September 8, 2023 • 35 mins
Each year is a new year to develop new skills and acquire more knowledge.
We also discover more things about ourselves and learn new lessons along the way.
In this birthday episode special, I'm sharing with you some of the biggest personal and professional reflections in the past 12 months. Our relationships greatly influence our well-being so it's crucial to surround ourselves with individuals who uplift and support us. Our bodies are our most essential assets, and nurturing them is a fundamental responsibility.
In reality, even with the purest of intentions, there will always be individuals who seek to undermine or criticize us. It encourages resilience in the face of negativity and a focus on staying true to one's path.
In this episode, you'll learn:
The importance of self-care
How to stay grounded
How to love yourself more
Being perfect isn't required when helping others
How to serve others with gratitude
These valuable life lessons provide a roadmap for personal growth, resilience, and a meaningful life. They serve as reminders of the beauty and complexity of human existence, encouraging us to learn and evolve.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
01:56 Personal and professional reflections for the last 12 months
02:43 Lesson #1: Be really conscious about who you keep and let go in your life
07:33 Lesson #2: Take care of your body like your life depends on it
12:19 Lesson #3: It’s okay to ask for a hug or help from others
16:40 Lesson #4: Don’t buy into your own hype, stay connected to where you started
19:37 Lesson #5: People will always try to tear you down no matter how good your intentions are
22:10 Lesson #6: Different levels come with different problems
26:11 Lesson #7: As you get older, don't forget to do things for your younger self.
29:45 Lesson #8: Give yourself permission to be all of you
30:22 Lesson #10: You don't have to be perfect to help others
31:11 Lesson #9: You can’t avoid mistakes but don’t avoid the lesson
32:38 Lesson #11: Make new memories instead of living old ones again and again
34:03 Lesson #12: Use your gifts and skills in the service of others.
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):
Imagine you have a glass of water and someone says
they're thirsty, and you give them the whole glass, and
then you're trying to give them more from that glass,
but there's no more left. You end up feeling guilty
and the other person is looking at you like, what
are you trying to do? Right? It doesn't make sense,
but we do it emotionally. Emotionally, we try to overgive, overshare,
(00:21):
over provide, over promise, and actually we end up under delivering. Hey, everyone,
welcome back to on Purpose. I am so grateful that
you're here right now. It truly means the world to
me that you tune in every day, some of you
(00:42):
multiple times per day or multiple times per week. And
it's been an incredible, incredible journey over the last four
and a half years of serving you through this podcast.
I feel like the community we've developed, the relationship we've developed,
the depth that we've created has been absolutely phenomenal. And
(01:05):
today's episode is very very special for me because this
is my birthday episode, which means I want to share
with you the lessons I've learned, the mistakes I've made,
the challenges I've faced, what has been happening in my
life over the last twelve months, because I feel like
(01:26):
you know me and I know you, and we've built
this incredible relationship over the last few years. Whether you
started listening one episode ago or whether you started listening
three hundred episodes ago, I feel connected to you, and
I know you feel connected too. So I want to
kind of talk through some personal things, and at the
same time, I want to share with you the learnings,
(01:47):
the messages, the wisdom that I've gained through those experiences
in my life. My birthday was on the sixth of September,
a couple of days ago, and I woke up in
the morning and I wrote this caption for what I
was sharing on Instagram that day, and it's inspired an
entire episode to share with you some of my top learnings.
(02:10):
And for me, my birthday's always been a day of reflection,
a day of celebration, a day of reconnecting to my purpose,
reconnecting to my essence. And I'm really excited that I
get to share that with you in a deeper, more
thoughtful way. So I want to dive straight in because
I've got twelve reminders, twelve lessons I've learned in the
(02:34):
last twelve months. So let's start with number one. And
by the way, these are personal and professional, so lesser
Number one is be really conscious about who you keep
and let go from your life. Just because you have
history doesn't mean you have to force a future. A
(02:56):
lot of people have been asking me, Jay, it just
seems like you've been able to do so much recently.
I was able to launch my second book, I was
able to go on tour, the podcast hasn't missed. It's
been incredible to make some really cool content for our
social channels. I've been able to get involved in lots
of meaningful impact work behind the scenes. And a lot
(03:18):
of people say to me, Ji, it seems like you've
been doing so much, And the truth is I can
only do that because of the incredible team I have
around me. I'm surrounded today by an amazing group of
people that work with me because they believe in the purpose,
they believe in what we're trying to do, They see
the impact. They are so proud of doing good work
(03:39):
by themselves. I have a number of people on my
team that are just leaders, and previously they never got
given the opportunity, they didn't get given the break, they
didn't get given the responsibility for whatever reason, and so
anything I'm able to do today is truly to give
credit to them, no notice. How I said, be really
(04:02):
conscious about who you keep and let go from your life.
And the reason I use the word conscious is because
when you're present, when you're aware, you can energetically in
the moment, tell whether you connect with someone or whether
you don't. How many times have you met someone and
thought to yourself, this is someone I'm going to be
(04:24):
friends with for a long time. Or how many times
have you met someone and thought to yourself, Yep, me
and this person don't align. No judgment, no criticism, but
but we just don't see ittoi. And I started to
realize that, especially in the workplace, I wanted to work
with people that I'd be happy going out to lunch
and dinner with. I wanted to work with people and
(04:46):
bring people on to my team that I'd want to
invest in and coach and guide a mentor. I wanted
to have people on my team that I thought could
challenge me. For a long time, I was just looking
at people's backgrounds and work experience and things like that,
and I started to realize I was actually neglecting my
energy check. I was denying my ability to use my
(05:09):
intuition and see the frequency of someone and see whether
we align on that level. And you see that happen
on the podcast all the time. I'm sure you see
me with guests where you can see where we're on
the same vibration, same wavelength. And it's interesting how we
all have that ability, we all have that skill, but
we often kind of put it aside, or we try
(05:32):
to shun it. We go, oh no, no, let me
look at the facts, let me look at the data.
And I almost wanted to give you a reminder that
I want you to trust your intuition. I want you
to trust your gut. I want you to think energetically
about the people that make you feel good, that lift
you up, that make you feel like they bring out
the best in you? Right, does someone bring out the
(05:55):
best in you? Does someone make you feel like the
best version of yourself? How can you connect with them
more closely and more deeply? And I added a part
to this lesson as well, the idea that just because
you have history with someone doesn't mean you have to
force the future. Because it's really interesting how nostalgia and
(06:16):
how attachments hold this deep space in our life. We
feel we have to stay connected to people because we
were once connected to them. We feel we have to
force ourselves to have a relationship with someone because we
had a relationship in the past. And what I've learned
is that you can honor a relationship like I've got
(06:37):
lots of friends that we were really really close back
in the day, and if I'm completely honest, if I
see them now, we can slot straight back into that
energy that we had then. And I love doing that
with them. But I'm not trying to force and create
and build a new part to that relationship anymore. If
that's not natural, if that's not organic. And you know,
(06:58):
we've all heard the old phrase that you become the
five people you're surrounded by. You know, you become the
average of the five people around you, and it's lasted
the test of time, that advice, because it's so true.
And I want you to be conscious about where you
want to go. I want you to be conscious about
who you want to be. And if you can answer
(07:20):
those questions, who do I want to be, who am
I becoming? And where do I want to go? That's
the people you want to surround yourself by how can
you find those new communities and new people around you? Now?
Number two, take care of your body and mind like
your life depends on it, because it does. In order
(07:41):
to serve and give more, I often push myself beyond
my limits, and therefore I also need to give them
the attention they deserve. Now I've done this time and
time again. I love what I do, I believe in
what I do, but I give more than what I have.
How many of you have ever done that before? Well,
you're just trying to give and give and give, and
(08:03):
you're trying to give way beyond what you actually have.
How's that possible? Imagine you have a glass of water
and someone says they're thirsty, and you give them the
whole glass, and then you're trying to give them more
from that glass, but there's no more left. You end
up feeling guilty and the other person is looking at
(08:25):
you like, what are you trying to do? Right? It
doesn't make sense, but we do it emotionally. Emotionally, we
try to overgive, overshare, over provide, over promise, and naturally
we end up under delivering. We end up feeling undervalued.
And what I realized a while ago was I could
(08:49):
only truly extend myself and give myself to others if
I was truly taking care of myself. Had I slept well,
had I eaten well? Had I worked out? Had I meditated?
Because is not only would I be able to give more,
the quality of what I was able to give was
elevated as well. If I'd meditated, I was more clear.
(09:09):
If I'd worked out, I felt more strength. If I'd
eaten well, then I felt like I had better decision
making capabilities. How many of us are trying to extend
ourselves to others, but we're just giving them our leftovers.
How many of us are trying to be there for
other people, but we're not even there for ourselves in
the first place. I really really want you to remember this.
(09:31):
It sounds so basic and it's so simple, but I
know that there are so many of you that want
to do good in the world, that you want to
do something for others. And what I've realized time and
time again is that it is so so important and
necessary for us to remember that helping yourself is a
part of helping others. We often see helping ourselves and
(09:53):
helping others as complete opposites. We see them as two
things that don't connect. Actually, loving yourself in order to
love others makes it connected. Taking care of yourself in
order to care for others makes it connected. We have
to start looking at our life as interconnected and symbiotic,
(10:15):
as opposed to disconnected. Now, how do we do this?
When you look at meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep, those
are the four things I think about. I call it meds, meeds, meditation, exercise,
diet and sleep. You can't solve all four at the
same time, and I often think that doing them in
(10:38):
a certain order can help you. So I always say
to people, start with your sleep. If you can start
with your sleep pattern, a lot of other things are
going to take care of themselves. For example, if you
sleep well, you're likely to eat better because now you're
not turning to sugars and carbs or at least the
bad ones for energy because you've slept well, so now
you're not filling up that energy gap. If you are
(10:59):
sleep well, also your energy increases to want to exercise,
to want to work out, and you're sleeping better because
when you exercise, you're using up that energy throughout the
day and of course meditation, allowing you to have stillness,
and so I want you to think about how you
can start with just one of them. If you've already
nailed sleep, go to diet. If you've done diet, got
(11:21):
to exercise. If you don't exercise, go to meditation. Move
through your meds very effectively. And this second lesson was
most important for me this year with the tour. I
was so enjoying my time on tour, and at the
same time it was one of the most exhausting things
I've ever done. I was in each city for like
(11:42):
one and a half days if that, and most of
that would be coming in, checking in, sleeping in a hotel,
eating something, going on a walk, getting on stage, getting
back off, flying on a plane again. It was so
exhausting that my meds took care of me. And I've
realized that your capacity in life, I've increases or decreases
(12:02):
based on meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep, and so in
my own life this year I learned even more so
how important it was to take care of my body
and mind and what they were capable of and what
was possible when I did that. So number three, this
one's a big one. For me and I want to
be open and vulnerable with you. It's okay to ask
(12:24):
for help or a hug. You're human, after all, and
so am I. If you're trying to be there for others,
it's easy to forget you also need to be held
and embraced emotionally. Often I forget this, don't ignore that need.
I can't tell you the amount of times I've tried
to be strong for others. I've held back my own emotions,
my tears, my vulnerabilities, my weaknesses because I didn't think
(12:52):
it was okay to ask for help or a hug.
And recently, in the past year, I have been so
proud of myself for reaching out to peace people and
just saying, hey, I'd love to chat, he I'd love
to talk. Hey, let me just open up about this
for a second. And I'm so grateful that I have
so many incredible friends in my life, men and women
(13:12):
who are consistently there for me, always to help, with
a hug, with support, whatever it may be. And I
think what's really interesting is why do we struggle to
ask for help. One of the first reasons is because
we're scared that no one will care. We actually have
(13:34):
this inbuilt fear inside of us that no one's coming,
that no one's coming to help us, that no one's
coming to care, And because of that fear, we don't
ever ask. And what I've found is that the more
I develop and deepen my relationships, the more I'm able
to actually have confidence that when I open my heart
(13:58):
to someone don't want to help me. Another reason why
we struggle to tell people is we think it will
make us look weak. So now we're worried about how
will be perceived or how will appear to the other
person if we express this vulnerability, if we express this need,
does it make us look like weaker? Does it make
us look less skilled and less able? What does it do?
(14:23):
And it's really interesting because I realized in my line
of work, people always think, oh, Jay has to have
it all together, he has to have it all going,
and I don't, and I don't think anyone does. And
I think that opening up and sharing that with my
friends more openly has allowed me to have them feel
(14:43):
like they can reach out because in the past people
don only reach out for advice, But then now you
have friends reaching out going, hey you okay, how are
you feeling? About this, and I love that. I love
that it makes me feel great when people do that.
And so I've had friends reach out to me and say, Jay, hey,
I just wanted to check in and see how you're feeling.
You know, I wanted to make sure you do it
all right. And people check in on you when you
(15:04):
allow them to check in on you. So often we
push people away from checking in with us if we
always portray our life as perfect, or if the perception
of us is that life is great. And so we
have to help break down that wall for people so
that people can actually reach out to us, because otherwise
we just sit there going well, no one reaches out
to me, No one cares about how I feel, No
(15:25):
one really knows. Another reason why we don't give ourselves
permission to ask for our hug or ask for help
is because sometimes we're scared of whether we deserve it.
I've known people in my life who've had incredible people
in their life be open with them to want to
help them and support them, and these people haven't taken
(15:47):
it up because they feel like they don't deserve it.
Sometimes maybe we feel we won't fulfill the advice, we
won't follow through with it, so we feel unqualified, and
I think what's important to know in that case is
just hell the other person. I often say to someone, Hey,
I'm not sure I have the energy right now to
follow through with your advice, but I would love to
get your perspective. I'm not sure I'm emotionally mature enough
(16:11):
to dissect and digest this right now, but I'd love
to give it a shot. Can you share this with me?
If we were able to tell people what we were
really going through and how we felt, it would be
fascinating to see how much more we'd be able to
learn about ourselves and they'd be able to learn about us.
I don't feel scared anymore to actually open my mind
(16:34):
and say this is what I'm grappling with. This is
the dichotomy I'm struggling with. This is the challenge that
exists for me. Lesson number four, don't buy into your
own hype. Stay connected to why you started, and remain
a humble student of life. If you forget this, life
will remind you. I love this one because I genuinely
believe that it's so easy to get caught up in
(16:57):
your own hype and forget why you started. And forget
why you began, and forget the feeling you got when
you started doing whatever it is that you do. And
for me, I really, on tour this year tried to
take in the love that I received from all of
(17:17):
you when I met you at a meet and greet,
or I met you walking off stage, or when I
met you walking into my car after the show, or
whatever it was, and so many of you shared so
many beautiful messages of love with me. I really tried
to take in the love. And I think before I
used to think that if I took in the love,
I'd be buying into my own hype, and I realized
these are two very different things. So buying into your
(17:40):
own hype means you're like getting egotistic and arrogant about
what's going on. And receiving love is actually so beautiful
because it doesn't go to the head, It goes to
the heart. And so to me, if someone says something
and I can help it go to the heart, it
actually is really nourishing and nurturing. And this is one
of the reasons why we struggle to say nice things
(18:02):
about ourselves. This is one of the reasons we struggle
to receive compliments is because we think they're going to
go to our ego. And it's really interesting because what
I try and do and this is how the filtration
process or the extraction process works. So if someone compliments me,
let's say someone says, Jay, you gave such a great presentation, right,
(18:23):
and I'm doing this and it's uncomfortable for me to
even say this about myself, but let's say someone said
that to me. The first thing I do is I
extract gratitude, and I pass that gratitude onto my teacher
or my teachers or my mentors who gave me that skill.
So whatever skill someone notices in me, I think of
the person who helped me develop that skill directly or indirectly,
(18:46):
and I give it to them in my mind. And
then I express gratitude to the person who gave that
to me, because they've just reminded me of my teacher,
They've reminded me of beautiful memories of learning. They've reminded
me of the growth that I've made, the progress I've made,
and some grateful to them as well. So you've just
turned something that could turn into ego into gratitude. And
(19:08):
that's how you don't buy into your own hype. And
what I've understood about life so far is that if
you do buy into your own hype, life comes back around.
It humbles you, it brings you back down to ground,
and it will keep doing that because it's how it's designed.
We're designed to see the humanity in ourselves and see
the humanity in others, and value ourselves based on that humanity,
(19:29):
not value ourselves based on anything else. And I think
it's truly special and beautiful when we can actually do that.
Number five. People will always try to tear you down,
no matter your intention, Trust that the people that know
you love you, and invest deeply in those relationships to
protect yourself. I've realized this the hard way that no
(19:51):
matter how good your intention is, no matter how much
you care, no matter what you're trying to do in
the world, there will always be people who try and
tear you down. There'll always be people who size you,
who mock you, who ridicule you, who point fingers at you.
And I take as much of it I can as feedback.
I always look at any criticism as how can I
(20:13):
learn from that? How can I grow from that? And
at the same time I have to realize that the
people who know me deeply, the people who know me truly,
the people who know me honestly, I have to check
in with them. And I do that when I listen
to some feedback about myself as some criticism, and I'm
starting to internalize it and take it personally, and trust me,
(20:34):
I do that. I'll often go to a close friend
and I'll say, Hey, do you feel this way? Do
you think this is true? And I'll have friends who
are really honest with me, and so they'll say, look,
I don't think this part's true. I think this is
something you could work on. I think this may have
some validity to it, but not in that venom that
it was given with. And having that conversation is so beautiful.
Or a friend of mine just says to me, Jay,
(20:55):
you know what, Actually, I'll be honest with you. You're
right and this isn't the truth. I think it's so
important to continually deepen our closest relationships. And the challenge
is if everyone always knows us in a shallow way,
all the criticism we experience will hit us deep. Right,
If all of our relationships are shallow, what anyone will
(21:17):
say will cut us deep. But if we have deep relationships,
if we deepen our relationships, we can then make sense
of where things really land. And so for me, I've
also realized that as your scale grows, the amount of
people that like and dislike your work also grows. And
(21:40):
I think I've tried my best to separate myself from
my work, at least theoretically and intellectually, to recognize that
someone cannot like my work. They may not like what
I say, but that doesn't mean they don't like me
because they may not know me, and that's okay, And
I'm not bitter towards them. I'm not mad at them.
I actually share internally a lot of love with them,
(22:00):
and I practice that if someone has ill, will towards
me at least internally, and try and practice love and
compassion towards them. Number six. I was talking to someone
the other day about how like I feel that as
people grow in scale, the percentages change. So when you
(22:21):
first start out, ninety five percent of people will like
you and five percent of people may not know who
you are or not like you, and then that keeps
changing right where you end up to a point where
a lot of people in this world, if they're really
well known, fifty percent of people love them, fifty percent
of people don't care about them. And it's a really
interesting journey to be on where you start to feel
(22:42):
like there's more and more people that understand you deeply,
but at the same time, there's more and more people
who completely misunderstand you. And I think that's the way
to explain it. It's not about like or hate, or
love or hate. It's about people who understand you and
people who don't. And I feel like, if you've been
here listening to me, and you've been reading what I'm writing,
and you've read my books and connected with me, you're
(23:04):
understanding me really deeply. And I really appreciate that space.
And at the same time, if someone just sees one clip,
they may not understand me at all, and I have
to be okay with that. And that's a really hard
thing to wrap your head around. And that leads nicely
on the lesson number six. Different levels come with different problems.
Focusing on developing new skills and strengths because they will
(23:25):
lead to peace. So what I've realized is that there
is no problem free life. There is no amount of
money that will solve your problems, all your problems, or
amount of fame or amount of success that can solve problems. Now,
that doesn't mean that money can't help with happiness, right.
I think we always use the term money can't buy happiness,
(23:46):
and I don't believe money can buy happiness. But I
also think money can help with happiness. I think success
can help with happiness. It can be a part of it.
It can help with sorting out certain problems. Right, different
problems in the past, I have different problems today. And
that's why this lesson that I've learned this year is
that different levels come with different problems, and a lot
(24:09):
of us are trained to pursue or seek a problem
free life. We want a life where we don't ever
have problems again. And by the way, I would love
to have one of those two, but it's just not realistic.
And so I've realized that rather than focusing on thinking
I hope I never hit a problem again, I hope
that I never have a challenge again. I hope that
I never have a difficulty again. I've realized, actually, if
I focus on developing strengths and skills, if I focus
(24:32):
on developing new ideologies, new methods, new approaches. That's actually
what shifts my mindset effectively, that's actually what shifts my
energy as well. So people often ask me Jay, what
should I read? Like, what book do you recommend? And
I always say, well, what are you struggling with? And
I would ask yourself that question today. What is it
(24:53):
that you're currently struggling with? What are you stuck on?
What is difficult? What is uncomfortable? And all I want
you to do is I want you to find a book.
I want you to find a TED talk. I want
you to find a podcast episode all on that subject.
And if you have more time, go and find a course. Literally,
that's what you need to do. Go and find a
Ted Talk. Then go and find a book, go and
(25:14):
find a podcast, and if you can, go and find
a course on that subject matter. And I promise you
that if you immerse yourself in learning, you will overcome
that problem. Now, when you overcome that problem, you'll unlock
a different problem. It's literally like a video game. You
unlock one level and guess what, you have another bad
person at the end of it that you got to
deal with. You get over that problem. Now you unlock
(25:35):
another level. Now there's another challenge. Right, every level unlocks
a challenge, and when you finish a level of a
video game, you get really excited and then you go, oh, gosh,
now I've got to beat this bad guy right, and
it gets harder again, and then you celebrate again, and
then it gets harder again. So life's kind of like that,
where different levels come with different problems, and so don't
expect a life without problems. When you get promoted, when
(25:58):
you get that moment in your career, when you have
the perfect family, whatever it may be, there will be
another problem. But instead of being defeatist about it, what
you want to do is be skills oriented about it,
be strength focused about it. Lesser number seven. As you
get older, don't forget to do things for your younger self.
There have been times in the past we neglected ourselves
(26:20):
because we weren't emotionally intelligent enough. We may think our
needs have changed, but some remained the same. Don't negate
them because they feel insignificant to the older you. They
remain important to the younger you. I'm going to give
you a personal example. This year, I got to take
my best friend to Old Trafford, which is the stadium
(26:41):
of Manchester United which is my football team or soccer
team that I've followed since I was a kid, and
I got to take a bunch of my friends. We
had the honor of meeting Sir Alex Ferguson, who's the
legendary manager at the club. I've got to meet the
current manager. I've got to meet some former players, legends, icons.
And my today's self that is trying to be more evolved,
(27:06):
more spiritual, more about personal growth, may not have appreciated that,
but my younger self was like, you just got invited
to your childhood club that you love to go, and
what's the team that you love playing the sport that
you love, which is my first love. And my younger
self was so proud of me, was so excited, was
so over the moon. And what I find is that
(27:27):
our oldest self, our more evolved self, often talks down
our younger self. Maybe there's a thing that you still
like from your childhood. Maybe you're a sneakerhead, right, And
your older self's like, come on, grow up, you don't
need to sneakers anymore. But your younger self's like, oh no,
but now I actually have the money to go out
and grab that thing that I want right, Or maybe
there was something else you liked in your younger years
(27:48):
and you didn't have the time, you didn't have the money,
you didn't have the energy to do it properly. Today
you have a bit more of those things than you can,
but you kind of look down on it because you think, oh,
that's irresponsible, I should do something better with my life.
I think it's so important to honor those younger interests,
those younger those things that we didn't get to fully
enjoy when we were young because we didn't allow ourselves,
(28:11):
our parents didn't allow us, whatever it may have been.
And now that we have the opportunity, you can't just
deny that. You can't just negate that. And I feel
that that kind of denial often leads to a sense
of bitterness. It leads to a sense of disconnectedness, and
it leads to that inner child always feeling starved, always
feeling like it didn't get the love, the care to
(28:32):
support the thing that it needed. Again, I'm not saying
go crazy and live out every one of your childhood dreams,
but I'm saying that some of them need to be pursued.
Maybe you really loved art growing up and you never
took that art class, and you're going to invest in
that now. Maybe when you were growing up, you really
wanted to play an instrument, and your parents can afford
to buy you, and so you're going to go and
(28:53):
get your classes right now, Like, what is that thing
that honors your younger self that you never got to
honor that time? Because I promise you that you don't
want to make something feel insignificant just because it feels insignificant. Now,
if there's still a part of you, that inner child
is still there that wants that experience, don't deny your
(29:15):
younger self of an experience just because your older self
thinks it's insignificant. That's one of my favorite ones, one
of my biggest ones. I feel like my life right
now is fully living in both. I'm living in my
evolved self and I'm also living in my childhood self.
There are so many things I do just because I'm
like teenage me would think I'm the coolest if I
did this, even if it's paradoxical to who I am now.
(29:38):
And I allow myself to live that way because I
don't want to deny my younger self of dreams, aspirations
and gifts all right. Number eight, give yourself permission to
be all of you. The more we try to extract
parts of ourselves and the hopes of becoming perfect, the
more we lose a valuable expression of ourselves. Let opposites
(29:59):
co exist. Be a paradox. I think you've heard me
talk about this one enough. I think I live a paradox.
I breathe a paradox every day in the life that
I lead, the life I've chosen to lead. And I've
just realized that being all of myself and giving myself
permission to be all of myself is far more fulfilling
than again denying or neglecting parts of myself. Number ten.
(30:23):
This one is huge. I really really hope this one
resonates with so many of you, because I really believe
so many of you have so much to offer the world.
So listen to this one carefully. You don't have to
be perfect to help others. I'm definitely not perfect. Actually
I'm far from it. I don't have the answer for
everything or know everything about anything. All I know is
(30:44):
that you and I have the ability to do things
we haven't even imagined yet, that we can get unstuck,
move forward, and change our lives. I think so many
of us are holding ourselves back because we're not perfect,
we're not masters. We don't think we know everything. And
the truth is, the more you master something, the more
(31:04):
you become humble about it. You don't master something and
then think, oh, I know everything about everything. You master
something and then you go oh wow, there is so
much left to learn. And that's why I just want
to remind you that if you're someone who has something
to offer, you can always take people to the level
you're at, and I promise you there's someone who needs
to be at your level. Right when I've spoken to
(31:26):
people who've been a part of AA, they may have
a sponsor who's one year ahead of them, five years
ahead of them, ten years ahead of them. All of
those people have valuable experiences. If you've got a new startup,
someone who's one year ahead of you, three years ahead
of you, five years ahead of you can all be
helpful at different times. Right now, my wife and I
are working on JUNI. We're Sparkling Adaptogenic Tea company, and
(31:49):
we're taking so much advice and mentorship from people, some
people who just started a couple of years ahead of us,
and some people who've been building for two decades, and
everyone has something to teach us, and so often we
think to ourselves, well, unless I'm done, least unless I'm
the complete finished article, that I have nothing to share.
You don't have to be perfect to help others. I'm
(32:11):
definitely not and I haven't got it all figured out.
But you can still help people because you have something
to share. And I think I've been really embracing that
idea because even I sometimes get into imposter syndrome and think, well,
what do I have to share or what am I
going to do about this? And then I realized all
I need to do is go and learn more, read more,
connect with people more. It's why I love doing the podcast.
(32:32):
I get to learn about so many different topics from
so many different people. All Right, two more I want
to share with you. Number eleven. Make new memories instead
of living old ones again and again. Don't live in nostalgia.
You have so much more to experience. Don't try to
recreate moments from the past. Instead, be open to new feelings,
(32:53):
new emotions, new people, and new places. I think so
many of us always talk about, oh, the best times
were before the best day of my life was ten
years ago. The best moment was this. It's beautiful to
have great memories, but it's even more beautiful to keep
making new memories. And I think that's what keeps us youngest,
what keeps us fresh. I think this year, one thing
(33:15):
I did with my team, we went on a team
retreat that I loved and made lots of good memories.
I made so many memories while I was on tour.
I tried to make a memory in every city. So
I tried to do something special, personal in every city
that would make that city memorable for me, and a
lot of it included going on walks, going to art galleries,
going outdoors, seeing monuments, seeing special historical parts of a
(33:39):
city that I will never ever forget. And I think
that was so important to me, because I didn't just
want to travel the world and come back not having
felt like I was able to make new memories. And
actually I came back with so many new memories of
cities I'd been to. You can go to the same
place and shift your mindset about it. You can go
to a place you've been to again and again and
(34:00):
again and have a new experience there. Un lesson number twelve.
The last one is Serve, Serve, serve, use your gifts
and skills in the service of others. It will create
opportunities you never thought of, give your life more meaning
than ever, and help you make memories for a lifetime.
And for me, I can honestly say that till this day,
(34:20):
my only goal has been to serve through everything I
do to help make a positive impact in the world.
And I constantly reconnect with that feeling because it's what
inspires me more and more and more. I keep going
because I want to keep serving, I want to keep giving,
I want to keep learning, I want to keep growing,
and I'm just grateful that you give me the opportunity
to serve you, and you serve me as well by
(34:40):
being present here. So I hope that this episode was useful.
I hope that you take something away from it, even
if there's one lesson that shifts your mindset and how
you think, that would be a win for me, and
I wish you all the best for the year ahead.
If you're selling brain your birthday this month or while
you're listening to this too, A happy birthday to you.
Thank you for all the love you gave me on
(35:02):
my thirty sixth birthday. It means the world to me
and I can't wait for many many more birthdays and
many many more lessons to share with you all over
the years. So thank you again, and make sure you
share this with a friend who needs to hear it.
And make sure you tag me on Instagram, on TikTok,
on Twitter or an X and let me know what
(35:23):
you're taking away and what's stuck with you. Thank you
so much, sending you so much love. Thanks for listening
to on purpose,
Imagine you have a glass of water and someone says
they're thirsty, and you give them the whole glass, and
then you're trying to give them more from that glass,
but there's no more left. You end up feeling guilty
and the other person is looking at you like, what
are you trying to do? Right? It doesn't make sense,
but we do it emotionally. Emotionally, we try to overgive, overshare,
(00:21):
over provide, over promise, and actually we end up under delivering. Hey, everyone,
welcome back to on Purpose. I am so grateful that
you're here right now. It truly means the world to
me that you tune in every day, some of you
(00:42):
multiple times per day or multiple times per week. And
it's been an incredible, incredible journey over the last four
and a half years of serving you through this podcast.
I feel like the community we've developed, the relationship we've developed,
the depth that we've created has been absolutely phenomenal. And
(01:05):
today's episode is very very special for me because this
is my birthday episode, which means I want to share
with you the lessons I've learned, the mistakes I've made,
the challenges I've faced, what has been happening in my
life over the last twelve months, because I feel like
(01:26):
you know me and I know you, and we've built
this incredible relationship over the last few years. Whether you
started listening one episode ago or whether you started listening
three hundred episodes ago, I feel connected to you, and
I know you feel connected too. So I want to
kind of talk through some personal things, and at the
same time, I want to share with you the learnings,
(01:47):
the messages, the wisdom that I've gained through those experiences
in my life. My birthday was on the sixth of September,
a couple of days ago, and I woke up in
the morning and I wrote this caption for what I
was sharing on Instagram that day, and it's inspired an
entire episode to share with you some of my top learnings.
(02:10):
And for me, my birthday's always been a day of reflection,
a day of celebration, a day of reconnecting to my purpose,
reconnecting to my essence. And I'm really excited that I
get to share that with you in a deeper, more
thoughtful way. So I want to dive straight in because
I've got twelve reminders, twelve lessons I've learned in the
(02:34):
last twelve months. So let's start with number one. And
by the way, these are personal and professional, so lesser
Number one is be really conscious about who you keep
and let go from your life. Just because you have
history doesn't mean you have to force a future. A
(02:56):
lot of people have been asking me, Jay, it just
seems like you've been able to do so much recently.
I was able to launch my second book, I was
able to go on tour, the podcast hasn't missed. It's
been incredible to make some really cool content for our
social channels. I've been able to get involved in lots
of meaningful impact work behind the scenes. And a lot
(03:18):
of people say to me, Ji, it seems like you've
been doing so much, And the truth is I can
only do that because of the incredible team I have
around me. I'm surrounded today by an amazing group of
people that work with me because they believe in the purpose,
they believe in what we're trying to do, They see
the impact. They are so proud of doing good work
(03:39):
by themselves. I have a number of people on my
team that are just leaders, and previously they never got
given the opportunity, they didn't get given the break, they
didn't get given the responsibility for whatever reason, and so
anything I'm able to do today is truly to give
credit to them, no notice. How I said, be really
(04:02):
conscious about who you keep and let go from your life.
And the reason I use the word conscious is because
when you're present, when you're aware, you can energetically in
the moment, tell whether you connect with someone or whether
you don't. How many times have you met someone and
thought to yourself, this is someone I'm going to be
(04:24):
friends with for a long time. Or how many times
have you met someone and thought to yourself, Yep, me
and this person don't align. No judgment, no criticism, but
but we just don't see ittoi. And I started to
realize that, especially in the workplace, I wanted to work
with people that I'd be happy going out to lunch
and dinner with. I wanted to work with people and
(04:46):
bring people on to my team that I'd want to
invest in and coach and guide a mentor. I wanted
to have people on my team that I thought could
challenge me. For a long time, I was just looking
at people's backgrounds and work experience and things like that,
and I started to realize I was actually neglecting my
energy check. I was denying my ability to use my
(05:09):
intuition and see the frequency of someone and see whether
we align on that level. And you see that happen
on the podcast all the time. I'm sure you see
me with guests where you can see where we're on
the same vibration, same wavelength. And it's interesting how we
all have that ability, we all have that skill, but
we often kind of put it aside, or we try
(05:32):
to shun it. We go, oh no, no, let me
look at the facts, let me look at the data.
And I almost wanted to give you a reminder that
I want you to trust your intuition. I want you
to trust your gut. I want you to think energetically
about the people that make you feel good, that lift
you up, that make you feel like they bring out
the best in you? Right, does someone bring out the
(05:55):
best in you? Does someone make you feel like the
best version of yourself? How can you connect with them
more closely and more deeply? And I added a part
to this lesson as well, the idea that just because
you have history with someone doesn't mean you have to
force the future. Because it's really interesting how nostalgia and
(06:16):
how attachments hold this deep space in our life. We
feel we have to stay connected to people because we
were once connected to them. We feel we have to
force ourselves to have a relationship with someone because we
had a relationship in the past. And what I've learned
is that you can honor a relationship like I've got
(06:37):
lots of friends that we were really really close back
in the day, and if I'm completely honest, if I
see them now, we can slot straight back into that
energy that we had then. And I love doing that
with them. But I'm not trying to force and create
and build a new part to that relationship anymore. If
that's not natural, if that's not organic. And you know,
(06:58):
we've all heard the old phrase that you become the
five people you're surrounded by. You know, you become the
average of the five people around you, and it's lasted
the test of time, that advice, because it's so true.
And I want you to be conscious about where you
want to go. I want you to be conscious about
who you want to be. And if you can answer
(07:20):
those questions, who do I want to be, who am
I becoming? And where do I want to go? That's
the people you want to surround yourself by how can
you find those new communities and new people around you? Now?
Number two, take care of your body and mind like
your life depends on it, because it does. In order
(07:41):
to serve and give more, I often push myself beyond
my limits, and therefore I also need to give them
the attention they deserve. Now I've done this time and
time again. I love what I do, I believe in
what I do, but I give more than what I have.
How many of you have ever done that before? Well,
you're just trying to give and give and give, and
(08:03):
you're trying to give way beyond what you actually have.
How's that possible? Imagine you have a glass of water
and someone says they're thirsty, and you give them the
whole glass, and then you're trying to give them more
from that glass, but there's no more left. You end
up feeling guilty and the other person is looking at
(08:25):
you like, what are you trying to do? Right? It
doesn't make sense, but we do it emotionally. Emotionally, we
try to overgive, overshare, over provide, over promise, and naturally
we end up under delivering. We end up feeling undervalued.
And what I realized a while ago was I could
(08:49):
only truly extend myself and give myself to others if
I was truly taking care of myself. Had I slept well,
had I eaten well? Had I worked out? Had I meditated?
Because is not only would I be able to give more,
the quality of what I was able to give was
elevated as well. If I'd meditated, I was more clear.
(09:09):
If I'd worked out, I felt more strength. If I'd
eaten well, then I felt like I had better decision
making capabilities. How many of us are trying to extend
ourselves to others, but we're just giving them our leftovers.
How many of us are trying to be there for
other people, but we're not even there for ourselves in
the first place. I really really want you to remember this.
(09:31):
It sounds so basic and it's so simple, but I
know that there are so many of you that want
to do good in the world, that you want to
do something for others. And what I've realized time and
time again is that it is so so important and
necessary for us to remember that helping yourself is a
part of helping others. We often see helping ourselves and
(09:53):
helping others as complete opposites. We see them as two
things that don't connect. Actually, loving yourself in order to
love others makes it connected. Taking care of yourself in
order to care for others makes it connected. We have
to start looking at our life as interconnected and symbiotic,
(10:15):
as opposed to disconnected. Now, how do we do this?
When you look at meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep, those
are the four things I think about. I call it meds, meeds, meditation, exercise,
diet and sleep. You can't solve all four at the
same time, and I often think that doing them in
(10:38):
a certain order can help you. So I always say
to people, start with your sleep. If you can start
with your sleep pattern, a lot of other things are
going to take care of themselves. For example, if you
sleep well, you're likely to eat better because now you're
not turning to sugars and carbs or at least the
bad ones for energy because you've slept well, so now
you're not filling up that energy gap. If you are
(10:59):
sleep well, also your energy increases to want to exercise,
to want to work out, and you're sleeping better because
when you exercise, you're using up that energy throughout the
day and of course meditation, allowing you to have stillness,
and so I want you to think about how you
can start with just one of them. If you've already
nailed sleep, go to diet. If you've done diet, got
(11:21):
to exercise. If you don't exercise, go to meditation. Move
through your meds very effectively. And this second lesson was
most important for me this year with the tour. I
was so enjoying my time on tour, and at the
same time it was one of the most exhausting things
I've ever done. I was in each city for like
(11:42):
one and a half days if that, and most of
that would be coming in, checking in, sleeping in a hotel,
eating something, going on a walk, getting on stage, getting
back off, flying on a plane again. It was so
exhausting that my meds took care of me. And I've
realized that your capacity in life, I've increases or decreases
(12:02):
based on meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep, and so in
my own life this year I learned even more so
how important it was to take care of my body
and mind and what they were capable of and what
was possible when I did that. So number three, this
one's a big one. For me and I want to
be open and vulnerable with you. It's okay to ask
(12:24):
for help or a hug. You're human, after all, and
so am I. If you're trying to be there for others,
it's easy to forget you also need to be held
and embraced emotionally. Often I forget this, don't ignore that need.
I can't tell you the amount of times I've tried
to be strong for others. I've held back my own emotions,
my tears, my vulnerabilities, my weaknesses because I didn't think
(12:52):
it was okay to ask for help or a hug.
And recently, in the past year, I have been so
proud of myself for reaching out to peace people and
just saying, hey, I'd love to chat, he I'd love
to talk. Hey, let me just open up about this
for a second. And I'm so grateful that I have
so many incredible friends in my life, men and women
(13:12):
who are consistently there for me, always to help, with
a hug, with support, whatever it may be. And I
think what's really interesting is why do we struggle to
ask for help. One of the first reasons is because
we're scared that no one will care. We actually have
(13:34):
this inbuilt fear inside of us that no one's coming,
that no one's coming to help us, that no one's
coming to care, And because of that fear, we don't
ever ask. And what I've found is that the more
I develop and deepen my relationships, the more I'm able
to actually have confidence that when I open my heart
(13:58):
to someone don't want to help me. Another reason why
we struggle to tell people is we think it will
make us look weak. So now we're worried about how
will be perceived or how will appear to the other
person if we express this vulnerability, if we express this need,
does it make us look like weaker? Does it make
us look less skilled and less able? What does it do?
(14:23):
And it's really interesting because I realized in my line
of work, people always think, oh, Jay has to have
it all together, he has to have it all going,
and I don't, and I don't think anyone does. And
I think that opening up and sharing that with my
friends more openly has allowed me to have them feel
(14:43):
like they can reach out because in the past people
don only reach out for advice, But then now you
have friends reaching out going, hey you okay, how are
you feeling? About this, and I love that. I love
that it makes me feel great when people do that.
And so I've had friends reach out to me and say, Jay, hey,
I just wanted to check in and see how you're feeling.
You know, I wanted to make sure you do it
all right. And people check in on you when you
(15:04):
allow them to check in on you. So often we
push people away from checking in with us if we
always portray our life as perfect, or if the perception
of us is that life is great. And so we
have to help break down that wall for people so
that people can actually reach out to us, because otherwise
we just sit there going well, no one reaches out
to me, No one cares about how I feel, No
(15:25):
one really knows. Another reason why we don't give ourselves
permission to ask for our hug or ask for help
is because sometimes we're scared of whether we deserve it.
I've known people in my life who've had incredible people
in their life be open with them to want to
help them and support them, and these people haven't taken
(15:47):
it up because they feel like they don't deserve it.
Sometimes maybe we feel we won't fulfill the advice, we
won't follow through with it, so we feel unqualified, and
I think what's important to know in that case is
just hell the other person. I often say to someone, Hey,
I'm not sure I have the energy right now to
follow through with your advice, but I would love to
get your perspective. I'm not sure I'm emotionally mature enough
(16:11):
to dissect and digest this right now, but I'd love
to give it a shot. Can you share this with me?
If we were able to tell people what we were
really going through and how we felt, it would be
fascinating to see how much more we'd be able to
learn about ourselves and they'd be able to learn about us.
I don't feel scared anymore to actually open my mind
(16:34):
and say this is what I'm grappling with. This is
the dichotomy I'm struggling with. This is the challenge that
exists for me. Lesson number four, don't buy into your
own hype. Stay connected to why you started, and remain
a humble student of life. If you forget this, life
will remind you. I love this one because I genuinely
believe that it's so easy to get caught up in
(16:57):
your own hype and forget why you started. And forget
why you began, and forget the feeling you got when
you started doing whatever it is that you do. And
for me, I really, on tour this year tried to
take in the love that I received from all of
(17:17):
you when I met you at a meet and greet,
or I met you walking off stage, or when I
met you walking into my car after the show, or
whatever it was, and so many of you shared so
many beautiful messages of love with me. I really tried
to take in the love. And I think before I
used to think that if I took in the love,
I'd be buying into my own hype, and I realized
these are two very different things. So buying into your
(17:40):
own hype means you're like getting egotistic and arrogant about
what's going on. And receiving love is actually so beautiful
because it doesn't go to the head, It goes to
the heart. And so to me, if someone says something
and I can help it go to the heart, it
actually is really nourishing and nurturing. And this is one
of the reasons why we struggle to say nice things
(18:02):
about ourselves. This is one of the reasons we struggle
to receive compliments is because we think they're going to
go to our ego. And it's really interesting because what
I try and do and this is how the filtration
process or the extraction process works. So if someone compliments me,
let's say someone says, Jay, you gave such a great presentation, right,
(18:23):
and I'm doing this and it's uncomfortable for me to
even say this about myself, but let's say someone said
that to me. The first thing I do is I
extract gratitude, and I pass that gratitude onto my teacher
or my teachers or my mentors who gave me that skill.
So whatever skill someone notices in me, I think of
the person who helped me develop that skill directly or indirectly,
(18:46):
and I give it to them in my mind. And
then I express gratitude to the person who gave that
to me, because they've just reminded me of my teacher,
They've reminded me of beautiful memories of learning. They've reminded
me of the growth that I've made, the progress I've made,
and some grateful to them as well. So you've just
turned something that could turn into ego into gratitude. And
(19:08):
that's how you don't buy into your own hype. And
what I've understood about life so far is that if
you do buy into your own hype, life comes back around.
It humbles you, it brings you back down to ground,
and it will keep doing that because it's how it's designed.
We're designed to see the humanity in ourselves and see
the humanity in others, and value ourselves based on that humanity,
(19:29):
not value ourselves based on anything else. And I think
it's truly special and beautiful when we can actually do that.
Number five. People will always try to tear you down,
no matter your intention, Trust that the people that know
you love you, and invest deeply in those relationships to
protect yourself. I've realized this the hard way that no
(19:51):
matter how good your intention is, no matter how much
you care, no matter what you're trying to do in
the world, there will always be people who try and
tear you down. There'll always be people who size you,
who mock you, who ridicule you, who point fingers at you.
And I take as much of it I can as feedback.
I always look at any criticism as how can I
(20:13):
learn from that? How can I grow from that? And
at the same time I have to realize that the
people who know me deeply, the people who know me truly,
the people who know me honestly, I have to check
in with them. And I do that when I listen
to some feedback about myself as some criticism, and I'm
starting to internalize it and take it personally, and trust me,
(20:34):
I do that. I'll often go to a close friend
and I'll say, Hey, do you feel this way? Do
you think this is true? And I'll have friends who
are really honest with me, and so they'll say, look,
I don't think this part's true. I think this is
something you could work on. I think this may have
some validity to it, but not in that venom that
it was given with. And having that conversation is so beautiful.
Or a friend of mine just says to me, Jay,
(20:55):
you know what, Actually, I'll be honest with you. You're
right and this isn't the truth. I think it's so
important to continually deepen our closest relationships. And the challenge
is if everyone always knows us in a shallow way,
all the criticism we experience will hit us deep. Right,
If all of our relationships are shallow, what anyone will
(21:17):
say will cut us deep. But if we have deep relationships,
if we deepen our relationships, we can then make sense
of where things really land. And so for me, I've
also realized that as your scale grows, the amount of
people that like and dislike your work also grows. And
(21:40):
I think I've tried my best to separate myself from
my work, at least theoretically and intellectually, to recognize that
someone cannot like my work. They may not like what
I say, but that doesn't mean they don't like me
because they may not know me, and that's okay, And
I'm not bitter towards them. I'm not mad at them.
I actually share internally a lot of love with them,
(22:00):
and I practice that if someone has ill, will towards
me at least internally, and try and practice love and
compassion towards them. Number six. I was talking to someone
the other day about how like I feel that as
people grow in scale, the percentages change. So when you
(22:21):
first start out, ninety five percent of people will like
you and five percent of people may not know who
you are or not like you, and then that keeps
changing right where you end up to a point where
a lot of people in this world, if they're really
well known, fifty percent of people love them, fifty percent
of people don't care about them. And it's a really
interesting journey to be on where you start to feel
(22:42):
like there's more and more people that understand you deeply,
but at the same time, there's more and more people
who completely misunderstand you. And I think that's the way
to explain it. It's not about like or hate, or
love or hate. It's about people who understand you and
people who don't. And I feel like, if you've been
here listening to me, and you've been reading what I'm writing,
and you've read my books and connected with me, you're
(23:04):
understanding me really deeply. And I really appreciate that space.
And at the same time, if someone just sees one clip,
they may not understand me at all, and I have
to be okay with that. And that's a really hard
thing to wrap your head around. And that leads nicely
on the lesson number six. Different levels come with different problems.
Focusing on developing new skills and strengths because they will
(23:25):
lead to peace. So what I've realized is that there
is no problem free life. There is no amount of
money that will solve your problems, all your problems, or
amount of fame or amount of success that can solve problems. Now,
that doesn't mean that money can't help with happiness, right.
I think we always use the term money can't buy happiness,
(23:46):
and I don't believe money can buy happiness. But I
also think money can help with happiness. I think success
can help with happiness. It can be a part of it.
It can help with sorting out certain problems. Right, different
problems in the past, I have different problems today. And
that's why this lesson that I've learned this year is
that different levels come with different problems, and a lot
(24:09):
of us are trained to pursue or seek a problem
free life. We want a life where we don't ever
have problems again. And by the way, I would love
to have one of those two, but it's just not realistic.
And so I've realized that rather than focusing on thinking
I hope I never hit a problem again, I hope
that I never have a challenge again. I hope that
I never have a difficulty again. I've realized, actually, if
I focus on developing strengths and skills, if I focus
(24:32):
on developing new ideologies, new methods, new approaches. That's actually
what shifts my mindset effectively, that's actually what shifts my
energy as well. So people often ask me Jay, what
should I read? Like, what book do you recommend? And
I always say, well, what are you struggling with? And
I would ask yourself that question today. What is it
(24:53):
that you're currently struggling with? What are you stuck on?
What is difficult? What is uncomfortable? And all I want
you to do is I want you to find a book.
I want you to find a TED talk. I want
you to find a podcast episode all on that subject.
And if you have more time, go and find a course. Literally,
that's what you need to do. Go and find a
Ted Talk. Then go and find a book, go and
(25:14):
find a podcast, and if you can, go and find
a course on that subject matter. And I promise you
that if you immerse yourself in learning, you will overcome
that problem. Now, when you overcome that problem, you'll unlock
a different problem. It's literally like a video game. You
unlock one level and guess what, you have another bad
person at the end of it that you got to
deal with. You get over that problem. Now you unlock
(25:35):
another level. Now there's another challenge. Right, every level unlocks
a challenge, and when you finish a level of a
video game, you get really excited and then you go, oh, gosh,
now I've got to beat this bad guy right, and
it gets harder again, and then you celebrate again, and
then it gets harder again. So life's kind of like that,
where different levels come with different problems, and so don't
expect a life without problems. When you get promoted, when
(25:58):
you get that moment in your career, when you have
the perfect family, whatever it may be, there will be
another problem. But instead of being defeatist about it, what
you want to do is be skills oriented about it,
be strength focused about it. Lesser number seven. As you
get older, don't forget to do things for your younger self.
There have been times in the past we neglected ourselves
(26:20):
because we weren't emotionally intelligent enough. We may think our
needs have changed, but some remained the same. Don't negate
them because they feel insignificant to the older you. They
remain important to the younger you. I'm going to give
you a personal example. This year, I got to take
my best friend to Old Trafford, which is the stadium
(26:41):
of Manchester United which is my football team or soccer
team that I've followed since I was a kid, and
I got to take a bunch of my friends. We
had the honor of meeting Sir Alex Ferguson, who's the
legendary manager at the club. I've got to meet the
current manager. I've got to meet some former players, legends, icons.
And my today's self that is trying to be more evolved,
(27:06):
more spiritual, more about personal growth, may not have appreciated that,
but my younger self was like, you just got invited
to your childhood club that you love to go, and
what's the team that you love playing the sport that
you love, which is my first love. And my younger
self was so proud of me, was so excited, was
so over the moon. And what I find is that
(27:27):
our oldest self, our more evolved self, often talks down
our younger self. Maybe there's a thing that you still
like from your childhood. Maybe you're a sneakerhead, right, And
your older self's like, come on, grow up, you don't
need to sneakers anymore. But your younger self's like, oh no,
but now I actually have the money to go out
and grab that thing that I want right, Or maybe
there was something else you liked in your younger years
(27:48):
and you didn't have the time, you didn't have the money,
you didn't have the energy to do it properly. Today
you have a bit more of those things than you can,
but you kind of look down on it because you think, oh,
that's irresponsible, I should do something better with my life.
I think it's so important to honor those younger interests,
those younger those things that we didn't get to fully
enjoy when we were young because we didn't allow ourselves,
(28:11):
our parents didn't allow us, whatever it may have been.
And now that we have the opportunity, you can't just
deny that. You can't just negate that. And I feel
that that kind of denial often leads to a sense
of bitterness. It leads to a sense of disconnectedness, and
it leads to that inner child always feeling starved, always
feeling like it didn't get the love, the care to
(28:32):
support the thing that it needed. Again, I'm not saying
go crazy and live out every one of your childhood dreams,
but I'm saying that some of them need to be pursued.
Maybe you really loved art growing up and you never
took that art class, and you're going to invest in
that now. Maybe when you were growing up, you really
wanted to play an instrument, and your parents can afford
to buy you, and so you're going to go and
(28:53):
get your classes right now, Like, what is that thing
that honors your younger self that you never got to
honor that time? Because I promise you that you don't
want to make something feel insignificant just because it feels insignificant. Now,
if there's still a part of you, that inner child
is still there that wants that experience, don't deny your
(29:15):
younger self of an experience just because your older self
thinks it's insignificant. That's one of my favorite ones, one
of my biggest ones. I feel like my life right
now is fully living in both. I'm living in my
evolved self and I'm also living in my childhood self.
There are so many things I do just because I'm
like teenage me would think I'm the coolest if I
did this, even if it's paradoxical to who I am now.
(29:38):
And I allow myself to live that way because I
don't want to deny my younger self of dreams, aspirations
and gifts all right. Number eight, give yourself permission to
be all of you. The more we try to extract
parts of ourselves and the hopes of becoming perfect, the
more we lose a valuable expression of ourselves. Let opposites
(29:59):
co exist. Be a paradox. I think you've heard me
talk about this one enough. I think I live a paradox.
I breathe a paradox every day in the life that
I lead, the life I've chosen to lead. And I've
just realized that being all of myself and giving myself
permission to be all of myself is far more fulfilling
than again denying or neglecting parts of myself. Number ten.
(30:23):
This one is huge. I really really hope this one
resonates with so many of you, because I really believe
so many of you have so much to offer the world.
So listen to this one carefully. You don't have to
be perfect to help others. I'm definitely not perfect. Actually
I'm far from it. I don't have the answer for
everything or know everything about anything. All I know is
(30:44):
that you and I have the ability to do things
we haven't even imagined yet, that we can get unstuck,
move forward, and change our lives. I think so many
of us are holding ourselves back because we're not perfect,
we're not masters. We don't think we know everything. And
the truth is, the more you master something, the more
(31:04):
you become humble about it. You don't master something and
then think, oh, I know everything about everything. You master
something and then you go oh wow, there is so
much left to learn. And that's why I just want
to remind you that if you're someone who has something
to offer, you can always take people to the level
you're at, and I promise you there's someone who needs
to be at your level. Right when I've spoken to
(31:26):
people who've been a part of AA, they may have
a sponsor who's one year ahead of them, five years
ahead of them, ten years ahead of them. All of
those people have valuable experiences. If you've got a new startup,
someone who's one year ahead of you, three years ahead
of you, five years ahead of you can all be
helpful at different times. Right now, my wife and I
are working on JUNI. We're Sparkling Adaptogenic Tea company, and
(31:49):
we're taking so much advice and mentorship from people, some
people who just started a couple of years ahead of us,
and some people who've been building for two decades, and
everyone has something to teach us, and so often we
think to ourselves, well, unless I'm done, least unless I'm
the complete finished article, that I have nothing to share.
You don't have to be perfect to help others. I'm
(32:11):
definitely not and I haven't got it all figured out.
But you can still help people because you have something
to share. And I think I've been really embracing that
idea because even I sometimes get into imposter syndrome and think, well,
what do I have to share or what am I
going to do about this? And then I realized all
I need to do is go and learn more, read more,
connect with people more. It's why I love doing the podcast.
(32:32):
I get to learn about so many different topics from
so many different people. All Right, two more I want
to share with you. Number eleven. Make new memories instead
of living old ones again and again. Don't live in nostalgia.
You have so much more to experience. Don't try to
recreate moments from the past. Instead, be open to new feelings,
(32:53):
new emotions, new people, and new places. I think so
many of us always talk about, oh, the best times
were before the best day of my life was ten
years ago. The best moment was this. It's beautiful to
have great memories, but it's even more beautiful to keep
making new memories. And I think that's what keeps us youngest,
what keeps us fresh. I think this year, one thing
(33:15):
I did with my team, we went on a team
retreat that I loved and made lots of good memories.
I made so many memories while I was on tour.
I tried to make a memory in every city. So
I tried to do something special, personal in every city
that would make that city memorable for me, and a
lot of it included going on walks, going to art galleries,
going outdoors, seeing monuments, seeing special historical parts of a
(33:39):
city that I will never ever forget. And I think
that was so important to me, because I didn't just
want to travel the world and come back not having
felt like I was able to make new memories. And
actually I came back with so many new memories of
cities I'd been to. You can go to the same
place and shift your mindset about it. You can go
to a place you've been to again and again and
(34:00):
again and have a new experience there. Un lesson number twelve.
The last one is Serve, Serve, serve, use your gifts
and skills in the service of others. It will create
opportunities you never thought of, give your life more meaning
than ever, and help you make memories for a lifetime.
And for me, I can honestly say that till this day,
(34:20):
my only goal has been to serve through everything I
do to help make a positive impact in the world.
And I constantly reconnect with that feeling because it's what
inspires me more and more and more. I keep going
because I want to keep serving, I want to keep giving,
I want to keep learning, I want to keep growing,
and I'm just grateful that you give me the opportunity
to serve you, and you serve me as well by
(34:40):
being present here. So I hope that this episode was useful.
I hope that you take something away from it, even
if there's one lesson that shifts your mindset and how
you think, that would be a win for me, and
I wish you all the best for the year ahead.
If you're selling brain your birthday this month or while
you're listening to this too, A happy birthday to you.
Thank you for all the love you gave me on
(35:02):
my thirty sixth birthday. It means the world to me
and I can't wait for many many more birthdays and
many many more lessons to share with you all over
the years. So thank you again, and make sure you
share this with a friend who needs to hear it.
And make sure you tag me on Instagram, on TikTok,
on Twitter or an X and let me know what
(35:23):
you're taking away and what's stuck with you. Thank you
so much, sending you so much love. Thanks for listening
to on purpose,
Host
Jay Shetty
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