Feel Stuck in the Wrong Job? This ONE Mindset Shift Will Help You FINALLY Discover Your Purpose (Even If You’re Starting From Zero)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The number one health and wellness podcast Shetty.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Today we have best selling author, motivational speaker, and big
time podcaster Jay Shetty, who's out on let y'all Know
Now out on its All Purpose live tour right now.
Speaking of that, man, I think it's so cool, Jay,
when you show the pictures of how it started to
how it's going, and I actually counted the people in
one of the picture. It was only twelve to be

(00:31):
in the position that you're in now. When you started
out on this journey. How could you ever have imagined
that it would end up where you are now, touring
the country, touring the world in some senses, and people
power into arenas to see.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
I don't think you could ever imagine it, and that's
what's beautiful about it. I think the challenge today is
everyone has too much pressure. Every video has to have
a million views, Everything you post has to get lots
of engagement, Everything you share has to get lots of attention.
When I started giving my first talks, I was in
a room like the corner of this the size of

(01:12):
the corner of this room, and the first time I
went to speak, zero people showed up. So I just
practiced to the four walls, and the second time I
showed up, no one showed up, And so I practiced
to the four walls. And the third time I realized
that the fire the person who was putting the flyers out,
because who went in a good job. But for years,

(01:36):
nearly ten years before I posted a video, I was
speaking to groups of small rooms. I was speaking of
groups of three people, five people, ten people, And I'll
be honest with you, I never ever felt, why is
only ten people? I never ever felt, oh, it's only
twenty people today, I would have loved it to be
fifty or one hundred, don't get me wrong, but I

(01:57):
never thought it needed to be more than that. I
was just happy that anyone would take time out of
their day to come and hear about things that were
meant to be good for them. But you know, it
wasn't hey, here's how to do this, or here's how
to get rich, or it was here's how to improve
your life. And so for me, those years of spending
hours and hours and hours with people, roughly ten years later,

(02:21):
when I post my first video and I start to
have the groundswell experience of more people finding out about
my work. I live in gratitude every day. I post
those to show people that no one starts in an arena.
Everyone starts at zero. And the reason why we don't
start is not because we're scared of starting at zero.

(02:41):
We're scared of people watching us start at zero. We're
scared of the opinions of people around us starting at zero.
We're not scared of starting from scratch. We're scared of
our friends seeing us start from scratch. And I just
want to remind people that everyone started zero. You did,
you did, and everyone on planet Earth did, and that
means you can do it as much as I have.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Hey change, By the way, I just want to say this,
this is the first time Fred's voice has been out
sexy doing our show.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, that London.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
That London is sexy. Now I see it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I want to ask you about motivational speaking and spiritual advisors.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
What about on the others? Why do people need them?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I'm a I'm a I'm not a pessimist, but I'm
a you know, I'm a person that thinks about it,
like I don't talk to anybody like this is this
is probably my therapy with us doing this. What about
on the other side, why do people need you to
get them going?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Like, bro, tighten up.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know what's really interesting is when you're doing it,
you don't think that's what you're doing. So when I
first started learning from the monks, I was just trying
to share what they were teaching me because I thought
it was valuable. It's almost like if someone told you, hey,
this is really cool thing. There's this cool spot, there's
this great movie, there's this great song that, there's this
great rapper, there's this great artist. If someone introduced you

(04:03):
to that, you'd start talking about it because it was cool.
And so for me, wisdom was cool, and so I
was just sharing it because it changed my life and
had an impact on me, and I thought it would
help other people. So from my side, you don't even
see yourself that way. You just see yourself as a
spiritual dealer because you're just sharing what's helping you and

(04:23):
you want it to help other people. So from my side,
I don't look at myself as that. I think for people,
what happens is we're all looking for people who represent
what we're chasing, who represent what we're pursuing, who represent
what we admire. And I think the thing is everyone
needs someone or something to believe in. Now, I don't

(04:44):
want people to believe in me. I want them to
believe in the wisdom. So that's my responsibility to make
it very clear. I don't want you to believe in me.
I'm flawed, I'm human, I have weaknesses. But the wisdom
has lasted for five thousand years. There's nothing in the
world that has lasted apart from the world the planet
for five thousand years. I remember talking about The Bug

(05:05):
with Gito, which is the book that I referenced a
lot in my books. I was speaking about it with
a guy that had met and he was big in business,
and he said to me after the interview. This was
years ago. He said to me, because, how long did
you say that book's been around? I said, five thousand years.
He goes, oh, there must be truth in it. If
it's lasted five thousand years. You think about the best

(05:27):
music artists, they're not going to last five thousand years.
You think about the best movies, they're not going to
last five thousand years. Well, I'm definitely not going to
last five thousand years. So the fact that something has
stood the test of time, that's worth sharing. So I'm
trying to get people to believe in that because that
is actually going to change their life. Them believing in
me or another person or whatever is kind of insignificant

(05:49):
and irrelevant.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
You also try to get people to believe in their
purpose because you speak about passion being what you like
and purpose being what you give. Take us back to
the moment when you say you were just in the
room waiting for people, and you were staring at the
four walls. Right, if your purpose wasn't greater than your passion,

(06:10):
would we be doing this interview today.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
That's a great question. The purpose is what drives you,
because when you're doing your passion, there may not be
the result immediately. And so for me, the way I
like to explain it is, your passion is for you.
Your passion is doing something that brings you joy. It
could be baking, could be photography, could be organizing your
kid's birthday. It could be coaching them, you know, a

(06:36):
football or soccer or whatever it may be. That could
be your passion. But as soon as you start doing
it to improve other people's lives, that's where it becomes
a purpose. When you start connecting it with making someone
else's day better. So instead of just baking for you,
you're not baking for the homeless. Instead of just baking
for you, you're not baking for the community. Instead of
just taking pictures for yourself, you start sharing it so

(06:59):
the people who don't have the money to travel that
far can now see what it looks like to experience it.
All of a sudden, you start to get that feedback
and you realize you're meant for more, You're made for more,
You're here for more. For me, I would have kept going,
and I did keep going for ten years of sharing
it in small rooms because I saw impact on one person.

(07:21):
And I think if anyone wants to build a product,
a business, a service, a show, you've got to see
how it impacts one person before you can impact one
million people. If your product can't change one person's life,
it's never going to change a million people's lives because
the feedback you get from that one person is everything.
That one person could help you improve your product, your service,

(07:42):
your energy, your show more than anyone. I'm sure you
guys have had it, Like you've had someone who watches
every Pivot podcast right every episode. They're like, you know what,
I really liked him when you guys did that. I
wasn't sure when you guys did that, And same for me.
People will be like, I really like it when you
share your opinion. I really like it when you stay
true to your value. That's what helps you keep going.
So to me, I kept going because there was always

(08:05):
one person who was being moved. And even today, when
I'm speaking to a large audience or an arena, I'm
visualizing being in that small room with three to five people,
because that's how intimate I want it to feel. I
wanted to feel like this. This is special. Just the
intimacy you guys have created here. This is special, and
I want people in a room full of thousands to

(08:26):
feel like this because this is what we're all craving.
No one's craving to be in a room full of
thousands of people. Everyone's craving this eye contact, this kind
of connection, this kind of space, and it's our job.
And that's what you guys do so well here. Whenever
I watch your clips, this is how I feel. I
feel this close to you. Before I met you, I
felt like I knew you because I'd seen so many

(08:48):
of you guys's clips and it felt like you guys
were genuine and sincere. You were doing this for the
right reason, and so I think we've got to give
that give people that experience. And that's what I've always
tried to do, whether it was five people of five thousand. Jay.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
I look at you, man, the finally manicured hair, right,
the beard always taped up, obviously, the gear. And I
see you in bad boys and moving around, and it's like,
man like this dude's kind of like me.

Speaker 6 (09:14):
Make sure his hair is nice. He make sure his
clothes or tight, right, he gonna stay clean.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I see the lifestyle you live now, and I
try to just put my mind and say, okay, Jay Shetty,
after being college educated, decided to follow the monastic way?
What was it about that lifestyle that drew you to
the astronum?

Speaker 1 (09:39):
When I met my monk teacher, I saw that he
dedicated his life to monstering his emotions and his mind
and serving other people. And that's what attracted me. I
felt that that felt like a life worth pursuing. When
I met him, I remember I'd met people who are
rich and famous and successful, but I don't think i'd

(10:01):
met anyone who was content and happy in their own skin.
I'm a monk teacher didn't have any of those other things,
but he was happy in who he was, and I
was like, I want that, Like that feels like the
life I want to have. And he graduated also from it,
which is the MIT of India. So he went to
one of the best colleges in the country. For example,

(10:24):
the current CEO of Google went to that university. Like
that's the level of institution. And he gave that all
up to be a monk. So I was thinking, and
I was at college at the time, and I was thinking,
wait a minute, if I'm going to aspire to get
a job like that, this guy's given it up. There's
something amazing about him. So to me, it was truly
the fascination. And I'm sure you've had it in sports.

(10:45):
I'm sure you've had it in business where you see
someone and you just like the way they move and
you think, how are you that happy, that peaceful, that content?
And I just wanted to know. And so to me,
it was as simple as finding one person who is
living differently. And I always say to people, everyone needs
to find their monk. And what I mean by that
is who's the one person you haven't met yet that's

(11:07):
going to change the trajectory of your life. Who's the
one person who embodies what you believe life is about.
It might not be a monk, it might be something else,
but everyone has to find that. And for me, mental stability,
resilience and peace and service to others have always felt
like the best pursuits. And now when you're talking about

(11:27):
you know, the hair or the clothes or whatever it is,
I'm giving myself permission to be all of myself. So
I enjoy presenting myself.

Speaker 7 (11:36):
Well.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
I like living an intentional life. I think the way
we dress, the way we appear, everything's about intention and
that's what mindfulness is. Mindfulness ultimately, is am I mindful
about what I wear? What I think about, how I
show up, what energy I walk into the room with,
if I'm kind to people. That's what mindfulness is about.
So to me, everything from like this room has been

(11:59):
mindfully designed. I walked in and I felt happy, I
felt good, I felt it was comfortable, it was inviting.
But let's say you were like, oh, it doesn't matter,
it only matters what's on the inside. We'll just sit
in a black room. Yeah, well that's gonna affect your mindset.
So mindfulness also means focusing on the outside and the inside.
And I think immature mindfulness is like, oh, it only

(12:21):
matters what's on the outside, And materialism is it only
matters what's on the outside, right, So I think that's
the mistake we make as humans. We think, Oh, if
I'm spiritual, it means only the inside matters. And if
I'm material only the outside matters. And intentional mindful living
is they both affect each other. If I'm in a
messy outside space, I'm gonna be messy up here. And

(12:44):
if I have a messy world here, it doesn't matter
how clean my outside is, I'll never be at peace.
And that's what I learned in the monastery for Shure.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Monk ism, is it like the fight club where you
can't talk about the fight club? Like I know had
to become a crip or a blood you get jumped in.
What's the process of becoming a monk? Like you meet
your advisor, your monk teacher, and then you become a monk.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
What is that process?

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, no, there's there's a system for sure, and it's
not like fight club. You can totally talk about it.
They don't get jumped in.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
They jump you in because.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Tool the initiation is the daily practice and commitment to it.
So you're waking up at four am, you're meditating for
four to eight hours a day. You sleep on the
floor on a thin mat and have a sheet. When
you're in India, you have a mosquito net because the
mosquitoes will bite you all night, so you've got to
be inside of this tent like thing. You get two

(13:46):
sets of robes. You wear one, you wash one. All
your possessions fit inside a gym locker and you live
that practice. You eat what you're given. You don't get
to choose. There's no menu, you don't get to say
to that one pizza and doesn't exis. Everyone eats the
same thing. There's no space that's yours. So we'd be
in a room like this and there's thirty men sleeping
in it, and you just put your mout down and

(14:07):
go to sleep. It's not like that's my corner. The
idea is to lose a sense of I, me and
mind until you have very very few possessions. And it's
that daily practicing commitment that if they see you're dedicated
to that allows you to become a monk, Like.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Let's ride to the monastery, like I've seen no one
get it, Like yeah, that process of it, like you
being a monk and your books, you know, the mindset,
the like Okay, I met this dude and then now
I'm sleeping on the mat, yeah, with thirty dudes sitting
in the room with me. Like that that process, like
it what why?

Speaker 4 (14:46):
Like?

Speaker 6 (14:46):
But what what is that?

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Those steps? Is it something mental? Then the shaven of
the hair and.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
All that stuff like yeah, I like the day the
process from living a normal life, have an apartment, graduating
from one of the best schools, and now I have
no possessions, I'm in a locker and I'm sleeping on
the floor with twenty nine dudes.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
So I was so young when I did it that
there was a sense of naive following. And what I
mean by that is I was just like, yeah, let's
give it a go, Let's try it out, like, let's
test it out. I kind of went in there as
an experiment. I was like, can I do this? What
did it look like? And I think I had that
openness of that age where you aren't necessarily asking all

(15:25):
these questions, you're kind of just like, let's see how
it goes. And to me, it was as simple as
I spoke to the monk in England, which is where
I first met him, and then he invited me to
India to spend time with him. So I flew over
during my Christmas breaks in college vacations, and I would
spend time with him at the monastery. And now at
that time, I would get a more comfortable room and

(15:48):
I'd do the practices so they didn't throw me right
into the deep end. But I did that so often
that I got so used to it that when I graduated,
I knew what I was getting myself into. It's almost like,
you've seen this is you're going to sleep it. You've
seen what it looks like. And I, truly, if I'm
completely honest, I didn't give it too much thought. I
was just like, I'm open to it. Let's see if

(16:08):
it works, let's test it out. And so to me,
the mindset was being open, not being skeptical, and being
a human guinea pig and going let's see if this
proves to be true. And the more I did it,
the more I gained confidence in it because I mean
to me a kid from London waking up at four am.

(16:29):
You know, as a college student, that's unheard of. You're
getting back at four am right from going out, and
so all of a sudden, I'm waking at four am.
But I literally said, I'm just going to do this
properly and see if it works. And I think that's
something I'd like to encourage, especially young people to do,
is if you're going to try something out, go all
in and test it out for seven days, and if

(16:50):
it doesn't work, don't do it again. But the problem
is we never go all in. We do it for
a day. If I said to you, I really want
to learn about American football, right, I really want to
understand the game. Well, if I come to one game
a year, what am I going to learn? If you
get a one meditation a year, what are you going
to learn? I'm not going to learn anything. But if
I sat with you every single day, if I followed

(17:10):
you around, if I followed the players around, then I'm
actually going to learn something, right. And so I think
it's that intimacy and that connection to a coach, a
mentor a guide that makes it easier to understand what's
happening and what's going on. So it's an immersive experience.
Does that make sense. I want to make sure I
answer your question. It's a great question.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah, it seems crazy to do, but you wanted to
dive in, and.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
That's totally it is crazy. It was so now when
I look back, I'm like, what was I thinking? But
I had that young, naive spirit of this guy has
something I don't have and I want it. And you
could think about how that mindset can get you into
trouble right when you're young. I'm sure I saw lots
of guys who had amazing cars and rims and you know,

(17:55):
clothes and whatever it is, and you can get involved
in the wrong things because you also want that. I
just was really lucky that the person I was inspired
to be like was a monk. People who was asking me,
how did you have that at such a young age.
I truly think it's because of their aura and their presence.
I don't it's a little bit of me. I have
a good heart. I was raised to be a good man.

(18:16):
My mom raised me well. But they are just so
powerful in their presence that you just couldn't help but
want to live that way. And I'm lucky that it
was the right people not the wrong people, because that
naive mindset can end up, you know, in completely the
other direction.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
I just want to add to that too, J before
I get into the immersion, because you're here now, you're
wanted the boys.

Speaker 7 (18:39):
And this is more so for Channing.

Speaker 5 (18:41):
But I just want to say before I get into
that question, is you're not your thoughts, right, You're not
your emotions.

Speaker 7 (18:47):
You're the observer of those things.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
And a young Jay, you were able to observe, you know,
what you wanted when you met this monk, and it
allowed you to discover your identity.

Speaker 7 (18:57):
And your real purpose. If I'm the right ones.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Absolutely, But in terms of Channing, I want to go
back to when you say being mindful right, and your
appearance and your approach.

Speaker 7 (19:09):
What drives that?

Speaker 5 (19:10):
Because Channing calls it insecurity there so conversation more so
than awareness, because he feels that the way Ryan dresses
or the way I might dress, or the things I wear,
which comes across as materialistic, but it's something that I like, Right,
how do you what drives your mindfulness? I'm sure it's

(19:31):
not an insecurity more so than it is awareness itself.
Of wanting to present yourself this way.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
The way I like to think about it is two
people can do the exact same thing, but for completely
different reasons. Let's say we were at a charity event
and two celebrities signed a million dollar check for the charity.
We don't know what's happening inside their head. One of
them signed it because they want to be seen as child.

(20:01):
The other person signed it because they really believe in
the charity. We don't know, only they do. And that's
how it works with everything in life. Two people go
to the same job every day. One person does it
because they love the job. The other person does it
to put food on the table. You could see two
people dressed in three piece suits. One does it because

(20:22):
they're insecure, and one does it because it represents who
they are and how they want to be presented.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
No one knows.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
The only person that knows is the person wearing the suit,
wearing the watch giving the money and charity externally. It's both,
it could be whatever. And so sometimes we see people
and we project our own insecurities onto them. So I'm
not saying that by Channey, I don't know you well
enough look at me. I just I'm gonna go off
with you said. Some people do a fan security. Other

(20:48):
is how they want to be presented, presented to.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Who other people?

Speaker 1 (20:52):
And if you if the world was blind, would you
dress up? So I'll give you an example. I'll give
you a really good example. My friends back in London
rip the way, what do you what word do you use?
Like this? I don't know what's the word? Like, what's
the word in the room? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so
like I'm just making sure I'm not speaking too much British.
Yeah yeah, so my Yeah, my friends back at home

(21:14):
will see me on the red carpet and destroy me
in the group chat, right, They'll post it up and
be like boys up with your hair, bro like you know,
like what are you wearing? Why are you wearing that?
Why are you looking like a girl? Like you know?
Like that, my friends will completely destroy me in the
group chat. So I get no clout for dress like
I have taken some risks. My wife we made a

(21:35):
video last week which wasn't my idea, but it was
Taylor who's here with me? So Taylor did she set
me up? She invited me into a space with my
wife and she had printed out all my looks in
the last nine years of my public figure career, like
since I left the monastery and since my career took off,
and she got my wife to rap my looks and

(21:56):
roast me on each one of them. My wife doesn't
even like this stuff I wear. So, if I'm completely honest,
and this is why I like Ryan because he has
good taste. Right, So this is Ryan compliments me on
what I wear because he has a good taste. You know,
a lot of people don't have good taste. So actually
I wear a lot of stuff that no one wants
to see me. And so what I'm trying to say

(22:19):
is that actually I would argue that some of the things,
and I'm talking for myself. I can only talk for myself.
I'd argue and say a lot of the stuff I wear,
the people around me don't even like it, but I
like it. It makes me feel comfortable, It makes me
feel confident, it makes me feel like I like for me.
I also like to dress up to feel how I
want to feel in this space. So I'm comfortable in this.

(22:40):
I feel casual in it, I feel like myself, I
feel relaxed. Do I want people to think I care
about my appearance, of course I do. Definitely do I
care what people think about my parents. Of course I do.
I'm not beyond that. And I think it's the honesty
of that which is what makes me authentic, not the
not caring. I think we live in a world where
we think, if that person don't care about what anyone thinks,

(23:01):
they're authentic.

Speaker 7 (23:03):
No.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Authentic is me being honest about what I care about,
what I don't. Do. I care if Ryan thinks I
dress well, Yes, of course I do. But that's honesty.
That is authenticity. I think today we've made authenticity feel
like I don't care about anyone and I'm above it all,
I'm beyond it. That's not authenticity. That's just fake. Namely
one person, by the way, when I walked around as
a monk, that's when I really didn't care because we

(23:24):
had robes, we had shaved heads, and there was nothing
attractive about our appearance. And I remember walking through city centers.
We traveled across Scandinavia, teaching meditation in Copenhagen and Stockholm
and Oslo, and I'd be on the streets and people
are laughing at you. People are looking at you like
you're dressed weird, like I've done that too. So I
have lived in a world of no one cared that

(23:45):
I didn't care what people thought. But now at this point,
I'd rather be honest than say I like taking pride
in my appearance. I like dress in a certain way.
Some people hate it, some people love it. But I
think that no one knows what's going on inside someone's mind.
And that's what's most interesting to me is that we
can all have projections of why people dress the way

(24:06):
they do, talk the way they do, or do what
they do, and then you realize what you said. I
think the inner reflection is more important to me than
what we think of others. So the inner reflection is
am I doing this for the praise? Because if I am,
I'm going to be let down by it, because sometimes
people are going to notice it and sometimes they're not.

(24:27):
So do I keep doing it when there's no praise
or do I only do it when there is praise?
Am I doing this because it makes me feel comfortable?
Or am I willing to wear something completely uncomfortable in
order to impress people? Right? So I never wear a
suit these days because I don't like wearing suits. I
don't feel comfortable in them, right, it doesn't make me
feel at ease.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
He wears the tight crutch suits. We can't be comfortable.

Speaker 6 (24:50):
Why are you looking at my crutch?

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Because I know you've got an east infection? Jay, I
gotta ask you with the honesty too.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, because I'm I've been They've killed me on this
show before we were doing so long.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
They usually roast to you, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
But when I tell dudes like you're a good looking dude,
Like what's the boy name, Denzel Award? Like I see
a dude, I'm like, bro, you're a fine dude, like
Jason Momoa, Idris Elba. I got some dudes that we
could raise a baby together. But like, do you think
you're a very good looking man? The pretty eyes, like

(25:26):
in the way you talk and the little you know,
the accent. Would you be as successful if you were
a big, old, fat, ugly guy.

Speaker 7 (25:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
There's two sides to this. One side is I'm also
an Indian man. You don't see a lot of brown
Indian people having huge public profiles, Like it's just not
that as common, right, It's just not I mean to
be honest, I think most Indian people when they come
to America. It's like most people don't even know where
to place. You born and raised in London, there's lots
of Indian people, so it's very common, but in the

(25:58):
media you didn't really see that. And so if you
think about in America, the most successful Indian person in
America of all time is Deepac ch Oprah, like the
only person I can think of, and then there would
have been like a musician Jay Sean. More recently there's
Ris Armored and Dev Patel, both amazing actors, but there's
few and far between, like there's a handful of South
Asian people. I think it's a hard question to answer

(26:21):
because I don't know is the reality. But what I
would say is that subjectively speaking, there's plenty of people
who've succeeded in life not based on their appearance as well,
and they would say that themselves. And I don't think
anyone is attractive to everyone. Like people always meet me
and go, oh, you're a lot shorter in person, right,

(26:42):
which means that there's a presence on screen that like
people expect me to be bigger, but that's a personality
thing that's not my shape or size. Some people also
tell me that I look more fat on social media.
People meet them, they're like, oh, you know, you're really lean,
you're a fit in person. And I'm like, oh, wait,
what do I look to you? And then you know,
so I think, you know, appearance and stuff is such

(27:05):
a it's so subjective, right, I'm sure you've met someone
that like, like, I get it. There's people that I
think are attractive or whatever, and some people think they're ugly.
It's such a messy thing. Ultimately, what I think it
is is it does come down to energy and personality
and spirit, and that's what people hold on to with people.
I think that's what works when you look at the

(27:26):
biggest YouTubers in the world today, look at some of
the biggest podcasters, look at some of the biggest comedians.
It's people telling great stories and people who make you
feel something. And I think that's what wins in the
online world. Because back in the day, people were choosing
who people followed. Right, there'd be an exec in a
suit that said, you're good looking, you're ugly. The good

(27:49):
looking person gets to be front of house, the ugly
person has to be back a house. No one decides
that anymore, the public decides who goes up and down.
So to me, when the public gets to decide, now,
you have to make someone feel something for them to
keep being involved. And I've been doing this for nine
years online, and my goal always is to make people
feel something. By the way, if you look at my

(28:10):
old videos, I didn't have like this, I'm wearing a
T shirt. I've got, you know, people, I remember my
first video we posted. People were like, why's he got
a wind machine? Dude? It wasn't a wind machine. It
was the wind. The wind's just blowing my hair. Because
I didn't have a team to produce the thing. My
first video, I'm sitting there with a boom mic stuck

(28:31):
into a backpack to hold it up, and my friend's
got his camera, Like that's all we had. And so
when I started out, we didn't have like I wasn't.
I wasn't, you know, wearing cool clothes. I didn't. My
hair wasn't perfect. I was just some guys. So I think,
to me, it's what we make people feel. To me,
that's what people connect with.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Life is about connection, and we're all searching for it
in some way and in something. And I thought you
said something really profound about the language we use.

Speaker 6 (28:58):
Right, there's two different to describe being alone.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
One is solitude, which could be looked at as a positive,
and then there's loneliness, which obviously has a negative connotation.

Speaker 6 (29:10):
How does someone who is alone or spending time alone
decipher between the two.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
I think in today's society, people would rather be in
the wrong relationship than be alone. People would rather settle
for less than they deserve than be alone. People would
rather be in a toxic relationship than be alone. We've
made being alone feel so scary and feel so bad

(29:43):
that people don't even think about it. Eighty percent of
people will pick out their phone in a crowd just
not to feel lonely. You just walk in through a
crowd and you just take your phone out because you
don't want to feel like you're alone. People struggle to
eat on their own. Whenever you ever seen someone go
out sit at a table by themselves and eat food.

(30:03):
If we do that, we have to get our phone now.
It's very rare. So we've made it since we were young.
If you think about it, if you were the kid
eating lunch on your own table alone, you were considered
the loaner or the weirdo. If you turn up to
a wedding and you don't have a plus one, or
you just got divorced, or you just broke up, everyone's
looking at you like are you okay? Like poor you.

(30:25):
It's like if you don't have someone next to you,
you're always seen as weaker, less than, or incomplete. We
even say that, we say, find someone who completes you.
What does that mean? It means you're incomplete without someone.
So we've made people feel that if you're alone, you're incomplete.
So we've villainized being alone. But Paul Tillich wrote about it,

(30:47):
and the monk teachers reminded me that there's two words
for being alone. One is lonely and one is solitude.
Paul Tillot says that being lonely is the weakness of
being alone, but solitude is this strength of being alone.
So solitude is saying, actually, if I can be comfortable
in my own company, that success. If I can like

(31:11):
the thoughts in my mind and the conversations I have
in my head when I'm alone, then I've had success
in my life. And that's what the monks were trying
to train you to do that instead of always looking
for the next bit of praise, the next bit of validation,
the next bit of approval. How do I feel so
centered and happy and content with who I am that

(31:33):
I'm not looking for other people to fill the parts
of me that are gaps. I actually look for other
people so we can enhance and grow together. And so,
to me, solitude is something we all need. And by
the way, we did this at my last show two
years ago, I went on a world tour. We did
nearly forty cities across the world, and my first segment
was something I was so excited to do. So what

(31:55):
we did is I ask people in the audience who's
the most addicted to their phone? And we broke it
down to the person who looks at their phone basically
every two minutes, so I'd bring them out to the audience.
I had of five thousand people who take one person
onto stage, and I asked them how that feels. And
they usually feel pretty bad about it, naturally, as we
all do. And I told them, well, they shouldn't feel

(32:16):
bad about it, because they're just the honest one. Everyone
else is lying because you know, everyone's addicted to their phone.
And then What I did is I gave them one question.
And what they didn't know is we lock them into
a cave on stage. We had this big box come out,
almost like a magician's box, and we locked them in
it in pitch black. Gave them noise canceling headphones so
they can't hear anything. I didn't even tell them how

(32:37):
long they were going to be in there. This person
was in there for fifteen minutes alone. We had a
night vision camera so we could see how they were
settling in them and I left them with one question.
The question was, what's the one thing you value that
you've been devaluing lately? What's really important to you but
you keep brushing it aside. I left them with that.

(32:58):
Fifteen minutes later. People would come out of this solitude.
Some people would be in tears, some people would be
in deep reflection, some people would have had a moment.
It was so good that people thought we fake the
whole thing, Like people afterwards coming up to me, going,
you must have faked that. I was like, trust me,
I'm in Australia. I've never been to Australia. We just

(33:18):
picked someone out of the audience. People had huge experiences
and the reason I did that was to show people
that when you take reflection into solitude, you come out
with value.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
We've been told if you're alone, you don't get any
value from it. These people were getting so much value
from it because they had a pointed focus and reflection.
And then afterwards we'd have a conversation about it. People
were talking about how they valued their family and they
don't care about them, they haven't been focusing on them.
People talked about their kids, people talked about themselves. It
was really beautiful and we've got video for its to

(33:54):
prove it. And what was amazing about it was just
everyone walked away realizing that solitude and the discomfort of
solitude was helpful. So to me, it's all about showing
people that they have the answers within themselves, not showing
them that I have the answers and solitude has the answers.
You can't hear your voice when you're surrounded by all
of this noise. You can't hear you in a voice,

(34:16):
when you're surrounded by opinions. You can't hear your voice
when you're always asking the group chat, what should I wear?
What should I do? Where should we go. You never
get to know yourself because you never had to. I'm
really loving where this conversation is going. Let's pause for
a quick break for our sponsors and we'll be right back.
Thanks for sticking with me. Let's get into it.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
How do you get people to embrace that solitude in
that stillness because the world, it's a constant reminder of
what hustle, how it can reward you, right, and then
technology is forever evolving.

Speaker 7 (34:50):
You don't want to feel missed out.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
So how do you get someone to like, I'm the
person that's on my phone right all the time if
you ask them, I'm that guy that would have I
poured out of the crowd. But how do you get
someone to embrace that stillness that you will hope that
they could search for.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
I think a lot of people think that stillness and
solitude means doing nothing and just sitting there, And that's
not the goal. The goal is we're gonna focus your
attention on one thing. And actually that's where beast mode
comes from. To me, beast mode doesn't come from running
around being busy. Beast mode comes from having super focused

(35:29):
on one thing. There's this great quote I love from
Bruce Lee, where he said, I'm not scared of the
man who's practiced fifteen thousand kicks one time each. I'm
scared of the man who's practiced one kick fifteen thousand times. Right,
Because if you've practiced something once every time, you're not
scared of that person because they can't do it that well.

(35:50):
So the person who's running around trying to do everything,
I'm not scared of that person. They're not winning. I'm
scared of the person who stood at the hoop and
shot a hundred free throws every hour for the next
ten days. That person's scary. So that's what stillness and
solitude is is, can I focus laser focus on one thing,

(36:12):
whether that's the mindset, whether that's clarity, whether it's strategy,
whether it's my breath, whatever it is. That person's scary.
That person's undefeatable because that person has done the same
thing again and again and again. Doesn't make sense. It's
like stillness and solitude isn't I'm just sitting there doing nothing.
Time's going by, I'm wasting time. It's no, it's one

(36:34):
pointed attention. Energetically. I was talking to Carmelo Anthony yesterday,
and he was saying that the best games he played
was when his coaches showed him a video of like
three hundred when like Gerard Butler's like shouting Sparta or like,
you know, the best games he played was when he

(36:55):
was in the zone. It wasn't the best games, wasn't
the ones where he's like just doing a million things.
It was like he was showing a video that made
him feel like a gladiator, that made him know what
he had to go and do out there. That's what
solitude gives you the space to do. Solitude gives you
the space to go. What is the energy I'm trying
to create? But you can't create that if you're hustling,

(37:16):
running around trying to win everything and do everything. And
that's what I want people to think of stillness and
solitude as it's priming the beast inside of you to
do what Bruce Lee said, which is I'm so focused
that you know, I don't even need to move that
much to destroy my enemy. Like that's the energy you
can create in solitude.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
You know, when I look at you and your wife
now right, it's like your wife has her own thing,
you have your own thing. And then you come together
and you guys do your thing. You know, you met
her while you were in the monastery, and then now
you're rout and you get an opportunity to develop this relationship.

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Was it difficult to be.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
In something where it became about us when for three
years you were dealing in the world of mindfulness, of understanding, solitude,
of having a certain level of peace by yourself, and
now you had to give yourself to someone else.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah. I actually met her before I became a monk, okay,
And we never dated. I just met her. I introduced
her to my sister. They became friends, and so when
I came back from the monastery, her and my sister
were best friends, and my sister was my wingman. So
in my first book, I wrote my dedication. I dedicated
Think like a Monk to my wife, and the dedication says,
to my wife, who's more monk than I'll ever be?

(38:36):
And I mean that my wife is way more monk
than I'll ever be. I had to work to be
a monk. My wife is a monk like she's naturally
that way. And I got lucky and fortunate that I
was able to find a partner who actually brings me
peace rather than brings me drama. And I always say
that the right person will reduce drama and the wrong

(39:00):
person will increase trauma. Right, the right person brings you peace,
the wrong person brings you chaos. The right person brings
you stability. The wrong person brings you inconsistency. And so
to me, I found someone who was able to match
that energy. But it was hard in the beginning because

(39:22):
I came out of the monastery as a bit of
an avoidance. What I mean by that was I used
to constantly say to my wife, you know, I'd be
okay without you. I used to be happy before this.
You know, I'm okay without you. And I didn't realize
how much damage that did to connection because I felt
that with strength and confidence, it was just avoidance. It

(39:42):
was the avoidance of connection. I'd be like, you know,
I'd be happy on my own. You know, I'm happy
on my own. I was good by myself. It's not
that that's not true. It's that when you're trying to
connect with someone, that isn't the language and the approach
that creates connection. So what did that do that create
a relationship When my wife like, well, I'm okay without
you too, right, And now you're like few strangers living

(40:03):
in the same house. We both think, oh, we're better
without each other. We're fine without each other. So that's
what the challenge was, is that I came out as
an avoidant and created an avoidant attachment style in my
own relationship. And it took me a long time to realize.
And partly it was me grieving a past life. And
I'm sure you felt this in sport, business and everything

(40:24):
else in your lives. When you're retiring, there's a grieving
of who you used to be. And so for me
leaving the monastery, I was grieving that life that I
had created for myself. And what you do is when
you're grieving, you take that into the next life and
you carry that baggage into your next relationship. It took
me a lot of years to say, actually, I'm just

(40:45):
gonna embrace I'm a married man now, I'm not a
monk anymore, and that's okay, And this is coming with
new gifts, new blessings, new reflections, and this is going
to make me a better monk, a better man, a
better person. And if I embrace it rather than I
keep holding onto this over here, there's a beautiful Zen

(41:05):
teaching that says, whatever you're holding onto is what's holding
you back. So if you're holding onto a past version
of yourself, that's holding your back. If you're holding to
a person in your past, that's holding you back. If
you're holding onto a life that you once had, that's
holding you back. So what's holding you back is something
you're actually holding onto. But if you just let it

(41:27):
go and free it, you're free to move forward.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
And Jack got to ask you about the three year
stretch in the monastery. You in college, you were having
a good time, understand you, and then you got back
into the world. There was three years you didn't touch
a woman or have no sex.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Nothing for three years. Bro, that's crazy, It is crazy.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Did you have to really meditate some nights it's three years, Jane,
that's nuts to me.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
You know what it is, there's an environment when you
go to a place where people have meditated for decades,
and some temples we went to in south of India
people have meditated for thousands of years and people have
been celibate for thousands of years. There's an energy in
that space that you can't conceive. The only way I

(42:18):
can describe it is like when you go to a
stadium that you love and you just get pumped because
you walk into this stadium and it has an energy
because your greats played there and you won super Bowls
there or whatever it is, and you walk into that space.
And so I think the energetic sphere that's created by
the monks is what makes it easier. Was it hard

(42:39):
for me? Of course it was. Was it unnatural for me,
of course it was, But there was a value in it,
and it was made easier in their association. There are
certain things that are easier when you're surrounded by people. Right,
there's that famous quote that says, if you're surrounded by
five rich people, you'll be the sixth. If you're surrounded
by five smart people, you'll be the sixth. If you're

(43:00):
surrounded by five fit people, you'll be the sixth, And
if you're surrounded by five idiots, you'll be the sixth. Right,
you're going to be the sixth of whoever you are.
So when you're surrounded by all these people that are
committed to this practice surprisingly becomes easier. But yes, there
were times when I had to really lock in when
I felt weak, when I felt moments of vulnerability. For sure,

(43:22):
you're so engaged positively. This is another trick for the mind.
The mind can't give up something hard if it doesn't
have something that it's connected to better. Right, So when
you think about the first car you ever got, there's
how I like to think about this. The first car
I ever got. I'll have to show you a picture later.
It's a red Vauxhall Courser, which I don't even think

(43:45):
they have the brand in America. But it's like this tiny,
little red beetle looking thing.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
It was the first car I ever had. To me
that was a Ferrari, because I was a kid who
just wanted a car, Like I would be playing like
fifty cent the game while driving around in my red,
tiny little beetle looking car, and I felt like the
coolest kid in town. And this is when you had
the cassette tape that connected to the MP three player

(44:11):
and then you know, played the song and I used
to feel so cool. Now I when I look back
at that picture, I mean, I look like an idiot,
like that car was, you know whatever. But if someone
told me to give up that car for nothing, I'd
be like, are you kidding me? I'd never give it up.
It's the best car in the world because for me,
that's all I could afford. That was the best thing
I could have. But if someone said, hey, i'll trade

(44:31):
you at that time, I'll trade you a Mercedes for
that car, I would have done it in an instant. Obviously.
That's kind of what it's like, where it's like you're
addicted to this thing over here. You can't just give
it up. Like to make to theoretically rationalize how you
can give it up is impossible. But when someone's offering
you something, when it's enlightenment, mindfulness, presence, the greatest emotional

(44:55):
and mental mastery, and it's being offered to you, it's
because of that that it becomes easier to not follow
this distraction.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
If that is Yeah, Jay, you talked about your wife
and yourself living in the same home as strangers. Did
that help you create your book The Eight Rules of Love?
When I think you talk about building and maintaining relationships,
and I also want to ask you, what's the most
common misconception of love?

Speaker 1 (45:23):
So the book wasn't written from what I got, right,
The book was written from what other people got wrong
that shared their stories with me. So I wrote the
book not from what I got right about love, but
from what I got wrong and the people that are
interviewed on what they got wrong, because I think it's
really interesting to study people's challenges. The biggest misconception about

(45:45):
love is that we've confused inconsistency with excitement, and we've
confused stability with boredom. We've confused that if someone shows
up with f that they're desperate. If someone shows up
for us with time and energy, we think they need us.

(46:08):
We think that if someone actually has space for us,
then they must be the loser. We believe that love
means chasing someone who doesn't want to stay, rather than
being with someone who never wants to leave. The biggest
misconception is that love is something that has to be

(46:29):
earned rather than shared, and so what we do is
we want to be with the person who keeps us
on our toes right. We've all met people who say
I really want someone with values, but then they chase
the person who doesn't give them validation. We've all met
someone who says I really want someone who's affectionate, but
they chase the person who doesn't give them any attention.

(46:50):
We've all met someone who says I really want someone
who's present, But then you're chasing the person who never
shows up on time. We're always chasing the person who
doesn't give us what we want because we believe that's love.
And that's the biggest misconception. And too many people are
chasing all the wrong people. And the right person is
standing right there, ready to love them with all their heart,

(47:12):
but they're boring, needy, desperate, and I'm not attracted to them.
But wait, when you're gonna be with someone for five, ten,
fifteen years, I want the person who texts me back.
I want the person who calls me back in five ten,
fifteen years time. I want the person who shows up
on time. I want the person who wants to hear
how my day was. I don't want the person who's

(47:34):
never around. I don't want the person who disappears when
it's hard like that's not the person I want. And
so people are choosing the sixth month pleasure versus the
sixty year presence. And yeah, those six months are gonna
be the amazing six months, but guess what, you're gonna
have to keep doing those six months every six months
six months, so you either date, you know, thirty people

(47:57):
every six months or the rest of your life, or
you have one person or two people maybe because by
the way, I also don't like to demonize divorce and
breakups because I do believe it's honestly possible for people
to outgrow each other and for people to grow apart.
And I don't think we should demonize people who get
divorced or break up or make it feel like a

(48:17):
failure when actually it could be the best decisions of
someone's life and the best decision for that other person.
And I think we have to learn in society to
be okay with that because a fifty percent of people
are doing it anyway, so you're going to know someone
who's gone through it, and b it's actually we should

(48:37):
realize it's more rare to stay with someone than it
is to leave someone. It's way harder to find someone
on planet Earth that you actually can stay with than
it is to find someone that you probably will outgrow
or break up with. So, you know, I think we've
got to give people an easier time on that.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
It's interesting because in reading the title of your book,
it's you know, find it, keep it, let it go,
And it's almost one of those things you read that
tiredle You're like, well, damn, he gonna get me to it,
then teach me how to live when it's gone. But
that is part of it. When you wrote that book,
what sort of advice were you trying to give to

(49:18):
people who are looking for love, who are trying to
continue to build on their love, and also who are
trying to let go of love lost.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
There's two things. The first is everyone, at one point
in their life will have to let go of someone
they love, whether that be while that person's alive or
while that person's about to pass away. Every single one
of us is going to lose someone we love. And

(49:51):
the hardest realization is when you recognize that you love
someone but you still have to let them go because
you didn't have the other emotional skills to keep love right.
You can love someone but not be good for them,
and someone can love you but not be right for

(50:12):
you because they don't have the other emotional skills that
make love stay. Love's not enough. You need emotional maturity,
you need personal mastery, you need self control, you need compassion,
you need empathy. There is so much more. Needed to
make love last, and so a lot of us are

(50:34):
going to lose love because we didn't develop those other skills.
You lose love. To remind you that there are other
skills to be developed as well. There are other habits
that you need to build as well. And the number
one habit that I encourage all people to realize is
that we've put romantic love on a pedestal on planet Earth.

(50:55):
We believe that romantic love is the number one timeeype
of love. If you look at all the spiritual traditions
they disagree. They believe that the number one type of
love is a parent's love for their child. That's the deepest,
most unconditional, selfless love that could possibly exist. But in humans,

(51:19):
we've said romantic love is better than anything. So someone
could be loved by their kid and love their kid.
Someone could love their friends and be loved by their friends.
Someone could love their brother or their sister and be
loved by their siblings, but still feel incomplete because they
don't have a partner. And I want to remind people
that you need to value all of those forms of

(51:41):
love as much as romantic love. Stop putting this hierarchy
on love. Stop rating love on a scale of romantic
love is the best. Family love is second, kid's love
is fifth. That's what's ruining love in our lives. I
think people don't realize how much love they already have
have and by the way, that will probably help you

(52:02):
find romantic love. Whereas when you walk around thinking I
don't have love in my life, well, guess what, that's
all you're gonna.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
See thinking of love.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Does your passion for helping others, your passion for, you know,
spiritually guiding people. Does that take away from your personal
love relationships, your wife, your family Because you're helping so
many people, there's only so much energy, It's only so
many hours in a day.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
That's a great question. Yeah, I've always felt like, in
one sense, I always feel like I have so much
parental energy because my work is so parental. Right, It's
almost like you're giving parental love through what I do
every day. So I feel like the parental side of
my life is very satisfied. But I still want to

(52:46):
have kids with my wife because I think she'll be
a great mom. I think that i'd like to create
with her because I'd want to have a kid that's
just like her. So there's a beauty in that too.
I think about it the other way around. If you
love your kid, you have to love their friends, because

(53:06):
if you don't love their friends, your kid is surrounded
by friends who don't have love. And if you love
your kid and you love their friends, you have to
love their school because if you don't care about the
school they go to, your kid is going to become
like the school makes them. So if you love your
kid and you love their friends and you care about
their school, you got to care about the city they

(53:26):
grow up in because what they see on the streets
is what they're going to repeat. And then if you
care about your kid and you care about their friends,
and you care about the school and you care about
the city, you got to care about the country they
grow up in because the leaders they see are the
people they're following. So if you actually care about your kid,
you have to care about the world because your kid

(53:46):
is growing up in that world. And so I think
people don't realize. They go, oh, I'm caring about my kids.
But if you just care about your kids, you don't
really get them anywhere because they're growing up in the
world that you hate. And that's not the world you
want to create. And that's why I think so many
people today are realizing it does matter who the leaders are.
It does matter what they see on TV. It does

(54:07):
matter who's represented. It does matter that people of color
get a chance to have exec positions and leadership positions.
It does matter that people have represented effectively on screen
and off screen. It does matter that women are in
boardrooms and are CEOs. All of this matters because your
kid's going to grow up in that world. It's not
good enough to say I love my kid, I care
about them, and because I just take care of them,

(54:29):
everything's going to be okay. Now, I'm not saying everyone
has the capacity to take care of everything, but the
mom showing up at school to make sure the kids
have support, that's making an impact. Right the parent who's
coaching their kid in Little League, that's making an impact.
The fact that I get to try and show love

(54:50):
to the world is making an impact in my own way.
So to me, it's all connected. I can't really break
it apart. If that makes sense. Let's take a short
to hear from some of our sponsors, then we'll get
right back into it. I hope you learned about some
of our incredible partners. Let's jump by kid.

Speaker 5 (55:09):
When I do speak to school's business whatever, I like
to lead with routine versus commitment because I think routines
are vital for everyone. Much like yourself as a monk,
you believe in structure.

Speaker 7 (55:20):
I know, think like a monk.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
You talk about routine when things are challenging for you,
Do you have like a personal mantra or something that
kind of reminds you to get back in gear? Because
in my speech about routine versus commitment, we all are
going to have that. But the commitment reinforces the routine
in those times when you don't feel like, you know,
sticking to that routine.

Speaker 7 (55:42):
What's your personal mind for or guideline.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Everything that is good for me is hard before I
do it and easy after I do it. And everything
that's bad for me is easy before I do it,
and it's hard after I do it. Getting to the
gym is hard. The feed after leaving the gym is easy.
Eating junk food is easy, but the feeling afterwards is hard.

(56:08):
So I like to remind myself that if I don't
feel like going to the gym right now, that's how
it's meant to feel it's going to be hard if
I don't feel like eating a salad right now, that's
how it's meant to feel. It's hard because it's good
for me. So anything that is good for my body
and good for my mind is hard to do right now,
but it bears benefits afterwards. And anything that is not

(56:30):
great for me to do right now, it's going to
be easy, but it's going to create lots of pain afterwards.
And that reminder to me allows me to recognize it's okay.
It's hard because it's good for me, So I turn
to that when it's a bigger thing in life. A
mantra that I love is this only makes the story better.
Whenever I fail, or whenever I lose, or whenever something

(56:52):
goes wrong, I always say to myself, this only makes
the story better. Because if you've failed, you've fallen, you've
made mistakes, you're a human. It's more relatable when you
tell your story one day, more people will connect to you,
whereas if your story was just win off to win,
off to win, off to win, you're unrelatable, and so
it only makes the story better.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Jay, you seem really traditional in a lot of ways,
and then so progressive in others. I think when you
have a mindset that's deeply rooted in history, some of
those things are going to carry over. But you also
seem to understand, okay, as life change and as life evolves,
we have to We had Jason Kelce on the show
and he talked about the famous swipe right or left,

(57:34):
whatever way it is that got him kighly. You know,
for you when you think of of like dating apps
and the way that people try to meet one another, now,
how much better do you.

Speaker 6 (57:46):
Think that makes it? Or do you think it's harder that.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
You have to look at through what's actually changed. So
we have more choices, but all the studies show that
humans are bad with more choice. The Paradox of Choice
is a recent study that shows how when humans have
more things to choose from, they always make bad choices.
And so I think there's a big challenge in the

(58:11):
fact that now you're exposed to more people. Twenty five
thirty years ago, most people married someone in a five
mile radius of where they grew up. So your friend
knew them, your brother knew them, your family knew them,
the person down the street knew them. Someone knew them,
and that's how you met them. Today, people are getting
married to people from different cities, different countries, different cultures,

(58:33):
and that comes with a set of challenges. Not that
it's bad, It just requires more maturity, It requires more
openness and wisdom. And so what I think we need
to do is we need to be really clear about
the values and vision of the relationship we want, because
that hasn't changed. You could have married the person next

(58:54):
door twenty five years ago and they could have been abusive,
They could have been a narcissist. They probably were, and
we just didn't think about it because people got arranged
marriages and they didn't talk about it. It wasn't public knowledge.
Just because you married the person next door doesn't mean
they were right for you. That wasn't a good thing either.
So I think we also have this nostalgic view of oh,

(59:15):
you know, the eyes crusted at the grocery store and
I dropped a bag of potatoes and they came and
picked them up with me, and oh my god, it
was so romantic. It's like, yeah, but that person was
a psycho, Like you didn't you didn't know that, right,
exactly right. It's like, well, you didn't. You didn't talk
about that like part in the past that people didn't
talk about this. Right, you have so many marriages that

(59:36):
have physical abuse, domestic violence, verbal abuse going on background
behind the scenes, no one even knows about it. But oh,
we met them next door and they were my sister's friend,
Like you know, it was awesome. Like we have this
romantic view of the past, and I don't think that's
healthy either. We have to move with the times. So
one of the things I built recently is I partnered

(59:56):
up with match dot com to build a values based
matching system. What this does is it allows you to
do a short test we created where you get to
learn your values, and everyone who joins that part of
the app does the same. The goal for this was
not to say I want you to find someone with
the same values. The goal for me was, now, at

(01:00:16):
least you can see someone's values up front, and when
you meet them, you can check whether their values are aligned.
Because here's the thing, no one walks around with their
values stuck on the top of their forehead. It takes
years to figure someone's values out. But what if that
becomes the thing you start talking about checking out when
you meet someone and they say, oh, yeah, I love

(01:00:37):
my family. Family's number one priority. Then you go to them,
when did you last speak to your mom? And they're like,
I don't know, I haven't spoken to it for two years.
It's like, all right, this person's not in alignment. Someone
says to you, oh yeah, yeah, I'm ambitious, I love
I love work, and then you go, all right, but
what are you building right now? And they're like, I
don't know. I'm trying to figure it out right. It's
like you can very quickly when you talk about values,

(01:00:57):
figure out whether someone is compatible for you and whether
they whether you're attracted them and excited about them. And
so to me, I'm more interested in making people clear
about their vision and values and that will make dating
easier because that narrows the pool, that makes the choice easier,
rather than if you're just basing it on looks, or
if you're just basing it on a clever little caption

(01:01:18):
or a funny thing they said about themselves. I mean,
now you can just get chat GPT to write the
funniest thing, and everyone's a comedian now, you know. It's
like it's not hard to fake it. And so I
think we have to look deeper to find a relationship
that's going to last longer. We have to look beyond
looks to find a relationship that will last when the
looks fade. We gotta look so much more at someone's

(01:01:42):
heart than just how interesting they look on a page.
And that only happens when you talk about vision and values.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
My favorite j Shady picture now like this. I like
all the I like all the red carpet pictures. I
like all the different things that you know, the Vince
you show up at, you know, presiding over nuptial All
those pictures are cool. But the coolest picture is your
high school picture. Haha, right, And I think it's because
of the story you shared on Instagram about it though,

(01:02:10):
all the things people told you you couldn't do, all
the things people said you couldn't be, And it seems
now that you are living in your purpose, and that
purpose is a tree that's deeply rooted with a lot
of branches. For people watching this show, Jay, how will
they truly know that what they're doing, what they're pouring into,

(01:02:32):
is them living in their purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
The first step of finding your purpose is collecting wherever
you are right now, even if you hate your job,
Collect every skill, every person, every networking relationship. Collect collect, collect, literally,
see yourself as a collector of gold coins. Even if

(01:02:54):
you hate your job, you hate your career. Collect everything
you possibly can from this experience, and then move to
the next thing and collect everything from there. And one day,
after you've done enough collecting, you're going to start connecting
the dots. So my first ever job was I used
to deliver newspapers in my area. All my friends who

(01:03:18):
also deliver newspapers, they used to throw them on the
train tracks. They never delivered them, so the guy who
owned the newspaper company gave me more streets. So what
did I learn? I learned, when you do a good job,
you get rewarded. My next job was I worked at Morrison's.
Morrison's is our walmart, like a grocery store. I used
to stack shelves, I used to bring in palettes. I

(01:03:38):
worked back of house. It was a hard job. I
learned that not always just working hard leads to great rewards.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
The third job I had, I worked in retail. The
fourth job I had, like I mean in one sense.
After that, my fourth job was being a monk. I
learned all the wisdom I learned all the wisdom that
I learned. The fifth job I had I worked in
the corporate world. I worked as a consultant. I learned negotiation,
I learned sales. I learned connection. I learned understanding what

(01:04:08):
people wanted and needed in different industries. Today, I'm living
my purpose because I just connected all of that. Everything
I'm living today is as much management as it is Monk,
as it is Morrison's, as it is paper delivery. It's
all of those things. And people think, no, no, no,
there's one job that's going to be my purpose. Everything
you do today, everything all of you do today, is

(01:04:30):
this beautiful harmony and synergy of all the experiences you've had.
That's what purpose is. And so purpose is not about
finding the perfect job or the perfect title or the
perfect thing. It's about just collecting experiences, collecting people, and
then connecting it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
One day, just listen to you talking knowing your success
and watching your videos. Were you born different to be
able to do what you're doing or with them?

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Did those experience make Jay Shendy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
When you actually study the greatest athletes of all time,
even if they were born with it, they're still working
harder than everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
But Randy Moss was six had forty in vertical sure,
so physical, physical, like the athlete side of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
But you've probably know a lot of guys that are
six to four and can't do that. So you know, Yeah,
I know a lot of people that are tall and built,
but I know a lot of people that are attractive
that are not actors on screen. I know a lot
of people who can sing who aren't musicians. Like I
know a lot of rappers that made it that have
terrible verses, like you know, but they stuck it out. Yeah, right,
Like if you think about the amount of rappers that

(01:05:30):
have terrible verses that have hit songs, but when you
hear their bars, you're like, how did you make it?
But they stuck around so consistency. Like what's that famous
quote like hard work meets talent when talent doesn't work
hard like that. It's the oldest quote in the book,
but it's so true. So for me, I would say
that I was so much of it was nurture. So

(01:05:54):
much it was nurture. My parents were really scared I
was going to be a shy kid, so they forced
me to go to public speaking drama school when I
was eleven years old. I hated it, but I went
for seven years. And when I walked out there, I
didn't know what to talk about. But I knew I
had skills, but I didn't have something to talk about.
But then when I became a monk or I had
something to talk about. So I found the passion with

(01:06:15):
the skills. Because skills aren't good enough, what are you
going to do with it? And so I really believe
in people nurturing their abilities and people investing in their abilities,
and people realizing that it's possible for them. Is it
possible for me to be a basketball player a football player?

Speaker 7 (01:06:33):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Right, Physically I'm not even in the fiftieth percentile, like
I'm ninety like right, Like I'm like, I don't know,
I can't write. There are certain things I just can't do.
So I've got to be honest about that. But that's
mainly sports, which requires a physicality to it, or if
you're a singer, but there's some singers who can't sing
that well too, So you know, it's like there's a

(01:06:55):
lot of careers where sports is probably the one that
you just can't mesh around with, right, But then you
get people like Alan Iverson, Like you know, you get
a few players who don't really fit the bill, and
that's exception. They're not the rule. They're the exception where
they don't have the physicality, but they're just talented. So
I agree. I think sports is one of those things
you can't break into if you don't have something you're

(01:07:16):
born with. But of other things, there's not many things
that feel the same way as sports.

Speaker 5 (01:07:21):
Jay, throughout the collection process of you discovering your purpose,
what was your biggest pivot? That's that one moment and
we always act off. I guess this is the one
moment you can look back on and say, without this
happening to me or for me, I wouldn't be who
I am today.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
So the reason why I love the name of the
podcast is because my life is full of pivots. There's
not one. Everything's a pivot. So instead of getting a
corporate job, which I was destined to get, I decided
to become a monk. That was a pivot. Then when

(01:08:00):
I was meant to be a monk, I thought I
was going to be a monk for the rest of
my life, but I left because it didn't feel right. Anymore.
That was a pivot. Went back to the corporate world.
I was just about getting steady in my job. I
was going to get married to my wife, and I went,
this isn't my purpose. I'm going to leave. That was
a pivot. Started making videos. When I started making videos,

(01:08:21):
I made these four minute videos. They went viral. I
wanted to launch a podcast, and every podcast company said,
don't do a podcast. People want to listen to you
for four minutes. No one wants to listen to you
for an hour. So I did it. That was a pivot.
Then I had a hit podcast. I wanted to write
a book. Fourteen out of seventeen publishers said, don't call it.
Think like a monk. No one wants to think like
a monk. I wrote the book anyway. That was a pivot.

(01:08:44):
Then I wanted to go. So it's like my life
has just been full of pivots. I actually think all
I care about is pivots. I don't actually want to
be ever not pivoting, because that's what we all have
to do. And I think the longer you take to pivot,
the harder it gets. There's a beautiful quote I read
the other day that I love, and it says the
longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive

(01:09:07):
it is to get back home. And so actually, the
more you pivot, because I started pivoting when I became
a monk at twenty one, twenty two years old. Because
I've pivoted that early, I've got so comfortable pivoting. So
I would encourage everyone to not be scared of the pivot,
because the pivot becomes the platform that creates the next

(01:09:28):
moment of your purpose. Whereas if you stay where you are,
that's what kind of crushes everything, and you get more
scared to move the more years go by. And so
I just I just keep pivoting even now, like you know,
we're trying to do I mean, we've been talking about it.
We're doing TV and film, we're doing production, we're doing
all this stuff. And in one sense, someone said, well, Jay,

(01:09:49):
what qualification do you have. Oh, I just got to
keep pivoting. Life's full of pivots, and I've learned that
when I look back at my life, the best decisions
I made were pivots. They weren't staying in the same place.
That was never the good decision. So to answer your question, yeah,
I've got a million pivots, and I hope there's a
million more that surprise everyone. And I'm just collecting experiences.

(01:10:12):
You know, today I get to see it with you guys, Like,
how dope is this? Like, you know, I get to
see with I get to sit with all of you
from this world. I was laughing at my life. I
was like you were talking about it, like I was
in Bad Boys, like a year ago, sitting here with
you guys today. Yesterday I was with Carmelo Anthony. Then
I was with a mindfulness expert, then my monk teachers
coming into La to live with me for two weeks

(01:10:33):
on Sunday. Now my life is just made up of
me collecting the random. And I want to die having
just had these beautiful exchanges, meaningful exchanges with people that
I maybe would never have crossed paths with or because
I was trying to help people. How beautiful is that?
Why would I say no to having the opportunity to
have this rich life of experiences? And I think when

(01:10:55):
you get lost in your cocoon and your echo chamber
and your little world which we all do, you miss
out on the joy that comes from you know. I
remember when Ryan. Ryan realized that I listened to the game,
and that was like a big moment for him, and
it was like and it was like I was like, yeah,
Like all we did growing up in London was listened
to American rap and hip hop. That's all we did.

(01:11:16):
And you wouldn't know that from the way we dress,
the way we look, from where we come from. But
when you can find commonalities and similarities, you know, the
the black Monk, Like who would have known? You know,
it's like, hey, it's official. Now away from this.

Speaker 6 (01:11:33):
They call me the black Monk too.

Speaker 4 (01:11:36):
You can leave, we stay around.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
But who would have ever thought that a professional athlete,
a former American football players, had so much success in
his career, would call himself the black Monk, like just
I would never have guessed that in a million years.
And that's the beauty of this amazing life that we live,
that me and Ryan could sit and have something in
common when we're so different, have such different backgrounds and
different upbringings. We can both like the game and both

(01:12:01):
like the idea of being monks. Like that is the
I love that. That's what makes life people I actually.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
And not you know, not a Hindu monastery but I
actually spent a lot of time in the Greek Orthodoxed
Christian monastery with Troy Palomalo, and the life was fascinating
because those people seem like the most authentic humans in
the world. They were one hundred percent comfortable in who

(01:12:27):
they were. And so I understand when you say you
met your monk teacher, you like, I want that, Like
whatever that thing is, that's what I want. And you
know you mentioned commonalities. I'm excited with working on something now.
I'm excited about continuing to move forward, and that I
do have one last question. I have like a million
of them, but we'll talk about them off air one day.
You know, you mentioned pivoting, that your entire life has

(01:12:49):
been a pivot, and when you decide that you're gonna
dedicate your life and to the monastic lifestyle, that's a
that's a forever change, and you had to move out
of there to move into something else that continue to.

Speaker 6 (01:13:04):
Move you towards your purpose.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
How do people decipher whether moving on or quitting, or
changing careers or letting a relationship go is a pivot
instead of a failure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
What's interesting about that question is that it's actually all
in your head, because what you label it as is
what it becomes. So when I left the monastery, I
thought it was a failure, and guess what, that's what
it was. Then it was a failure. Now when I
look back, I see it as a pivot. And often

(01:13:41):
when you're making the decision, it feels like a failure
in the moment. More often than not, it will feel
like a failure in the moment, But when you look back,
you'll see it as a pivot, because what you realize
is is that if you keep seeing it as a failure,
you'll keep failing. And when I left the monastery and
felt like a failure, which I did, I realized that
at one point that mindset didn't serve me anymore. There

(01:14:04):
was only so much I could feel sorry for myself.
There's only so much I could pity myself. There's only
so much I could feel like I wish I was
still there, and I had to own my life and
take responsibility and say, what did I love about it?
I love the fact that I got to study wisdom
and share it. I love the fact that we woke
up early and we meditated. I love the fact that

(01:14:25):
we had a routine that made me feel good. Guess
so I can do that. Well, now I can still
do that, I can still build that into my life.
That's why I wrote the book Think like a monk,
not live like a monk, because I'm not living like
a monk anymore, but I'm still thinking like one. So
to me, it's all about how you label it. And
chances are you will always label the end of something

(01:14:47):
as a failure because again, society has conditioned you to
believe that ending something or leaving something incomplete is a failure.
So you will, in the moment always think it's a failure.
But the quicker you realize it to pivot, the more
you move towards your purpose. And so I would just
encourage anyone to say, if something's no longer serving you,

(01:15:10):
if something's no longer fulfilling you, if you've tried everything
you possibly can and you can't save, fix, or solve
this thing, let it be. You will feel like a failure,
expect it, and then pivot. Allow yourself to feel like
a failure, and then pivot.

Speaker 5 (01:15:29):
Our mantra here is accept the just and move forward,
and also realize it's never too late to pivot, never
too late to pivot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
So the tour, you know, that's the reason we were
able to catch you here in New York, just for
people who are looking to tap in, people who want
to get an opportunity to lay eyes on Jay Shetty
and absorb some of that wisdom, but also experience some
of the things you've experienced.

Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
Where are you going? How do they do that? How
do they tap in?

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Yeah, I'm really excited. For the first time ever, we're
doing a podcast tour, So we have fifteen cities, fifteen
surprise guests across North America and Canada. I'll be interviewing
people's favorites from the show, some new ones as well.
And what I'm really excited about, if I'm honest, is
it's going to be walking into a room. Well, when

(01:16:18):
you look left and right, the person next to you
listens to the same thing you do. So the amount
you have in common with the people around you is huge.
There's very few places in the world that we go
into anymore where you feel connected to someone before you
walk into the room. Now you can walk in and
the person next to you as a favorite episode, you
have a favorite episode. The energy is going to be

(01:16:38):
electric and I'm going to be sharing wisdom and insights
that we haven't before. I think there's something special about
memories that are made in person. In New York, we're
going to be at the Theater at MSG, so that's
going to be incredible. In LA we're at the Greek Theater,
which is beautiful. Then we're going Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Colorado, Philadelphia.

(01:17:06):
You know. So we're doing fifteen cities and you can
go to Jay Shetty Dop Me Forward Slash Tour and
you'll find all the day to all the tickets, and
I hope people will come out and leave with a
connection with other people. That's my goal I think we're
all looking for. I'm hoping people come there and leave
with the date right. Like it's like you see someone
you like. They care about the same stuff you do.
So you know how rare it is to go to

(01:17:28):
a place where people care about the same thing you do.
They're listening to the same show. You can leave it
the day, you can leave it. The proposal.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
It's like match dot com in person, in person creating
it and now you're bringing everybody together to do it. Now,
Jay This was amazing, man. This is something we've been
wanting to do for a while. If I'm being honest,
it's something that I didn't think was possible a while ago.
But to meet you, man, to get to understand you
a little better personally, and then now to sit with
you. You truly are everything you see to be from the

(01:17:57):
outside man. So best of luck on the tour. Can't
wait to work with you further.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
But this is amazing now you all of you, and
I met you in person, like you know, like you're
like big scary dudes, you know, but it's like you guys,
you know, it's just the kindness, the genuineness, the curiosity,
the depth of the questioning that I love. The skepticism
and that's important, right, you need that, Like I think
it's great when people push back and question and check

(01:18:24):
and you know, reflect on stuff. And you know, I mean,
I was blown away around by your hospitality, your kindness
when I came out to the game to meet you.
All the zoom calls we've had, I've really been humbled
by how grounded and humble you are. Like it is
just it's so rare in this world to meet someone
who's operating at the top of their game, but is

(01:18:45):
willing to make everyone else feel like a star. And
you do that. Watching you in your element of like
literally being on TV, jumping off in between me and
you having like deep conversations on the sideline, jumping back
on and off like watching you do that, you're I mean,
your magnificent in what you do, but I was more
impressed by who you were in just connecting and so

(01:19:05):
I want the world to know that you're even better
in person. Congrats on the Emmy nomination. You deserve it,
you deserve to win it. And on top of all
of that, it's just great to be around great men
and great people. I think being around great men is
something a lot of men need right now. And it's
amazing that all of you are setting such an awesome
example of what men can aspire to do, especially men
who want to be powerful, make an impact, but then

(01:19:28):
have a deep and good heart as well. So thank
you for the example you're setting for men.

Speaker 6 (01:19:32):
Appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
You got the best. You guys are awesome. I mean
every word, every word that's crazy.

Speaker 6 (01:19:42):
Appreciate your brother. So what is this man?

Speaker 4 (01:19:44):
This is this custom?

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
No, no, no, this is a brand that I love
out of France. It's It's probably one of my favorite
brands they make. They make good stuff. If you love
this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew
Hussey on how to get over your ex and and
find true love in your relationships.

Speaker 5 (01:20:02):
People should be compassionate to themselves, but extend that

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Compassion to your future self, because truly extending your compassion
to your future self is doing something that gives him
or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Jay Shetty

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Feel Stuck in the Wrong Job? This ONE Mindset Shift Will Help You FINALLY Discover Your Purpose (Even If You’re Starting From Zero)