September 19, 2025 • 32 mins
What’s the biggest shift you wish you’d made sooner?
What advice would you give your younger self before 30?
In this special reflection, Jay opens up about the lessons he wishes he’d known before turning 30, insights that could have spared him time, energy, and unnecessary stress. Now, at 38, he shares eight counterintuitive truths from psychology and human behavior that have reshaped the way he lives, loves, and works.
From realizing that people think about us far less than we imagine, to understanding that burnout comes more from a lack of meaning than from long hours, Jay invites us to reexamine the subtle habits and hidden fears that quietly drain our lives.
These aren’t just ideas, they’re practical tools to help you stop overthinking, release old fears, and make choices that align with the life you truly want.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How to Rely on Discipline Over Motivation
How to See Most Fears as Echoes of the Past
How to Use Belonging to Fuel Lasting Change
How to Prevent Burnout by Finding Meaning
How to Stop Your Brain From Distorting the Future
Growth isn’t about waiting for the “right” moment—it’s about shifting how we see ourselves and the choices we make daily. The lessons Jay shares are powerful reminders that every season, good or bad, is temporary, and that true peace comes from living a life of meaning, not perfection.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.
Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast
What We Discuss:
00:00 Introduction
00:55 Are They Really Thinking About You?
04:26 Being Busy Doesn’t Always Mean Productive
07:33 Depth Over Breadth
11:04 Discipline Is Easier Than Motivation
14:14 Fear Is Just the Past on Repeat
18:27 You Are Who You Surround Yourself With
23:14 Are You Experiencing Burnout?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When things are good, we think they'll be good forever,
and we're wrong. When things are bad, we think they'll
be bad forever, and we're wrong. Things are never good forever,
and they're never bad forever. What we need to recognize
is how we can focus on living a life of
(00:22):
meaning and purpose and seeking peace even in chaos. The
number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Setty, Jay shettyet
Hey everyone, It's Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose
podcast and author of New York Times best selling book
Think Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love. If
(00:45):
you haven't read either of those books, I hope you
go and grab a copy to learn about mindset, peace,
purpose and love, relationships and dating. But today I'm talking
to you about eight things I wish I knew before
I was third. I'm thirty seven now, and I've learned
so much up until this point in life. But there
(01:05):
are certain things that I know could have saved me time, money,
and energy before I was thirty years old, and I
want to share them all with you if I could
sit my twenty year old self down for an unfiltered conversation.
Here are the truths about people, work, and life that
would have saved me years of stress, overthinking and wasted energy.
(01:30):
These aren't cliches, their counterintuitive lessons from psychology and human
behavior that will change how you live, love, and work.
Let's get in. Lesson number one is people aren't thinking
about you as much as you think they are. I
want to talk about something known as the spotlight effect
(01:52):
from Gillovich in nineteen ninety nine. He said that we
overestimate how much people notice or judge us, when the
truth is most people are too busy worrying about themselves. Now,
imagine walking to work with a giant coffee stain down
the front of your shirt. You feel exposed, humiliated, You
(02:14):
swear everyone staring, whispering, judging, gossiping. You spend the whole
day shrinking into yourself. But here's the twist. When psychologists
at Cornell University actually tested this, they found almost nobody noticed.
In their famous Barry manilo t shirt study, students were
(02:36):
asked to walk into a room full of peers wearing
a bright, embarrassing Manilow shirt. The wearers were convinced half
the room would notice and remember, but the reality only
about twenty percent of people noticed at all. The truth
is we all live under what psychologists call the spotlight effect,
(02:58):
the belief that everyone is wanting, when in reality, most
people are too busy worrying about their own coffee stains,
their own insecurities, their own spotlight. Now here's why this matters.
You're not being judged as much as you think. The
audience you imagine doesn't exist. The world isn't scrutinizing you.
(03:21):
It's scrolling past, lost in its own self consciousness. The
spotlight is in your head, and once you realize that
you can finally step on stage, take the risk, wear
the stain because no one's watching as closely as you think.
(03:42):
Stop chasing approval from people who don't even know themselves.
Stop performing for people who wouldn't show up if you fell.
Stop editing your life for people who aren't even paying attention.
Stop carrying the weight of opinions that were never yours
(04:04):
to hold. Stop shrinking your dreams to fit someone else's
comfort zone, and stop letting silent critics rent space in
your head for free. Stop confusing someone's opinion with your
own reflection. They're not thinking about you in the first place.
(04:25):
Lesson number two, busyness isn't productivity. We mistake being busy
for being valuable. This is something in psychology known as
the effort heuristic. We all know what it feels like.
We think if we're working twelve hours a day, we're winning,
We're moving forward. But the reality is you can hustle
(04:46):
twelve hours a day and still not move forward. We
have to measure progress in outcomes, not ours. Have you
ever caught yourself bragging about how busy you are, or
maybe even trying to make yourself sound worthy. You might say,
I work twelve hours straight, Hey, add back to back meetings,
I apparely slept this week. We wear busyness like a
(05:10):
badge of honor. But psychology has a name for this mistake,
the effort heuristic. It means we assume that if something
took more effort, it must be more valuable, But that
doesn't always fit. Researchers asked people to rate two paintings
of the same artwork. One was described to them as
(05:34):
taking four hours to make, the other was described as
taking twenty six hours. Guess what people rated the twenty
six hour painting as more beautiful, more meaningful, more worthy
of praise. Same are, same quality, but different story. About
(05:55):
the effort. We all think if we're working longer, we
should be rewarded more. If you're working harder, we should
win more. If we're doing more, we should get more.
But here's the problem. Just because something takes longer doesn't
mean it's better. A twelve hour workday isn't proof of impact,
(06:17):
a never ending to do list isn't proof of progress.
Exhaustion isn't proof of success. Busy is not the same
as effective. So here's the takeaway. Don't measure your value
by the hours you burn. Measure it by the results
(06:38):
you create. Don't ask how hard did I work? Ask
did my work actually matter? Because at the end of
your life, no one's going to hand you an award
for most hours spent looking busy, but you will remember
what you built, what you changed, and who you became.
(06:58):
Start remembering you're not valuable because you're busy. You're valuable
because you're you. Stop measuring your day by hours instead
of outcomes. Stop filling every minute so you don't feel
like you're falling behind. Stop mistaking exhaustion for evidence that
(07:20):
you matter. So many of us are so conflicted by that.
It's time to work smart. It's time to work effective,
not just hard. Lesson number three, your friends will change,
and that's not betrayal. There's a psychological term known as
socio emotional selectivity theory. As we age, we prioritize depth
(07:46):
over breadth in our relationships. Losing friends, as hard as
it is, is often growth, not failure. Look, this is
how it works. When you're in your twenties. Your inbox
is in. You've got group chats, classmates, colleagues, Friday night
plans with people you barely know. Your social world feels infinite.
(08:09):
But something fascinating happens as you get older. Psychologists have
studied this for decades and the data is crystal clear.
Your social circle shrinks, not because you're failing, but because
your brain is recalibrating. This is called socio emotional selectivity theory,
(08:30):
a concept pioneered by a psychologist at Stanford. She found
that as people age, or even just perceived their time
as more limited, they stop investing in endless social expansion. Instead,
they prioritize fewer, deeper, more emotionally meaningful relationships. In one study,
(08:51):
they tracked people's relationships across their lifespans. Young adults reported
wide networks with lots of quintances. Older adults consistently reported
smaller networks, but also higher satisfaction in those relationships. What
was even more striking was that the older adults had
(09:14):
fewer conflicts and reported greater emotional stability. It is an
age that changes us. It's how much time we believe
we have left. When time feels expensive, we chase novelty
and variety. When time feels expensive, we choose intimacy and depth.
(09:39):
That's why your twenties feel like you're collecting people, and
your thirties, forties, and fifties feel like you're filtering down
to the ones who really matter. I think a lot
of us when we're losing friends, when we grow apart,
when we drift apart. As we get older, we may
start to judge people. We may think people change, We
(10:00):
may think that we did something wrong. The reality is
people have less time. They want to focus more on
the relationships that matter, and this becomes a natural evolution
in life. If you're feeling guilty that your social circle
is shrinking, don't. It's not failure. It's what moving forward
(10:22):
looks like. It means your brain is getting wise enough
to realize a small circle that feeds you is more
valuable than a large circle that drains you. A small
circle that tells you the truth is better than a
large circle that tells you what you want to hear.
A small circle that celebrates you in private is better
(10:45):
than a large circle that collapse only in public. A
small circle that challenges you to grow is better than
a large circle that keeps you the same. You can
have less friends that bring you more joy. Don't get
it confused. Whether you're dreaming of a wellness retreat, a
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(11:09):
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Maybe you're recharging, spending time with people you love, or
(11:31):
indulging in a passion. But let's be honest, the planning
can be overwhelming, finding the right hotel, staying on budget,
making it all feel intentional. That's where Chase Sapphire Reserve
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(11:51):
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Suddenly the logistics feel lighter and your trip feels more
(12:12):
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(12:34):
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meaningful from start to finish. Lesser number four is discipline
is easier than motivation. Most of us think that what
we need to change our lives is more motivation. The
amount of people that come up to me and say, Jay,
motivate me. Can you tell me something motivational that will
(12:56):
change my life? We all feel if I could just
feel more motivated, I'd go to the gym, start the business,
eat better. But here's the counterintuitive truth. You don't need
more motivation. You need more discipline. And discipline doesn't mean
willpower or toughness. It means designing your life so the
(13:18):
right choice is easier than the wrong one. Let me
say that again. Discipline is designing your life so that
the right choice is easier than the wrong one. Your
systems are helping you make hard choices more easily. Psychologists
call this ego depletion. Every decision you make, from what
(13:41):
to wear to what to eat, drains your brain's self
control battery. By the time the evening comes, that battery
is dead. How many of you have felt this before? Right,
you've been making decisions all day, what to wear, what
to eat, meal, prepping, what to cook, what to make
for lunch, what to make for dinner. Then you've got
(14:03):
what color does this slide deck need to be? I
haven't made their accounts balance up. I haven't replied to
my mom, I haven't called my friend, I haven't texted
this person back. I've got to update my dating profile.
It's exhausting, and that's why motivation isn't reliable. Motivation fades
(14:23):
with your mood, discipline survives with your systems. It's why
President Obama only wore two suit colors as president, why
Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck. They weren't lazy,
They were protecting their discipline. They cut small decisions so
(14:44):
they had energy for the big ones. This is known
as something called decision fatigue. So many of us gets
tired making so many small decisions all day that we
don't have energy for the big ones. Keep your energy
for the big decisions in life. People spend more time
planning their wedding than they do making sure the person
(15:06):
they're marrying is the right person. People spend more time
getting their degree than making sure the job they choose
is worthy of their qualification. We waste so much more
time in getting something than we do for preparing for something.
Stop waiting to feel motivated. Start setting systems that make
(15:28):
discipline feel natural. Lay out your clothes the night before,
put healthy food where you can see it, and take
away all the bad stuff. Block websites that waste your focus.
Because success doesn't come from chasing motivation, It comes from
designing a life where discipline is the default. Lesson number
(15:50):
five is that most of your fears are memories, not threats.
The fear you feel today usually belongs to yesterday. When
you feel fear, your brain tells you it's about this moment,
but most of the time it isn't. Think about a
(16:11):
child who is laughed at for reading out loud in class.
Maybe you went through something like this as well. Years later,
as an adult, they're asked to present at work. Suddenly
their heart races, their palms, sweat, their throat titans. They think,
I'm scared of public speaking, But the truth they're not
scared of this meeting or presentation. They're scared of that classroom.
(16:36):
This happens because of emotional memory encoding. When we experience
something painful, maybe it's embarrassment, rejection, failure, the brain doesn't
just store the fact, it stores the feeling. The amygdala,
the brain's fear center, tags that memory as danger, and
(16:57):
the next time anything even resembles that situation, your body
reacts as if the past is happening again. Maybe you
had a really uncomfortable experience in water when you were young. Now,
every time you get into water, whether it's the ocean
or a swimming pool, you feel tight chested. That's why
the fear you feel today often belongs to yesterday. They're
(17:21):
not about real, immediate threats, but about old memories being triggered.
In fact, research on the amygdala found that fear responses
are often two to three times stronger when tied to
past emotional memories than faced with new situations. So the
fear in your chest isn't always truth. It's often a
(17:45):
memory replay. You're not afraid of the presentation. You're afraid
of the old humiliation. You're not afraid of love. You're
afraid of the heartbreak that came before the takeaway. The
next time fear shows up, ask yourself, is this fear
(18:05):
about now? Or am I carrying it from then? Because
once you see that most of your fears are echoes,
you can stop letting yesterday control today. Stop letting people
who hurt you years ago hurt you again today. Stop
letting old wounds cause more pain than the moment itself
(18:28):
ever did. Stop letting memories control moments that deserve a
fresh start. Stop letting yesterday's rejection steal today's confidence. Stop
letting a single chapter convince you the whole story is broken.
Stop letting the past keep winning when the fight is
(18:52):
already over. What I want you to think about with
that is that whenever you come up against something, frame
it back, recognize where it comes from. We have to
cut it at the root. You're not going to solve
your life by only getting over this symptom right now.
It's by cutting it at the root, figuring out where
(19:12):
it started, figuring out where it came from. Almost tracking
it back helps you cut it right there and then,
and it can transform your life. Because so many of
us are not taking risks today because of pain we
felt in the past. So many of us are not
taking on challenges today because of hardships we had in
(19:32):
the past. So many of us are not trying things
today because of failures in the past. You don't want
to let your past have such a tight hold of
control over your present and your future. You could miss
out on an amazing partner, an amazing career, an amazing
life because of a choice or a mistake or something
(19:54):
that happened in your past. It's not worth it. Lesser
(20:14):
Number six, You're more likely to change by belonging than
by willpower. Because identity is contagious. This will actually blow
your mind. It transformed how I think about human change.
I've realized that there are three core aspects to human change. Coaching.
(20:38):
Knowing something that is three or five years ahead of you,
knowing someone who's three or five years ahead of you
on the journey you're about to go through and having
their guns can transform your life. The second is consistency
and commitment, when you can actually commit to action, commit
to making a change, and you do it over a
(20:58):
certain amount of time. And the third, which is what
this one's all about, is community. We need community for accountability,
we need it for competition, and we need it for collaboration. See,
most people think change is about willpower. If I just
tried harder, if I just pushed more, if I just
force myself, I'll change. But here's the counterintuitive truth. You're
(21:24):
more likely to change by belonging than by willpower, because
identity is contagious. A few years ago, researchers studied why
some people quit smoking successfully and others relapsed. They found
something surprising. It wasn't the strongest willed individuals who succeeded.
(21:46):
It was the ones who changed their social circles. If
you were surrounded by smokers, your chance of quitting dropped dramatically.
But if your spouse quit smoking, your likelihood of quitting
jumped up. If a close friend quit, your odds went up.
Same habit, same nicotine, different environment. Why because we adapt
(22:11):
to the norms of our group. A Harvard study on
social networks showed that obesity, smoking, and even happiness spread
through friends groups like contagions. If a friend of yours
becomes obese, your own risk increases by fifty seven percent.
If a friend becomes happy, your own chance of happiness
(22:34):
rises by twenty five percent. Willpower didn't spread, identity and
connectivity did so. If you want to change your life,
stop asking how do I get more willpower? Start asking
who do I need to belong to. You'll fight to
(22:55):
match the energy of the people you sit with. You'll
pick up their habits without even realizing it. Here's the takeaway.
Willpower is fragile, belonging is powerful. The fastest way to
change your habits is to change your people. Because you
(23:15):
don't just become what you practice, you become who you're around.
Stop spending time with people you don't want to be like.
Stop wasting energy on people you don't admire. Stop building
connections with people who only drain your confidence. Stop investing
(23:37):
in circles that make you smaller instead of braver. I
think this is a huge one because if you look
at a change you want to make in your life
and you're thinking, why don't I change it at New
Year's Why didn't I change it on my birthday? I
promise you it's because you didn't change your circle. No, no,
you're thinking, Jay, I've got some really good friends that
don't want to leave them. They're amazing. You don't have
(23:57):
to leave them. You have to build new circles around
new goals. When you have a goal, build a circle
around it. It doesn't mean you leave your friends or
your family behind. It doesn't mean you cut people out.
You can still love them, you can still keep them
in your life. But you have to create new circles
around new goals. It is so much less likely for
(24:20):
you to achieve the goals you have with the circle
you currently have. And I know you're thinking, Jay, where
do I find those people? I don't know people like
that in my community. I didn't grow up in that area.
Find them online, find them in books, find them on podcasts.
You can associate with people by giving your attention to them.
It's not the people around you physically that define who
(24:43):
you're becoming. It's the people you choose to give your
attention to. Who are you listening to, who are you following,
who are you allowing in? What are you consuming? That
will transform where you're going. Lesson number seven, You don't
burnout from working too hard. You burn out from meaninglessness.
(25:06):
Long hours don't always cause burnout. Empty hours due most
people think burnout comes from working too many hours. They'll say,
I'm exhausted because I'm working seventy hours a week. But
here's what the research shows. It's not the hours that
burn us out, it's the emptiness. I once coached a
woman who is a high performer at a huge firm.
(25:28):
She worked sixty sometimes seventy hours a week, but outside
of work, she was full of energy. She ran marathons,
she volunteered at a shelter, She traveled. Then she switched companies.
Her hours stayed the same, maybe even a little lighter.
She was making a bit more money, but within six
months she was burned out, drained, and ready to quit.
(25:49):
Why not because of workload, but because the work No
longer meant anything to her. The tasks were repetitive, the
recognition was absent. She felt like a Cogner machine. Same hours, less,
meaning more burnout. This lines up with Christina Maslack's research
on burnout. The world's leading scholar in this field. She
(26:13):
identified three dimensions of burnout. Number one exhaustion feeling drained
or used up. Number two cynicism feeling detached, negative, resentful.
Number three inefficacy feeling like your work doesn't matter or
make a difference. What drives burnout most consistently isn't just
(26:36):
long hours. It's when your work feels meaningless, misaligned, or unseen.
Gallup found that seventy six percent of employees experience burnout,
but the strongest predictor wasn't the number of hours, it
was whether they felt their work had purpose. Maslac's research
(26:57):
shows that people who feel their work lacks recognition or
significance report two to three times higher levels of burnout,
even at similar workloads. In contrast, people engaged in meaningful
but demanding work nurses, social workers, startup founders often sustain
(27:18):
far higher workloads before burning out because purpose acts like fuel.
So the truth is you don't burn out from giving
too much of yourself. You burn out from giving yourself
to things that don't matter. If you feel drained, don't
just ask how many hours am I working? Ask what
(27:42):
am I working toward. Cutting hours might help temporarily, but
finding meaning changes everything. Because exhaustion is survivable, meaninglessness isn't.
You can bring meaning into your work. You can bring
energy into your work. Find something that you can be
(28:04):
curious about. Find something to bring passion into the workplace.
You don't have to have the perfect job. You have
to bring passion into the workplace. Lesser number eight. Your
brain lies about the future. We think we're good at
predicting what will make us happy. I'll be so much
happier once I get that promotion, once I moved to
(28:24):
that city, everything will be better. Once I'm in that relationship,
I'll finally be complete. But psychology says we're terrible at this.
Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, ran a study with people
who were absolutely convinced that winning the lottery would transform
their happiness. When they checked in with lottery winners a
(28:45):
year later, their happiness had barely changed. In fact, many
felt less fulfilled. Why because their relationships routines and sense
of purpose hadn't shifted, just their bank balance. And here's
the twist. When Gilbert looked at people who had suffered
catastrophic accidents and lost mobility, a year later, many of
(29:09):
them reported similar happiness levels as before the accident. What
felt like the end of life became the start of adaptation.
This is called effective forecasting error. Our brain systematically overestimates
how long good or bad events will impact our happiness.
(29:30):
We imagine the promotion as a permanent high, when in reality,
we adapt quickly. We imagine the breakup as endless despair,
but over time, our emotional baseline returns faster than we think.
Gilbert calls this our psychological immune system. We recover emotionally
(29:50):
far more quickly than our imagination predicts. It's fascinating, isn't it.
When things are good, we think they'll be good forever,
and we're wrong. When things are bad, we think they'll
be bad forever, and we're wrong. Things are never good forever,
and they're never bad forever. What we need to recognize
(30:13):
is how we can focus on living a life of
meaning and purpose and seeking peace even in chaos. In
one study, college students predicted they'd be miserable for months
if they were rejected from a dorm lottery. A few
weeks later, their happiness levels were back to baseline. A
(30:35):
large body of research shows we consistently mispredict both the
intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions. So here's
the truth. Your imagination about the future is usually wrong.
It exaggerates both the joy and the pain. That's why
the best advice isn't trust your gut, its test reality.
(31:00):
If you learn to test reality, to experiment, to try,
you will know more than what you may think or
predict before making a big life decision like moving cities,
quitting jobs, ending relationships. Don't trust the move in your head.
Run a small experiment, Spend a week in that new city,
(31:21):
shadow someone in that career, try a day living that lifestyle.
Because imagination inflates reality educates you think happiness will never end,
and you think pain will never end. The truth is
pleasure ends quicker than you think, and pain ends quicker
(31:43):
than you think. I really hope that these eight lessons
will help you get the next decade of your life
to be the most powerful one. Yet, it's these lessons
that shift your mindset change your careers and change your life.
It's not waiting for something magical external, It's about changing
that internal dialogue. Make sure you subscribe. Remember on Forever
(32:07):
in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. If
you love this episode, you will also love my interview
with Charles Douhig on how to hack your brain, change
any habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions. Look,
am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of making
the choice because I'm scared of doing the work, Or
am I sitting with this because it just doesn't feel
(32:29):
right yet
When things are good, we think they'll be good forever,
and we're wrong. When things are bad, we think they'll
be bad forever, and we're wrong. Things are never good forever,
and they're never bad forever. What we need to recognize
is how we can focus on living a life of
(00:22):
meaning and purpose and seeking peace even in chaos. The
number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Setty, Jay shettyet
Hey everyone, It's Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose
podcast and author of New York Times best selling book
Think Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love. If
(00:45):
you haven't read either of those books, I hope you
go and grab a copy to learn about mindset, peace,
purpose and love, relationships and dating. But today I'm talking
to you about eight things I wish I knew before
I was third. I'm thirty seven now, and I've learned
so much up until this point in life. But there
(01:05):
are certain things that I know could have saved me time, money,
and energy before I was thirty years old, and I
want to share them all with you if I could
sit my twenty year old self down for an unfiltered conversation.
Here are the truths about people, work, and life that
would have saved me years of stress, overthinking and wasted energy.
(01:30):
These aren't cliches, their counterintuitive lessons from psychology and human
behavior that will change how you live, love, and work.
Let's get in. Lesson number one is people aren't thinking
about you as much as you think they are. I
want to talk about something known as the spotlight effect
(01:52):
from Gillovich in nineteen ninety nine. He said that we
overestimate how much people notice or judge us, when the
truth is most people are too busy worrying about themselves. Now,
imagine walking to work with a giant coffee stain down
the front of your shirt. You feel exposed, humiliated, You
(02:14):
swear everyone staring, whispering, judging, gossiping. You spend the whole
day shrinking into yourself. But here's the twist. When psychologists
at Cornell University actually tested this, they found almost nobody noticed.
In their famous Barry manilo t shirt study, students were
(02:36):
asked to walk into a room full of peers wearing
a bright, embarrassing Manilow shirt. The wearers were convinced half
the room would notice and remember, but the reality only
about twenty percent of people noticed at all. The truth
is we all live under what psychologists call the spotlight effect,
(02:58):
the belief that everyone is wanting, when in reality, most
people are too busy worrying about their own coffee stains,
their own insecurities, their own spotlight. Now here's why this matters.
You're not being judged as much as you think. The
audience you imagine doesn't exist. The world isn't scrutinizing you.
(03:21):
It's scrolling past, lost in its own self consciousness. The
spotlight is in your head, and once you realize that
you can finally step on stage, take the risk, wear
the stain because no one's watching as closely as you think.
(03:42):
Stop chasing approval from people who don't even know themselves.
Stop performing for people who wouldn't show up if you fell.
Stop editing your life for people who aren't even paying attention.
Stop carrying the weight of opinions that were never yours
(04:04):
to hold. Stop shrinking your dreams to fit someone else's
comfort zone, and stop letting silent critics rent space in
your head for free. Stop confusing someone's opinion with your
own reflection. They're not thinking about you in the first place.
(04:25):
Lesson number two, busyness isn't productivity. We mistake being busy
for being valuable. This is something in psychology known as
the effort heuristic. We all know what it feels like.
We think if we're working twelve hours a day, we're winning,
We're moving forward. But the reality is you can hustle
(04:46):
twelve hours a day and still not move forward. We
have to measure progress in outcomes, not ours. Have you
ever caught yourself bragging about how busy you are, or
maybe even trying to make yourself sound worthy. You might say,
I work twelve hours straight, Hey, add back to back meetings,
I apparely slept this week. We wear busyness like a
(05:10):
badge of honor. But psychology has a name for this mistake,
the effort heuristic. It means we assume that if something
took more effort, it must be more valuable, But that
doesn't always fit. Researchers asked people to rate two paintings
of the same artwork. One was described to them as
(05:34):
taking four hours to make, the other was described as
taking twenty six hours. Guess what people rated the twenty
six hour painting as more beautiful, more meaningful, more worthy
of praise. Same are, same quality, but different story. About
(05:55):
the effort. We all think if we're working longer, we
should be rewarded more. If you're working harder, we should
win more. If we're doing more, we should get more.
But here's the problem. Just because something takes longer doesn't
mean it's better. A twelve hour workday isn't proof of impact,
(06:17):
a never ending to do list isn't proof of progress.
Exhaustion isn't proof of success. Busy is not the same
as effective. So here's the takeaway. Don't measure your value
by the hours you burn. Measure it by the results
(06:38):
you create. Don't ask how hard did I work? Ask
did my work actually matter? Because at the end of
your life, no one's going to hand you an award
for most hours spent looking busy, but you will remember
what you built, what you changed, and who you became.
(06:58):
Start remembering you're not valuable because you're busy. You're valuable
because you're you. Stop measuring your day by hours instead
of outcomes. Stop filling every minute so you don't feel
like you're falling behind. Stop mistaking exhaustion for evidence that
(07:20):
you matter. So many of us are so conflicted by that.
It's time to work smart. It's time to work effective,
not just hard. Lesson number three, your friends will change,
and that's not betrayal. There's a psychological term known as
socio emotional selectivity theory. As we age, we prioritize depth
(07:46):
over breadth in our relationships. Losing friends, as hard as
it is, is often growth, not failure. Look, this is
how it works. When you're in your twenties. Your inbox
is in. You've got group chats, classmates, colleagues, Friday night
plans with people you barely know. Your social world feels infinite.
(08:09):
But something fascinating happens as you get older. Psychologists have
studied this for decades and the data is crystal clear.
Your social circle shrinks, not because you're failing, but because
your brain is recalibrating. This is called socio emotional selectivity theory,
(08:30):
a concept pioneered by a psychologist at Stanford. She found
that as people age, or even just perceived their time
as more limited, they stop investing in endless social expansion. Instead,
they prioritize fewer, deeper, more emotionally meaningful relationships. In one study,
(08:51):
they tracked people's relationships across their lifespans. Young adults reported
wide networks with lots of quintances. Older adults consistently reported
smaller networks, but also higher satisfaction in those relationships. What
was even more striking was that the older adults had
(09:14):
fewer conflicts and reported greater emotional stability. It is an
age that changes us. It's how much time we believe
we have left. When time feels expensive, we chase novelty
and variety. When time feels expensive, we choose intimacy and depth.
(09:39):
That's why your twenties feel like you're collecting people, and
your thirties, forties, and fifties feel like you're filtering down
to the ones who really matter. I think a lot
of us when we're losing friends, when we grow apart,
when we drift apart. As we get older, we may
start to judge people. We may think people change, We
(10:00):
may think that we did something wrong. The reality is
people have less time. They want to focus more on
the relationships that matter, and this becomes a natural evolution
in life. If you're feeling guilty that your social circle
is shrinking, don't. It's not failure. It's what moving forward
(10:22):
looks like. It means your brain is getting wise enough
to realize a small circle that feeds you is more
valuable than a large circle that drains you. A small
circle that tells you the truth is better than a
large circle that tells you what you want to hear.
A small circle that celebrates you in private is better
(10:45):
than a large circle that collapse only in public. A
small circle that challenges you to grow is better than
a large circle that keeps you the same. You can
have less friends that bring you more joy. Don't get
it confused. Whether you're dreaming of a wellness retreat, a
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have the right support. When you think about travel, it's
not just about going somewhere new. It's about the why.
Maybe you're recharging, spending time with people you love, or
(11:31):
indulging in a passion. But let's be honest, the planning
can be overwhelming, finding the right hotel, staying on budget,
making it all feel intentional. That's where Chase Sapphire Reserve
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(11:51):
on what matters most. Picture this. You book a boutique
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(12:12):
aligned with your values. You can pour your energy into
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(12:34):
your journey. With Chase Sapphire Reserve, every trip can feel
meaningful from start to finish. Lesser number four is discipline
is easier than motivation. Most of us think that what
we need to change our lives is more motivation. The
amount of people that come up to me and say, Jay,
motivate me. Can you tell me something motivational that will
(12:56):
change my life? We all feel if I could just
feel more motivated, I'd go to the gym, start the business,
eat better. But here's the counterintuitive truth. You don't need
more motivation. You need more discipline. And discipline doesn't mean
willpower or toughness. It means designing your life so the
(13:18):
right choice is easier than the wrong one. Let me
say that again. Discipline is designing your life so that
the right choice is easier than the wrong one. Your
systems are helping you make hard choices more easily. Psychologists
call this ego depletion. Every decision you make, from what
(13:41):
to wear to what to eat, drains your brain's self
control battery. By the time the evening comes, that battery
is dead. How many of you have felt this before? Right,
you've been making decisions all day, what to wear, what
to eat, meal, prepping, what to cook, what to make
for lunch, what to make for dinner. Then you've got
(14:03):
what color does this slide deck need to be? I
haven't made their accounts balance up. I haven't replied to
my mom, I haven't called my friend, I haven't texted
this person back. I've got to update my dating profile.
It's exhausting, and that's why motivation isn't reliable. Motivation fades
(14:23):
with your mood, discipline survives with your systems. It's why
President Obama only wore two suit colors as president, why
Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck. They weren't lazy,
They were protecting their discipline. They cut small decisions so
(14:44):
they had energy for the big ones. This is known
as something called decision fatigue. So many of us gets
tired making so many small decisions all day that we
don't have energy for the big ones. Keep your energy
for the big decisions in life. People spend more time
planning their wedding than they do making sure the person
(15:06):
they're marrying is the right person. People spend more time
getting their degree than making sure the job they choose
is worthy of their qualification. We waste so much more
time in getting something than we do for preparing for something.
Stop waiting to feel motivated. Start setting systems that make
(15:28):
discipline feel natural. Lay out your clothes the night before,
put healthy food where you can see it, and take
away all the bad stuff. Block websites that waste your focus.
Because success doesn't come from chasing motivation, It comes from
designing a life where discipline is the default. Lesson number
(15:50):
five is that most of your fears are memories, not threats.
The fear you feel today usually belongs to yesterday. When
you feel fear, your brain tells you it's about this moment,
but most of the time it isn't. Think about a
(16:11):
child who is laughed at for reading out loud in class.
Maybe you went through something like this as well. Years later,
as an adult, they're asked to present at work. Suddenly
their heart races, their palms, sweat, their throat titans. They think,
I'm scared of public speaking, But the truth they're not
scared of this meeting or presentation. They're scared of that classroom.
(16:36):
This happens because of emotional memory encoding. When we experience
something painful, maybe it's embarrassment, rejection, failure, the brain doesn't
just store the fact, it stores the feeling. The amygdala,
the brain's fear center, tags that memory as danger, and
(16:57):
the next time anything even resembles that situation, your body
reacts as if the past is happening again. Maybe you
had a really uncomfortable experience in water when you were young. Now,
every time you get into water, whether it's the ocean
or a swimming pool, you feel tight chested. That's why
the fear you feel today often belongs to yesterday. They're
(17:21):
not about real, immediate threats, but about old memories being triggered.
In fact, research on the amygdala found that fear responses
are often two to three times stronger when tied to
past emotional memories than faced with new situations. So the
fear in your chest isn't always truth. It's often a
(17:45):
memory replay. You're not afraid of the presentation. You're afraid
of the old humiliation. You're not afraid of love. You're
afraid of the heartbreak that came before the takeaway. The
next time fear shows up, ask yourself, is this fear
(18:05):
about now? Or am I carrying it from then? Because
once you see that most of your fears are echoes,
you can stop letting yesterday control today. Stop letting people
who hurt you years ago hurt you again today. Stop
letting old wounds cause more pain than the moment itself
(18:28):
ever did. Stop letting memories control moments that deserve a
fresh start. Stop letting yesterday's rejection steal today's confidence. Stop
letting a single chapter convince you the whole story is broken.
Stop letting the past keep winning when the fight is
(18:52):
already over. What I want you to think about with
that is that whenever you come up against something, frame
it back, recognize where it comes from. We have to
cut it at the root. You're not going to solve
your life by only getting over this symptom right now.
It's by cutting it at the root, figuring out where
(19:12):
it started, figuring out where it came from. Almost tracking
it back helps you cut it right there and then,
and it can transform your life. Because so many of
us are not taking risks today because of pain we
felt in the past. So many of us are not
taking on challenges today because of hardships we had in
(19:32):
the past. So many of us are not trying things
today because of failures in the past. You don't want
to let your past have such a tight hold of
control over your present and your future. You could miss
out on an amazing partner, an amazing career, an amazing
life because of a choice or a mistake or something
(19:54):
that happened in your past. It's not worth it. Lesser
(20:14):
Number six, You're more likely to change by belonging than
by willpower. Because identity is contagious. This will actually blow
your mind. It transformed how I think about human change.
I've realized that there are three core aspects to human change. Coaching.
(20:38):
Knowing something that is three or five years ahead of you,
knowing someone who's three or five years ahead of you
on the journey you're about to go through and having
their guns can transform your life. The second is consistency
and commitment, when you can actually commit to action, commit
to making a change, and you do it over a
(20:58):
certain amount of time. And the third, which is what
this one's all about, is community. We need community for accountability,
we need it for competition, and we need it for collaboration. See,
most people think change is about willpower. If I just
tried harder, if I just pushed more, if I just
force myself, I'll change. But here's the counterintuitive truth. You're
(21:24):
more likely to change by belonging than by willpower, because
identity is contagious. A few years ago, researchers studied why
some people quit smoking successfully and others relapsed. They found
something surprising. It wasn't the strongest willed individuals who succeeded.
(21:46):
It was the ones who changed their social circles. If
you were surrounded by smokers, your chance of quitting dropped dramatically.
But if your spouse quit smoking, your likelihood of quitting
jumped up. If a close friend quit, your odds went up.
Same habit, same nicotine, different environment. Why because we adapt
(22:11):
to the norms of our group. A Harvard study on
social networks showed that obesity, smoking, and even happiness spread
through friends groups like contagions. If a friend of yours
becomes obese, your own risk increases by fifty seven percent.
If a friend becomes happy, your own chance of happiness
(22:34):
rises by twenty five percent. Willpower didn't spread, identity and
connectivity did so. If you want to change your life,
stop asking how do I get more willpower? Start asking
who do I need to belong to. You'll fight to
(22:55):
match the energy of the people you sit with. You'll
pick up their habits without even realizing it. Here's the takeaway.
Willpower is fragile, belonging is powerful. The fastest way to
change your habits is to change your people. Because you
(23:15):
don't just become what you practice, you become who you're around.
Stop spending time with people you don't want to be like.
Stop wasting energy on people you don't admire. Stop building
connections with people who only drain your confidence. Stop investing
(23:37):
in circles that make you smaller instead of braver. I
think this is a huge one because if you look
at a change you want to make in your life
and you're thinking, why don't I change it at New
Year's Why didn't I change it on my birthday? I
promise you it's because you didn't change your circle. No, no,
you're thinking, Jay, I've got some really good friends that
don't want to leave them. They're amazing. You don't have
(23:57):
to leave them. You have to build new circles around
new goals. When you have a goal, build a circle
around it. It doesn't mean you leave your friends or
your family behind. It doesn't mean you cut people out.
You can still love them, you can still keep them
in your life. But you have to create new circles
around new goals. It is so much less likely for
(24:20):
you to achieve the goals you have with the circle
you currently have. And I know you're thinking, Jay, where
do I find those people? I don't know people like
that in my community. I didn't grow up in that area.
Find them online, find them in books, find them on podcasts.
You can associate with people by giving your attention to them.
It's not the people around you physically that define who
(24:43):
you're becoming. It's the people you choose to give your
attention to. Who are you listening to, who are you following,
who are you allowing in? What are you consuming? That
will transform where you're going. Lesson number seven, You don't
burnout from working too hard. You burn out from meaninglessness.
(25:06):
Long hours don't always cause burnout. Empty hours due most
people think burnout comes from working too many hours. They'll say,
I'm exhausted because I'm working seventy hours a week. But
here's what the research shows. It's not the hours that
burn us out, it's the emptiness. I once coached a
woman who is a high performer at a huge firm.
(25:28):
She worked sixty sometimes seventy hours a week, but outside
of work, she was full of energy. She ran marathons,
she volunteered at a shelter, She traveled. Then she switched companies.
Her hours stayed the same, maybe even a little lighter.
She was making a bit more money, but within six
months she was burned out, drained, and ready to quit.
(25:49):
Why not because of workload, but because the work No
longer meant anything to her. The tasks were repetitive, the
recognition was absent. She felt like a Cogner machine. Same hours, less,
meaning more burnout. This lines up with Christina Maslack's research
on burnout. The world's leading scholar in this field. She
(26:13):
identified three dimensions of burnout. Number one exhaustion feeling drained
or used up. Number two cynicism feeling detached, negative, resentful.
Number three inefficacy feeling like your work doesn't matter or
make a difference. What drives burnout most consistently isn't just
(26:36):
long hours. It's when your work feels meaningless, misaligned, or unseen.
Gallup found that seventy six percent of employees experience burnout,
but the strongest predictor wasn't the number of hours, it
was whether they felt their work had purpose. Maslac's research
(26:57):
shows that people who feel their work lacks recognition or
significance report two to three times higher levels of burnout,
even at similar workloads. In contrast, people engaged in meaningful
but demanding work nurses, social workers, startup founders often sustain
(27:18):
far higher workloads before burning out because purpose acts like fuel.
So the truth is you don't burn out from giving
too much of yourself. You burn out from giving yourself
to things that don't matter. If you feel drained, don't
just ask how many hours am I working? Ask what
(27:42):
am I working toward. Cutting hours might help temporarily, but
finding meaning changes everything. Because exhaustion is survivable, meaninglessness isn't.
You can bring meaning into your work. You can bring
energy into your work. Find something that you can be
(28:04):
curious about. Find something to bring passion into the workplace.
You don't have to have the perfect job. You have
to bring passion into the workplace. Lesser number eight. Your
brain lies about the future. We think we're good at
predicting what will make us happy. I'll be so much
happier once I get that promotion, once I moved to
(28:24):
that city, everything will be better. Once I'm in that relationship,
I'll finally be complete. But psychology says we're terrible at this.
Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, ran a study with people
who were absolutely convinced that winning the lottery would transform
their happiness. When they checked in with lottery winners a
(28:45):
year later, their happiness had barely changed. In fact, many
felt less fulfilled. Why because their relationships routines and sense
of purpose hadn't shifted, just their bank balance. And here's
the twist. When Gilbert looked at people who had suffered
catastrophic accidents and lost mobility, a year later, many of
(29:09):
them reported similar happiness levels as before the accident. What
felt like the end of life became the start of adaptation.
This is called effective forecasting error. Our brain systematically overestimates
how long good or bad events will impact our happiness.
(29:30):
We imagine the promotion as a permanent high, when in reality,
we adapt quickly. We imagine the breakup as endless despair,
but over time, our emotional baseline returns faster than we think.
Gilbert calls this our psychological immune system. We recover emotionally
(29:50):
far more quickly than our imagination predicts. It's fascinating, isn't it.
When things are good, we think they'll be good forever,
and we're wrong. When things are bad, we think they'll
be bad forever, and we're wrong. Things are never good forever,
and they're never bad forever. What we need to recognize
(30:13):
is how we can focus on living a life of
meaning and purpose and seeking peace even in chaos. In
one study, college students predicted they'd be miserable for months
if they were rejected from a dorm lottery. A few
weeks later, their happiness levels were back to baseline. A
(30:35):
large body of research shows we consistently mispredict both the
intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions. So here's
the truth. Your imagination about the future is usually wrong.
It exaggerates both the joy and the pain. That's why
the best advice isn't trust your gut, its test reality.
(31:00):
If you learn to test reality, to experiment, to try,
you will know more than what you may think or
predict before making a big life decision like moving cities,
quitting jobs, ending relationships. Don't trust the move in your head.
Run a small experiment, Spend a week in that new city,
(31:21):
shadow someone in that career, try a day living that lifestyle.
Because imagination inflates reality educates you think happiness will never end,
and you think pain will never end. The truth is
pleasure ends quicker than you think, and pain ends quicker
(31:43):
than you think. I really hope that these eight lessons
will help you get the next decade of your life
to be the most powerful one. Yet, it's these lessons
that shift your mindset change your careers and change your life.
It's not waiting for something magical external, It's about changing
that internal dialogue. Make sure you subscribe. Remember on Forever
(32:07):
in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. If
you love this episode, you will also love my interview
with Charles Douhig on how to hack your brain, change
any habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions. Look,
am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of making
the choice because I'm scared of doing the work, Or
am I sitting with this because it just doesn't feel
(32:29):
right yet
Host
Jay Shetty
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