James Altucher ON: How To Build Relationships That’ll Elevate Your Career & Create Financial Abundance In Your Life

The depth and thoughtfulness of this impromptu discussion shows the brilliance of Altucher, who is a leader in entrepreneurship, a bestselling author, and a leading thinker of our time. Jay Shetty and James Altucher dive into topics like effective relationships & expectations, a healthy view of money, and finding joy during the hardest parts of life. Altucher is known for his ability to speak honestly on defining values and discovering passion, and in this episode he excels at both. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

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• 2:59Jay Shetty?

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• 3:09Speaker 01

  That was the potential energy which I converted into money. And then I thought, okay, I don't, I can stop now really building up my potential energy. But there's other, you always have to keep on building. You can't ever stop going to the gym. You always have to keep building on your health every day. If I say, okay, I'm healthy enough now, I'm just gonna eat popcorn for the rest of my life, you'll be unhealthy very fast. And that's essentially what happened.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  This is James Altucher. I'm here with my good friend Jay Shetty on his show. I'm taking it over for a second. Jay, what made you finally decide you're gonna stop everything and go three, three years? I don't know if you intended initially three years. What made you decide to go the path of the monk?

• 3:56Jay Shetty?

  What, leave it or join?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Join.

• 3:58Jay Shetty?

  Do I get to introduce you first or do we go straight into this question?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  We just go straight into this question.

• 4:02Jay Shetty?

  We go straight into this question and then I introduce you.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:04Jay Shetty?

  So I have to find a clever way.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:06Jay Shetty?

  So what made me leave?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  You have to segue into introducing it.

• 4:08Jay Shetty?

  I love it.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  It's a challenge.

• 4:09Jay Shetty?

  Brilliant. This is great. This is already what I thought it was going to be. So it's already crazy. I love it. Okay. So the question is, why did I leave?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Just that pinnacle moment, what was the point where you said, god damn it, I'm gonna go and be a monk in India for three years?

• 4:26Jay Shetty?

  Okay, I actually decided that when I was 18. I met a monk. Blew my mind. He was the first person that I met.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  How did he blow your mind?

• 4:35Jay Shetty?

  He blew my mind because he was the first person that I met that I thought was successful and happy. When I was eighteen, everyone that I'd met, I'd met many successful people. I hadn't met many happy people. I'd definitely not met many people that I thought were both. He was someone that went from something to nothing in the sense that he went to I I T. He'd achieved every material qualification you possibly could at his age, and then he decided to trade that all for a life of service. And that for me was what deeply inspired me because I thought, wait, that's really noble. Like, who gives up a life of wealth, success, fame, power for service? Like, how does that even happen? And so I started spending every one of my summer holidays, basically my first A B test. I'd spend half of it at an investment bank or a consulting company where I thought I'd end up.

• 5:20Jay Shetty?

  And I'd spend the other half living as a monk in India. And after four years of testing that from eighteen to twenty-two, while being at, while being at Cass Business School, at twenty-two, I decided it was time. So I decided in my heart at eighteen, kept doing everything an eighteen-year-old does till twenty-two. And then at twenty-two, decided to, to actually make the actual move.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  So what, what sacrifices do you think you made? Did you consider in your mind that you were making? And when you made, when you decided to full force go and be a monk, like, were you giving up on a relationship? Were you getting job offers? Like, what sacrifices were you aware of that you consciously made? And were there any that were difficult for you?

• 6:02Jay Shetty?

  If I'm completely honest, I never saw them as sacrifices. They never have ever felt like sacrifices. It, it never once came to my mind or occurred that I felt I was giving something up when I did, when I made the decision. So there were, I broke off a relationship with a girl. I gave up my corporate job offers. I had two job offers that I, that I declined. I, I tried to, I think I tried to actually. What do you call it? Differ one of them for a year because I wasn't sure. I was like, oh, maybe I should be safe. But then I then I didn't do that either. And so I turned down two job offers. And I also obviously moved away from my family. I never went to my graduation. I graduated but never went. So my mom never got the picture of me holding my my degree, which till this day she reminds me of that.

• 6:46Jay Shetty?

  She does not have a picture of me holding my degree.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  You should dress up.

• 6:51Jay Shetty?

  I should dress up and do it. I don't look the same, though. I used to have. Yeah, I look I look different. We've aged, uh, so. And and then I gave up, obviously, the perception and opinions of people around me. A lot of my fellow friends just thought I was absolutely crazy and that I'd gone nuts. My extended family were completely confused, so.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Cause they didn't know when you were coming back either.

• 7:14Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. So the biggest thing I sacrificed was what people thought of me. And that was a really, really awesome thing that happened at that age, that the ability to just wanting to follow my intuition and my dreams and not wondering whether anyone thought it was cool or interesting or useful. And at that time, definitely, I'd say ninety nine point nine percent of people did not think anything that I was about to do was interesting or useful or or cool in any way.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  I mean, now you're doing, you've created a lot of content, you've gotten a billion views on social media. Uh, do you ever feel that? Do you still feel like you don't completely uh think about what other people think? Or i- if you integrated it back in in a different way than you think other people have it?

• 7:57Jay Shetty?

  I think I think about what other people think when it comes to content. Because ultimately, the goal or the heart or soul of my content is to serve and help people. So if it's not serving and helping them, then it doesn't matter. So I always talk about how I feel creators can either be selfish or sell out. And most creators can be either end of the spectrum. So selfish creators are creators who say, I just create for myself. I don't care whether anyone likes it or not, just creating for myself. And if you're a creator like that, you've got to be okay with the fact that most people will never ever read, watch or consume your work. And if you're okay with that, that's amazing. That's beautiful. But you have to realize that you're basically creating just for yourself.

• 8:39Jay Shetty?

  And sellout creators are creators that only create for the public. They're like, oh, what's the next trend? Or what's the next thing I've got to do to pander to my audience? And that, again, you don't feel fulfilled because you're not creating from your heart. You're just creating from your head what makes strategic sense. So for me, it's being in the middle. For me, I've found that middle ground with my content where I am creating things that I genuinely believe in are meaningful to me, that connect with me, but also are aimed at serving people, helping people and connecting with people. So that's how I've kind of at least made sense of it to myself in my own head.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And obviously you've done it successfully, like billions of views. I mean, must feel good.

• 9:20Jay Shetty?

  It does, it does, and I'm really open about that. It's when I started this journey, I actually just sent a radio clip for an interview in London where they're doing a series on if your goal is to become Instagram famous, what will happen? And I was talking about how like when I started making videos, I never thought it would be a full-time thing. I just thought I'd be one of those people who spend their evenings and weekends making videos to share with the world. I never had any dream of it ever getting this big. I never visioned that. I never had it on a vision board. I never wrote it down or anything. So for me, I just feel extremely humbled and blessed and grateful that my work is connected with. Yeah, in the last eighteen months, as you say, we've had over three and a half billion views. And for me, that's mind blowing.

• 10:03Jay Shetty?

  I never ever thought I'd be able to have that type of impact, so.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because you have, you have the, you know, two great

• 10:16Speaker 01

  situations on your side. One is you have a story to tell that's very different and unique. And the other is you have a message that can go along with it. So they, it's like the double helix of DNA and, and you need, you need the double. You can't have a single helix and create life.

• 10:32Jay Shetty?

  I'm glad you didn't say the English accent. I thought you were gonna say the British accent.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  The British accent. Oh, and his eyes are so wonderful. I see that on the YouTube comments. So you have that, you have that double helix as well.

• 10:46Jay Shetty?

  No, I appreciate you. You went, you went far deeper, so I'm very grateful to hear that. And no, I mean, honestly, James, I'm so grateful and I'm so overwhelmed and humbled by it all. It's, it's far beyond anything I ever planned for. And, and I'm continuing to operate in the same way as I did when I started. I've not changed my intention or my goals. It's exactly the same as it was.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good because then you can sort of question each piece of content like, does it fit? You know, or well, well, that's an interesting question. Should content always fit a checklist that you say, okay, it's got to do this, this and this? Sometimes content takes its own form. And how do you?

• 11:26Jay Shetty?

  I'm far more spontaneous with content. I just feel like things can be inspired from a conversation or something random I read on an advert on the street. It doesn't need to necessarily be something that I've always ideas for me, I've realized that my content takes, if there was a formula to it, has three key components. So one of the first ones is all of my content is based on a piece of research or a study that I've read. And I'm fascinated by human behavior, so I'm constantly reading about human behavior. So when I read a study and I think, oh, wow, that's interesting. Let me see how that plays true in real life experience. And then I'll be speaking with a friend or speaking to a new person that I've just met or hearing from an old friend. And then I'll be thinking about that study and how it's playing through that human behavior. And then finally, I'll try and find

• 12:10Jay Shetty?

  a solution or a piece of wisdom from what I learned as a monk. So I'll try and find some truth, some old ancient truth or timeless truth that can help put it all together. And that's kind of what my content approach has been of creation. And that's allowed me to be able to be more systematic and strategic around content when I need to and find constant source of inspiration. But at the same time, I could literally hear one thing from you today. And I actually had that the other day when I was interviewing someone, I was interviewing Mario Götze, who plays for the German national football team in Germany, literally five days ago. And he said something, I was like, I'm gonna make a video out of that. And it was just as simple as that.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  So that's interesting. So you'll take you so, so I see these videos of you all the time and so you'll have a takeaway from from an interview maybe, and that might inspire like one of these great videos I see from you.

• 13:01Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And for me, it's meditating on that idea so that it's been realized in my own way as opposed to, oh, that's a cool idea. It sounds good. It will look good. It's more have I actually realized in my own way that that phrase or that idea, has it been realized as opposed to, has it been theorized?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this, because often I see you talk about the idea and you have great stories and metaphors and things that you've picked up that you're able to, that you say to express the idea, but often you don't say your story when expressing the idea. You don't say, "There was this time I was in India and this happened and that made me think of this," probably because you're in this ongoing period of learning things. But, you know, do you ever think that, oh, if you're just expressing the idea but without your story, is that a little too, almost selfish, to use your word, where you think people are going to listen to me just because I'm saying it, as opposed to

• 14:02Speaker 01

  establishing my own story alongside the idea?

• 14:06Jay Shetty?

  I think for me it's interesting, because I think my initial content, I became recognized for my ideas before people knew my story. So actually, when my content first broke through, a lot of people were like, "Who is this guy anyway? He's so young, what does he even know?" That's what the critics were saying, and a lot of people were just like, "We love how Jay thinks." For me, it was never intentional to break through, so I never really even had time to consciously think that through. And so if I'm looking at it from a hindsight point of view, my take is, I also am careful about the medium through which you share your story. And so right now, I'm working on my book, and for me, my book is a perfect medium to share the depths of my story. I think a lot of my stories are better in written form than in spoken form.

• 14:56Jay Shetty?

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• 15:39Jay Shetty?

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• 16:22Jay Shetty?

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• 17:05Jay Shetty?

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• 17:08Speaker 01

  That's probably true. I think that that's where you could play with with your story and how to express it.

• 17:14Jay Shetty?

  But it's something that's taken me a while to just really reflect on all my experiences, to really go back there, live them, and I want people to live them with me. I don't just want people to hear them. And I think I have to relive them first to want the audience to relive them with me as opposed to just tell them.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  And yeah, and I think. I don't know how you're starting the book, but if I were you, and this is

• 17:36Jay Shetty?

  Please.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  No, no, just take this advice with a grain of salt. I'm just thinking how I would write it if I were you. I'm not saying you should do this.

• 17:42Jay Shetty?

  Sure, sure.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  I'm just thinking if I were you, I would probably find that moment in India where I was just, you know, thigh-deep in mud and just everything's miserable. And you're missing your family. And what are you doing? And someone just yelled at you because even monks yell occasionally.

• 18:05Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  And you're just filled with regret. That's probably how I would start it.

• 18:10Jay Shetty?

  I'm visualizing the situation right now. I remember exactly where I was.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Because then, then you leave the audience with, well, he did it. And I'm reading this book for a reason because I like what he says and he's been a monk. But it's good for them to know that there's, there's always uncertainty. There's always, you know, things that are not fit together the way you think that they're going to be. The puzzle, the puzzle pieces don't always, you know, build the picture.

• 18:37Jay Shetty?

  I'm going to have to get you to interview me before I carry on writing. I'm already thinking.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  I'm interviewing you right now.

• 18:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I know, I know. But this is, yeah, you've got me thinking. That's a beautiful piece of advice. Thank you so much.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 18:47Jay Shetty?

  And I love it. Yeah, I can think of a moment that I don't even think I was going to put in the book. So you've definitely inspired me.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's an interesting thing because the sacrifice you made and then coming back. What made you decide to come back?

• 18:59Jay Shetty?

  Those three things. The first thing was I came to a personal self-awareness realization that I didn't fit in with being a monk. So I had an independent rebellious streak of wanting to share what I was learning in a very specific and particular way. And I wanted to dedicate my life to that. And that wasn't necessarily what an ashram or a monastery. facilitates. A monastery and an ashram is also a place of accordance, of discipline, of some form of conformity and coming together and giving up sometimes personal desires for a overall higher goal. And for me, that was just too hard to do because the calling and want of wanting to share the message in a particular way was so high for me and so

• 19:44Jay Shetty?

  deep in my gut that I knew that if I didn't try that, I'd live forever in regret. That was a huge one.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Well, obviously, you're a blend of two cultures. You were Indian, Indian parents. When did your parents come to London?

• 19:56Jay Shetty?

  My mother moved to London when she was sixteen.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  From India?

• 19:59Jay Shetty?

  From, actually Yemen. My mom grew up in Yemen and moved to England to keep her British passport when Yemen got back its independence. And then my father moved to England from India to London when he married my mom, when I think he was like twenty-six, twenty-eight or something like that.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  So you're a product of all these cultures, the ashram style of living just might not have been, it was there for you, but maybe not all the way at the core. And people always say, particularly people say to people who meditate, oh, what's your practice? Is it, you know, Vipassana? Is it Zen? Is it Tibetan or Vedic? What they miss out, and then they say, well, then they say something stupid usually, which is like, oh, well, did you get Nirvana? Did you get enlightened? Which doesn't mean anything. But they forget the key word was that they asked you what your practice was. What are you, they don't think, what are you practicing for? And what you were practicing for was to come back here

• 20:55Speaker 01

  and share these things that you've learned. And the word practice is the key part. Nobody, meditation is not the goal. It's the practice for the other twenty-two hours of the day.

• 21:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. I was, yeah, I couldn't agree more. I was practicing for two things. One was purification. I really felt that being a monk would allow me access to accelerate my growth to the virtues, values and characteristics that I thought were so important. So when I would hear about humility, or I would hear about integrity, or I would hear about detachment, I was fascinated by these qualities as an eighteen-year-old. And I just thought, Wow, well, if I go into the real world and if I get a real job, how am I ever gonna have time to think about humility, integrity, and all of these values and virtues? So I was like, okay, it's gonna give me time to purify myself and become self-aware that I can try at least to develop some of this. And the second one was it's gonna give me time to study, realize, and live the knowledge so that one day I can share it,

• 21:51Jay Shetty?

  so that one day I can pass it on. So you're you're spot on. Those were the two. And that's still why I meditate. I still meditate for those same two things. Want to purify myself of all the envy, greed, illusion, all of the things that I believe are toxic and negative from my life. And then for me to able to have the integrity to share what I'm sharing.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  And you probably also were curious, like after three years, being immersed in this life, what's it gonna be like? Using my new personality, my new skills in my brain to back in the in the quote unquote real world?

• 22:23Jay Shetty?

  I was scared. It was so scary coming back because I moved back when I was about twenty six years old into my parents' home again. I had no money, had my student debt to pay off, which I know we can talk about, but I had my British student debt, which is not as bad as it is in the US, but I still had it. And I had to re-figure out what I was gonna do. And it was strange because I was like, oh, my God, am I gonna have to make money again? Am I gonna have to be in a relationship again? Like, what's normality? And it took me about nine to ten months of just reading books, studying, trying things out, self-reflection, journaling, to just be able to operate again in in a normal capacity.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Were your parents pushing you to like, hey, you know, Jay, get out of here? Like, get a job, move out?

• 23:06Jay Shetty?

  Indian parents will happily keep their kids in their home till forty if they have to. It's it's quite common that Indian kids will spend their time in their parents' homes till twenty five, thirty, or until they get married. So my parents weren't pushy at all, and they were quite happy. At first, they were like, why are you back? Because we just got used to you being away. And then it was kind of like, oh, you're back. Like, you know, they were excited to have me back. So, yeah, my parents are very liberal and flexible. They're amazing, so, yeah. But anyway. I want to switch it back to you now because I kind of, I feel like I've, I've just been, yeah, that was.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  I've just been curious.

• 23:40Jay Shetty?

  Thank you.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  It's all about curiosity, right?

• 23:42Jay Shetty?

  I know, I know, but I'm curious about you and I feel like, but you've definitely got me thinking that's, I feel like for everyone who's listening and watching right now, you've just been shown the brilliance of James Altucher because not only, not only have you hijacked the interview, which is okay, what's, what's more interesting is that you've, you've definitely got me to reflect more deeply about a lot of things. So.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 24:03Jay Shetty?

  I'm excited to be.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  That was, that was a high bar.

• 24:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but I'm, but I'm excited to be interviewed by you at depth and I think it will benefit me a lot if, even if it doesn't benefit anyone else. And I'll take that, I'll take that. But thank you, James. Thank you so much. I'm gonna switch it back now, if I may.

• 24:26Speaker 02

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• 25:41Jay Shetty?

  You've just been watching what's meant to be an interview with one of the most successful entrepreneurs, writers, thinkers, angel investors. I am more fascinated than even all of his success, fascinated by the way he thinks, his incredible beliefs, extreme lifestyle choices, and sometimes counterintuitive and controversial thoughts. I'm really, really intrigued by the way James makes decisions, the way James makes choices. And today's guest is James Altucher, who has just introduced me and interviewed me for all of you. But I really, really want to share him, his story, his values, views, and beliefs with every single one of you. I think we're all going to learn an insane amount today. So thank you so much, James.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Well, Jay, thank you for having me on the show. I was very flattered to be asked to be on this. I said to Steve, the podcast producer, are you sure? Jay Shetty asked me to be on his podcast, and here we are.

• 26:35Jay Shetty?

  You're so humble and kind. It's incredible, and it's beautiful to see that. Humility is the quality I find most endearing, so.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Can we record that for my kids? I'm gonna send that to them. They don't believe that.

• 26:48Jay Shetty?

  They don't believe you're humble?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. I think, you know, teenagers live their own lives and they, they kind of peer out of one set of eyes to see what their parents are doing, but it's not, it's not necessarily the most important thing happening. They're just, they're paying attention and observing. They're not necessarily, and they'll judge negatively. They won't necessarily judge positively.

• 27:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I don't have children yet, but I've accepted the fact that my children will not think I'm cool in any way possible.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  What helps is when your kids' friends think you're cool.

• 27:25Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Then you win.

• 27:27Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  So I've been able to do that to some extent.

• 27:29Jay Shetty?

  So that's been your tip?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, one time, this was right after I had this period where I threw out all of my belongings and I was just living in Airbnbs. And my kid's friend's parents were reading my blog posts about this time. And their friends were coming up to them and saying, you know, Josie, is your daddy homeless? And she was really scared. She's like, Daddy, are you homeless? And I said, now, why don't you visit me? And I was staying in an Airbnb and it was a pretty nice Airbnb. And she was like, okay, you're definitely not homeless. You're just, this is just strange and unusual. So she knew, she had enough common sense to know it was a little bit off, offbeat.

• 28:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but it was a choice. It was a choice, you mean? And I'm fascinated by some of your choices. You said that in 1994, when you moved to New York, you wanted to be everyone and everything. And I feel that's so true today for so many people, especially a lot of my community, people that ask me questions. How have you started there and then started to create more of an identity where you're able to define yourself? Or whether maybe even that was never the goal?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know if that was ever the goal in the sense that, you know, I've made a lot of, it wasn't like a very straight path. I made a lot of, a huge number of mistakes along the way. So I always thought I had different, different goals. When I moved to New York, I wanted to write a novel. I wanted to make a TV show. I had nothing to do with business. And then, you know, New York just fascinated me, like, oh, everything, every corner I turned on seemed like a story. And I just wanted to hear everybody's story and I became fascinated by that. And, um, but then purely by accident, I stumbled into starting a business and selling it.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  And then I got like almost obsessed with money when I had never been obsessed with money before. And of course, obsession never has a good end. And I lost all this money and that created all sorts of problems and up and down, up and down. I made money, I lost money, I made money, I lost money. And I think through that, I sort of figured out finally what was working more on the way up and what was not working on the way down. And I kind of started focusing on, hey, let's just stick to what's working and leave behind what's not working. But it took, it took a good, long time to sort of come to that realization.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  And I, but I was always interested, even from, from the beginning, I was always interested in not consciously, but I always had very, very strict, not strict, I have very intense opinions about what was going on. And I, and, and I was very serious always about executing on those opinions. So in 1994, nobody knew what really the web was. But for me, I thought like, oh my gosh, this is going to be huge. And I remember I was working at HBO at the time and they were working on creating an interactive TV project. And that was my job was to, I knew software, I was a software guy at that time. And my job was to create their interactive TV for HBO.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And they were doing it through cable lines. And I said to my boss, why don't you try this thing called the web? Here's this browser called Netscape and maybe you could stream, you know, there wasn't really streaming video, but you could download video and then watch it on a web browser. And then it's, you just have to hand out this software to everybody. You don't have to create from scratch, all the networking, all the interfaces, the set top boxes, the whole thing. And he, I remember specifically, he said to me, James, James, James. Whenever someone says your name three times, by the way, they're about to insult you. He said, James, James, James.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Let, I think the cable guys know a little bit more than you about what the future holds for entertainment. So, so why don't you let them do their job and you just code it up? And of course their project failed and, and the web, you know, became huge. But that's when I stumbled into, again, it was several years later, but I stumbled into my first company was creating websites for corporations that did not have websites. So I made AmericanExpress.com, TimeWarner.com. And then my company, and you could maybe just tell by the, by the way I look, my company specialized in websites for gangster rap music labels. So we did them all.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Like, you have a picture of Tupac on the wall, that was Interscope and Death Row Records. We did their websites.

• 32:13Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Loud Records, Bad Boy Records, Jive. We did all the record label websites. So that was my first company. But before that, I really was obsessed with, I wanted to create a TV show for HBO. That's why I originally moved to the city. And I had strong opinions of what that should be, and then strong opinions about what my business should be. And then I started to have strong opinions about how much money I should be worth. And that was the beginning of the end.

• 32:43Jay Shetty?

  Wow, what an incredible story. And what was it that in, before 94, that even made you move there? What were you like before 94?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Well, I had gone to graduate school for computer science at a place called Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. And I was, I was thrown out of graduate school because I was, all I would do was write. I wrote a minimum of 3,000 words a day. That was my goal. I would write 3,000 words a day, every single day. And of course, that meant failing all of my classes and then getting thrown out of graduate school. But I was still a good programmer, so I would take jobs programming and we would use the web back in, when it was invented. We were using it to solve problems. And I got really good at that style of programming, which became the universal style of programming everywhere. But this was before anybody was doing it.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  And, and at the same time, being a programmer, I'd program like a half hour a week, do, do my job. And then just, my job was to just maintain the software I'd written. And then I would write fiction the rest of the day. But then I was watching So much HBO and I loved it. I decided I'm gonna go work at HBO. And I arranged for myself to get an interview there. I totally failed every part of the interview. My boss, his boss, his boss and his boss. All asked me questions that I couldn't answer about computers. And here I had gone undergrad for computer science and graduate school on computer science. And then I had worked for four years as a programmer. I was a good computer programmer. I failed every interview.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  And so I leave HBO and I was so disappointed. I thought, okay, that's it. I'm not gonna be able to move to New York City. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get a job here. And I went to the park and I saw a guy I've known for years at the park. And we played chess. There was a bunch of chess tables. And then the guy who was potentially gonna be my boss's boss's boss, I suddenly saw he was watching the game. I happened to, I was, it turned out he was a good chess player and I happened to then win that game. And we took a walk around the park and he offered me a job right there. So that's a, so I didn't know anything, but because he liked, you know, because we took this walk and he liked the way I played chess.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  He offered me this, this job that I then leveraged into pitching TV shows to HBO and doing their website. And I leveraged that into starting a company, making websites for other entertainment companies and so on. Like often you have an interest and you can, as you grow in that interest. You don't, it's hard to have a goal in the beginning because you don't know what your new knowledge is going to teach you in terms of changing your goals. So what I always try to do is I have an interest. I never really think of the end goal because I assume that my, the new knowledge is gonna change the end goal. And then I try to leverage it as far as I can. So I leveraged it in terms of TV shows. I leveraged it in terms of starting a company.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  And of course, along the way, you have to also find some kind of personal life balance, which I did not do. And that took many, many years to do.

• 35:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And leading forward from that, you, you mentioned that you got obsessed with money. When you started to get obsessed with money, what did you notice change about you and your choices?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  It was weird. When I had no money, I thought I was rich. Because, oh, I have no money, but I'm making a TV show for HBO. And I have no money, but, I don't know, I'm doing websites for, you know, the Wu-Tang Clan. And I have no money, but, you know, I was really, I felt like,

• 36:34Speaker 01

  I thought I was doing things that I love, so I felt, and I never worried about money. I was by myself and I was living in a beautiful building, a very historic building in New York. It had lots of artists and creatives and I just felt abundant. And then as soon as I had money, that second, I literally felt impoverished. Like I felt totally poor. Like it was almost like a disease, like a brain disorder that happened in my head. And so the first thing I thought of was, well, how can I make more money because I'm poor now? And even though I had millions and millions of dollars in the bank, and so once you start thinking like that, it's only a matter of time before you make a series of bad decisions that will cost you all of your money.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  While they are, it doesn't even matter. I spent a lot. I invested poorly. I did all sorts of things with the money that were uncalled for and, you know, millions turned into literally, you know, zero. So virtually zero.

• 37:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And obviously now you advise so many people, like incredible people from all different walks of life and backgrounds, about money, about business, about entrepreneurship. Do you not feel you had any mentors then to go to, or there was no one in your life that could advise you? Or what advice would you have given yourself?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good question because I was thinking about this the other day. I really didn't have anybody to talk to. And nobody was really giving me, nobody was offering any advice either. So I wish I did have someone to talk to. And I also, if someone did give me advice, I hope I wouldn't, I hope I would have had the humility to listen to them. Because I was also pretty arrogant, because you think, oh my gosh, I just made 10 million dollars. I'm the smartest. Person in the world because I did this like I never thought this was possible so I must be great. And uh but then of course, if you're not, if you truly don't feel as if you're great, if you feel insecure and in where you have some hole that needs to be filled.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  I felt like I needed more money to to fill that hole to really be great. I was just fooling people. Now I need to really prove it and that's part of this cycle where you feel like you need more and more and more. And I think again, it took a long time because I there's three skills to making money. There's making it, keeping it, growing it. And I was really good at making it. So I would start a company, I build it up, I'd sell it. Okay, then I'd go broke. It'd be the worst thing ever. I would feel suicidal. I'd start from scratch. I'd I'd then make it, keep it, and then fail to keep it and grow again. This happened like three, four, or five times. And it took me a long time to realize how to keep it.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  And and it's very difficult. So if I were to give my advice now, if I were to give someone advice now, I would say, do not, the very first thing is do not change your lifestyle at all for at least one year. Because let it, let, let, money is not the goal. It's kind of a byproduct of living a good, positive, integrated life. And I could describe what that means, but uh it's just a byproduct of of, you know, other things happening in your life that are that are more positive. And when you have it, let it just kind of marinate through you a little bit so that your your mind, your body, your soul kind of recognizes, okay, this is a new situation,

• 40:04Speaker 01

  but it's not, it's not the end game. It's just, it just sort of happened. But instead, Year one, I just started gambling and investing inappropriately, investing, you know, huge amounts that I shouldn't have been, you know, buying homes, spending like crazy. And, you know, every stupid thing you could think of, I would do.

• 40:26Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much for the honest, honest take on that because I feel like it's very natural when someone comes into anything in an accelerated form to not know what to do with it. It's like when something comes quickly to us, whether it's a a skill, a partner, money in this case, we don't necessarily know how to use it. And in one sense, you can't blame yourself for that or blame anyone because it's such a human trait that when something comes to us quickly, not easily, but quickly, in an accelerated form, it's hard to know how to honor that, keep that, grow that.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, um, let's, let's play with an analogy that I've never really played with.

• 41:03Jay Shetty?

  Let's do it.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  So, so, so money is like, is like a kind of energy, say. But so is like when you, when you work out in the gym, that also creates a kind of energy, like you're a little bit stronger. So you could lift more or you could, you know, you're a little healthier in some way because you've been going to the gym. But if you stop going to the gym, your muscles will, will go away, you'll out, they'll atrophy. So you can't just sort of like build up to the point where, oh, now I'm lifting a hundred pounds with all these reps, uh, and then, and then say, okay, I don't need to do that anymore. You know, with money itself is also you build up, you have a certain energy,

• 41:46Speaker 01

  a certain potential energy that turns into kinetic energy in the form of money. Like that's the, the physical realization of this potential energy you build up. So I had built a company that was successful, that was really helping a lot of other companies and, and, and teaching them how to use this new, brand new medium and so on. And that was the potential energy which I converted into money. And then I thought, okay, I don't, I can stop now really building up my potential energy. But there's other, you always have to keep on building. You can't ever stop going to the gym. You always have to keep building on your health every day. If I say, okay, I'm healthy enough now, I'm just gonna eat popcorn for the rest of my life, you'll, you'll be unhealthy very fast. And that's essentially what happened.

• 42:28Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. This is fascinating for me because I went through a process last year where I had to rewire my relationship with money. I I grew up believing that, you know, if you wanted to be rich, or if you had that ambition to make lots of money, then you it was a negative ambition, and it wasn't the right ambition. And where that came from, I mean, there's multiple sources, but that was definitely there for me. And then last year I had to rewire that to really understand how money was just a resource, it was just a tool, it was something that could facilitate growth, etc. It was something that could facilitate change, as opposed to, like you're saying, be the goal.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Right, and that's on the flip side. After making money, here's the other thing. Before making money, I realized every single time I've made money, it's because of friendship. So it's because of the friends I build up, and it's the friends I choose to spend time with, as opposed to the people I choose not to spend time with. And that really, you know, that's one thing among many, but it's maybe one of the most important things that ends up helping, you know, we all help each other. And, uh, you know, no man is truly self-made. It's all, you you find your scene, you find your team. Uh, and and these people who are in the trenches with you, you make money together.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Or they help you, and you help them with their, you know, situations or goals and so on. And and I think that's what I would make money, and then I would make the wrong friends. And then I would lose it. Then I'd have to make the right friends again. Now I just sort of keep the right friends and build on that.

• 44:04Jay Shetty?

  Wow, that's such a perfect lesson. Wow, that's a really incredible lesson. Have you ever seen money do the opposite of destroy friendships or take people away?

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, of course. Uh, that's how I would lose often the money is, uh, you know, destroy family, destroy friendships, everything. Uh, that that's, that also comes with the territory a little bit, that people who are around you, who are maybe not focused on their personal growth. And I'm not saying I have personal growth, I'm saying I'm focused on it, meaning I hope to grow every day. I don't know, there's no goal to that. I just hope to be better one day than the day before. But people who are not so focused on that, if they see you suddenly change your life circumstances, they're going to maybe not be happy about that. You know, not everybody's happy for your success, even the, sometimes, you know.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  People always say, how can I avoid the crappy people in my life? The crappy person in your life is never the neighbor down the street who you don't know. It's the person who's, the people who are sometimes right next to you all day long, every day. And so those are sometimes the people you have to be most careful about. Uh, you know, and it could be friends, it could be family, it could be coworkers. It could be a mentor who you thought was in favor of your success. Uh, it could be mentees who liked where you were as a mentor and no longer want, and no longer, you know, now they have to see you in a different way. So there, again, it's never gonna be the strange, well, it will be sometimes the strangers that hate you,

• 45:40Speaker 01

  but it'll also, the most dangerous ones are the people who are, have been previously close to you, but now they're upset that your life circumstances have changed.

• 45:49Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, you've talked a lot about.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  I mean, when you came back from, when India, sorry to interrupt, when you came back from, from India and you start, you called up your old friends from college and they were like, dude, what's happened to you?

• 46:02Jay Shetty?

  Literally.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm sure not all of them are on your speed dial right now.

• 46:07Jay Shetty?

  Uh, definitely not. So many people, I actually, I remember when I went off to become a monk, one of my best friends, like, we were like best friends throughout university. We did all of our coursework together, we studied together, everything. My, my best buddy, he, he literally said, he goes, so you're becoming a monk? I was like, yeah. He goes, so we can't talk about sex anymore? So I can't be friends with you? And I was just like, really? Like, that's what it comes down to? And then when I came back and started to like rekindle and reconnect with a lot of these people, it definitely was tough. Like, not everyone wanted to connect, not everyone really understood. And people just think you've gone crazy and then come back. So it's, it's very interesting. But it's also beautiful because those situations are the situations that show you who's really there for you. And it's a cliche, but it's, it's a cliche because it's true.

• 46:52Jay Shetty?

  Like in bad times or times when no one's there for you, shows you who's really cares.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can't, you can't. Keeps, there's no, a lot of people keep score. Like you could say to your friend, well, I, you know, we did all these, I did this for you, I did this for you, I did this for you. And they're like, and they're not even returning your calls. Like, you can't keep score because the reality is, there's no scoreboard. There's no, it's not like, oh, Jay's got 10 points and Alfred's got nine points. So Alfred needs to step up his game a little bit in the third quarter. It's not like that. There's no scoreboard. Alfred's just gone at that point. And you have to move on. You have to keep playing, it's a one-person game and you have to keep playing it.

• 47:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. That's a great, great piece of advice. Don't, don't keep scores. And I think you're so right that whenever we're doing something good for something or something positive, even if we're subconsciously keeping score, sometimes it's not conscious. But when that person changes or turns, our subconscious mechanism for keeping score kind of comes to the fore. And we're like, oh, wait a minute, now I remember all the good things that it.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Well, and also, being aware, and, and this, I'm sure it would be, is natural to you from your meditation experience. Being aware, uh-oh, I just kept score, I just counted the score. That thought right there means that this relationship is, has gone off the rails. Doesn't necessarily mean cut it off. It means something has happened wrong. The second you feel like you are keeping score in a relationship, something's wrong that needs to be recalibrated.

• 48:24Jay Shetty?

  That is a brilliant piece of advice. I hope if you're listening and watching, this is like so powerful for relationships. And it's not just, it's friendships, partners, husbands, wives, whatever it is.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Business.

• 48:34Jay Shetty?

  Business, it applies to everything, yes, such great advice. That is awesome. I, I'm gonna meditate on that one. So everyone who's listening and watching, highly recommend you meditate on that point in your relationships. Wherever you're feeling pain or wherever you're feeling your relationships are off the rails, think about what James just said, it's, it's super powerful. I love that.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  And, and you know, I don't necessarily know what a, a solution, like, sometimes the solution is, okay, I'm not gonna interact with this person anymore, or I'm gonna take a break from this person. But let's say you're married and, and you find yourself suddenly in the middle of the night, like, I can't believe he or she did this. I have done this, this, and this, but. You're married, you can't just sort of eliminate this person in your life. I think, uh, I think the key then is to just sort of call it out for what it is. Like to, you know, next time you have a conversation with the person, you say, um, "Hey, I noticed I was keeping score and I really don't like feeling that way. You know, what can we do about it?" And you know, there might not be an easy solution, but I think you have to kind of

• 49:38Speaker 01

  call out what is out there, what is in the ether. Cause if you're thinking it's the energy between the two of you, it's, it's out there, it's happening.

• 49:45Jay Shetty?

  And can you imagine how amazing that would be for the other person to hear that? That would be incredible if someone ever said that to you like, "Sorry, I know I've been keeping score and I know I keep telling you about all the amazing..." If someone heard that on the other side, I'm hoping that most decent human beings would, would, you know, that would resonate with them, that would connect with them and hopefully their response would be transformed.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so because I think, I think just, you know, information is power, right? And so, uh, that's a saying, but it's, it's true. And so what is information? It's not just facts, it's everything that's going on. You just meet someone on the subway, there's information going back and forth between the two of you. Um, now that might not be an important relationship, the next subway stop they leave. But like with a friend, with a partner, with a business partner, there's constant information and energy going back and forth. Being able to identify and put words to some of this information is useful for both of you to make the, the unit more powerful. The, it's not about your success versus the other person's success.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And it's not about what you're getting, what you want versus the other person. Cause then the relationship becomes transactional. It's about the unit as a whole moving forward in every situation. So again, the subway one, the best thing for the unit is you just let them get off the subway when they need to get off the subway. But in a marriage, it's different or a business partnership.

• 51:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I often say to people that it's not you versus the other person, it's both of you versus the problem. And it's looking at it that way and just taking that observer standpoint and taking out the actual issue, the actual disconnect or whatever it may be, whether it's business or personal, and recognizing that you have to think like that in a relationship. Because if you are looking at me versus that person, that means someone's got to lose. As soon as someone's got to win, someone's got to lose. Whereas if it is both of you against the problem, then the right team is winning. Or has an opportunity to.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I have a, I have a business partner on my investment stuff. So I have a lot of different activities and on my angel investing, I have a same business partner for nineteen years. So that means.

• 51:51Jay Shetty?

  That's a long time.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  It's a long time, but it also means I've lost him an enormous amount of money. Like I've lost him a lot of money, which he could say, you've lost me all this money. And then there have been other times where an entire year I would just not show up for whatever I had to show up for. Because I was going through a divorce, I was depressed or whatever. But I also play my role, which is I tend to find a lot of the opportunities and ideas. So I've made, you know, we've made a lot of money as well. And but sometimes it's years of one thing and then years of another thing. Where if anybody, if either of us were keeping score, you know, we are, our partnership would have ended year one. So instead of nineteen years later.

• 52:32Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And you touched there on, on experiencing things like depression. I've heard you speak before about you're facing anxiety, et cetera. And what, what I'm fascinated by was how you described it of how you've been trying to create a life of joy versus playing chess with your demons. Whenever you had to really like to create that joy, actually had to face your demons front on and actually deal with them.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  I mean, unfortunately, many times, but I'll take one time specifically. Uh, you know, I have two daughters. I mean, there's so many ways, a lot of it relates to my, you know, fear of. I had this big fear that if I ran out of money, that meant I was dead. So, cause I, cause I equated my self-worth with my net worth, particularly after I sold my first company. And since then I've sold three or four more, but even after the third or the fourth or whatever. But, uh, I don't even know which story to tell. I could tell a million stories, but.

• 53:30Jay Shetty?

  Tell which everyone comes to mind first.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I would say there was the final time. And I can't say final because it's always an ongoing thing. But there was one time. Latest. I, I, I was day trading and this is not so long ago, really. Maybe this was like 2009, 2010. And I had a bad day, day trading, I lost money. And I was thinking, ugh, is this still happening? Like, am I still worried about everything? Like, how am I going to take care of my kids? How am I going to live? How am I going to make money? You know, it was yet another time where nobody was returning my calls. It was still years away from my angel investments paying off. You know, people don't realize about angel investing. They think, oh, this is the key to success.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  But, you know, if you invest in a good company, the good companies take the longest to pay off. Because they keep on being good until they sell. So the, the bad companies disappear quickly. The good companies grow, you know, you might have to wait nine, 10 years before, you know, there's an opportunity to pay off. So, so I was just like depressed, lonely, scared. And I thought to myself, okay, I really do have this sense of what works on the way up and what doesn't work on the way down. I need to, I need to just surrender. I need to really have this mentality of surrender where I can't really control how I'm feeling right now about losing money.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  I can't really control what's going to happen. You know, I can't force, you know, XYZ company to be sold to another company. I can't force the economy to do well. I can't force all these massive, massive things that I felt needed to go in my favor in order for me to do well. But what I can control is my physical health, my emotional health, like who, who I'm spending time with, my creative health. Like, am I constantly creative and coming up with ideas? Because that will lead, ideas morph into opportunities ultimately. You can't have opportunities if you're, if you're sick in bed. You can't have opportunities if you're constantly yelling at your romantic partner or your friends. You can't have opportunities if you're not constantly generating ideas.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Because no one's going to call you and say, Jay. I'm gonna make you the, you know, the king of Thailand now. Like, no one's gonna give you that opportunity. You're gonna have to, you have to make your own opportunities. And opportunities come from the ideas that you have. And ideas are hard to come up with good ideas. And then finally, spiritual health. No one's, no one can do that for you. No one can teach you, hey, you can't control the economy or how stocks are gonna go tomorrow or, you know, which companies are gonna flame out. You could just kind of make your best, do your best and, and surrender to the rest.

• 56:17Jay Shetty?

  And that's become somewhat of a practice for you, right? Because then you made a list this year of things you didn't wanna worry about.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so basically every day, I just ask myself at the end of the day, did I do the best I can? Did I try to improve with physical health? Like, did I eat well, sleep well, move well? Have I been around good people who, who add to my life? And started trimming people who don't add to my life? Or maybe trimming people who are toxic? Did I, was I creative today? And the simplest way is that I write down 10 ideas a day. Like, they could be bad, they should be bad ideas most of the time, but I'm just exercising that idea muscle. And that I do something for my spiritual health. Like, let's say, it doesn't have to be meditation. It could be prayer, it could be bowing down to Allah. It could be surrendering to the force. Could be anything.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  And I just ask myself, did I do that today? And then today was a good day. And quoting Ice Cube.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  You know, and then from that, other things are just byproducts. So that creates the energy in you. And it builds up this potential energy. And then, once you have that, it, it, byproduct is the kinetic energy that results. The, the, for every action has a

• 57:33Jay Shetty?

  Equinox.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, a, a reaction. And, you know, money is among that, or friendships, or love, or,

• 57:42Speaker 01

  you know, other things, anything.

• 57:44Jay Shetty?

  It sounds like you've had so many, at least from my perspective, from what I've read, hearing you today, so many ups and downs, so many inconsistencies. Has there anything that's stayed consistent with you in your experience over all these years?

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it reminds me of, um, you know, there's Peter Thiel writes in his book, Zero to One. What important truths will very few people agree with you on?

• 58:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  And I always ask this to people too, like after reading, I said, this is Peter Thiel's question. What important truth, um, uh, does nobody agree with you on? And everyone thinks and thinks and thinks, but there's a really great answer, which I always give now, which is my incredible wit and high IQ.

• 58:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  So that's such an easy answer because I could say it's an important truth to me, but no one will, no one else seems to agree with me on it. It's just an easy answer.

• 58:36Jay Shetty?

  Maybe they do.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  No, most people don't.

• 58:38Jay Shetty?

  I would, I probably would, so.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  But, uh.

• 58:41Jay Shetty?

  But my, my question is more about consistency because I get fascinated by what does stay the same in all of this change and evolution, because we talk so much about growth and evolution and transformation. So I'm fascinated by like, if anything, and it may be nothing, which is cool too, but it's like, is there anything that is, has stayed consistent in the way you think or what you believe for?

• 59:02Speaker 01

  I would say there is nothing that has stayed consistent.

• 59:06Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  And that's the problem. I think consistency is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean being, it doesn't mean having the same routine every day. It means a higher level of consistency of, of having core values, having this daily practice of physical, emotional, creative, spiritual. I would say that became consistent for me starting around 2010 or 2009. And it was only in bits and pieces before then. And I think that's the source really of all my problems is that I wasn't consistent. And of course, problems don't end, right? Like people have problems every day, but what, what gets better when you're consistent is you build this toolkit of solving and dealing with problems.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  You know, there's the whole saying which, you know, you know, life happens, but how you, you can't control what's happening in life, but you can't control your reaction to it. And so that's what, that's what all of this practice is. That's what a daily practice is, a consistent daily practice gives you those tools to react better to life happening around you. And I think, I think that's what's more consistent for me now and it wasn't consistent for me before. So when things would go bad, I would think, okay, that's it, I'm dead. And now I don't think that.

• 1:00:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, I love that you you're embracing that point around the importance of consistency because I think we live in a world today where we glorify and idolize extreme ideas. Whenever it's like, no, you have to be constantly changing because everything's always changing, but it's from from my perspective, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, one of my perspectives is that actually embracing the paradox and embracing polarities is far more of a realism of life like I would say I'm as monk as I am media and I would say that my focus is as about consistency as it is about remaining spontaneous and inconsistent and for me it's in that paradox where I'm able to find myself, where I'm able to operate, where I'm able to function. And I would never be able to operate without either extreme.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  I think that's, I think that's really important because for instance, when I, when I started writing about like being honest and writing in my writing about all this stuff. Everyone thought I was completely insane, like for instance, all these financial people I knew or all these entrepreneurs that I knew. Or even creative people I knew, they're like, they all felt like, are you crazy? Like, how could you admit all this stuff? No one's ever gonna wanna work with you again. And yet I suddenly had more opportunities than ever because I think people realized it's people at their core realize, oh, that's like me, I have I've had problems in life that I didn't know how to deal with. And hopefully I know how to deal with them a little better now and here's someone who's similar and who's admitting it.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  And I think that's important. We all have these, you know, I think societally, uh, you know, society is also filled with kind of contradictions. But people are in today's day and age unwilling, you know, everybody kind of takes a side now and you know, you could either engage in that discussion and it's usually like an angry one, like, oh, no, you believe in this, I believe in this, we can't be friends anymore. Or you could say, hey, I'm still gonna be focused on my own flaws and irrational behavior and and be accepting of it and focus. Again, it's almost like boring, a boring mantra for me, but physical, emotional, creative and spiritual health and hopefully a little bit of improvement each day in those areas.

• 1:02:33Jay Shetty?

  And that's what I love about you that when I've been viewing you and admiring your work. You don't really claim to be anything. Uh, in a, in a good way, I'm saying, as in, and, and I quite like that because I think it allows you to be more honest and be more vulnerable in your writing. It, it allows you to be more almost without having to identify yourself as something.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Right, like somebody commented on a post of mine recently and said, um, James, how could you, this, this is when I know a post is good, is when someone says this, James, how could you say this? Like you were such a beacon before you wrote this and now my whole view of you has changed. And then I know I've achieved something good with my writing because if I'm just the same thing all the time, and that's boring.

• 1:03:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  And it's on them that they're, that they liked me before and what did they like about me before? That suddenly they don't like about me now. I can't control that. And, you know, I've always admitted that I'm, I'm flawed. Like, maybe everyone else is perfect, I don't know, but, you know, you have to kind of acknowledge the flaws in the people, even people closest to you.

• 1:03:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, but you do it effortlessly. You, you're able to talk about your flaws in a, in not an articulate way, but almost with effortlessness, like your self-awareness is so high.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, or maybe I just write so that it seems that way. So I always tell people I'm much less interesting in person than in my stories that I write.

• 1:03:59Jay Shetty?

  No, that's not true. That's not true. I don't agree.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  But, uh, you know, I, one thing is, is that I always tell people who are, who are writing, for instance, don't, don't start off the first paragraph with a lecture. Start it off with, I was lying in the gutter, uh, and I, and it was raining and I was drunk and cars were coming towards me and, you know, I had to get pulled out of the gutter and then I threw up all over the place. Like just start, start with something like crazy and stupid and embarrassing and then you're off to a good start. What is about human psychology that, that warms towards that perspective?

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Because we've all been there.

• 1:04:42Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  And we all are ashamed to admit it.

• 1:04:45Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:04:45Jay Shetty?

  So when someone admits it, it makes us feel more comfortable.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it gives you permission.

• 1:04:49Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  To, you could finally take a breath. You've been holding your breath since that moment that you can't admit. And now you could take a breath. Oh, he just admitted it. That's just like me. So maybe I could crawl out of this hole that I'm in, or maybe I could admit it also to the people around me and and maybe it's okay that it took me slower than I thought, or that I'm in the beginning or the middle of a journey that's still going on. You know, it gives permission in a lot of different ways. But if you just say, if you just say, oh, I'm the greatest basketball player in the world, here's how. Who can relate to that?

• 1:05:23Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:05:24Jay Shetty?

  Totally. And but that technique is often used by a lot of, and you mentioned your fascination with stand-up comedy, obviously, as well, and that technique is often used by stand-up comics, that that kind of self-deprecating also approach, but we find that often there's so much reality where people are still stuck there. It's almost like they haven't worked through that.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, a key thing in stand-up comedy, maybe even more important than humor, is likability. So when you're watching, let's say you turn on the TV and Dave Chappelle is on the screen, you say, okay, I'm gonna watch this. You already know his act, you already know that you like him, everyone in the audience has just paid $500 to see him, they like him. So you don't really see, but if you go into like just some dive comedy club, it's a bunch of strangers watching a group of seven or eight comics one after the other go up. Nobody likes each, nobody, it's a contest, like nobody yet knows whether to like each other. And so the first thing, somebody on the stage, and this applies not just to comedy, but to public speaking, to public speaking when it's strangers.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Uh, this is, it applies to a meeting where you're selling something, it applies to a negotiation. No one is gonna. Negotiate with you if they don't like you first. And so comedy is a negotiation. You're saying if I say these things, you're going to laugh. And but they still have to like you first. Sales, they have to like you first. My first company, I realized this, that nobody was really buying my service, which was making their first websites, because there were other companies out there that were making websites. People were buying me as a friend. And they wanted me as a friend. And that felt bad at first because I didn't select my customers. They're selecting me, but I didn't have enough confidence to select them.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  And so sometimes it ended up being friends with people I didn't like.

• 1:07:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Because I felt that was the service I was providing ultimately. And then, sure, my employees were building their websites. But they, but their boss, the boss who hired my company was just, he just wanted to be friends.

• 1:07:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  And the website stuff was kind of a byproduct of that. And so, again, likability is important and self-deprecation is part of that. And it's also part of, well, look at, take Harry Potter, the book Harry Potter. You don't see him as a wizard in the beginning. You see him as a bullied, little nerdy kid, scarred, whose parents hate him, and he lives in a closet. Like, that's how Harry Potter starts, not with wizardry and amazing things. It's literally this scarred kid in a closet, and that's how it starts.

• 1:08:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You know, I was just talking to someone about Star Wars yesterday. It doesn't start off with Yoda, like, controlling the universe with the Force. It starts off with a whiny little kid, whose aunt and uncle won't let him fly into space. And he doesn't, and he doesn't even try, doesn't even fight back. He's like, oh, okay. Like, he even whines in his voice.

• 1:08:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  And until finally his aunt and uncle are killed. And he doesn't shed one tear, and he just immediately goes off into space afterwards.

• 1:08:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:08:41Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And that's all the stories, right? And that. It's it's beautiful when that is a authentic telling of one's journey as opposed to a manufactured approach to sharing one's story.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  So that's the key, and that's what happens. So that's so so being self deprecating unfortunately is only one half the puzzle. Otherwise, everybody would be a great artist, or a great comedian, or a great salesman, or a great negotiator. The second half of the puzzle is you have to be authentic and telling your personal truth.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  You can't go on stage, for instance, and tell a bunch of jokes about what it's like to be 300 pounds if you're 140 pounds. So the audience, it's they're gonna be like, is he putting himself down, but he's not really 300 pounds? Now, that's an obvious one, but there's a saying, you know, in any kind of performance, the audience is an X-ray machine. So on much more subtle issues, the audience can tell if you're telling, if you're if you're being truthful, if this is a personal truth about yourself, or are you just doing like some sort of hack job and trying to get them to like you and and not really being truthful or honest about it?

• 1:09:49Jay Shetty?

  You touched on something really powerful for me that that you just said, I'm going, I'm rewinding back to it because you said that

• 1:09:56Jay Shetty?

  we all like being liked, but then we have to become selective about who likes us.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Jay Shetty?

  And and that's a fascinating, like, again, a mind trick, because we all like being liked. When someone likes our posts or likes us, then we immediately default tend to like them back because we love the process of being liked. How do we switch out of that and actually become more selective?

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  I don't think you really can. Uh, I think, well, well, first off, there's two parts to your question. Uh, or not really two parts, but your your first part was, we like being liked. You can't get rid of that.

• 1:10:32Jay Shetty?

  Definitely can't get rid of that.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Neurochemicals.

• 1:10:34Jay Shetty?

  And we shouldn't get rid of it.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's just neurochemicals, and we're tribal animals, and every tribe in every primate, you know, species goes from alpha to omega, and you always have a sense of whether you're closer to alpha or or whether you're moving. Closer to Alpha or moving closer to Omega. And the more people who like you, the more you're moving towards Alpha. And the dopamine spikes up and you feel happy. And the question is, how addicted you get to overwhelming bursts of dopamine? And you know, that's an addiction. So that's an addiction that for better or for worse, Instagram, Facebook, social media feeds it.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Like, you know, I used to post an article and like, I knew exactly to the number. If the article was doing good, based on if an hour later had so many likes and so many views and so on. And I had, you have to really sort of be aware of where your addiction is being triggered. And, and teach yourself not to care as much. And so when it comes to then customers and friendships and so on, you just have to decide, does this person have the kind of values that I have? And I want to be around them and, and I want to get to know them better. And, um, uh, you know, I want to be, I, I'm willing to be friends with this customer. So yes, this will be a great partnership. And then, by the way, it'll make you a better salesman.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Like if you genuinely like the person you're dealing with, you're going to come up with more ideas for them. They're going to come up with ideas for you and things will work out better. So that's on business. And of course, the same thing applies to romance or friendship or even creativity. Like if you're, um, if you're doing an act of creativity that people like. And you, and you start to feel that dopamine surge, you could take, you, you could recognize, acknowledge it. And then take a step back and say, okay, but I still have to focus on the quality of the work. Yes, I want people to like it, but I, I can't get, I can't get carved into one area where I know everyone's going to like it. Cause they liked it before.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I have to always be creative and break out of my comfort zone and see what people like and what people don't like. And I have to be willing to not have that dopamine hit every single time. You know, some people get so addicted that let's take in comedy, they say the same jokes every time for years. Or let's say in. You know, performance, they always wanna play the same type of act, you know, character. Or let's say in sales even, they use the same techniques and tricks, you know, when it might not be appropriate all the time.

• 1:13:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Cause they, cause they know it's the easiest way to get that dopamine hit.

• 1:13:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and that's where that consistency element goes wrong.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Jay Shetty?

  That's where that consistency fails us eventually.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if you think, okay, I made ten million dollars, now I need to make twenty million more to get the same dopamine hit. Well, you've just, you're, you're, that's the first step, you're about to lose the first ten million.

• 1:13:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. And like we were saying earlier, I was mentioning to you how apps have become smarter in making sure we get bigger dopamine hits by giving us all of our likes and follows in one big go. So before, if you had two likes on Instagram, it would show you two, and then the next minute it would show you eight. Now it puts ten together. Or it puts a hundred together, because that dopamine is stronger, so it makes you wanna come back more often. So it's, it's crazy how we can get wired in so deep.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's really hard to get out of that, like.

• 1:14:03Jay Shetty?

  You were saying, you were sharing some advice. So have you been working on getting out of it yourself?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  I think, I think the key is to not, I think the key is to be, I, I don't like the word minimalist, because usually people think minimalist means

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  fewer objects around you. But it could also mean fewer times you check your computer and your cellphone, like being minimalist that way. It could mean fewer decisions you have to make. So that's the whole kind of famous Steve Jobs, like he wore the same clothes every, every day. He just had like five black turtleneck sweaters. And so, but it was a minimalist of decisions he had to make. Cause you get decision fatigue, or you get dopamine fatigue. Um, and it messes with your brain. And even with friendships, you know, it's good to have a diverse group of friends, not the same kind of friends and but you don't wanna have like five hundred friendships, cause then your social calendar is gonna be too busy. You know, two or three really good friends, five

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  pretty good friends and, you know, and then some acquaintances.

• 1:15:06Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. I love that. This is, this has been one of those conversations for me that has got me thinking so much. Like, I, I almost need to listen back to this and listen to a lot of the things you said because they've sparked so many different inspirations for me personally.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I often have to reread my own book or books uh to, to remind myself of my advice.

• 1:15:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Or not really advice, but stories and how I got through them. And just to kind of keep track and make sure I'm still consistent. You know, because I'll forget my, my own advice.

• 1:15:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but I, I, I love how when I'm listening to you, even though you're a writer, your, your writing style, or at least speaking style and sharing style is just so honest isn't even, doesn't even quite cut it. I'm trying to find the right word. It's just, it's so as it is and you almost haven't storified your own story, which I like.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Uh, what do you mean by storified?

• 1:16:08Jay Shetty?

  I, I feel like we live in a world now where, where we tell stories for the sake of telling stories. Like, it's like you have to make everything in your life into a story because that's the only way people listen. Whereas I'm listening even though I don't feel you've done that in, in a, in a positive sense, I'm saying. That often everything feels like a, you know, a lot of, a lot of what we hear today, or at least what I experienced, feels like an ad or feels like I've been put into some sort of NLP storytelling practice. And I'm just like, all right, like, you know, where's this going? Whereas, whereas when I'm listening to you, I kind of feel like, wow, here's someone who's, who's really lived, who's really experienced, who's, who has really thought about it and is okay with, with it kind of getting it wrong sometimes and getting it right sometimes.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Well, that's just it. A story doesn't have to have a good ending. Some stories are tragedies. You know, some stories are comedies, some stories are dramas. So there's different types of stories.

• 1:16:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, but you know, I do think though storytelling is the best way.

• 1:17:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  To communicate. So the other day. I'll tell you a story.

• 1:17:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  So the other day.

• 1:17:06Jay Shetty?

  After everything I just said, you don't know. I'm joking. I'm loving the way you tell stories.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  The other day, I was playing poker at the Clinton Foundation was holding an annual.

• 1:17:16Jay Shetty?

  Yes, I saw the poker, yeah.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  And everybody, I had never met Bill Clinton before. And everyone always says this one thing about him. Whenever I read about him or whenever I talk to people who have met him, they always say, oh, he's got the most amazing charisma of anybody in the world. He always makes you feel like you're the most important person in the world. And right, so you've heard that. It's like a common thing about him. And I kept thinking to myself, what does that mean? Does he like stare at you and like hypnotizes you in some way? Or he like hugs you and like asks you lots of questions about yourself so you feel really important? And so here I am meeting him and here's what it is. I've realized what is his charisma because it's amazing. He's kind of soft spoken a little bit. Maybe that's his age. Maybe he wasn't always that way. I don't know.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  And then, so he's leaning, you have to lean in close and, and he just tells you a story. He's like, you know, he'll say, that reminds me of, you know, my buddy. He's like blood to me and he told me the same thing you just said. And here's what it was. And then he goes, he tells a story about his friend. And now you're part of his circle of friends. And so you really do feel like, am I now Bill Clinton's friend? Like, am I, is Bill gonna come over for dinner tomorrow? Like you start thinking that. And that is, I think, I think storytelling in these kind of like soft spoken ways is this, is the secret to his charisma. Now, okay, then you have to sit, then you have to be discerning enough to determine is that, you know,

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  some people are better at it than others and is he truly, am I truly the most important person in the world? Is he really coming over for dinner tomorrow? Or is this just his way, you know? And, and then that, you know, then there's a spectrum there.

• 1:19:00Jay Shetty?

  And then that's where that energy is real, where you can feel that genuineness.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Jay Shetty?

  That authenticity and that sincerity where you're like, yeah, okay, he's not coming over for dinner, but he meant it when he said it.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11Jay Shetty?

  You know, that, that intention, that, that conscious energy was, was sincere.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  I I hope so.

• 1:19:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I have no idea.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  We never know. We never know. Like, someone could be so skilled at it. Like, I have a lot of, you know, like performers and actors and so on on my podcast. And and I get overwhelmed by them. Like, oh, my gosh, we're getting along so great. But this is their job is to get along great with me.

• 1:19:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  And so you never really know. And um, but again, I do think uh, the best, it's really sincere and it's really authentic. And I do think people deep down know when you're not being authentic and sincere and so on. So I think that's, I think that's key. I think you have to say yes to the things. You know, I was thinking about this recently. What do you say yes to and what do you say no to? Because you can't say, you know, when you're young, you have to say yes to more things. But when you're older, you have to say no to more things. And so one way to judge whether to say yes or no to something is um, the same principles that help determine how much well-being and contentment you have in life, which are what, I'll say yes to something if it improves my emotional connections with the people in my life.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  If it improves my sense of mastery of that I'm improving in something that I love doing. Or and if it improves my freedom in the world. So will more of my decisions uh, be decisions I make as opposed to decisions someone else makes for me? And so those three criteria, if it meets those, then I'll say yes to something. Like, let's say a speaking engagement or going on your podcast, or writing a story, or, you know, creating a business, or marrying someone, or going out with someone, or being a friend. You can use those three criteria to uh, to say, determine yes or no.

• 1:20:56Jay Shetty?

  Those are great. And and I think everyone needs to create their own. Like, everyone needs to create their criteria of how to decide. Absolutely. I love that. Awesome. James, this has been an incredible conversation. I end every interview with my final five. It's the final five minutes of an interview. We do some sort of a quickfire, rapid-fire round.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:14Jay Shetty?

  So these are shorter answers, usually one to three words. With you, I could even, I'm I'm gonna tempt myself. My quickfire may not be five, it may be seven, it may be 10. I don't know. We'll see how it goes because I have so many quick- Questions I have to ask you.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  But you just made me think of a question.

• 1:21:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  And when you said final five, it reminded me of the Chris Rock movie, The Top Five.

• 1:21:34Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  But I'm gonna shift his top five question a little bit. Who are the top five people that have inspired you on your journey?

• 1:21:42Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  I wanna know.

• 1:21:43Jay Shetty?

  Top five people?

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:45Jay Shetty?

  Uh, so I'd say, uh, one of the first ones is my teacher, Radhanath Swamy, who's been a monk for the last forty years.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  How can I figure out who he is? Like, where do I?

• 1:21:54Jay Shetty?

  So, oh, I can, I can give you his book. I'll have it sent to you.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I can have his, have his book sent to you.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  What's the book called?

• 1:21:59Jay Shetty?

  Uh, it's called The Journey Home.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:01Jay Shetty?

  And he's, he's someone who grew up in Chicago and hitchhiked across the world at the age of nineteen in search for the truth, and ended up in India. And so his, his story is a truly remarkable story of a genuine seeker of truth, a genuine seeker of spirituality and the self. And he's someone who's hugely inspired my life because the amount of times I've spent with him, he's the same, whether he's with you individually, or whether he's with a million people, or whether he's with the President of the United States, all of which, with which he's been, he just is able to maintain the same level of demeanor, qualities, abilities. So, his characteristics have always been something that I've admired and looked up to. So he's one of them. Uh, the second one is someone that I feel personally mentored by, even though I never met him, was Steve Jobs.

• 1:22:43Jay Shetty?

  Uh, I've tried to read everything that I could possibly could about him, and unfortunately, I don't know many people who knew him, but simply by reading about him and hearing about him and trying to connect as deeply as I can with all of his content, he's been a huge inspiration in my life in, in many, many ways. Uh, the, the most simple way I can put it is, at one point in my life, I listened daily to his Stanford commencement speech, the famous one, and I listened to it every single day. And the amount that speech in itself has helped me switch off from the noise of other people's opinions in my life. Uh, that in itself has been an incredible, incredible inspiration.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  I I met him once, actually.

• 1:23:20Jay Shetty?

  Wow, okay.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  When I was in college.

• 1:23:22Jay Shetty?

  Finally.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  When I was in college, I was, and he was, he was at Next Computer.

• 1:23:26Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  And he was delivering a bunch of Next machines to where I went to school. And so he was there to commend, you know, to give the gift of all these Next machines. And he is like unbelievably charismatic, like.

• 1:23:37Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  You just, you just wanna be like, it's like a, it's like a tractor beam. He's like calling you in.

• 1:23:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:23:45Jay Shetty?

  Amazing.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  So that's two.

• 1:23:46Jay Shetty?

  That's good to know. That's two. Uh, the third one, again, never, never met him, but hopefully I can because he's still alive, is Cristiano Ronaldo. Uh, who's the famous football player or soccer player. The reason being that I grew up a huge football and soccer fan growing up in London. But also just because of his extreme work ethic. So I feel like there are people that are naturally gifted and then there are people who work and build and create a life that facilitates their dreams. And he's someone who's probably gifted, but definitely the latter as well. There's a famous story of him, which, which helps explain who he is to you. I'm not sure you have any context of, of who he is. Uh, he was at one point the most expensive player on the planet. And a player that beat him in how expensive he was came to the club.

• 1:24:28Jay Shetty?

  And said that on his first day, this other player, his name's Gareth Bale. He says on his first day of training, he thought he would show up to the club early. To show the manager that he was serious, even though he's the most expensive player in the world. He was like, I wanna show the manager I'm serious. So he turned up three hours early to training. This is four years after Cristiano Ronaldo has joined that club. Cristiano Ronaldo was there four hours early that day.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:24:51Jay Shetty?

  And that's, his work ethic to me is just constantly inspiring me and motivating me to, to realize that that's, that's really what it takes to be at that level.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Do you think no matter how gifted you are, you have to have that level of work ethic to be the best? There's no way to be gifted enough to be the best, I think.

• 1:25:07Jay Shetty?

  I, I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think we see that. I think we see natural talents, especially in sports, I, I, I view it more. Where people are natural, raw talents and they don't reach those peaks because they didn't take it seriously enough.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:20Jay Shetty?

  And, and then they fall off. So I've seen it mostly in sports, but I think it's, it's pretty common across the board. So, yeah, he'd, he'd be my third one. Uh, five, this is good. Uh, the fourth one would probably be, I'm trying to think of another individual that I think. Uh, the fourth one would probably be the monk who introduced me to Radhanath Swami. Uh, I can tell you about him too. He's someone who is just. He's the first monk that I met that inspired me to be a monk. He went to I I T, which is the Indian Institute of Technology, M I T of India. A gold medalist, turned down jobs at some of the best places to become a monk. He's by far the, one of the smartest people I've ever met, but also someone who's been able to live through service. And I've never seen someone so smart want to dedicate their life simply to service

• 1:26:05Jay Shetty?

  and be constantly able to reinvent himself. I spoke to him last year. And even though he's a teacher and respected by thousands and thousands and thousands of people, he was like, I've got so much wrong. And he was telling me about exactly what he'd gone wrong ten years ago, that he didn't recognize, and now he's trying to rectify. So his constant ability to reinvent himself, self-develop and and be reflective despite the amount of adoration and success he's had is phenomenal. And the fifth person I'd say is probably my wife. Uh, she's a

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Good answer.

• 1:26:37Jay Shetty?

  No, it's true, it's true. Uh, probably my wife because I I met her at a time like, I'm like the bad guy who has tried to become good. I've I've always been a rebel my whole life. I, I've always been on the other side of good and I've, I've worked my way towards the, towards the good side and it's taken a lot of, lot of work, whereas my wife's almost, I feel like been a saint her whole life, extremely uh, pure-hearted, uh,

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  How'd you guys meet?

• 1:27:06Jay Shetty?

  We actually met because I, when I left, I used to teach uh, meditation philosophy as part of a group that I used to teach.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  So you met tooed her?

• 1:27:13Jay Shetty?

  Sorry, yeah, basically, basically, absolutely. Yeah, well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna uh, own up to that, but she's now a better meditator than me, so I guess I was a good teacher.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:27:22Jay Shetty?

  Uh, but, but yeah, she's just someone who in all of her relationships, I think exudes the best energy. I know that whenever we're out together and I connect my friends and family or anyone to her, they're they're always uh, more, more interested in her than they are in me. And, and yeah, she's, she's someone who's a great partner, tolerates me a lot. And, and it's able to deal with a very extreme husband, you know, I'm, I'm a super extremist and I'm pretty sure that's not easy to deal with, so.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  That's, that's a good, that's a solid top five. And it sounds like it's consistent too, right? Like that's consistently your top five.

• 1:27:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I think so. Those are consistently at the top. I mean, there are, I mean, I didn't mention Einstein and Einstein's the.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  And you mentioned Einstein a lot in your videos and.

• 1:28:02Jay Shetty?

  Einstein's the center of my world from an ideology point of view. I just, I feel he's someone who was able to bring together spirituality and science. He has that paradox in him. He was able to be intellectually curious, but then deep in data. You know, I love that about Einstein. And yeah, so Einstein, without a doubt, I would say is, I mean, he's in the center of my wall. I'd hundred percent put him in the top five, but I wanted to give you people that you may not have heard of too. So I wanted to add people to that list. But yeah, those are probably my top five.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Excellent.

• 1:28:30Jay Shetty?

  Can I do my top five on you?

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Are you questions?

• 1:28:32Jay Shetty?

  Questions. Yeah, yeah, they're not that question. So my, my first question is this one, which I love. You made a list of things you didn't want to worry about in twenty eighteen. On that list was money, politics, other people's opinions, the future and pleasing others. My first question is, what are on the list for twenty nineteen?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Money, politics.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  I don't want to worry about people liking me and I don't want to worry about pleasing others.

• 1:28:58Jay Shetty?

  And the future.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  You know what? I do think about the future because I think about my kids. You know, my kids had some, some issues this year and I, I do think about them and I think about the future. So with them and. Yeah, and I don't want to worry about, I think the pleasing someone who is not appreciative of it, that has gotten up in value for me, not wanting to worry about that. You know, the rest are the same. And by the way, twenty eighteen, I'm not saying I succeeded at those things. I want to improve on them for twenty nineteen.

• 1:29:36Jay Shetty?

  Well, you said them again. So yeah, definitely. No, I love those. And I, and I do, it was a really interesting thing to have that. I think we focus so much on goals, but we don't focus on what we don't want. And then sometimes it's what we don't want that creates the space. So I, I think I really like that approach. So anyone who's listening and watching, make a list of things you don't want to be bothered by in twenty nineteen. I love that. Second question I have for you is, what's the best advice you ever received?

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  I think the best advice I've ever received, you know, when you do podcasts, right? You do so many podcasts with so many great and inspirational people.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  That I forget, I feel bad that I don't have like an amazing memory where I can remember everything they've said. But sometimes I guess what stands out is has had an effect. So it's just gonna sound kind of like an odd one, but I've thought about it a lot. Scott Adams, who's the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, he said to me, "My life became, you know, a lot better and I became a lot happier once I realized that 99% of people were completely irrational." And so I just think that's a good thing to think about, particularly when you're dealing with a lot of these issues like what do people think of you? Why isn't, why am I keeping score in a relationship?

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  Or why isn't, why weren't I pleasing this person? Or, you know, the future that I can't control because of all these factors that, you know, involving people. It helps to think, you know, that it's true. Most people, including me, are probably irrational most of the time, and that makes sense. Otherwise, if everybody was rational, like everyone always thinks they're rational. But if everyone was rational, why is the advertising agency, advertising business a 300 billion a year industry? Like they're trying, they're spending that money for a reason because they know they can, they can, that your free will is not as rational as you think, that they can manipulate it.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  So that's why all these companies exist, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It's why every ad agency exists. So, you know, so it makes sense. And I guess, I guess the other thing is, I don't know. I think the other, I think in general, always keeping beginner's mind is important. You know, it's a big Zen concept.

• 1:32:03Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Third question, what's the worst advice you ever received?

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  I don't think I've ever gotten bad advice.

• 1:32:12Jay Shetty?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  And I'll say it because I don't blame anyone for anything bad that I've done. Like, I take, of course, somebody's told me to, oh, you gotta buy this stock, man. It's gonna go up tomorrow. And I bought it. And I could say that's bad advice, but you know what? It wasn't like he was doing his thing or she was doing her thing. And I'm the one who made the action. So I gotta take ownership of, of, of my decisions. And so I can't really say anybody's given me bad advice that I couldn't have just simply dusted off and ignored it.

• 1:32:47Jay Shetty?

  Nice. Question number four, what's a mantra you live by or something that you repeat to yourself often or something that's kind of stayed at the forefront of your mind when you're making big decisions or choices?

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  I think it's a couple of different things. You know, one is I've repeated several times in this podcast, how at the end of the day, did I improve or work on, you know, physical health, emotional health, creative health, spiritual health?

• 1:33:10Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  And the other thing is, am I making a decision because of it improved my connection with people, my attempts at improving at things that I love and my sense of autonomy or freedom? So, you know, remembering those every time I have a crucial decision, particularly regarding how I spend my time, I think that's important to me. And I, and I think it's also useful to remember when I pass people, they're going through hardships too. And I remember I met somebody, so I published a book with Hay House, which is like a self-help publishing company. And I was having lunch with their head of book acquisitions and she told me she had just come back from this retreat with the Dalai Lama. And I said, well, what's it like to meet him?

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  And she said, it feels like...

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Everybody he looks at, he's thinking, this is my daughter. And so I've tried this exercise, just walking down the street, just imagining everybody, like an old man, a, you know, homeless person, this person, that person. This is my daughter. And you do feel differently, you do react differently to them. What's creepy is when it's actually a little girl you're passing, and you're smiling at that person, this is my daughter. You can't do that. That's the problem. But in general, that's been, been kind of a thing that I repeat to myself when I walk around in the street.

• 1:34:33Jay Shetty?

  And that's, that's actually a very monk principle, that, that we were trained to, to see people as either your women, uh, your mother or your daughter. So you're able to build that respect for women. So rather, people often think that monks are against women or see women as less, et cetera. It's actually the opposite. It's actually, how can I see these women with higher forms of respect?

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  And, and it's tricky too, when you say the same thing about men. This is my daughter, about some homeless man.

• 1:34:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  So that works too.

• 1:35:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  I was once, um, once going out with somebody who just didn't believe me that I would do this. That's stupid, you do that, I don't believe you do that. But it actually really works. Like I encourage, and I don't always remember to do it, but it works when I do it.

• 1:35:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and I, I ask a lot of, lot of men to try and do it with how, how they deal with women in the sense of just like, I have a younger sister who I've almost dealt with as my daughter in many cases, in the sense of how I see her and how I take care of her and how, how protective I am. And I've always looked at, tried to look at my relationships with women in the same way as like, well, that's someone's daughter. Like, how does that impact how I treat them? Or how does that impact how I?

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's a good way to do decision making. So let's say you're, so this has happened to me in relationships where, and this has been my therapist's advice to me. Um, I would, I would be like, oh, like, ugh, this is what happened this week. You know, so and so said this to me, you know, what should I do? And my therapist would say, well, imagine your daughter calls you up and she says, daddy, my boyfriend just said this to me.

• 1:36:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  What would you tell her? And I'd say, break up with him, like, that's crazy. And it's so, it, so I know how to be a parent and I know how to be like a business partner and sometimes relationships are hard, but, so my therapist was great, was at finding the analogies where I would be able to have an instant answer. But it was really the same question.

• 1:36:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And fifth and final question, I often don't say this, but and I'm hoping that even though this is the first time we've met, I'm hoping it's gonna turn into a lifelong friendship because I've there's something about you that I deeply find endearing and admire.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jay. I feel the same way. But you know, here's the thing, though. A lot of times on the podcast, people say, oh, next time I'm gonna say we have to hang out. And then I never hear, I text them like, I see you're in the city. And they just never respond. You have to respond. You have to contact me when you come to the event.

• 1:36:57Jay Shetty?

  I was gonna go a step further. I was gonna go a step further. My fifth and final question is actually like, I feel like as we get to know each other more, there may be areas in my life that I think you'd be an incredible mentor for me. And I'd love, as my fifth and final question, to ask you for any words of guidance, advice that you have for me, having seen my work, connected with me today, and been so incredible to me. I'd love to ask you for any advice, anything that comes to your mind that you may believe would be useful for someone like me.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. But I mean, you've done a really good job of doing what you do. And I've watched a lot of your content. And by the way, I'm amazed at how well-produced your videos are. You must have a team like editing stuff and so on. So it's like, everything you do seems like super high-quality, super thoughtful.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  So I don't know. I would say maybe just don't share

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  ideas as much as stories, sometimes. Sometimes you don't have to be, you know, Jay, who's sharing. You're brilliant and you have great advice. And I always, you always have unique insight that I'm like, huh, that wasn't just some sort of BS self-help aphorism.

• 1:38:13Jay Shetty?

  Thank you.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  It actually was unique and I'm gonna follow it. But it would also be like, you know, I wanna see you dirty a little bit. And, but that's just, that's just how I, again, it's like I'm saying how I would do it if I were you. But you have generated more views on your content than I have, so who am I to talk? So that's, just try.

• 1:38:33Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Yeah, I'm gonna find out what dirty means. That's gonna be fun to unpack with you.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  Go on a subway.

• 1:38:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  And, and have someone videotape you secretly. Um, and do the same things you say in your well-produced videos and figure out how to say it to the subway car.

• 1:38:50Jay Shetty?

  Ooh, okay.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  And it, cause it's gonna be scary and they're gonna look at you like, is this guy gonna ask me for money? Or is this guy weird? And, uh, and you have to commit to, to doing it in the same passion and vigor you do it on those videos.

• 1:39:03Jay Shetty?

  Okay, awesome. I love it. Let's, let's see what.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  And the videotape will be hilarious.

• 1:39:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it will be fun for everyone else for sure.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:10Jay Shetty?

  I love it. James, thank you so much.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Thanks, Jay.

• 1:39:13Jay Shetty?

  For coming on the show.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 1:39:14Jay Shetty?

  I'm, I'm excited for our next, I just feel like we've literally, and I'm not just saying this, and I don't say this to everybody, I literally feel like there's so many more things I could talk to you about, but I'm excited to, to rethink, re-listen to this and then come back at you with more, so.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's continue the conversation. Well, we know you're gonna be in New York in the next few months. Come on, uh, the podcast and, um, and then let's have dinner afterwards.

• 1:39:37Jay Shetty?

  I'd love that. Thank you so much, James. Thank you.

• 1:40:32Speaker 06

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• 1:40:42Speaker 07

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