Simon Sinek: Not Every Friendship Is Meant to Last—And That’s Okay! (THIS is How to Know If It’s Time To Walk Away From Adult Friendships That No Longer Fit)

Are you keeping this friendship out of habit or love? If they weren’t in your life today, would you try to be friends again? In this profoundly insightful episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty sits down with Simon Sinek, renowned leadership expert, bestselling author, and host of the podcast, A Bit of Optimism. Jay and Simon share a deeply vulnerable and powerful conversation about what it truly means to be human in a world that’s more connected than ever, yet so emotionally disconnected. Together, they explore the foundational role of friendships, belonging, and purpose in building meaningful lives and relationships. Jay opens up about his own transformation and the early influence of Simon’s book Start with Why, while Simon reflects on the personal journey behind his body of work, emphasizing that all leadership is, at its core, about human connection. They speak candidly about how burnout often stems from loneliness, the fragile nature of adult friendships, the difficulty many have in celebrating others’ success, and the healing power of emotional honesty in relationships. With wisdom, humor, and emotional clarity, Simon breaks down how we can show up more authentically for ourselves and for those we love—even when it’s uncomfortable. In this episode, you'll learn: How to Support a Friend Without Trying to Fix Them How to Know When It’s Time to Let a Friendship Go How to Create Belonging When You Feel Disconnected How to Celebrate a Friend’s Win Even When You’re Struggling How to Communicate When You Don’t Know What to Say How to Recognize Burnout as a Sign of Loneliness This episode is a powerful reminder that being imperfect is what makes us human, and that real connection isn’t built on perfection, but on the willingness to be present, authentic, and compassionate. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there! What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:26 How to Truly Connect with Others 03:45 The Universal Truth Behind All Human Problems 05:45 Why We All Really Just Want to Belong 09:33 Feeling Lonely? You’re Not Alone 12:10 Why Community is Disappearing & Why It Matters 18:33 Do Kids Really Need a Village? 22:17 Why We All Crave Safety 24:22 How to Find People Who Share Your Values 28:19 Understanding the Journey vs. the Goal 30:49 Knowing When to Persevere vs. Let Go 32:46 How to Know You've Outgrown a Friendship 35:22 Recognizing Why a Relationship Has Ended 38:08 Why Sincerity Beats Perfection Every Time 45:46 Learning to Trust Your Intuition 48:52 The Most Powerful Relationship Advice You'll Ever Hear 55:27 How to Share Your Wins With Friends Who Are Struggling 01:03:10 Stop Letting Insecurities Define Your Behavior 01:06:21 Can You Be Friends with People You Envy? 01:09:35 How to Respond to Skeptics with Grace 01:12:44 Your Worth Isn’t Measured by Numbers 01:15:45 Tune Into Your Needs, Not Others' Expectations 01:19:01 What Social Awkwardness Really Means 01:22:59 Real Communication Is About Understanding, Not Winning 01:29:44 Embracing Imperfection Is What Makes Us Human 01:31:40 Simon on Final Five Episode Resources: Simon Sinek | Website Simon Sinek | Instagram Simon Sinek | LinkedIn Simon Sinek | X Simon Sinek | Facebook Simon Sinek | TikTok Simon Sinek | YouTube A Bit of Optimism 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?

  This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage and studio for details. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up.

• 0:45Jay Shetty?

  It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome.

• 1:24Jay Shetty?

  For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  You start to realize we just treat friends like these disposable things, which I find so upsetting. To have a successful marriage, to have success at work, to be able to manage stress in our lives. Friends, they're the ultimate biohack. They fix depression, they fix anxiety, they fix inability to cope with stress.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Multiple time bestselling author, one of the greatest thinkers of our generation, one of the most impactful voices in the world of leadership.

• 2:35Jay Shetty?

  Your best friend thinks the person you're dating is not right for you.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Sometimes not all our partnerships are understood by our friends. Very often, they don't tell you until after you've broken up.

• 2:44Jay Shetty?

  How should introverts think about friendships differently to extroverts?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  The rules are the same. Every friendship should be additive. They should be worth the time and the energy that we invest.

• 2:53Jay Shetty?

  What do we do when we feel the people around us don't believe in us?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Anybody who wants to have an impact on the lives of others has to get used to the idea that not everybody's going to like you.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 3:14Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so grateful that you decided to tune in today. Today's guest is someone that I've been excited to have on the podcast for a long, long time. I interviewed him in a previous life when I was at the Huffington Post for one of my first ever Follow the Reader series, and I couldn't wait to have him on for a story that I'll share shortly. I'm speaking about the one and only Simon Sinek, bestselling author, speaker, founder of The Optimism Company, known for his groundbreaking work on leadership and purpose. Simon's TED Talk on the concept of why has been viewed over 60 million times. And Simon's books, including Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, and The Infinite Game, have shaped how leaders inspire action and build impactful organizations.

• 3:58Jay Shetty?

  Simon also hosts his own amazing podcast called A Bit of Optimism, where I got to be a guest, where he talks to people who inspire him about life, love, and leadership. Please welcome to On Purpose, Simon Sinek. Simon, I'm so happy to have you here.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Jay, it's it's been a long time coming.

• 4:15Jay Shetty?

  Oh, my gosh. So I have to tell you. So when I got to New York and I got given my own show, it was on Facebook Live. And you were top of my list and you were launching a new book that week. And I just, I was so excited to tell you this story because the story I told you in the hallways of the Huff Post was that when I was a monk, one of our monk teachers was giving out Start With Why as a gift to the monks.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:41Jay Shetty?

  And he said to all the monks, he was like, you have to read this book. This is important reading. And the jury of the monks were like, well, it's not scripture. So who cares? Like, it was like this kind of not the best monk attitude, if I would say.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Very un-monkey.

• 4:55Jay Shetty?

  Very un-monkey, but that happens too. I read it and it was life changing. And it was life changing, not because I was starting a business or because I was a leader. It was actually life changing from a life perspective. So I applied Start With Why to my life. And that was remarkable for me. So I wanted to share that story with you.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I had no idea.

• 5:16Jay Shetty?

  So badly then.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  I mean, I mean, how long ago was that? I mean, that was a very long time ago.

• 5:22Jay Shetty?

  Nine years ago.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, twenty sixteen.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  I remember exactly where it was too. I remember that building, that big white building.

• 5:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Down on where it is like Astor Place or something like that.

• 5:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:32Jay Shetty?

  So I wanted to ask you because I was thinking about that experience and that moment. And by the way, a lot of your work has felt that way to me. But I wanted to ask you, if someone read all your books, they listened to all your podcast episodes, they watched all your YouTube videos, what type of life would they be leading if they listened, watched, learned and applied?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Well, the key is there is applied.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  My work fundamentally is is about human beings. It's about who we are as human beings, it's how we how we relate to other human beings and how we connect with other human beings. It's fundamentally about relationships. That's what the work is about. Which is one of the reasons I think it resonates and continues to resonate over time. And and why I'm not really threatened by AI or anything like that, because it really is about this. It's the ability to make eye contact with somebody and how to connect with somebody. And so I I hope. That if somebody is a is a student of my work, they're on the same journey that I'm on. Because all my work is semi autobiographical. You know, the life they're going to be living is a life filled with support and love,

• 6:39Speaker 02

  where they'll still have ups and downs and they'll still have their struggles. But that they will feel equipped to take on those struggles with greater confidence and greater calm. And have that same skill set to do for their friends. That they can be a rock for their friends who are going through difficult things as well, even if they don't necessarily know the solutions.

• 6:58Jay Shetty?

  You're talking about your work's obviously been about human relationships. What has surprised you most about human behavior? In what you've looked at when it comes to friendships, relationships, romantic or?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  It's all, I mean, look, you know this, it's all remarkably consistent. You know, that the problems we have at work are the same problems we have at home, or the same problem we have with our friends. It's all the same thing. You know, I can give advice to somebody who's a leader in an office or a middle level, a middle manager, you know, or entry level. And I can give them advice like, if you get a response that's above a five, it's about something else. Okay, and if I'm giving somebody relationship advice, I can say, if you get a response that's above a five, it's about something else. You know, like, it's always the same thing. Because fundamentally, it's just human beings trying to get along with human beings. Now, obviously, the contexts are different, the goals are different. But fundamentally, the breakdowns in communications, the repair that needs to be done, it's all very similar stuff.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  It's listening, it's how to give and receive feedback. It's how to have an effective confrontation. It's how to hold space. It's all the same. And it's always funny to me. Because, you know, I'll work with every industry. I've worked with every single industry. And they all think their problems are unique. And all their problems are the same.

• 8:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I learned that when I went on my world tour two years ago. We did nearly forty cities across the world. And everyone was like, oh, what was this place like? What was that place like? Of course, there were local quirks. They were like, Australia had more banter. Like, everyone quipped back if you made a joke. And everyone in Boston was very handsy. Like, everyone would like grab me when I walked in the crowd and be like, "Pick my girlfriend, take me up." You know, it was very like, active. But overall, we laughed at the same things, we cry at the same things, we, we get excited about the same things, we ooh at the same things. Like, there's this. And I wanted to tell people that. I was like, wait a minute, I just went across the world. And like you're saying, you went to every industry and you saw that.

• 8:58Jay Shetty?

  Why is it then belonging and identity feels like it needs to be found in that which is different? Right? We find a different football club that gives us a sense of identity. We find, I'm in a swim club or a run club or a, I like nonfiction books, I like fiction books. Like, what is then the dissecting of that for finding identity, belonging, community? Where does that kind of come in?

• 9:20Speaker 02

  You know, as an aside, it's really funny because when I do travel around the world, I don't change any of my stories, I don't change any of my cases. They all say, please don't use American examples. And I was like, that's fine. You know? Um, and, uh, sure, sure.

• 9:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And they, again, they all understand the lessons, they all laugh at the same places. Their responses are different. Like, the English, they, they sit there stone-faced. And I'm like, am I bombing here? And at the end, they come up to me like, that was amazing. It's like, well, you give me a little love when I'm on the stage where the Americans is, you know, it's, it's all, it's all right there. What you see is what you get.

• 9:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  But we can't belong to everything because then there's no such, no such thing as belonging. And it's not sufficient to say, well, we're all human beings. I mean, you know, we're tribal animals and our sense of safety comes from feeling safe in the tribe. And so the question is, well, what are the definitions of the tribe? And it can come in many different ways and we can be members of multiple tribes simultaneously. You mentioned some of them. You know, I like this football club. I'm a member of this church, this company, this group of friends. I have this common interest, you know, whether it's a run club or Comic Con or whatever it is. And we look, we look for those common things so that we feel psychologically safe. And the quickest way to feel psychologically safe is with somebody who looks like me, worships like me, acts like me, has the same hobbies as me.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Those are, those are superficial and those are easy. And the real close memberships come when we can share values. But it makes perfect sense why we would want to make things smaller and smaller. You know, it's, it's, it's, do you remember the Dr. Seuss book, The Sneetches? It's like, we want, we all want to belong. And the easiest way, the best way to belong is if we're different from, from them. You know, and then I'm belonging.

• 10:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Cause I'm different to you, but I'm like them.

• 11:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's like that idea of you can only get groups to organize if there's a common enemy. It's like if we know what we're against, then we know what we're for. And it kind of becomes easier to organize humans.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  It's easier to know what you're for when you can see what you're against. Because seeing, knowing what you're for tends to be pretty ethereal.

• 11:18Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Where what you're against tends to be pretty tangible.

• 11:21Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  And so we're very visually driven animals. So it's very easy to default to that, which we can see countermeasure. And so that's why we tend to be, you know, love metrics and things like that.

• 11:33Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  We think about the end result, the metrics, the money. Before we think about, well, taking care of the people, the culture, the leadership. Because one is easy to measure and one is hard to measure.

• 11:41Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Right? Not that it doesn't exist, just hard to measure. And so same thing, I, I can more easily have a sense of what I stand for. If I can see what I am against.

• 11:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  And, and the nuance there is yes, common enemies are valuable. But when it becomes what I would call more healthy is I know what I believe. I know what I stand for and I can see what's standing in the way. I'm not particularly anti this group. What I'm for is on the other side of that wall.

• 12:11Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  And so I don't necessarily want to hurt you or harm you. But I need to find a way to get through this, to get to what's on the other side of the wall.

• 12:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Um, whereas if you don't have a sense of purpose, if there is no cause, then I don't know what I stand for. I just have the wall and it's easily to rail against the wall. But the problem is what happens if you get through it?

• 12:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  And we've seen this time and time again, which it's very easy to rally against something. And then you, you destroy it or you win or whatever it is. And then you're like, uh, we didn't think we'd get here.

• 12:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Where when you're purpose driven, you always know what's in the distant future, even though there are obstacles along the way.

• 12:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I don't even think it's the language that we use anymore in society. But there's this feeling around everyone, we know that there's a loneliness epidemic. People are more disconnected. I think I read a statistic that said like 65% of people feel disconnected from others and the world. Definitely purpose is lacking or vision is lacking or clarity. And. It's interesting because even though, and I don't think we necessarily talk about it in that way to your friend. Like you don't wake up and call your friend and go, I have no purpose today. Like, I don't think people really do that on a daily basis. I think people wake up feeling brain fog and exhausted and overworked and burnt out. Like, that's the language that we use.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:32Jay Shetty?

  But they're connected.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:33Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, that's kind of the space in which you sit, which is recognizing that, well, we're dealing with all of these things, but they're actually coming from a lack of all of this.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  I think that's really right. And what we think is the cause of things is, are very often symptoms. Or if we do recognize them as symptoms, we falsely diagnose what the, what the cause may be. So let's take one that you mentioned, which is burnout. Right? I'm feeling burnt out. It must be because of my job.

• 13:58Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Right? It must be because of my boss. It must be because of my career. Right? It makes sense. It's where I feel it. Right? But perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's a sense of loneliness. In fact, Dee Dee Halhill, she came on the podcast and explained this to me. It was amazing. Which is, she, she was in the military and she's got her, her troops. And there was an issue with, with burnout. And people were exhausted. They were struggling. And they all said, I'm burnt out. And they didn't know what to do. And there's nothing they could do because the, the tempo of the operations, the ups tempos was intense and it's not slowing down. So what's a leader supposed to do when the team says, I'm burnt out and I can't keep up? Right? So I'm not even sure what her motivation

• 14:40Speaker 02

  was. I have to go back and listen. But I, I think maybe it's because the way she felt. She simply asked the room, how many of you are feeling lonely? And the number of hands that went up was astonishing. And she realized it wasn't the ups tempo. It was the sense of loneliness that was giving the feeling of burnout and the feeling of overwhelm. And so the way she dealt with people's burnout was not by giving them vacations or giving them days off. What she did was, she did the hard work of helping them not feel alone. Checking in with them as human beings. And I think people's burnout started to subside when somebody was doing the hard work of making sure they knew that they were.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  They weren't alone in this world.

• 15:24Jay Shetty?

  I mean, I love that example because it completely shifts your perspective because you're over here trying to solve this problem. And then you realize, oh, it's actually over here. There's almost more places to belong, but there's less bigger places to belong. So in the past, like you said, you'd have church or your place of worship. The company was a big part of your identity and then family was big. And now families are spread over even myself, like my wife and I don't live anywhere near our family. You don't live that close to your family. So that's kind of broken over time. Places of faith, some people have them, but they're not as popular in some places as they used to be.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Church membership is down, yeah.

• 16:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly. So that's there as well. And then on top of that, you have the breakdown in company in terms of people not necessarily. People either love where they work or they absolutely hate it and it's a chore. So you're losing these very big places of belonging. Or at least if you see the words on a wall, you don't believe that they're lived. And so there's a disconnect. Should we be relying on our friends now? Is that where we have to go? Or where do you go when you see these big symbols of belonging kind of disconnected?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  So I mean, you're touching on something, which if you go back to like the 1950s, right? Which is, we went to church for our sense of values. Work was just a place to make a living. They took care of us and we took care of them when we were work decades at one company that was considered normal. You know, you got your sense of community from the bowling league and you knew your neighbors. And sometimes you even had barbecues with your neighbors on the weekends. That was, and so there were these, there was a sense of community. There were many communities to which we were able to partake, with whom we were able to partake. And then things changed, the world changes for various reasons. The bowling clubs went away, church membership declined, don't really know the neighbors anymore. And all of a sudden, we started putting pressure on work to fill all the voids. Now I want my work to give me a sense of values and purpose.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  And I want work to provide my social life and I want work to provide my sense of community, my sense of belonging. And now let's throw politics in. I want my work to match my politics as well.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  It's not a good thing or a bad thing, it just is an is. And most companies are ill-equipped to even know what to do there. You can't push back because it's the world we live in. And so companies now actually do have to make some decisions where and how they want to play. And we do have to offer some sense of belonging and community and set of values. Because that's where else are people going to get it? And when you ask about friends, you know, I find friendship and the concept of friendship super fascinating, you know, if you ask most people, are you a good friend? Most people say, I'm a good friend. And if you peel the onion just one layer, you find out that most of us are not great friends. Right? Would you cancel on a friend for a meeting? Or would you cancel on a meeting for a friend? Oh, but my friend would understand. You know, we sort of take our friends for granted that way.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  You know, if your, if your marriage is struggling, what do you do? You go for couples counseling because you don't want to just throw the relationship away. We've invested this amount. We're going to do the work first. And if we can't do the work, then okay, but we're going to do the work. Why aren't there friendship counselors? Why is there no friendship therapy? I, I saw it happen just two weeks ago. Two people who defined each other as best friends, they talked every day. Something happened. They both blame each other, but there was, there was a fight. They haven't talked since. And I've, I've talked to them and said, what's going on? They're like, the friendship is over. And I was like, well, isn't it worth? What about the friendship leading up to it? How can you just walk away from it?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe, maybe they were never my friend, which of course is complete nonsense. You know? And it was just so upsetting to me, the, the fragility of the friendship and how, how we treat friendships so differently. And the skills of good friendship are the same skills, we've talked about it before, relationships, relationships are the same skills as marriage or any kind of romantic relationship. You know, do your friends know how to hold space for you when you're struggling? Do your friends know how to listen to you when you just need somebody to listen, not fix? And I mean, I'll tell you from personal experience, you know, I was accused by many of my friends that I was a terrible listener. And I would say, you do know what I do for a living, right? You do know, right?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  I'm a, I'm a great listener.

• 19:44Jay Shetty?

  You're a professional listener.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  I'm a great listener. And then I took this listening class. And what I learned was that I am a fantastic listener with people I will never talk to again for the rest of my life. But when it came to my intimate relationships and my close friends, terrible.

• 20:02Jay Shetty?

  Wow, that's a great realization.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Terrible. And just because I had the skills, I wasn't applying them to the place that was actually more important than anywhere else. The first thing I did after I got out of this class, I called all my close friends and I was like, I just found out I'm a bad listener and I owe you an apology. They're like, yeah, what took you so long? Right? But the point is, is the skills are there. And sometimes we actually are good at applying them in different contexts and circumstances at work or whatever. And we're junk at applying them to our friends. And the irony is, is for you to have a successful romantic relationship or successful marriage or, or, or personal relationship, you need to have good friends around you because when you have stress in that relationship, you've got to have a safe space that you can go vent or talk it about, talk about it or get advice or get perspective. Somebody will slap you around and be like, that's your fault. Right?

• 20:50Speaker 02

  When things go wrong at work, you're struggling with a colleague, you're struggling with a project, you're struggling with your boss, you're struggling with, you know, whatever it is, you better have good friends who can give you perspective, slap you around and tell you, no, that's on you. But then where do we go when we're having friend issues? You know? And you start to realize we just treat friends like these disposable things, which I find so upsetting. Because the joke is to have a successful marriage, to have success at work, to, to be able to manage stress in our lives. Friends, friends are, they're the ultimate biohack. They fix depression, they fix anxiety, they fix inability to cope with stress, even, even the obsession with longevity that's going on right now. You know, people talk about blue zones and, you know, Dan Buettner's work. And everybody talks about their Mediterranean diet, now they walk everywhere.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  And but there's very little talked about how they have dinner with each other every single night, that they are convening with friends all the time. You know, we don't talk about that.

• 21:46Jay Shetty?

  I wanna, I wanna dig into that a little bit because I, I feel similarly. And it's interesting, I observe two types of people. One type of person was never that close to their family. And therefore friends became their family.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:00Jay Shetty?

  And then there's the other type of person that's so close to their family that they rely less on their friends. So when I look at my wife, she's really close with her mom and she's really close with her sister. And they are her friends. They act as her friends in all of the ways you mentioned. And when I look at me, someone who was less close with my family or my family unit, even though me and my sister are good friends and my mom is too. My friends became my family. So I'm very focused on developing community beyond family.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:28Jay Shetty?

  Because that's what I've always had to rely on. And, and so it's interesting when you look at that because you're like, all right, well, is it that those of us who are family don't invest in friendships as much? Because we don't need them.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  I think it's a good question. I don't think it's an either or. I think it's a both.

• 22:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  And again, remember, if you go back to how we evolved, you know, we're tribal animals. We lived in, in groups never bigger than about a hundred and fifty ish, you know, plus or minus. And what worked was you had your family, of course, but the community helped raise your kids. I, it's really funny if you look at just, you know, rich and poor, right? Those who have and those who don't, like, if you go to sort of a poorer neighborhood, people sit on the front porch. And their kids play in the front and they, they raise each other's kids. And as soon as you start having any kind of wealth, you move to the back.

• 23:17Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  And you put up, you put up fences and you have to raise your own kids. And, you know, the idea that, that the community looks at for the kids is actually correct. Like, that's how, how we sort of work together. So I don't think it's an either or. I think it's a both. I mean, I, I don't know if you've ever, did you ever have the chance to go to Daravi in Mumbai?

• 23:37Jay Shetty?

  No, no, no.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  So Daravi, Daravi is the largest slum in Bombay, in Mumbai. And just to give you a sense of scale, right? Um, Manhattan is thirteen miles long, two miles wide. It's about twenty-six square miles. And the island of Manhattan, the residents are about one point five million. One point five million people live on the island of Manhattan. So if you've ever visited Manhattan or seen pictures of Manhattan, you can get a sense of population density. Obviously, the population goes up during the day, during work, but you can get a sense of the density over twenty-six square miles. Okay? Daravi is one square mile.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  And there's about seven hundred and fifty to a million people that live there. They're not a hundred percent sure of the exact number. So you can just imagine the intensity and the density, which is why when disease shows up, it just it runs rampant, right? Because it's just so close. And you walk around Darby and it's it's not sanitary. And there's like live electric wires hanging down. If you touch one by accident, you're a goner. And kids are just running around by themselves or with their friends because the community looks out for them. You know, it is an amazing feeling of looking out for each other. And I and when you talk about belonging and because we do, we look, we look for it. When when we we look for for things to join and we push our kids to join things so they have these these friends. And it's easier for kids because they're at school, right?

• 24:57Speaker 02

  So kids go to school, they're about the same age, they have the same similar stresses, the same teachers, the same homework, same, same, same, same, same, same, same. And so common experiences, really the same stresses of adolescence and growing up and like they have very common experiences, very easy to connect. Soon as you leave school, still pretty easy because your entry level with all the other entry levels, all bumbling and fumbling, trying to make a career. And then all of a sudden, it starts to separate. Your friends started different ages and now you don't have common experience. And and I think friendship actually gets more difficult as we get older, not less, not less difficult.

• 25:28Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And and that's why I want to dig into it because I couldn't agree with you more, especially for people who've moved. I remember the first time I interviewed a Brit on the podcast.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:40Jay Shetty?

  And it was different. It was this really different.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  You connected with them?

• 25:44Jay Shetty?

  So much.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 25:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but I hadn't it didn't like register until I did that. Whereas like, wait a minute, why do we have so much chemistry?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:52Jay Shetty?

  And I was like, oh, wait a minute, of course, we both talk about football, both grew up in some part of London, like had similar types of friends.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  It makes sense.

• 25:59Jay Shetty?

  And it makes sense, but it didn't register because I'd been interviewing Americans for so long.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  I'll give you a funny analogy, right? Just just to just to drive the kids home. Because beating a dead horse is kind of my thing. The so are you friends with everybody in California? I mean, you live in California.

• 26:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Are you friends with everybody in California?

• 26:16Jay Shetty?

  Not everybody.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  No, of course not, right? It's ridiculous.

• 26:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  But if you go to Michigan. And you meet somebody from California, you're like, hey, where from?

• 26:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  And you're like, connected. Okay. Now you go on holiday, let's say you're in Paris, you're standing on the Paris metro, and you hear an American accent and you, hey, where you guys from? You're from Michigan, we're from California. And you're like, best friends.

• 26:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Right?

• 26:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Because when you don't feel like you belong, you look for anything that gives you some sense of safety. Somebody who understands a little bit about how you grew up, a little bit of your perspective, even though it's back at home, it's entirely different. And the biggest joke is the level of trust. That family from Michigan will be like, oh, you've got to try this restaurant. And you'll turn to your wife and be like, honey, we've got to go to this restaurant. Because strangers who don't live here told us it's really good. But if a stranger from Paris said, you've got to go to this restaurant, you'd be like, I don't even know who you are, why would I trust your recommendation?

• 27:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  You know?

• 27:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  And it's this sense that the tourists are looking out for each other, even though they have no clue. You know? And that's how powerful this thing is, that when we get any inkling of somebody who quote unquote gets me, our speed to which we will trust them is, or at least try to connect with them, it's so huge. So the fact that you're living in America, you know, stranger in a strange land, the first Brit, you're just like humming, it makes perfect sense.

• 27:36Jay Shetty?

  Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

• 28:17Jay Shetty?

  Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet? That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with wifi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favourite podcast. Choose a seller or North East Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit amtrak.com to plan your next trip.

• 29:03Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a second-hand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted.

• 29:44Jay Shetty?

  Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. And back to our episode. Do you believe there's a way to feel that way with more people if we're feeling disconnected? Or can it only happen when it's correlated in the way you?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Great question. So as we, goes right back to what we said before, which is we, you know, the tangible stuff is just easier because I can see it. Right? So it makes sense why neighbourhoods look the way they do, you know, it makes sense, right? We want to live and hang out with people who worship like us, look like us, sound like us, live like us, whatever it is, right? And that can be based on anything, but it's superficial. Which means the connections aren't necessarily there. And once you're in the neighborhood, it kind of disappears anyway. Right? You asked the question right at the beginning. You know, somebody who sort of applied my work, what would their life look like? Well, this is what happens when you learn to start with why. Because when you learn to stop thinking about your life in terms of what I do, what I look like, what I sound like, what I, you know, all of these superficial things. And you start thinking of yourself in terms of who I am,

• 30:47Speaker 02

  why I'm on this planet, what are my values? And more important, you learn the language of how to express those things. You will more efficiently and more quickly find people who actually view the world and live the world like you. So, and this is, you can do it in a personal context. You can do it in a business context. And I'll give you a real life example. So when I first learned my why, I didn't know how to tell people about it. And so I stopped asking the question, what do you do? What do you do? I would tell people what I believed. Right? What you do is really easy. You know, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I'm a consultant, whatever. Right? And you're sitting on a plane and somebody says, what do you do? And you go, oh, I'm a doctor. Unless they need a doctor, that nobody cares. Right?

• 31:32Speaker 02

  And so I started saying what I believed. And it took probably 100, 150 tries of me bumbling and fumbling different ways of saying it. So that people weren't looking at me like I had three heads. Right? And eventually I had the perfect elevator pitch. We said, I'd sit on a plane and, you know, this is pre-internet. You know, we actually talk to people. And somebody would say, what do you do? And I would say, I teach leaders and organizations how to inspire people. The people who believe what I believe would say, inspire? Cool. How do you do that? We're talking about me for the next two and a half hours. We're connecting, we're becoming friends. I mean, instantaneously, right? We, we like really get along. The people who don't believe what I believe would say, what kind of companies?

• 32:14Speaker 02

  It was a, it was a filter, instantaneously, because I was presenting my beliefs.

• 32:19Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  And those relationships, some of them, I made friends on planes. And some of my friends today, believe it or not, I met them on random flights.

• 32:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Years ago. And it's one of the reasons that we connect with some professions more than others. Right? So I tend to have really good relationships with folks who serve in the military. Cause I'm pretty open about my sense of service, that I believe true purpose is the opportunity to serve those who serve others. They kind of live their lives very similarly. So the minute we show up, we're like, gotcha, you know? And so there's at least a common thing. I don't necessarily like them all. They don't necessarily like me, but there's a good foundation to make a make a real friendship. And so I, I think the opportunity to understand one of one's own values and beliefs and to say them often. You know, I mean, you know, when I blurb a book, for example, I'm really sort of strict about it.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Like if somebody asked me to blurb their book, I always insist that the way they list me is it's Simon Sinek, optimist, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I list all the things I've done after I tell you who I am. Cause if you cut that list off after who I am, I don't care what goes after it. And the number of people like author, New York Times bestselling host podcast, blah, blah, blah, which is fine. But that's not who you are. There's just stuff you do. That doesn't make anybody connect with you. They just go, oh, I know the podcast. Oh, I read the book, you know? And our identity doesn't come from our credibility. Our identity comes from our beliefs.

• 33:48Jay Shetty?

  I remember the first time I went on television and they were like, what do you want the

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Chiron.

• 33:53Jay Shetty?

  Official lower third, the Chiron, the thing to say. And, and I was like, I don't, I wanted to say dedicated to helping billions of people find their purpose. Like something like that, something like that. And I was like, that's what I went and they were like, no, but Jay, like that is it. And I'm like, but that is who I am. And I relate, I so relate to what you're saying because I never set out to be a social media creator or to be an author or to be a podcaster. To me, these are just vehicles. They're just

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Exactly right.

• 34:20Jay Shetty?

  Formats of distribution.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Exactly right.

• 34:23Jay Shetty?

  They've got nothing to do with

• 34:24Speaker 02

  It's nothing to

• 34:25Jay Shetty?

  How I see myself.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Which, which is one of the reasons why I can speak for you, I think, but for me for sure, which is I'm super flexible as to how I get my message out.

• 34:35Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  You know, what got me here won't get me there.

• 34:37Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  And I'm not, I don't define myself as a speaker or a writer or whatever. Everything I've done, I never thought I'd write a book. I never thought I'd have a podcast. I never thought I'd be a public speaker. And so for me to walk away from any of those things is super easy because it's not who I am. It's just something I did. And even if I'm good at it. Okay.

• 34:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  But there are other new ways. And so, you know, the idea of reinvention, I think, is sort of a misnomer, right? Because I'm not reinventing. I'm just taking a different route. I'm just sitting there with a map going, well, that road's going slower.

• 35:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Why don't we try that road over here? I'm not reinventing.

• 35:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  The reinvention comes in the car I'm driving or the destination. And, you know, my destination is fixed.

• 35:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  To build a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. That's, there's only one destination. How I get there? Wherever the best route is. And so I, I think that you, you see it a lot. When people get really good at something, they're very afraid to change it because they confuse the destination with the route. They confuse the, the goal with the journey, even though everybody knows all the tropes. You know, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Like, we all know that. But I, and I understand because the skill set or the thing that did is what got me to where I am. And to change or move away from that is very scary. And it's only scary if you don't have a grounding in why you do what you do.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Because as soon as you know why, it's really easy.

• 36:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Because you, you start to see the hierarchy, that the why is more powerful and more important than whatever route you chose or chose you, because it could have just been a sign of the times.

• 36:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And you don't get, you don't get disappointed. I was just talking to someone this morning on a Q and A. You don't get disappointed when the platform doesn't reciprocate. So what I mean by that is, if you're wise, what you just beautifully said is to, I'm paraphrasing completely, but to help people using the skills you have, if you get rejected, you don't think it's no to what you're committed to, you just realize that's just not where it's going to be disseminated. And you can continue to try and find a new place for it to be distributed. Whereas when you think, oh, this is a rejection of my idea.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:58Jay Shetty?

  You actually let go of the idea that you so deeply care about.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Right. So if I decide that the best way for me to advance my message is for me to join the NBA, become a professional basketball player, I will learn very quickly that that's not going to go well.

• 37:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Right? And so do I go home depressed? Or do I say, well, maybe basketball is not the best way?

• 37:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  You know?

• 37:18Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  And it's, it's an interesting rabbit hole to go down. Because it raises the question, and I can't remember if you and I've talked about this before, but knowing when to quit.

• 37:28Jay Shetty?

  I think we did on yours.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that idea.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Because, you know, there are some people that say, nope, you never quit. That's what grit is. And there are some people say, nope, there's a time to walk away.

• 37:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  And the question is, okay, but when?

• 37:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  When, when do you apply grit? And when do you walk away? And my rule has always been, if the sacrifice is worth it, you keep going. Right? So I'm exhausted, I'm tired. But is it worth it for what I'm trying to do? Is this sacrifice, is this cost that I'm paying worth what the outcome is going to be? And if the answer is yes, you stick with it. If it's not worth it, if the sacrifice no longer feels, and that's the only standard, does it feel? There's nothing to do on a piece of paper, there's no pros and cons, right? If the sacrifice feels worth it, you keep going. The sacrifice no longer feels worth it, you walk away. That's healthy.

• 38:16Jay Shetty?

  I want to link with that back, that idea that we're discussing here, back to friendship.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:20Jay Shetty?

  Going to your point around not having friendship therapists, which I love. The idea that we don't go to therapy for our friends. How do you know when it's okay to outgrow someone?

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:30Jay Shetty?

  Or keep growing with them?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:32Jay Shetty?

  In the same as we were literally just talking about.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Right, so friends, friends, like any, like any relationship, needs to be additive, right? That doesn't mean every single time, but on balance, you, we should all feel that who we're hanging out with, who we're spending time, a non-redeemable commodity. You can spend money, you can lose money, you can make more money. But if you spend time, that's it, that's gone. And so we want to make sure that the people with whom we spend time, it's additive to our lives. You get to define what additive means. Additive can mean you fill me up, you inspire me. Additive can mean I just have a fricking rockin' good time with you. Additive can mean you give good advice, you define whatever you want. But I think on balance, our friends should be additive.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  They should contribute something to our lives, to our, and to our wellbeing. And it absolutely happens for, it's not necessarily bad reasons, where for whatever reason, you just.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Outgrow each other. Sometimes it's just the natural ups and downs and weirdnesses of life. You know, it's easy to be friends when you're local. Your career takes you across the country, around the world. It's just harder. And those friendships sometimes fall away. Nothing personal. Sometimes we outgrow people. That absolutely happens. I had a friend who we were, we would hang out a lot. We were friends. We would get together. We would talk about how much we hated our bosses and what we hated about work. And I would try and make changes in my life, get new jobs, take myself on, become a better leader. And we would keep getting together and his problems were always the same. And you know, a couple of years go by and I'm realizing I'm having the same conversation with somebody

• 40:12Speaker 02

  who, for whatever reason, doesn't want to take themselves on and doesn't want to listen and had advice for everybody but couldn't take it. And you realize I can't be in a friendship if I can't serve my friend. Yes, I want to get from my friends, of course, but I also want to give to my friends. Right? There's tremendous joy in being able to hold a friend up, you know? And for a friend to deny me the opportunity to serve because they're to, fill in the blank, to listen, take advice, you know, admit any kind of weakness. At some point, we just drifted apart. You know, I just stopped calling and that's okay.

• 40:50Jay Shetty?

  And you don't feel there needed to be a definitive ending conversation to?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  In that particular case, no.

• 40:57Jay Shetty?

  When, when do you need one of those?

• 40:58Speaker 02

  When there's a definitive ending, I think just, and let's make the comparison to a divorce, right? There has to be work before the definitive ending. So if you feel like the relationship is worth protecting and saving and working on, in that particular case, it seems like neither of us felt like doing the work. We had a good time and I don't think of it as an ending. I think of it as a graduation, right? Like the relationship was great and then we graduated and we both moved on, right? And that's fine and graduated, right? I learned what I could learn and now it's time to go. But if the relationship, if, if it's worth fighting for. And you're doing the the work. And maybe it's just not working. Then I think then you have a hard conversation and you sit down. Just like a divorce or leaving a job.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Like we're trying this and I'm I'm struggling and I don't know. I don't know if it's worth anymore. Can we end this?

• 41:48Jay Shetty?

  That's a good distinction.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  You know, I I think ghosting is horrible. You know, I'm not talking about you went out on one date with somebody and like, that's fine. You know, but I'm saying, you know, you hear about whether it's romantic relationships or friendships, where you've been hanging out a lot for six months, seven months, a year. And then for whatever reason, you decide you don't want to and you just stop. You ignore the texts. You unfollow on socials, which is an act of unbelievable passive aggression. And some people, it's you have to remember what you're doing to somebody when you do that, which is especially if they can't look on the socials and see that you're fine. There's this horrible sense that something's happened to you. Like if you got into a car accident or something, the result would be the same. And so that the panic of are you OK comes first.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Then they may go on social and discover you're fine. They see you out of, you know, out of the club or whatever it is. And then you reach out and they don't reach back. Now, this, so you've gone through the panic of what's happened. Then you realize they're fine. You realize you're being ghosted. Then the overwhelming sense of what did I do? The guilt, the no, you get no closure. You give no closure. You allow someone to stew in their own fears and insecurity and anxieties, which is debilitating and cruel. Because you lack the courage to say, I don't know how to say this.

• 43:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  I'm struggling in this friendship. I don't know what to do. You know, again, that's different from friends that just naturally drift apart. And so I think you're right. I think one of the things we have to learn to do is how to have difficult conversations with our friends, even if it means like, I think, at least give somebody a breakup.

• 43:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  You know, a breakup is at least, there's still pain. There's still anxiety. There's still, you know, mourning. But at least give somebody the closure to do with dignity.

• 43:37Jay Shetty?

  Well, I think your point's well taken because I love the distinction you made because if you were working on it, if you were both trying to bring some enthusiasm and energy and trying to figure it out, you're more likely to actually have a proper breakup.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Well, you both come to the realization, I don't think this is working.

• 43:54Jay Shetty?

  Totally, and I like that a lot because it's almost like sometimes we have the same expectations for a relationship that we didn't put energy into for ones where we did.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:03Jay Shetty?

  And you can't really compare the two because, yes.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and I'll add one final caveat is it's messy. And it's the reason it's messy is because human beings are messy. We're we're full of anxieties and ego and pride and fear. And most of us don't have the skills of confrontation and listening. We suck at it. And even if you have the skills, are you good at applying them? And even if you have the skills, when you had a bad night's sleep or you're stressed or you're feeling attacked, are you able to call upon those skills? You and I do this, you know, a lot and we fail daily.

• 44:41Jay Shetty?

  All the time.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  You know, and and it's thrown in our face. I thought you knew how to like, I do, but I'm struggling right now, clearly because I'm hurt. Because my feelings are hurt and I'm lashing out and being defensive and interrupting you.

• 44:52Jay Shetty?

  Being passive aggressive.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Because I'm hurt and that's not right, but it's messy.

• 44:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  And so, you know, one of the things that you can easily accuse both of us of is sort of oversimplifying all of this stuff. And we do oversimplify it to make the case and hopefully share some lessons that we've stumbled upon over the course of our careers. But it's still hard and it's still messy.

• 45:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  And it's still imperfect and that's kind of beautiful. I think that makes people beautiful. I just had this conversation with somebody today, you know, like compare that to AI, right? Let's say you have a fight with your wife. You want to get it right. Hey, ChatGPT, can you tell me what I have to say to get this right? And ChatGPT, which has been trained with all the best therapy, everything, this thing's a PhD, will give you the exact right thing to say. And you go and say to your wife, you memorize it, and you say to your wife exactly what ChatGPT told you to, and she goes, "Thank you, my God, thank you." And then she finds the script in your drawer. And she said, "Did you get this from ChatGPT? Yeah, did you memorize it yet?" She's gonna be angry at you.

• 45:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Because there's nothing heartfelt about it. It's hollow. It's not, and she would rather you bumble and fumble and do it wrong, but at least be yourself and be authentic. Can you imagine giving a hundred percent ChatGPT-written speech

• 46:12Jay Shetty?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  at a wedding?

• 46:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Best speech ever. And then somebody says, "Oh, my God, that speech was amazing. How'd you write it?" I'm like, "No, no, ChatGPT wrote it for me." You know?

• 46:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  And you'll be like, and there's just the feeling of like, oh.

• 46:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Right?

• 46:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, disappointment.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  I'd rather, I'd rather you give me a worse speech, but I know it's came from the heart.

• 46:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  You know?

• 46:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  And again, you know, they're silly examples. But the point is, is that imperfect, human, and those two words are synonymous. Those two words mean exactly the same thing. To be human is to be imperfect. To be imperfect is to be human. It is the most beautiful thing in the world. Perfection comes off a factory line. It's the difference between a pottery barn mug and a beautiful piece of Japanese ceramic. One is handmade. It is imperfect. It is gorgeous. Versus the thing that comes off a machine, it looks the same as all the other things that come off a machine. It is perfect. It's fine. I like it. Love it.

• 47:12Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  And, and I think we forget that in this day and age of incredible technology that can solve all the problems for us and answer all the questions for us, it's all there. Right? Like therapists should be afraid because ChatGPT can do it. But to be able to sit like this, convene, feel someone staring at you with love, to feel, to cry with someone and have them cry with you, you and I have both welled up just because the other person is welling up with us.

• 47:47Jay Shetty?

  That's a good one, yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  And to feel a person connect with you in your pain.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  To hug someone? And not wanna let go? You know the rule at Disney, the Disney rule for hugging?

• 48:00Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  I learned this recently. It's the best thing in the world. At Disney, all of the characters are trained that when a little kid hugs you, you may not let go until the kid lets go first.

• 48:10Jay Shetty?

  Ah, that's so good.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Isn't that the best? You hug the kid. Oh, it makes me cry. You hug the kid as long as the kid wants to hug you. And now, do that with a friend. Hug your friend until they let go. You know, apply the Disney rule. I met somebody recently. She's a wonderful human being. She's got a wonderful boyfriend. They're a great couple. And they were saying, when we hug, we hug for, and I don't remember what the number was, thirty seven seconds, you know? Sixteen seconds, whatever the number is. And I'm like, oh, that's a, okay, why that number? They go, because that's the amount of time it takes for oxytocin to release. And so when we hug, you know, we hug for this period of time to give each other the oxytocin rush, because we love each other. I'm like, okay, weird, but okay.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  I'll go with it, you know? The science is correct. Somebody studied it.

• 49:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  You know? You know, I saw her in the hallway and I was like, hey, how are you? And she's like, great. And she comes in for the hug and we're hugging. And I sort of stop and I, can I, I sort of like pull back a little and like, I have, I have to ask you, are you counting?

• 49:18Jay Shetty?

  Ah.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  She said, yes. I said, I appreciate it, but let me show you something.

• 49:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Okay? I want to just show you something. Stop counting, please. Don't, don't count. You're human. I'm human. Our bodies already know how to do this. Stop counting, just feel. And then you let me know when the oxytocin starts flowing. So let's do this hug again, okay? So let's hug. And we start hugging.

• 49:44Jay Shetty?

  Good.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  And in a few seconds, I don't know how many, maybe it was slightly more, maybe it was slightly less, I have no idea. At some point, we felt unbelievably connected.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  I mean, we could both feel it. And I said to her, do you feel that? She goes, yeah, I'm like, I'm feeling it too. I think the oxytocin is flowing. And I'm like, wasn't that nicer? We just allowed for it to happen when it happens as opposed to applying the science.

• 50:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  The science, somebody studied it and said it, that doesn't mean you should count it. It just means it takes a few, it takes a little bit.

• 50:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  That's all it means.

• 50:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, hug for longer.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Just hug for a little, just hug for a little, don't worry, right?

• 50:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  And it's, this is our metrics obsessed, our metrics obsessed world. Like, everybody's obsessed how much deep sleep they got and how much REM they got and how many, it's like, but there's also, all of the, I find it ironic, right? All of these data obsessed people, data obsessed about, you know? And before anybody gives me shit because I'm wearing an Oura ring, I haven't, I haven't charged it in two years.

• 50:44Jay Shetty?

  It's just a good belonging.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Well, I was given to me. I wear it somewhat sentimentally and I, I did replace it with a ring that looks just like it, but that ring broke and I'm like, well, it looks the same. So I'm gonna go back to the one with the sentimental value.

• 50:55Jay Shetty?

  No, I love that. Also, oh, go on.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  No, no, no, please. But I think it's ironic with people who are so data obsessed that they wanna know, did I drink a glass of wine, you know, did it affect my REM? That the data also shows that people who obsess about the data actually suffer more stress than the people who don't.

• 51:11Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  And yet that's the funniest data point of all.

• 51:15Jay Shetty?

  I, the reason why I love it so much is because you're also giving people a, a heightened agency and accountability of feeling the change.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Just feel.

• 51:26Jay Shetty?

  Because that's what it is, right? It's like, if I tell you something's a great hike, or let's take something really everyone can relate to. If I tell you something's a great restaurant and it's got two Michelin stars, it's got 10 star rating, it's got everything, you could go there and hate the meal.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 51:43Jay Shetty?

  None of that means anything in, in that sense. It's, it's your taste because you had to feel it and that was what made the difference. It wasn't the Michelin stars or the rating or the whatever it was. It was your feeling it.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:55Jay Shetty?

  And we've lost that ability in a world where we're counting on everyone else and everything else to tell us if we've done it for long enough, short enough. Have we lifted for that long enough? You've lost the ability to actually feel. Like I was talking to my doctor today, I was saying, hey, I'm not sure about this whole hundred and fifty grams of protein intake. Like, I'm just not feeling good. Like, I just don't feel good.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  That's a, that's a lot.

• 52:20Jay Shetty?

  That's, I mean, that's not even as much. You're meant to do like your body weight in protein. And I've tried a hun, I've tried everything, but it's like, I don't feel good.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:28Jay Shetty?

  When I do it.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:30Jay Shetty?

  So either, yes, my digestion may not be strong enough. It may need to be strengthened.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 52:34Jay Shetty?

  But at this point in my current strength, it doesn't feel right.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  I, I mean, you're right. It's ironic, right? Where we trust, we trust the watch, we trust the app, we trust the numbers.

• 52:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  More than we trust ourselves.

• 52:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  We trust what we're being told and we're doubting our own feelings. And so the question is, is A, why are we doing that? And B, uh, shouldn't we learn how to trust our feelings more? Right? Now, yes, it feels good when we eat the chocolate cake, but we all know that it feels pretty gross if you do it too often. Right? And so there's also data on this, which is people who stress about eating dessert. The cortisol released from the stress of eating the dessert is more harmful to your body than the dessert.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Right?

• 53:23Jay Shetty?

  It's crazy.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  And so like, I, I think you're right, which is where, why we, we're disconnecting from our bodies to the point where we don't even trust our bodies to know what's right for our bodies. I mean, functional medicine, this is a large part of functional medicine, which is your body already knows, your body knows how to heal itself. So all you have to do is protect the body. You know, like I, and I love that these things like, what are you doing? I'm doing a cleanse. So you're, you're drinking lemon juice and cayenne pepper for a week. You know, and you're doing a cleanse. Well, what are you doing? Well, I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning my body of, of toxins. I'm like, that's what your liver and kidney do.

• 54:01Jay Shetty?

  If they're working, yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  As long as your liver and kidneys are healthy, like, you're good.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  You know, and so your body already knows how to get bad things out of it. Your body already knows how to fight disease. Your body already knows how to do these things. The only thing you have to do is look after your body and trust your gut. Right, literally and figuratively.

• 54:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, especially with hugging.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Especially with.

• 54:23Jay Shetty?

  Like even something that I love that example so much because it's like, I love the idea that a kid knows when to let go. Like that idea of like, only let go when the child lets go.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Isn't that beautiful?

• 54:34Jay Shetty?

  It's so beautiful.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  The kid knows.

• 54:35Jay Shetty?

  It's literally romantic, spectacular and just.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  The kid knows.

• 54:38Jay Shetty?

  It's so beautiful because that's actually what we want. We want someone to hold us for as long as we need to be held.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  And I'll take it a step further, right? So in terms of the kid knows, right? So, so good parenting advice is like, you know, like when a kid, when it's cold outside and the parent's like, put on your sweater, I don't want to put on your sweater, I don't want to put on your sweater, I don't want to. Let the kid go outside in the cold and very quickly the kid will either be fine or not fine. The kid knows the kid will be like, I am cold, put on a sweater.

• 55:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Right?

• 55:07Jay Shetty?

  Take this one with you.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Or they won't.

• 55:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Right, like, like there are little things that we know and that goes right back to friendship. We've all been in relationships that suck energy from us. And we feel like we have to like keep going because I don't know, we've been friends for a bunch of years. So time is the only bond. You don't actually fill each other up anymore. You know, people grow up, you are a different person than you were five years ago. I'm a different person than I was five years ago, hopefully better. I definitely know there's some skills that I've got. I'm definitely better, a better friend. I'm a better leader, I'm a, I'm a better boyfriend. Like I, I worked on those things, you know, and I'm better at it. It's, you know what it's like, it's like, you know, for a lot of us, we left home when we were 18 and we kept growing up.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  We went to school, we got a job and we kept learning and growing and taking ourselves on. But our parents knew us up until we were 18.

• 56:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  And then they missed the new growth.

• 56:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  And then you come home and your parents are treating you like you're 18.

• 56:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  And you're like, I'm not, and we say stupid things like, I'm not a kid anymore. But they only know you as the 18 year old, they've missed all the growth.

• 56:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  And that sometimes happens where we're growing at different paces or, or we grow and somebody else chooses not to. And that's fine. But we we know people differently. You know, it's like, maybe there was a bully you had in high school who bullied you. They're not a bully anymore. I mean, they might be. But that's my memory. But that's your memory. So you you come up with, you you see them in a bar and you come in with like animosity, you know, versus like, how are you? And they're like, I am sorry. Yeah.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  You know? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, I just find all this friend, I'll tell you one really funny one. Hopefully you have friends that you can call on in really dark times. That something's gone wrong, whatever it is, problems in your marriage, problems in your career, whatever it is. Something went badly and you call a friend and be like, dude, can I just talk to you? Like, life is not good right now. I just need, I just need to talk to somebody. Like, you know who those people are. Yes. Right? You know exactly the phone numbers you're gonna call. What I've learned is the people, when everything goes right and you wanna just brag, like, dude, I just won an award, I just made a bunch of cash, I just, I'm a frickin' hero. I'm the smartest person in the room. That number of people that you can call is even smaller. So true.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  And I just love the fact that there's more vulnerability in wanting to toot your own horn and ask a friend to hold space with no judgment, no jealousy and no envy. And that number of friends that I can call and be like, I'm a frickin' rock star and I just needed to tell somebody about how great I am and how proud I am, and that friend will gush and glow and cheer. And I remember a friend of mine called me and something amazing happened in his life and like, he didn't know who he could call, cuz he didn't wanna sound like he was bragging, but to me, but he needed to get it out. Yeah. And I just sat on the phone. I was like a proud parent. I was glowing. And you realize that chemical is serotonin.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  That when you see somebody walk across the stage at graduation and accept their diploma, like, their bodies are being consumed by serotonin with the feeling of pride. That's what serotonin gives you the feeling of pride as they're graduating. You know, that amazing feeling. But what we don't talk about is the parents and the friends and the family sitting in the audience also have serotonin pouring through their bodies and they feel the same pride for the person on the stage.

• 58:37Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Right?

• 58:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  And so when you have a friend that you can brag to and they share in your pride, both of you are coursing, your veins are coursing with serotonin and it is a pro-social experience. In other words, it is making you even closer. Your ability to share the vulnerability of success, giving somebody else the opportunity to share in your pride, you're actually not bragging to them. That's not what's happening. You're both firing on serotonin. I felt the same pride, joy and excitement that my friend was feeling. And when I hung up the phone, I was in such a great mood because my friend had amazing success.

• 59:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful. I mean, and that resonates.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  And that's earned.

• 59:18Jay Shetty?

  That's earned, yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Because you have to do so much in a friendship of all the good stuff and the bad stuff and the, I don't want to be here, but I'm gonna sit here and the bad news and the time and the effort. You have to do so much work to nurture a friendship, to earn the mutual joy from either one's success. The fact that I can share in your success and you can share in my success and I am feeling more confident and a great mood because you had success, that, just like a parent, earns the feeling of pride from their child walking across the stage because all the sacrifices of raising my kid. Now, I, not, everybody who knows my kid is not pouring with serotonin.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  It's the ones who earned it from the years of investing in the friendship, in the relationship. And that's what you miss in all these shortcuts. That's what we miss in all of this AI stuff. You don't get to earn those feelings. And those feelings are the best feelings in the world and all those feelings do is make you healthier. The more oxytocin and serotonin you have in your body, you're less likely to die from heart disease, you're less likely to get many cancers, you're less likely to get diabetes. In other words, friendship and the hard work of friendship and earning that oxytocin and earning that serotonin keeps you healthy. And then we go back to the chocolate cake and the exercise and the doctors and you

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  start to realize the healthiest thing I can do is not the diet. The healthiest place I need to apply my willpower is not on how long I'm working out. But it's how much time, effort and energy and presence I give to my friends.

• 1:00:57Jay Shetty?

  But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show. This episode is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is the chance to step outside of our routine. Travel is a way of slowing us down and shifting our perspective. And with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, every journey becomes even more rewarding. Earn four times the points on flights and hotels booked direct. Enjoy access to award-winning airport lounges, three times the points on dining and reserve exclusive tables. Learn more at chase.com/sapphirereserve. Cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank, N A Member FDIC.

• 1:01:41Jay Shetty?

  Subject to credit approval, terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. The best habits are the ones we hardly notice, the ones that quietly shape the way we move through life, giving us the confidence to focus on what really matters. That's Mazda's approach to safety. Every Mazda is designed with proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged with your drive, so you can stay present behind the wheel. That commitment has earned Mazda recognition as Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't.

• 1:02:26Jay Shetty?

  Mazda, more of what matters to you. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 1:03:10Jay Shetty?

  All right. Thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. Where this is hitting for me is that the challenge I think people are having today is

• 1:03:22Jay Shetty?

  they're struggling to clap for their friends when it's not their turn. So people are struggling to feel joy for someone else's joy when they're not in a joyful state. So I've had real life scenarios in my life right now, which I'll share that immediately came to my mind when you were saying this, which I love that we're on this conversation, is two examples. One person, and these are people who are really close. This is not like some fake friendship, really close. One of them's going through a miscarriage. The other one is expecting a baby.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:03:58Jay Shetty?

  And the person of the miscarriage is feeling bad because they had a miscarriage. They're feeling bad because they can't celebrate their friend's win.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:04:08Jay Shetty?

  And they're now feeling bad that they don't even want to be around their friend because their friend's actually expecting. And now that friend's feeling guilt because they're having a baby. And they're like, well, how do we share this with that person who's just lost a baby? And it's real, right? Like it's really real. And this applies to people getting married before you. The kids one is probably the most, one of the most extreme forms of it. Uh, but if people get married, people getting engaged before you.

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  Your career doing great, somebody else's career hitting the skids.

• 1:04:35Jay Shetty?

  Totally. There's so many versions of it. But the most extreme one being, or that I've heard so far is this.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good one.

• 1:04:41Jay Shetty?

  I've just lost a child and you're having a child and we're best friends and we were going to be having children at the same time and we were going to share that together and we were going to raise our kids together.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Jay Shetty?

  Now I don't even, you know, so how, what do we do when we can't share our win with our deepest friend because they're losing? And they're scared to share space with us because they're threatened by your win in that context.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  Communication, right? And this is the thing, we avoid the communication because it's uncomfortable. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. You know, one person's the happiest they've ever been, the other person's the saddest they've ever been, and neither knows what to say. And both are consumed with guilt, both are consumed, maybe there's a little bit of anger. I mean, there's all kinds of feelings and feelings are messy and they flow and, you know? And the other one's success or achievement, or in this case, pregnancy, just reminds me of what I'm going through. It makes, it just makes it feel worse. I don't want to be reminded right now. And it's kind of like when something bad happens in someone's life, you know, sometimes we don't do anything because we don't know what to say and we don't want to say the wrong thing. And so sometimes that's the best thing to say.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  Hey, I don't know what to say. I don't want to say the wrong thing, but I want you to know, I love you. I can't imagine what you're going through and it must be the worst thing in the world. I'm here when you need me. Take the space you need.

• 1:06:07Jay Shetty?

  It's better to say.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Just say something.

• 1:06:09Jay Shetty?

  Say something.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Say something incomplete. And when you say, don't have to worry about getting it right, just say the thing you're feeling and the feeling is, I don't know what to say.

• 1:06:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  You know, I had a friend recently who, who, who lost somebody close to them. And, you know, I got the text that says it happened and I don't know what to say. And I write back, dude, that sucks. I'm sorry, that really, that really sucks.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  That's all I had. I don't know what to say. And there's no rules. There's no right thing to say and we don't know what state somebody else is in. And even the friend who is, who, who had the miscarriage saying, I love you. Please understand, I'm just struggling. I love you. I just need a little bit of space. I will promise I will reach out soon. I love you. And it just opens up a space to say, I love you too. I understand. You know? It's just a human moment. And I think what we have to do is like, we try and come up with the right answers. What's the right thing to say when this? There's no right thing to say. And some people will handle it differently than others. And some people will go into deep sadness and some people go into anger. And some people will be avoidant and some people will bury themselves and pretend.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  I mean, like, there's no right. And so what I've learned is, is instead of trying to guess, is A, just say what I am feeling, which is, I don't know what to say. Mike, I'm, let me express my confusion. Let me put out something and be there like, when you're ready, please, I'm here. Which is kind of like saying, I love you. And sometimes to ask. So I have a friend who called me and said, I'm struggling. I said, so do I go into solution mode? Cause I know what to do. I know exactly what's going on. Or do I go into, no, I gotta hold space. This is what friends do. They hold space for friends in need. And so I just said, what do you need? Do you need me to hold space?

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Or do you need me to offer you some, some ideas? And then they said, I think right now I just need you to hold space. I'm like, okay. I will climb into the mud with you and I'll sit there for you with you. And when you're ready, you tell me, I think I'm ready to get out now. And be like, okay, I've got some ideas. And A, you can ask, you can ask for guidance if you don't know, as opposed to trying to guess. And B, if somebody gets it wrong, you can tell them.

• 1:08:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  The reverse happened to me. I was in a bad, bad place. And I called somebody where I just needed them to listen. And I called her up and I was like, I just, I'm having a really hard week. And can I just, I need, and then this happened, and then this happened, and I'm feeling this, and this happened. And she went into fix it mode. And it made me feel worse. Cause I just need to feel heard in that moment. And it was well intentioned, but I was getting angry. I could feel myself getting angry. I felt myself getting frustrated. And I simply said, can I, can I just interrupt you? I know it's well intentioned. What I need right now, I just need you to just listen. I, I'm not angry. Please, thank you so much. What I need right now is please just listen. That's all I need. And she was like, oh, I'm so sorry. And you can reset. I'm so sorry.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  You're, please, go ahead. Thank you. Very few of us are experts and even the experts bungle it all the time.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  And I think the just trying to say how you actually feel, telling people what you need in the moment you need it, and asking for what you need in the moment you need it, right? That combination, you pretty much can bumble through it all.

• 1:09:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  It won't always be fun, but it's a good start.

• 1:09:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  And you don't need any PhD skills.

• 1:09:36Jay Shetty?

  The most important thing about that is saying something is better than saying nothing. And the saying something part, speak your intention. Like, that's, that's what I feel like. It's like when I'm sharing my confusion and I'm sharing my feelings and I'm scared to share them because they're messy. Going back to your earlier point, being human is messy. And you're right, sometimes I get a message like that too. And I'm like, I don't really know what to say. And not saying anything is way worse than saying, hey, I'm really sorry. I'm here if you need me, let me know.

• 1:10:09Speaker 02

  I don't know what to say and I don't know what you need.

• 1:10:11Jay Shetty?

  Exactly. And tell me.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  If, if you feel up to it, please tell me.

• 1:10:14Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  Right? But I'm here, just know one thing, one thing 100% sure is I'm here.

• 1:10:19Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:10:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  And that's sometimes all people need is to feel not alone.

• 1:10:22Jay Shetty?

  Most, mostly.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Mostly, yeah. And I think we're also afraid of triggering somebody or saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. And it's our own fears, that's our own insecurities. And it goes back to the ghosting. It's my fear of discomfort that's making it worse for somebody else.

• 1:10:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  You know? And it goes back to what the definition of a leader is, right? A leader is the person who accepts the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise. It's about caring for people, right? And it's a very leader-y thing to do, to just be the person who says, I don't know.

• 1:10:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  But here it is.

• 1:10:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. I remember this a while ago, there was someone that I knew that told me, one of their friends came up to them and said, they said exactly how they feel, but it was different. It said, I'm envious of you.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  I kind of respect that.

• 1:11:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it was, but it was hard for that person to hear it.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:10Jay Shetty?

  Because they, they felt it created a distance, even though to me that person was being courageous.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  There's a way to do it, though.

• 1:11:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  I, I wouldn't recommend going up to somebody and be like, dude, I'm really envious of you. Cause you don't know the context, you don't know where it's coming from. I think context is important, a good setup is important. You know, like, I don't know what to say, you know?

• 1:11:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  I'm afraid of saying this wrong, right? And I think to say, I need to share something with you that's really uncomfortable for me to share. And I know it's revealing of my own issues. It has nothing to do with you and I know it's something I'm dealing with, but I'm really envious of you.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  And that at least signals like it's not you, it's me. Like I'm dealing with my own insecurities and my own feelings of inadequacy and my own feelings. And, and by the way, that same friend, you know, his career, just like when I was still like struggling and, you know, trying to make a go of it and I had no money and he was starting, his career starts to take off. And like we would go out for dinner and like he'd order expensive bottles of wine and I'm sitting there just stressed out because I know we're going to split the check. And I am like, everything he's ordering and I'm just like sitting there going, and it's just making me feel worse. His success is actually making me feel bad.

• 1:12:28Jay Shetty?

  And affecting your bank balance too.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  I find my bank balance. And feeling inadequate and feeling lesser than. But this is why he's a great friend. He goes, hey, listen, let's make a deal. I'll pay for the wine and let's just split the meal. I'm like, I'm good. Thank you.

• 1:12:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  I didn't have to say a word. He, he knows where he is and he knows where I am.

• 1:12:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  And.

• 1:12:49Jay Shetty?

  But that requires humility on your part.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  But and.

• 1:12:52Jay Shetty?

  And consciousness on his part.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  It still sucked and I still hated it and I still had jealousy and I still had anger. I still had all the feelings as his career is flying. All it's his success is just reminding me what I haven't achieved or what I'm not achieving or, you know, am I ever going to achieve anything, you know? I wish I had and he's buying big houses and things like, you know? And not that I desire big houses, but I'm watching it happen. And I knew it was my issue. And I knew there's a, there's a danger of me lashing out or making accusations or you're always throwing your money around in front of me. I knew all of that existed. Thank goodness I had the self-awareness to be like, this is me. This is my issue. These are my insecurities. These are my fears. This is my ego.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  And I, I can't remember what I did. I sat in a discomfort for a long time. And I think at some point I just talked to him.

• 1:13:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  And, you know, he's, he's one of my best friends in the world. And now I can look at him and be like, dude, I'm so proud of you. Like you fricking nailed it. And I've known him since we were 18 years old.

• 1:13:56Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  You know, so it's like, we've known each other since we were both idiots. You know?

• 1:14:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  We've known each other since we were 18. We lived across the hall from each other freshman year of college.

• 1:14:05Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:14:05Speaker 02

  And we've always been friends. We've never not been friends.

• 1:14:08Jay Shetty?

  So you can be friends with people you envy yourself and people that are envious with you.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  I, I've never actually talked to him about it. It's really funny. I was actually just talking to him on the way up, driving up to here, which is really funny. Um, I've never talked to him about it. I should. I don't know what his experience in that moment was, being on the other side of it.

• 1:14:23Jay Shetty?

  It'd be fascinating to know.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  But I treated it like a fight. I treated it like we have to get through this. Even though he was pretty much uninvolved and the whole thing was going on in my own head, he was just going through life. Like, he, he probably was completely, in fact, knowing what I know about him, he was completely, I guarantee you, mostly unaware. Right? I remember, I just, I love him, I care about him. Nothing happened. Didn't do anything to me. Just doing well.

• 1:14:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  I treated it like, like this is a tension and I have to get through this.

• 1:14:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  Because this goes right back to before, the stress is worth it.

• 1:14:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  This friendship is worth going through. This, this, this stress is worth getting through for, for this friendship. Not, it's not, you can't say that about all friendships, but in this case, it was, it was worth it. It was worth it to sit in mud by myself and maybe tell somebody else what I was going through and have them go, oh, that sucks. You know, so that's, I, I don't remember the details, but I'm pretty sure that's how I dealt with it. I probably told somebody else.

• 1:15:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, definitely. I mean, um, I had a friend say to me the other day, they said, Jay, you know, the thing I love about you is that you've stayed the same despite your success.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  You're taller.

• 1:15:29Jay Shetty?

  A friend, yeah. A friend said, and it was just like, and I said, you know, the reason why I've been able to be the same with you is because you've stayed the same with me. And it was this really interesting, not that we haven't changed or grown, of course, I've learned new skills, so have they. But that they didn't think I was changing negatively. And that allowed me to continue to be who I wanted to be with them.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  You only get half the credit on that, right? The other half of the credit is that I guarantee you that other people in your life, other friends, will give me a different answer. That they will say, now that Jay's all successful and, you know.

• 1:16:10Jay Shetty?

  No, but that's the point of my, what I'm saying.

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  Like he, he's like aloof now.

• 1:16:13Jay Shetty?

  No, that's the point. Yeah, yeah. So my point is, that's exactly what I'm saying, that maybe I didn't explain it well. He's saying that and I'm giving him the credit back.

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:21Jay Shetty?

  Because I'm saying you didn't change what you viewed of in me.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:16:25Jay Shetty?

  So I never.

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  It's, it's, he, he's done the work.

• 1:16:28Jay Shetty?

  Correct. Yeah, because he's allowed me to continue to be. Me, without judging me, comparing the

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  And you're right, you're right, it is only half to go there for sure. You know, and you, you may have changed.

• 1:16:39Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  And you may be more aloof, you know, and you may be more cynical and you may be more guarded. All of that's true.

• 1:16:47Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  And some people who may experience you as different, right? All those things can be true, but I love the fact, yeah, I think he gets the credit for having the strength of ego to recognize that, dude.

• 1:17:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's my point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  He gets the credit.

• 1:17:03Jay Shetty?

  Maybe it came across wrong, but yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  He gets all the credit. He gets all the, that's really cool.

• 1:17:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it was just a really, it never clicked to me because I was receiving it. And I was like, yeah, but it can't stay, you know, maybe I have, exactly what you're saying. Like, I was like, maybe I have changed. Not everyone would agree with that.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Jay Shetty?

  But it was the idea that was him that, that was that way. We kind of went to the end of a relationship, like breakups, but I was thinking about another thing that I feel a lot of people are struggling with friendships that I at least here right now are people who are wanting to, kind of like where you were actually, where you're wanting to grow. You're wanting to pivot into a new business. You're wanting to start something. And what I've noticed is we're not scared of what people think on the internet. We're scared of what people around us think when you're starting something. Like when you're trying to begin something, you're not really scared about what some anonymous person says on the internet. That's not even on your mind. You're scared about what your friend from college is gonna say about that video you made.

• 1:17:59Jay Shetty?

  Or you're scared of what your friend from high school is gonna say about the business you're about to start. You're scared of the LinkedIn update that goes out to your former colleagues. Right? Like, that's the thing you're worried about. What do we do when we feel that people around us don't believe in us, are the most cynical, the most skeptical, are the most negative about our ideas?

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 1:18:22Jay Shetty?

  Even a person.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  For anybody who wants to accomplish anything of value in the world, and when I think of value, I think of impact, right? That's how I define it, right? If you want to operate at a scale that's bigger than yourself, and if you want to, and when I say bigger than yourself, it could be three people, right? Meaning I want to have an impact in in three people's lives around me. I want to be the best parent in the world, right? My point is more than you, right? So I think we confuse when we think bigger than ourselves. We don't necessarily mean national stage. Bigger than yourself can just means more than one, right? Anybody who wants to have an impact in the lives of others has to get used to the idea that not everybody's going to like you, right? You just have to get used to that idea.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  And for me, I have rules, which is if you don't like me because you disagree with me, I'm cool with that, right? If you don't like me because somehow I make you uncomfortable, I'm OK with that, too. But if somebody I respect doesn't like me, now I've got a problem, right? Because I'm not so blind and pigheaded to be like, screw the world, it's me. You know, if you don't like it, you can, you know, you can eat it, right? My eyes are open. And if there's a friend I care about who's, mm mm, Simon, OK, I got to take that seriously because now I'm getting too big for my britches, or now I'm not listening, or now I'm ignoring my blind spots. And now I got a problem, right?

• 1:19:53Speaker 02

  But if somebody just disagrees with me, I mean, what am I supposed to do? I don't get everything right. Sometimes things come out wrong. Give me some grace, you know? But if you just disagree with me, like, what am I? Like, I don't know what, I actually don't know what to do. It's like the the gold dress, blue dress, remember that?

• 1:20:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  It's like the dress is blue, you're an idiot, it's gold.

• 1:20:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  I'm like, what am I supposed to do? I see it as blue. I don't know what to do. That's what it is.

• 1:20:19Jay Shetty?

  That was the funniest line.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:20:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  It's hard. Everybody wants people to like, you know? I have a lot of respect for people who like literally don't care.

• 1:20:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  I don't have that.

• 1:20:30Jay Shetty?

  Well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier, that we're looking for people to affirm, confirm, and join. So it's like when you have that idea and everyone around you who you thought supported the same football club and had the same values doesn't agree with you, it kind of feels like there's something wrong.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  You're kind of raising something that's quite, it's quite insidious. We can't help but think about like likes and views on a post that, you know, we get our sense of self from how many likes we get in this video got more likes, I'm boy period, I'm awesome. This video got no likes, oh my God, I'm worthless.

• 1:21:04Jay Shetty?

  Fidelia carrots.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, or how many views it gets. And that's sort of the macro social media version of what you're talking about, which is if people like me, I must be a good person. If people don't like me or aren't giving me a lot of views, I must, I must not be a good person. And how to disconnect a like or a view or a comment from what I'm trying to do here and what I'm putting out in the world. And the problem is it's, it's the incentive structure, right? Because if you're making money from views, if your sense of value in the world comes from those numbers, that's the insidious version of what you're saying.

• 1:21:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  And how do you get comfortable? Like some will do well and like, I can tell you, I've won the internet lottery more than once.

• 1:21:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you have, yeah.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  I have won the internet lottery more than once and I have had multiple things that I put out there go very viral. None of them did I predict. The videos that I thought would do well, fine. And the videos that I had no clue went, you know, and they went ballistic and it wasn't because of the production quality and it wasn't, I didn't just didn't know, something connected. You know, that's why I call it virals. I was at a dinner once and a guy, I'd like, what do you do? He's like, I made viral videos. I'm like, no, you don't. You make videos and you hope they go viral. And that's why this stuff is hard. Now, you can do tricks and games. You and I both know people who use all the tricks and games to drive the views and, you know, and there are tricks and games on Amazon, there are tricks and games on YouTube, there are tricks and games on Instagram, right? TikTok, they all have tricks and games.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  But when something actually goes for legitimate reasons, it's because you connect with somebody you didn't even really knows, realize why or how.

• 1:22:44Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  And to make those the standards is ridiculous. It's stupid. Like people said to me, Simon, you know, after I wrote Start With Why, how are you going to write a second book as popular as the first? The answer was, easy, I'm not. I'm not, didn't predict that, didn't orchestrate it. That's like asking me, how are you gonna repeat that lottery win?

• 1:23:03Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  Well, I've studied the numbers I picked the first time and I've got a formula how I'm gonna pick. No, I won the frickin lottery. What do you want from me? Like, I don't know. I'm just gonna do the best job I can the second time and it won't do as well. And that's okay. You know, and I think to disconnect our value from the metric is a, is really the lesson here.

• 1:23:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and on that small scale, the metric.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Like, I'm not less valuable because my second book didn't sell as well as my first. You know?

• 1:23:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:23:31Jay Shetty?

  But yeah, no, that, that point that you're making, to me, that micro version is that I don't feel value. Like, for example, when I put out my first video, the people closest to me, or maybe second closest to me, were like, you talk too fast, the editing's bad, the music's off. And the funny thing is, they were right. Like, all of that was true, but it resonated with someone, right? It was like a weird, it was like this weird thing where, and, and I've seen that with people, when they're trying something new, it's like the people around them will be the most cynical, the most skeptical. And if you use that as feedback, it could get better. Or if you use it as like, hey, you're not really an expert and that you don't know much, I'm just gonna get on with it.

• 1:24:13Jay Shetty?

  Right? That's what I'm trying to get at. It's like, how does, how does someone deal with the discomfort of just, your best friend thinks your business idea sucks? Or like, your, your best friend thinks the person you're dating is not right for you.

• 1:24:26Speaker 02

  You're conflating a lot of stuff there.

• 1:24:28Jay Shetty?

  I like the best friend doesn't like the person you're dating.

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  That's a hard one.

• 1:24:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Very often, they don't tell you until after you've broken up.

• 1:24:34Jay Shetty?

  Why do our friends feel like they have to wait till we break up?

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  Because it's really uncomfortable to say, I don't like your partner.

• 1:24:39Jay Shetty?

  Could we do something better about that to?

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  Can I have a really uncomfortable conversation with you, you know?

• 1:24:43Jay Shetty?

  Could we do something better to help our friends have uncomfortable conversations?

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  You know, at the end of the day, sometimes not all our partnerships are understood by our friends too. I've definitely been in partnerships that people are just like, really? I'm like, no, no, no. You don't understand the value that this person gives to me. And this person is the exact right person I need to date for the place I'm in right now. You know? I mean, I had a girlfriend many years ago. Who nobody could like, they looked at us walking down the street and people just like, like I meet my friends, like, they're like, what? Like, they couldn't understand this relationship. And what they didn't understand is who I was and what I needed in that time. She was magical and we're still friends, but nobody, nobody got it. And she was socially awkward and like, so like, if you've got friends with big personalities and you know, we go out and she's just quiet the whole night, like my friends didn't get it.

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  And that's the other thing I've learned, which is to, do people not like the girl I'm dating? Or do they just want somebody who's the life of the party?

• 1:25:40Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, that's a great point, yeah.

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  And if they're looking for somebody who's the life of the party, that's not who I'm dating. She's the rock. She's not the fireworks. She's stable and that's what I need.

• 1:25:52Jay Shetty?

  No, I like that, I like that because I think you're right. I mean, introverts in general, in friendships, in group settings.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Like my, my family, my parents have never liked, quote unquote, any introvert I've ever dated. They love the extroverts because the extroverts are fun and the introverts are awkward. That's pretty much it.

• 1:26:12Jay Shetty?

  Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items

• 1:26:55Jay Shetty?

  for quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores,

• 1:27:38Jay Shetty?

  from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online.

• 1:27:56Speaker 06

  This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the all-in-one finance app. The sooner you start investing, the more potential you have to build your money, even for beginners. SoFi makes it simple with an easy-to-use app. To get you going, SoFi is offering up to $1,000 in stock when you open and fund a SoFi's self-directed brokerage account. Learn more at sofi.com/spotify. Brokerage offered through SoFi Securities LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Terms apply.

• 1:28:25Jay Shetty?

  Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now, back to the discussion. I think everyone who's listening right now and watching, me included, is thinking of someone in my life right now that I don't enjoy being around because they're introverted. And even though I can be very introverted in certain group settings.

• 1:28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, in certain group settings.

• 1:28:41Jay Shetty?

  In certain group settings, I'm the biggest introvert there is. And then in certain group settings.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  And I'm the awkward one sometimes where people are like, I don't get it.

• 1:28:47Jay Shetty?

  Same.

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  You're dating him? He's so vivacious on stage and on camera. At dinner, he was quiet and grumpy.

• 1:28:56Jay Shetty?

  How should introverts think about friendships differently to extroverts?

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  I don't think they should think about friendships differently. I think they're all the same. The rules are the same. You know, I think we confuse introversion, extroversion and social awkwardness. There are socially awkward introverts. There are socially awkward extroverts.

• 1:29:13Jay Shetty?

  Oh, definitely, yeah.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  There are socially functional introverts and there are socially functional extroverts. I am a socially functional introvert, right? I'm okay. You know, I'm not that awkward, though I can be. My ex would make fun of me. We'd go to a party and like all these little groups of conversations, you know, people standing around in threes and fours with their drinks, talking one over there, one over there. And I never knew how to insert myself into one of the, and I know the people like, but I never know how to insert myself.

• 1:29:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Speaker 02

  And so I just stand by myself with my drink in the middle of the room. And she would always make fun of me that I would just stand there by myself, just totally fine, just taking the room in, you know? And I just feel sorry, sorry for everybody else just looking at me going, I don't even, no, people don't know how to talk to me. How do you walk up to a person just standing in the middle of the room by themselves? Like, I think friendships are the same. Like, of course, it's, it's partially, it's energy is what we get from people. I'm going to go right back to what we said before. Stop thinking about the introversion, the extroversion, the life of the party, death of the party. Does this person give you something? Are they additive to your day, to your night, to your life? Not every friendship has to be a deep, meaningful relationship. But every friendship should be additive and it should, they should be worth the time and the energy that we invest.

• 1:30:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  Right? And one thing I look to is you don't need to keep score, but you do want there to be some reciprocal investment. I've definitely had friendships where I'm the one making the plan. I'm the one doing the calling. I'm the one doing the texting. They always respond, but if I didn't call or text, I'm not sure I'd ever hear from them again for the rest of my life.

• 1:30:40Jay Shetty?

  Right. What are you doing in that scenario?

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  You know, and in those scenarios, I'm asking myself, like, we have fun. I'm investing.

• 1:30:48Speaker 02

  What if we didn't, what if I didn't invest? I'm just curious. And so I've done little experiments where I just like, don't. And some of those friendships drift apart. They just drift apart and you're like, huh, okay, got it. Not offended. And then other times the people, the person will be like, I have not talked to you for so long. You were always so good at staying in touch with me. I'm a bad friend. I'm going to do better. I don't like not talking to you. And they pick up their game.

• 1:31:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  And again, it goes right back to where we started. If you peel the onion back one layer, a lot, most of us are bad friends.

• 1:31:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  And most of us are lazy, you know, and most of us would prioritize work before a friend and take our friends for granted. In this case, when one person's putting in all the energy, it's super easy to be the lazy friend on the other end. I've definitely been the lazy friend on the other end. You know, I have one friend, rock star, rock star. It's making plans, getting in touch. And so.

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:31:43Jay Shetty?

  But that's that thing, right? It's like when we're looking at the question of is someone additive to my life, if they don't ask the other side of.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  It's also, it's also what you're looking for, right? Like if you, as long as it's communicated, I think it's like, thank you so much for always being so good at being the one who initiates every time we get together, because I can tell you every time we get together, I love seeing you.

• 1:32:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Thank you for leading the way.

• 1:32:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  It's, I think it's just acknowledgement.

• 1:32:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  Again, this is why these things like human beings are messy. There's only a few things that are quote unquote right or wrong, but a lot of this is figuring out what each person wants. And sometimes, by the way, they want different things at different times.

• 1:32:25Jay Shetty?

  And that's the hardest part.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  If you're really busy, or if you're really stressed, or if you're really distracted, or, and like we all, we've all been the person or been the friend of the person who like has a new romantic relationship and all of a sudden you don't exist anymore.

• 1:32:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  Right? We've all been that person and we've all been on the receiving end of that person, right? And then they break up and then they start calling you like, oh, well, now that you're, now that I'm, you're, you're not busy, now I'm your friend again, right?

• 1:32:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:32:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  And so like.

• 1:32:52Jay Shetty?

  What do you do in that situation? Do you allow it? Do you pretend to be disrespected? Are you offended? I feel like we have such, we seem to have such big reactions.

• 1:33:02Speaker 02

  We're.

• 1:33:02Jay Shetty?

  Such common occurrences.

• 1:33:04Speaker 02

  I think communication is like lubrication. The more communication there is, the easier the machine goes. And without communication, what you get is friction.

• 1:33:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Right? Most fights amongst friends, I just had a fight with a friend just this week. It was based purely on first miscommunication and then total lack of follow up. And then the tension just grew and grew and grew until one of us was like, this is ridiculous. It's usually miscommunication and then lack of communication. And so if you can communicate even badly, that will lubricate the relationship. And so what I find is that good relationships talk about the relationship.

• 1:33:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  Like you see good marriages and they like, I love how our marriage works so well. And you see good friendships, you know, you're like, oh, here's what I love about our friendship. I love that I can tell you everything. I have one friend that almost every time we talk. Almost every time, I will say the same thing. Do you know, one of the reasons I love our friendship is because that, dot, dot, dot, dot. Yeah. And I say it, and I even say, I know I say this every time I talk to you, but it's just how I feel every time I do it. I love that we're friends because I can dot, dot, dot, or you make me feel dot, dot, dot. Every time, and we talk about the friendship. And I think that's healthy. And so it's okay to talk about the friendship.

• 1:34:23Speaker 02

  It's okay to say, here's what I love, here's what I, you know, and it's okay if we need different things in different moments. And as I said before, if we do the work, it's not the chat GPT answer. It's if you do the work, you get to earn the serotonin, you get to earn the oxytocin, you get to earn the feeling of the hug because it is natural and not because you counted for it. The serotonin is because it's earned and you have genuine joy. And if you cannot, because you've got your own stuff going on, if you cannot be that person for the time that you know they need you, then simply say so. I got shit going on in my life. I can't be the person you need me to be right now. I love you, I love you, I love you. I just need to deal with my own shit. Cause otherwise people will make up stories.

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  Ninety nine times out of a hundred, those stories are wrong. And then we will treat people or act based on our version of events or our story. Yeah. And that's all listening is. Listening is just hearing what the other person's story is, just so I have the context for why you've been acting the way you've been acting. The story doesn't have to be right. It's just their story, just like my story doesn't have to be right. It's right to me, but it's just my experience of something. Like my friend's like, you did this, and then you did this, and then you did this. And I was like, wow. And I didn't say, well, I didn't intend to. I said, wow, I'm sorry. Like, I, I'm so sorry, yes. I did do that. And now I want to tell you my experience of what happened at the same event. You did this, and you did this, and you did this. And she said, no, I didn't.

• 1:35:54Speaker 02

  And I went, oh, da, da, da, da, da. I'm not telling you I'm right. I just want you to hear how I experienced what went down. So you have context. For why I acted the way I acted. Because now I have context for the way you acted, the way you acted. Neither of us is right, and both of us are right. So this is about understanding, not about competing. And the funny thing about communication is when somebody gets it wrong, or when somebody gets it right, you'd be like, thank you for saying that. That's the, that's the best thing I needed to hear. And when they get it wrong, you'd be like, don't invalidate my story. Please just listen to my story. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You're right. You're right. You're right. Like, this is the great thing about human beings is we can actually like, give people guidance about what they're getting right and wrong in the moment, and it doesn't destroy the moment.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  And you can be like, you're right. I'm sorry. I'd like to reset. Please, continue. We can do that, and it works. I, I have one friend. I mean, it's how so funny that how much guidance we're able to give people as opposed to letting them guess. I have one friend, I was upset about something or other, who knows what. I was hurt. I was like, can I just tell you? And I did all the things. I want to tell you, I'm hurt. And this is the story I'm telling myself. It may not be true. I just want you to know what happened. When you said this, it made me feel this way. And she goes, well, that's not what I intended. I'm like, I didn't say you intended it. I just want you to know how I feel. And she goes, well, that's, those are your feelings. I'm not responsible for the way you feel. I'm like, well, actually, you are. You know, when people say like, I'm not responsible for your feelings, your feelings, your feelings, I'm like, that's not true. If you say something mean,

• 1:37:25Speaker 02

  and it hurts my feelings, yes, they're my feelings and I'm responsible for my feelings. But you said that, that made me feel bad. So yes, you are involved in this chain of events. I totally reject this idea. It's like, I'm not responsible for your feelings. Your feelings are your feelings. But no, you called me, you called me ugly. And that hurt my feelings because it tapped into my insecurities.

• 1:37:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, when it's not black and white, yeah.

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  You know, but it's, you are, you're in the chain of events. I'm not saying you did it on a purpose. Anyway, so I'm going on and on, and she just evade, deny, push. That's your problem. Those are your feelings. I'm not responsible for your feelings. I'm living my life. You're living your life. This is going on and on, and I'm getting more frustrated. I'm getting more upset. I'm not feeling heard. And I just said, can I just give you some advice about how this is gonna just? Because you're getting frustrated with me. I'm getting frustrated with you. This is super easy, right? Just say sorry. That's all I need. Just, just say sorry. You said those words. Just say sorry. She goes, I'm sorry. I'm like, thank you. And then we were fine.

• 1:38:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you can guide it.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  You can guide it. And so it's like, well, I'm not saying sorry. I'm like, I'm literally telling you all. And by the way, the, one of the best lessons in the world, saying you're sorry doesn't mean you're wrong.

• 1:38:31Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  Saying you're sorry means you take accountability for the things you said or the actions that were performed. And were people like, well, I don't have to say sorry if I didn't intend them. Well, if you're walking through the airport with your wheelie bag and you run over someone's foot by accident, you turn around and they turn around and you're like, I'm so sorry.

• 1:38:49Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  Right? Didn't do it on purpose, but it is your wheelie bag.

• 1:38:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:53Speaker 02

  Now, if they turn around and look at you waiting for the, the sorry, and you're like, and you look and be like, what? I didn't do it on purpose. And a fight will ensue.

• 1:39:01Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:02Speaker 02

  You will get yelled at.

• 1:39:03Jay Shetty?

  That's a great example.

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:39:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:05Speaker 02

  You didn't do it on purpose, it's still your wheelie bag. Right? You didn't do it on purpose, they're still your words, they're still your actions. Doesn't mean you were wrong, but they are yours. And all you have to do is apologize because it did come from you.

• 1:39:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Speaker 02

  And I, like I said, I reject this whole sort of like, I'm not responsible for your feelings, your feelings are yours. I don't have to apologize. I'm like, dude, you're mean. You were mean, you are mean.

• 1:39:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:33Speaker 02

  Like, what am I going to tell you?

• 1:39:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:36Jay Shetty?

  Simon, oh my gosh, it has been such a joy to talk to you. I always feel you're so refreshingly human in all your insights there. Going back to your point on imperfect is imperfect is human and human is imperfect. It's so refreshingly human to just talk to you about these ideas when sometimes we can end up living in a didactic three ways and two ways and say this and it's true, it's all of that's helpful and it's completely unhelpful because the reality.

• 1:40:06Speaker 02

  It's useful and useless at the same time.

• 1:40:07Jay Shetty?

  Exactly, yeah, because the reality is this. I just thank you for showing up in that way because it, I love it. I really enjoy it because

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  Well, thanks.

• 1:40:15Jay Shetty?

  it frees you, it's freeing, it's liberating to, to know that, you know, if you can be messy, we all can.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  I think it's important for people to present themselves as they are, which is messy. Because to present yourself as perfect

• 1:40:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Speaker 02

  Sets up an unfair standard for other people to live by.

• 1:40:32Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  And usually people present themselves as perfect, usually out of absolute fear that they don't want people to know that they're actually imperfect.

• 1:40:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  And I'll say what I said before, to be beautiful is to be human. To be messy is to be beautiful. We don't fall in love with the perfection. We fall in love with the imperfection. We fall in love when somebody lets us be imperfect, allows us to be imperfect and allows us to love them for being imperfect. You know, we showed up on the first date because of all the perfection. And imperfection is earned, like the space to be imperfect is earned. You do not reveal all your imperfections on date one too soon, too much. That's overwhelming. And when you do the work and you take the small risks that then become big risks. I want to be my messy self with somebody who loves me for my messy self.

• 1:41:22Speaker 02

  And I want somebody to feel that I love them no matter how messy they are. And that is a high standard and a hard thing to find. And if you have a friend like that, you work damn hard to protect that friendship.

• 1:41:35Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Simon, we end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

• 1:41:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:41:43Jay Shetty?

  So Simon Sinek, these are your final five. Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Let's do it to do with friendship.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  So the best advice I ever got professionally is three quarters of an answer is better than an answer and a half. And I think it actually, I actually think it applies to friendship too. Sometimes you shut up, you know? One of the best advice I got personally is you don't have to know everything and you don't have to always be right. And that's of relief.

• 1:42:11Jay Shetty?

  Uh, question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Trust me, I've been doing this longer than you.

• 1:42:18Jay Shetty?

  That's a good one. I like that one.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  I try and ignore people who tell me that.

• 1:42:22Jay Shetty?

  Question number three, define a good friend.

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  I believe that friendship is two or more people who agree to grow together. And so a good friend is somebody who we have decided that we're gonna, we're gonna grow together.

• 1:42:35Jay Shetty?

  Question number four, how do you define a bad friend?

• 1:42:37Speaker 02

  A, a friend who's trying to extract. Rather than grow.

• 1:42:42Jay Shetty?

  Fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  That I would outlaw the harp.

• 1:42:52Jay Shetty?

  Why?

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  It's a silly instrument.

• 1:42:53Jay Shetty?

  Really?

• 1:42:54Speaker 02

  It's good for dream sequences, that's about it.

• 1:42:56Jay Shetty?

  No way, you're joking, right?

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:42:58Jay Shetty?

  Really? You genuinely don't like harps?

• 1:43:00Speaker 02

  No, I don't like harps.

• 1:43:00Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:43:01Speaker 02

  You're gonna listen to a harp symphony? No.

• 1:43:03Jay Shetty?

  I have not, but I like harps, I didn't know.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  It's good for dreams.

• 1:43:06Jay Shetty?

  They're in heaven, though.

• 1:43:07Speaker 02

  Exactly, it's good for one thing, dream sequences. Yeah, I would outlaw harps.

• 1:43:12Jay Shetty?

  I love it, Simon said it.

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  And okra, harps and okra.

• 1:43:15Jay Shetty?

  Okra?

• 1:43:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:16Jay Shetty?

  Wow, that's attacking my Indian heritage. I love it. Simon, you've been a joy as ever, and I hope this is the first of many appearances on On Purpose. I really appreciate your views as always, and I look forward to these conversations and lots more of them, so thank you.

• 1:43:34Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, it was a lot of fun.

• 1:43:35Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

• 1:43:54Speaker 07

  You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months, and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of expected it, and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen.

• 1:44:05Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company formed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd, causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:44:22Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:44:26Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:44:29Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:44:30Speaker 04

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd, rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 1:44:35Speaker 08

  Espolone Tequila, balanced, delicious, 100% agave, 0% ego. Just add ice, lime, and your mouth. For real margarita, ride the rooster.

• 1:44:46Speaker 09

  Espolone Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof, copyright 2026, Campali America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.

• 1:44:53Speaker 03

  Every mile matters. Whether you're driving your dream car or your daily commuter, the Mobile One team knows that. It's why we created Mobile One Advanced Clean Motor Oil. It cleans your engine in one oil change and helps extend engine life, delivering performance, protection, and cleanliness for vehicles of all ages. All to help keep your engine running like new, whatever you're driving. Visit mobileone.com/advancedclean to learn more.