
start this because I have like fifty questions for you.
One New York versus l A, New York versus l A. Yeah,
which one? L A? Get out? I lived in New
York for two years. I loved it. It was very
good to me. I've lived in l A for two years.
I loved it. It's very good to me. I prefer
like I grew up in London. I'm used to gray
skies rain, it's raining today exactly, and from my cool
(02:59):
the Little Brewery. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm very happy
at l A. I love New York. I love visiting.
It feels like home. I love the people here. It's great.
But l a LA's home. Where did you live in
New York when you lived here? I lived in Street
between First and Second. Interesting location, Yeah, definitely, first time
New Yorker to pick that location. I had no idea
I moved to New York. I think I'd come here
(03:20):
once with my family when I was like sixteen years old.
I've never been back since. And then I had a
real toist show me around. And I worked for the
Huffingham Post when I moved here, and so I wanted
to be close to the offices and the offices of
seven seventy Broadway. So I was trying to be close
to this so I could walk there, because that was
the easiest thing I could think of. So it was
very strategically chosen. Always. My first apartment was chosen where
(03:42):
I could be on top of every single train, and
I lived in Koreatown right on thirty first and Broadway,
and it was I want to be able to walk
outside my door and get to any apartment, showing that
I could. Nice. How did your realtor do though, By
the way, I think they did pretty well. Except when
I moved to New York. For I believe it was
about a month. I had to live out of hotels
(04:02):
because my apartment wasn't ready and I was I mean,
I was struggling, So I literally would check the hotel
prices every day to get the lowest price. So I
was shifting hotels like three times a week, so I
got paying sixty five dollars a night to fifty dollars
a night to like seventy dollars, and and I kept
trying to shift, so I had to switch hotels multiple
times per week for a month. Huffington Post page you
(04:22):
more money. So is that what brought you to New York?
That's what brought me to New York. I'm really grateful
Ariana Huffington and the team at Half Post at the
time they got my visa, they brought me over. They've
seen my videos and they wanted me to create the
same content for Half Post. It exposed me to this
incredible world that's out here and really kicked off my journey.
And so you credit those relationships and that platform to
(04:44):
where you are today or definitely as a first tipping point.
I think in everyone's life, and you've probably seen this
in yours too, Like everyone has multiple tipping points in
their life, and so there were tipping points before that.
That was a really important tipping point from a content
creator standpoint, and they're like, you know, meeting Ellen year
was a huge tipping point as well, like going on
Red Table Talk and doing stuff with Will Smith this year.
(05:04):
It was a huge tipping point. So I feel like
you always have more tipping points, and I think I'm
grateful to anyone who's been a tipping point and everything
in between, because guess what, there are a lot of
people who led to that big tipping point, and so
I think you gotta be very careful to not forget
the in between us, because the in between us can
often be forgotten and left behind. You've built a massive brand,
(05:25):
right that's known around the world through creating content. What
was your first piece of content you ever made? You Yeah, yeah,
I do. I do it as a video content or
content period. Video content. Okay, so video content was I
made a video called three Lessons from the Bugged geta
Now that's the book that I talked about in this book. Okay,
so that was my first video, and think like among
the first ever video I made was called three Lessons
(05:48):
from the Bugged to the bugged Geta is the one
of the oldest most spiritual wisdom texts in the world.
It's based out of India. It's five thousand years old.
And so I made this video and I have loaded
onto you Tube on third jan and I still remember
it really, really well, and I was refreshing. I was
refreshing away and I'd made it like three days before that,
(06:09):
right like, I filmed it, edited it, shot it all myself.
With my team was my friend who was a videographer
in London. We were just out in London on the streets.
I think we were out on like we still trying
to remember if it was New Year's Day or New
Year's Eve, but all I remember probably News day because
the streets of London were empty. We could shoot in
any location. This was probably guerrilla style. We had no
permits or no license. We were just we were just
(06:30):
shooting next like Saint Paul's Cathedral and London Bridge and
all this stuff. And we put the video out there
and I remember seeing the views go up and then
I realized I was just refreshing and watching video, and
then probably my mom was doing the same and I
was trying to get all my friends to see and
I think it did. I think my first video did
like five thousand views in twenty four hours, and so
it wasn't bad at all, but it was you know,
(06:51):
it was just consistency, perseverance, and and a lot of
negative feedback initially too. You know, there are a lot
of people who are just like you talked too fast,
you know, or maybe you need edit a bit better,
or maybe the music is a bit off. And I
used to get a lot of that, and I took
all of it in that I could, and at the
same time, I was like, I'm not listening to that
bit because you know, that doesn't make sense, and I
had to try and find my way. What did your
(07:11):
parents think of it when I started making videos? Yeah,
your first video. I don't think my parents even kid. Yeah,
they didn't even have an opinion. I don't think it
was like a thing. They didn't think anything of it.
They didn't think it was good or bad. I don't
think they even watched it. Yeah, I don't think they
can at the time. So if I remember my mom
when Millionaire Listening first came out Bravo, my mom called
me after the first episode. I was like, what do
(07:32):
you think what do you think? She's like, well, let
me just say the things that you think are funny
are not funny to other people, and that like, I
will never forget that because it was kind of like
a like she was like smacking me down, but it
was kind of a compliment because I was like, oh,
maybe I am funny on there, but then it wasn't.
And then I could see kind of what you were saying,
like some people thought, you know, some people have a
(07:54):
sense of humor. Some people don't have a sense of humor.
Um and it's funny, like people in my mom's uh
demographic did not think everything that I thought. Have you
kept making those jokes? Have you kept in you know what?
To be honest, it's interesting once you start seeing yourself
on television or you make content, you see what people's
feedback is. And I don't care what anybody says. It
does affect you. You do you realize, like, oh, I
should probably carry myself in a way that that doesn't
(08:17):
derive insanely negative hate. You know, I don't want to
say anything offensive, so I'm not going to totally filter myself,
but let me think things through just a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
I don't know have you thought about that at all?
Do you do you do content with a filter or
no filter? I mean, when I started creating content, we
do a lot of different styles of content, so I
think there's different styles. So I have a series called
Inside the Mind on YouTube, which is very much behind
(08:38):
the scenes, follow me around. It's it's super open transfer exactly.
And then and then I've got content that is scripted
and costed and really created so that people can have
a really amazing experience. Now, when I started making content,
I had no idea that we were ever going to
hit a million views, let around billions of views, And
so for me, I was just sharing my message to
(08:58):
help the world, like you said, and serve the world
in any way, I thought, And I'm doing the same
thing now. I don't see it's that's different. But my
big goal when I'm creating a piece of content is
how is someone going to feel after watching this? Like
That's the number one question I asked myself. It's how
I feel about every podcast, every video. How is someone
going to feel And if they're not going to feel uplifted,
if they're not going to feel like they've learned something,
(09:20):
if they're not going to feel motivated or amped. Then
for me, I'm like, Okay, well I'm doing something wrong here.
Why do you care so much? Why do I care
so much? Like? Why, I that's a real question. Why, absolutely,
why do you care about what people feel? Not just
to create good content then gets good views? Right, Because
in the influencer world that we live in, you know you,
we live by view counts is what it is. But
(09:41):
why why are you making videos that are that you
that change people's lives. Why are you making videos that
are influential for people? Why don't you just do vlog
type stuff? Put stuff out there, let's see what happens.
Like why do you care so much about other people?
I think when you come across something in your life
that you think transform your life and was extremely valuable,
I feel like you have a responsibility and a sense
(10:02):
of compassion to want to pass it on. And I
think we're the same as humans with everything. Like if
you saw the best movie in the world this week,
I guarantee you'd be recommending it to You are your friends.
If you've just heard a new album or discovered a
new artists on Spotify, you're gonna tell everyone it just
so happened that the artist I met was a monk, right, So,
and I talk about the experience in this in the
book Think like a Monk, where for me meeting a monk,
(10:23):
it's just one of those things like I met someone
who I believed had the habits, the routines, the lifestyle,
the thoughts, the ideas that transform my life, and I
really believe they have and I feel it's a responsibility
to pass them on because I see people suffering. I
see people making decisions and then regretting them. I see
people getting thirty years in a career and then feeling dissatisfied.
And I'm like, that can all be avoided, or at
(10:45):
least if it can't be avoided, it doesn't have to
be as painful as it seems. And so if we
can do that in the same ways, I'm sure you're
helping people find real estate quicker and easier and making
it simple. It's like all of us are solving a problem.
And for me, if you've got some good advice, you've
had a good experience, it's your job to pass it on.
And that's all I'm trying to do. What was your
(11:09):
first impression of the monk, tell me about the monk.
So my first impression was, here's a guy with a
thick Indian accent and he's wearing robes, he's got a
shaved head. He does not look cool, he's not trendy.
There's nothing about him that's attractive. I'm going to get
really bored in this speech. I'm going to go to
a bar afterwards and it's going to be great and
I've just got to sit through while my friends go
through this pain, right, Like that's my first experience because
(11:31):
I'm a kid growing up in London who thinks he's
really cool, listens to rap music. I was eighteen, and
I'm thinking, I'm like the best thing ever. And what
am I going to learn from? Like some monk who
went from nothing to nothing? And you know, like what's
he going to teach me? And that's what I love
about writing this book now, is I was the person
who looked at that monk and looked at it probably
even this title, and what am I going to learn
(11:52):
from this book? What am I going to learn? And
it's like that's skepticism that it's so ironic when you
take that skepticism and it gets turned into like this
amazing belief system where you're like, oh wow, Like I
learned so much from that one hour that he spoke
that I was so inspired that I was almost surrounding
him like he was the CEO of Apple or something,
(12:12):
and wanting to shadow him and spend time with him.
And I think this is just a lesson that I
feel for anyone and everyone. It's like when you get
in I'm sure there's a ton of people who approach you,
are inspired by the work you do and would love
to spend time with you. But maybe they're not saying
the right thing, maybe they're not doing the right thing,
maybe they're not getting the access because someone else had
a better way of getting through to you. And for me,
I was doing the same as wanting to shadow this monk.
(12:34):
I I would just believe that he had something that
I'd never seen someone have, which was joy, which was happiness,
which was genuine authenticity of just say that authentic joy,
just authentic joy of just like fake not fake. I
mean he's wearing saffron orange robes in the middle of
a university and and speaking so comfortably without any like
(12:54):
inhibition that he's being judged by a bunch of London
kids who think that they're really cool, and he's just
so effortless, and I'm like, why why am I not
like that? Right? And so that's what attracted me to him.
So what was your journey with him after that? Yeah,
So I took the very bold move of saying, I'm
going to spend all of my summer vacations, half of
them interning at corporate companies in London, because that's what
(13:15):
I thought I was going to do. And so I
was at financial companies and corporate companies doing analyst roles
or whatever, regular stuff or fairly successful regular stuff for
regular stuff. And I'd spend the other half of my
summer vacations living with him in India's a monk. So
I'd literally go from suits as you do, yes, suits,
steak houses and bars and doing the full works. And
I was like, I'm going to test eats lifestyle to
(13:36):
its lifestyle to it's extreme, because to me, that's the
that's what the joy of life comes from. I don't
think you ever have fun in life when you do
something in a mediocre, halfhearted, in the middle kind of way, right,
I feel like you have to dive deep. It's like
you know the analogies that was given of the ocean, like,
if you really want to see the beauty of the ocean,
you've got to go deep. On the surface, all you're
(13:58):
gonna see is like some little fish and some random colors.
But if you go deep, you'll see more. And so
for me, I've always been that way. And so I
was like, Okay, I'm going to be the best finance
person in London, and then I'm gonna be the best
monk in India, and I'm going to test which one works.
And then I found out very quickly that you don't
become the best monk, and I didn't necessarily become the
best finance person in London, but I went through that
(14:19):
process of testing, and after three years of doing that,
in my breaks, I realized that I found the life
of a monk more attractive. But I had genuinely done
the test. And the reason it was more attractive is
because I felt that I was actually useful to humanity.
We weren't just sitting there all day doing nothing. We
were serving the homeless, we were helping young children, we
(14:40):
were helping the needy, we were doing service out in
the world. And I thought, wow, this is the best
use of my skills, This is the best use of
my abilities. And when I'd come home from working a
long day in a company, I just feel hungry, tired, bored,
d energized and drained, and I was like, I don't
want to feel like that. Every time I'd come back
from the ushroom, I'd feel like I've found my purpose.
(15:01):
How did that affect your relationship to material goods? Though?
And too money into success? How do you go from
London banking world to living with the monk too, coming
back to London and then going to New York and
they go in to l a and still having to
make money and create content for a living and write
a book and do the tours and all the things
(15:21):
you do. How are you okay with that? Yeah? Absolutely?
And I think when I first came back, it took
so much time to reintegrate and to recalibrate, like what
my mind said about these things. So I've learned this
beautiful principle as a monk, which I think I've got to.
I've had an opportunity to play with an experiment with
(15:42):
more since leaving, So we learned about how nothing is
inherently good or bad. It's given a it's given meaning
and purpose by how you use it. So we know
that right this microphone, it's it's inherently neutral. It's not
good or bad. Right. You can either speech hate, abuse
and violence and race is them, or we can use
it for talking about what me and you're talking about.
(16:02):
And that's a choice. And so similarly, I think we've
either tried to idolize or demonize things. Money is one
of them. People either idolize it or they demonize it.
So they go, oh, money is everything, Money is god,
Money will change your life. And then the other option
is no, No, money is evil. Money will make you bad.
If you're rich, you stab people in the back. And
so we're very good at as humans is labeling stuff
(16:25):
as idolized or demonizers, and actually it's neutral. It's totally
what you do it. Then that's why I love the
title of your podcast, Big Money Energy, because from a
spiritual monk perspective, money is energy, bloody is editing. There
we go and you're already thinking like a monk. Oh Man,
I had no idea, but money is energy, and and
(16:46):
serve money is energy. Are we using that energy for good?
Are we using that energy for bad and I think
when you can live in that way, And in the book,
I talk about three relationships you can have with money.
So you can either have a selfish relationship, you can
have a sufficient and see relationship, or you can have
a service relationship. Simple selfish. We know what that feels like.
It's all about me. Money is for me. I'm just
(17:07):
gonna get really greedy and rich and supposedly it's gonna
make me happy. We know that doesn't work. Sufficiency, I've
got enough. I don't need more, but I've got enough
for me and taking care of the two people I
take care of, I don't care about anyone else. And
then service, I don't mind having more if it helps
me serve, and and I don't mind creating more opportunity
if it helps me serve. And so for me the
way I've been able to do it, And it took
(17:27):
me a while because I grew up in a family
where we always said we had just enough money, and
so the mindset was always like the amount of times
in my teens where I had zero in my bank
account because I had just enough. It was just enough
to make the purchase and then I'll be back at
zero again, and I realized I was like, that's just
not a healthy relationship with anything. It's like me saying
I have just enough love for my family. I have
(17:48):
just enough love for my wife. That doesn't make sense.
Just enough gas, exactly, just enough gas, great example. Yeah,
like just enough, and I have just enough data. I
have just enough. No one wants just enough. And so
I had to really remold my relationship with money and
with success and with achievements to realize I was simply
an instrument, to realize that I was doing it for service.
(18:08):
And guess what, Hey, I'm not pure, like I'm not
saying of my life is just lift for others. I
need significance. I need to feel like I matter. I
need to feel like I'm making a difference. Those are
all personal things that I need. I'm just trying to
engage them in a way that is helpful to other people.
But you also seem like somebody who's not okay with
just being okay. And you have that energy. Yeah, that
(18:32):
energy is tied to money, or to faith, or just
to your your ability to wake up and make things happen. Yeah. Absolutely, well.
I think I think we die when we don't learn
like I think you just I think you can just
die early because you're not growing, you're not learning, you're
not moving. And therefore we were just talking about it
just now, actually over lunched, me and Matt were talking
about it that it's not so much about a number
(18:54):
like I've never had. Someone always says to me, like,
when what's the number of books you want to sell?
What's the number that you want to reach fund? I
actually never had a number. What I know is that
I want to wake up and do everything within my
reach to do what I'm trying to do. And if
I've done that, and when I say everything, I mean everything,
like have I really gone to every corner of the world?
Have I really tried to touch and help every single
(19:16):
person I possibly can? If I've done that, then I'm satisfied.
And that's that's my personal metric of am I doing
my best? Have you ever failed at anything? Or loads? Man?
What's your relationship with failing? So many? I've had so
many times, Like I literally I talked about this when
I when I came back from living as a monk,
surprise surprise, forty companies rejected me. Right for I'm really
(19:38):
grateful to them that they did that, but forty companies
said no because guess what my resume said, monk for
three years? Like, what's your trumps errable skills? Silence? Like
you know what I mean? Like it's like, what's what's
your transferable skills? You can sit around for like eight
hours of it and think like a monk. I'm talking
about how monks, scientifically, and there's a ton of science
in scientifically have the happiest, car missed, and most focused
(20:01):
brains on the planet of any human. There's been studies
done on countless humans. Monks and meditators have healthier, happier,
calmer brains. Who doesn't want to be healthier, happy, and
more focused, But they don't get to do anything. No,
they do. That's the point we do. Yeah, that's that's
why thinking like I'm on, you don't have to live
like one. And that's my point that we get to
use all of that to actually make an impact, making
(20:25):
grow our businesses, whatever we want to do. We can
all do that. And you meditate every day. I meditate
every single day. Yeah. I meditated every single day since
I was eighteen years old, for two hours a day,
So that hasn't changed. When do you do that? Usually
in the morning, but I travel a lot, so it
becomes flexible. So I wake up about six every day.
I meditate from about six thirty two about thirty. That's
usually my time, but I missed that sometimes, so I'll
(20:45):
do an hour in the morning and an hour in
the evening, and nowadays, like it could be splurv in
the thirty minutes slots because my life is just changing
all the time. So just give a speech about stress
and anxiety and it's thinking like a monk. Obviously, common
sense would say that you know, if you were at
peace in your mind and at peace with your body,
then you stress and anxiety can just be something that
(21:07):
I guess comes and goes. Yeah, well see, look, no
one can avoid stress and anxiety. But what the Moong
mindset does is you actually just deal with stress anxiety
for less time. So one of my favorite examples in
productive Yeah, and you've probably heard about this before. Exactly
there you are, So you've probably heard about this before,
But I don't know if you've heard of Roger Banister
in the four minute mile. So up until like I
(21:29):
think it's like the eighteen fifties to nineteen fifty four,
there was no one had broken running a mile in
less than four minutes. For a hundred and four years,
no one broke that record. Super fact. Roger Banister comes
into and he breaks the four minute mile. He runs
it in three minutes whatever, like just underneath, and since
that day, everyone broke his record. And it's that kind
(21:52):
of thing of like, you may never get rid of
stress and anxiety, but before you stressed out for seven days,
Now you stress out for one day. Now you stress
out for one hour. Because now you just stress for
one minute, it becomes relative totally, and you've become able
to actually process and reflect. So one of our biggest
mistakes with stress and pressure is we just keep moving
and pushing. And one of my favorite examples of this
(22:15):
is just like, you're married, so you know what this
is like, and I'm guessing, I don't know who's more
ambitious or driven out of you and your wife. You're
very ambitious and driven, but she could be more driven.
How many times, like, how many times do you feel
like you just need to grab their hands or their
shoulders or whatever it is. Anyone who's listening and watching
you know what I'm talking about. And you just go.
I need you to slow down so I can just
talk to you so that we can just sound like
my wife. Can that do? I? Yeah, great moment right there,
(22:38):
her eyes. I was gonna hold your hands too, but
I'm at ten pm and I'm like, what what? What? What?
What do you want to talk about? Yeah? Yeah, everything,
everything's fine, Everything's fine. I got exactly. And that's so
that exactly that is happening with our mind and body.
Our mind and body is stressing out to hold your
hands and just say hey, I need to talk to you,
(22:58):
and we go. No, No, I'm busy right now. I
can't listen to you right now. I'm so busy. I'm
just gonna keep moving. And so when you meditate, when
you're still, when you take a moment, that's allowing your
mind and body to actually go to this is what
you're stressed about. This is how to deal with it,
take care of it, and actually you can be more
productive otherwise we can't hear that voice in all the
noise of rushing around, right like, it just doesn't happen,
(23:19):
for sure. Tell me about a time maybe when you
didn't have all this confidence and this courage that I
see sitting in front of me right now, bright eyed
and awesome and full of energy. Do you even remember
a time like that? He loads loads of times. The
best one that I can give the example of when
(23:40):
I just came back from living as a monk. So
when I came back from India, came back from the ushroom,
and I moved back in with my parents, it was
probably the most depressive time of my life. This is
it's seven years ago, so it's not that long ago
in one sense. I moved back in with my parents.
I'm going on twenty six. I have dollars worth of
debt because I went to university in London and thankfully
(24:01):
it's not as expensive as it is here, but it's
still expensive. And then, yeah, exactly, I know, I know
it's painful out here. When I think about having kids here,
I'm like, wow, I get it. It's hard. It's hard.
And so I came back and I'm lost. I got
rejected by forty companies. No one would give me a job.
I'm too overqualified for another job, and I'm now underqualified
(24:22):
for the jobs that I would have walked into three
years ago. And I'm feeling stressed and I'm feeling anxious
because guess what, all my friends are buying nice cars,
getting their first mortgage and you know, in a in
a great relationship, and I'm five years behind them. Because
I felt really left behind. I felt lost, and I
felt confused and guess why. I didn't know where to start.
I would literally come home and talk to my dad
and I'd be like, Dad, I know that I can't
(24:44):
rely on you guys forever because my parents aren't well off,
and I'm like, I don't actually know what I'm going
to do, Like I have no idea, and so I
remember being completely unconfident at that time and completely feeling
like all my charisma and energy just been snatched from
me because I thought I was going to become a monk.
And then my health was taking a toll on me
(25:05):
too because of the amount of pushing I'd done on
my sleep and experimenting with so many things. So I'm like,
I'm just like both physically emaciated and mentally like, just
I've lost it. I really lost. I would have struggled
to look you in the eye and have this conversation.
I genuinely would have, And I know now it's hard
to believe and I was like, oh, J like, I'm
sure that's true. I'm like no, trust me, Like literally,
(25:25):
if you talk to my friends from that time, they'll
tell you that I wasn't confident at the time. And
the thing that helped me build my confidence back up
is I went to the library every single week and
I would read self development books. I would read the
books that I studied as a monk. Again. I was
so deep into like what do I need to learn?
What is it that I don't have now that's going
to help me feel confident again. I had to write
(25:48):
forty individualized, personalized resumes to finally get a job at
Accenture that I broke into. And guess what, I was
twenty six and everyone was twenty one, So I was
already up against everyone who was younger than me, who
just come out of call it yeah, but you were
a monk. It helped, It did help. It did help,
and what it helped with And that's why those three
(26:08):
years I call the monks school, and the last seven
years have been the exam, and I've passed the exam
so far, because everything I learned as a monk does
prepare you for the life we all lead so actually
I got to test all of it. And that's why
I'm sharing what I tested in Think like a Monk,
because I'm like, I have literally tested all this for
the last seven years, and that's why I'm telling you
(26:28):
about it, because I had to put into practice. It.
Cover is literally if you can, for those of you
that watching as the cover is blue, it is literally
your your blueprint. I love that you're the first person
who said that, and I never thought of that print.
I'm gonna I'm gonna say that in every single interview
after this one. I'm gonna say, Ryan, did it? Ryan?
This is no, that's great. I love the blueprint for
(26:48):
how to you know, how to think like a monk? Yeah,
but it's a blueprint of life's real exam the real exams. Listen,
I can say thank you so much for going through
that so that we don't have to write super healthful
stuff to do. Absolutely no one needs to go live
like a monk. You can just think like one and
it will change your life. But I mean, if someone's
(27:11):
listening to this right now and they're at a tough
place in their life, or they are you know, they
just came out of school and they don't know what
to do, or they got out of a bad relationship,
or they fucking hate their job. Would you recommend going
to India? I don't think you have to go to India.
What I will say is you're going to have to
do something different to what you've done so far, and
what that means got you here won't get you there. Correct.
(27:33):
And So what thinking like a monk means is how
can you become more curious, open and expand your mind
to maybe entertain the idea of something that you have
never entertained. Right Like I would never have thought of
becoming a monk if I didn't meet a monk. Who
have you not met yet that could inspire you to
do something you haven't done yet? I love that. Right
(27:55):
When people ask me what my job is, I say,
my job is meeting five new people every day. I
love that. I don't sell houses, Right, That's how selling
houses for me and selling buildings and everything we do
and even making content and all that stuff is. It
is the by product of what happens when I ryan
sur aunt. Happens to meet people. I know how to
sell real estates. When I meet people, I instinctually say,
(28:16):
do you need to buy a new home. Right, if
I had your life, I would do what you're doing
it maybe something totally different, um uh and meeting more
people on a planet full of seven billion of them? Right,
I think is is our lifeblood? Like that's our job.
I want to ask you one more question before finish,
is because now I have you in my mind living
on twenty three and first between first and seconds, trying
(28:39):
to manage even before that, your hotel bills fifty sixty
bucks a night. That's crazy to me even sitting seeing
you sitting here, and what I know of you over
the last couple of years, the fact that you were
ever at that point with money, right and with your
own success in your life, Like how did you go
from nothing to who you are today? What was that journey?
And I know it took a long time, It took
a lot of hard work, but but like what is that?
(29:01):
What is that mechanism? Like? What did you do? Differently?
I decided that whatever I was going to do, I
was going to get really world class at it. Okay,
So I wasn't it wasn't good enough to be an
okay public speaker? You're okay with being okay? Yeah, I
was going to go out and become one of the
best public speakers in the way that I saw what
best meant. So that means I was studying stand up comics.
It means I was studying the best speakers of all
(29:21):
the time. It meant that I was trained from fourteen
to eighteen at public speaking and drama school because my
parents forced me to go. I want to really become
the same with social media. I don't just want to
be okay with social media. I need to really become
an excel at it. And so for me, that's the
second step. And I think that's the difference between following
your passion and actually investing in it and actually conviction. Yeah,
(29:41):
living with convictions. So that was a big part of it,
the second and then when you've done that, so much
more opens up. We don't realize that when you genuinely
excel at something, when you put yourself in the upper
group of a expertise, that naturally opens up connections network Beau.
Everyone now all of a sudden is confident to say, hey,
have you met Ryan? Did you know that he sold
that property worth whatever it is. It's like, oh, yeah, now,
(30:04):
now you should meet Ryan, right you've got, you get
recommended more. So that was one thing. The second thing
I did was I've always, like you said, built relationships,
and I would never ask unless there was a very
clear ask and there was a very specific ask, and
that person was the most specific person to ask for that.
I think half the time we asked for stuff, we're
asking the wrong person at the wrong time. And my
(30:24):
point is a good ask is I'm the right person
for the right thing at the right time, and if
those three things don't align, don't ask right I I've
never not followed that principle, So if I wanted to
ask Ryan for a favor, I would wait till he
was the right time and it was the right person
who was the right thing I was asking for. So
I remember at one point, I appreciate that. I remember
one point. I emailed a hundred people the day after
(30:46):
I decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and
I was like, Hey, these are my skills, this is
what I think I could do for you, this is
how we could work together. What do you think right?
And so it's like I went all in and asked
a ton of people who could support them. That year
when I first became an entrepreneur, I tested seven different
revenue streams and there were two things I was testing,
which one did I enjoy and which one worked? And
(31:07):
I wanted to find the ones that matched. So out
of the seven hard to do, yeah yeah, And we
test seven. Out of the seven, all of them worked. Financially,
I only enjoyed four of them, which became the bedrock
of what I did. So one of them was my
group coaching program online. So I have my coaching program Genius,
where we have thousands of amazing members from over a
hundred and forty countries that every week are learning with
(31:30):
me and I'm live with them, coaching them, training them,
guiding them, and it's been the most fulfilling thing that
we've done. We even have meetups now in a hundred
cities in the world, so we have groups of people
meeting up every week without me there and they're discussing
these themes networking, building enterprises, and growing together. So that
was one of them. The second thing that came out
of it was videos. I love making videos, and Facebook
(31:51):
finally kicked him with its ad strategy in so so
that's been great. And then I had my podcast we
launched my podcast. I love interviewing people. It's given me
a great excuse, like you said, to sit down with
people I wouldn't otherwise. And then four or three of
my book, so I chose things that I love doing
the process and that it worked, and that was a
big part it. So for me, it's always been a
(32:13):
rapid growth. Try everything, test everything, make mistakes along the way,
and just keep moving. And as soon as you find
yourself being uncomfortable and you don't like something, you don't
have to do it anymore. Like don't put you. I
don't want to make money doing stuff I hate. I
just don't want to do that. And and and that
means I've got to test more of what I love.
So I've got to work harder on that front. However,
(32:35):
just a few final questions that I want to ask you.
That it helped me get to know you just a
little bit better, and I think everybody else. What's your
favorite movie? Okay, my favorite movie is The Prestige by
Christopher no Oh. That is such a good Yeah, it's
a very good movie. Hugh Jackman, Christie Belle Scarlet, your hanswer,
That is a great, great movie with the light bulbs
when they're turning on and everything. It's got like Tesla,
(32:57):
it's got a bit of history and yeah, that's so funny.
Is my favorite movie. I'm two thousand and six. It's
on the IMDb bucket list of movies. It came out
at the same time The Illusionists came out at with
I love that movie too, which is great, and it
came out the same exact type. It's like Hollywood always
does this to come up with an idea and they're like, oh,
we gotta do it. That's a really good movie. Yeah,
it was just great, but the procedures a little bit.
And Christian Bell I just yeah, press yeah, Christian Bell
(33:19):
is my one of my favorite I've got two favorite actors,
probably Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bell. Yeah. What's your favorite quote? Oh?
My favorite quote? That is a good question. Yes, it's
probably from the bug Geta. Oh no, no, god, I've
got a debate. Yeah, okay, from the Bugta it says,
better to live your life imperfectly than to imitate the
(33:42):
life of someone else is perfectly. What's your favorite artist
right now as we listen to right now, I'd say
the person I listened to most is Drake. I'm a
big Drake fans. I can listen to Drake in the gym,
in the car. I actually love listening. Yeah, it's like
Drake Future and then Drake plus Future. Yeah, it's like
every Yeah I said Drake. I'm a big I'm a
(34:02):
big believer to like Justin's new album, A big fan
of Justin Little Changes. Yeah. Great, Well this has been awesome. Yeah,
this has been great. So much for coming. Yeah, I
think like a monk by the time this comes out,
It'll be out everywhere you are, everywhere where else should
people find you? Find me on Instagram, from me on YouTube,
from me on Facebook, wherever you are, I'll try and
be there. Yeah, good and find all the wisdom and
(34:22):
you're the best. Thank you so much. Thank you coming
to interview. It's gonna be fun. I'll let you know
what absolutely please, if you're ready to take action today
based on Ja Shetty's entire blueprint for how he got
to where he is, go to Big Money Energy dot
Com slash podcast to download an action plan I put
together for you as well as the show knows. That's
(34:45):
Big Money Energy dot Com slash podcast. Find more podcasts
like Big Money Energy on the I Heart Radio app
or wherever you get your podcasts. Big Money Energy is
hosted by me Ryan Sir Hints. It's produced by Mike
Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca and executive produced by Christina Everett.
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