6. Jay Shetty: Top 3 Mistakes People Make with Mental Health, Expert Tips to Balance Stress + more

Are you struggling to find balance in your mental and spiritual well-being? Do you want to feel more grounded, less stressed, and truly connected to your roots? In this episode of Extend with Dr. Shah, my guest, Jay Shetty shares his journey from monastic life to becoming a global digital creator. We dive deep into the world of meditation, mindset, and stress management, providing practical strategies to cultivate psychological health. Jay reminds us that true happiness comes from within and emphasizes the importance of staying grounded in our values. We also explore the complex dynamics of vulnerability and trust in relationships, comparing it to trying a new supplement. Together, we discuss how vulnerability leads to deeper connections and the power of seeking professional guidance like life coaches or therapists + so much more. Jay Shetty is a global bestselling author, award-winning podcast host of On Purpose, Chief Purpose Officer of Calm, and purpose-driven entrepreneur, who has made an indelible impact on hearts and minds worldwide. With an astounding following of over 50 million across social media platforms, Jay Shetty possesses a talent for making purpose and ancient wisdom not only relatable but also practical and easily accessible. His journey of transformation and inspiration has touched the lives of millions across the globe. We also discuss: (00:00) Mental Health and Wellness Discussion (10:44) Building Trust and Vulnerability in Relationships (17:56) Importance of Self-Assessment for Wellbeing (25:17) Importance of Finding Third Space (36:23) The Power of Surroundings on Stress (42:16) Reconnecting With Nature and Analog Living (49:16) Embracing Nature and Meditation for Wellness (56:33) Understanding Meditation Techniques and Benefits (01:07:28) Digital and Physical Community Dynamics (01:18:49) The Ethics of Technology and Character (01:22:00) Journey to Discovering Purpose and Confidence (01:31:31) Embracing Flexibility and Spiritual Growth (01:41:01) The Power of Healing and Growth To learn more about Dr. Darshan Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ To learn more about Jay Shetty: Website: https://www.jayshetty.me/ Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/jayshetty/?hl=en

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

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Are you struggling to find balance in your mental and spiritual well-being? Do you want to feel more grounded, less stressed, and truly connected to your roots? In this episode of Extend with me, Dr. Shah, my guest and good friend Jay Shetty shares his journey from a monastic life to becoming a global digital creator. We dive deep into the world of meditation, mindset, and stress management, providing practical strategies to cultivate psychological health. Jay reminds us that true happiness comes from within and emphasizes that the importance of staying grounded is in our values. I had the pleasure of meeting Jay as his personal doctor, but he actually ended up also teaching me so much more about how our relationships and emotions have a profound effect on our health.

• 1:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We also explore the complex dynamics of vulnerability and trust in relationships, comparing it to trying a new supplement. Together, we discuss how vulnerability leads to deeper connections and the power of guidance and seeking professional help like life coaches or therapists, and so much more. Jay Shetty is a global bestselling author, award-winning podcast host of On Purpose, chief purpose officer of Calm, and purpose-driven entrepreneur, who has made an indelible impact on hearts and minds worldwide. With an astounding following of over 50 million across all of his social media platforms, Jay Shetty possesses a talent for making purpose and ancient wisdom not only relatable, but also practical and easily accessible.

• 2:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  His journey of transformation and inspiration has touched the lives of millions across the globe.

• 2:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Jay, my brother, it's so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for your support. It's just been awesome.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Of course, man. Thank you so much for your support, Darshan. You've helped me so much with my health and wellbeing over the last couple of years, and it's evolved into a beautiful friendship as well. So congratulations, beautiful studio, new podcast, it's amazing.

• 2:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I learned from the best.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Happy to be here. It was amazing to have you as a guest. My audience loved having you on the show. You were brilliant. So, thank you so much. I'm glad I get to repay the favors.

• 2:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, thank you. And this is so monumental for me to have you on the show. And, you know, for my audience who's really listening to this for health and wellness, you literally are the linchpin of bringing in, for me in the show, the whole aspect of mental and spiritual wellbeing. And so I'm so excited for this conversation because of that, because I feel like it's a topic that I know for sure Western medicine is ignored for the entire history of Western medicine, which was a big driver for me to switch my entire career into focusing on health rather than sickness, right? Because I really believe that a lot of sickness comes from where we are mentally, where we are spiritually, you know? And this is where I wanted to kind of take the question to start with. What

• 3:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  do you think is the biggest mistake, or one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to their own mental health and their own mental wellbeing? What are some of your thoughts around that?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  That's such a great question. I'd say that there's three mistakes that I think people make when it comes to their mental health. The first is, we don't even consider it.

• 4:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So true.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  It isn't a factor in how we think about our wellbeing. For example, if you sprained your ankle, you'll be thinking about it, you'll be talking about it. If you hurt yourself just randomly, you know, even just poked your knee on the side of a table, you'd be rubbing it and trying to look at it and make sure that you're feeling okay. And again, if you had any sort of injury while working out, or you went and did some water sports on vacation and you picked up a little injury, it's something you're going to talk about. And I think what happens with mental health is that Sometimes we're not aware, but it doesn't even make it into our conversations. We're not talking about it, we're not expressing it to someone. Because we think, oh, it's just this little thing, it will go away.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  And sure, that's fine if you stub your toe. But as the pain gets deeper, as the pain gets harder to bear, it has to be something we address. So I think the first thing is, we almost act like it doesn't exist. So true. Now, let's say you do act like it does exist. What do you do with it? I think, again, what we often do is we resort to family and friends. And again, we don't necessarily go to experts. We don't necessarily go to teachers, we don't necessarily go to coaches, therapists, guides. We're not necessarily going to the right person. I remember when I first came and saw you, I got a different experience seeing someone who was an expert both in taking alternate ideas, traditional ideas, eastern ideas, western ideas, all of it together than I ever would have if I went to someone who was just my mate.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And I go to him, hey, you know what, I've just been feeling like my gut's not great, or this is not great. What kind of a response am I gonna get? So am I going to the sources of wisdom and insight for my mind? That's the second thing. And the third thing I think we're doing is that we kind of feel like, if I feel okay and I'm doing okay, then I don't need to do anything about it. There's a sense of complacency, there's a sense of being relaxed of, hey, if I'm feeling all right mentally right now, I don't need to put in the work. And I always say to people that when things are bad, work hard. But when things are good, work harder. Right? When things feel good, when your mind feels sharp, when your mind feels present, that's the time to go all in.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  So the three mistakes we make are not necessarily, I mean, I could definitely go into practical things we do wrong. But I actually think they start up here in how we perceive our mental health as very different to how we deal with our physical health. Our physical health, we get checked up, we get data, we look at results, we look at how we feel, we talk about it. Our mental health, we see it as this weird kind of cloud of information that we don't necessarily decipher or dissect from.

• 6:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You are absolutely right. As you're speaking, I'm putting myself in all of these situations because I've been in all of these situations. And for me and my own personal mental health, and when I talk to patients, I feel like people go into like two groups almost. There's a group of people that are perfectly okay talking about how they're feeling, where they are with their traumas in life, where they are with their mental health. People say words like, "I'm feeling depressed today," or "I'm feeling down on myself today." But then you have this other group of people like myself, where maybe I wasn't raised this way, or maybe I was raised in a way of not expressing my mental health and actually suppressing it in the background. It's not something that's talked about, it's something you deal with personally on your own.

• 7:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I feel like, for me personally and for a lot of patients I talk to, making the jump from even suppression to speaking about it openly, it's a big jump to make, right? I mean, what's your advice on that? Like, how do you kind of get through that mental hurdle of being able to talk about it?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I empathize with it. First of all, I just want to say, I think anyone who feels they're making any of those three mistakes I laid out, I empathize with that. I'm fully compassionate towards it because society's created a boundary

• 7:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  where people have stopped opening up to people because we're scared that our vulnerability will be used against us. We're scared of being open in a work environment because we're scared it will be used against us in a review. You're scared of being vulnerable with your friends because you're scared that when there's a fallout, it will be used against you. You're scared of being vulnerable with your partner because you're scared it will be used against you in a fight. And so because our vulnerability has constantly been used against us and has been used to make us feel weak, not smart, unintelligent, unfocused, maybe it's used to make us feel guilty or shameful. Naturally, now, when you think about the idea

• 8:39Speaker 01

  of maybe I want to tell my partner or I want to tell my friend today how I feel, the trigger's a shame and guilt. Well, one day, this might be used against you. Well, they might look at you differently. Well, they may not think you're performing well today if I say that. To you and all of a sudden you're evaluating yourself through the eyes of what you think they think about you. And I think that all of that has to be considered before we say to someone, well, here are three ways to be more vulnerable.

• 9:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Because there's a reason why, right? That's the reason. The reason is you're so fearful that someone's gonna throw this back in my face when I'm having a bad day.

• 9:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  So let's, let's take that first of all. I think the second step from accepting that is recognizing that we have to practice vulnerability in doses. So it's almost like if you gave someone a dose, you'd want them to try it out to see how it, sometimes when you give me a supplement or vitamin, you'd be like, test it out for a couple of weeks and see how you feel. You're not saying to me, Jay, this is what you need to do for the next three years and, and you're set in. So in that idea, I think vulnerability is similar. Test it out with someone. So next time I'm with you, I may say to you, ah Darshan, like, you know, I'm feeling a bit anxious today. And I'll see how you deal with that. I may monitor that over a thirty day period and see how does, how did Darshan deal with that vulnerability?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  When I was disclosing how I was feeling intimately with my partner, my friend, my family member, my boss, how did they react to it? How did they use that information? And how did it make me feel? Let me not jump into this world. We live in this binary world of I either tell you nothing or I tell you everything. And we think we either trust people or we don't trust people. And I like to have layers. So what I break it down to is four different layers. The four layers are whenever I meet someone new, I start with zero trust. And I don't say that in a way of I don't trust them. I'm saying we're just at zero. We're neutral right now. We don't have trust and we don't have a lack of trust. I'm not looking for flaws, but I'm also not looking to put someone up on a pedestal. I wanna have an interaction and see how it goes.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Once that person has been through that, we're now it's something that I call transactional trust. Transactional trust is I know that if I share something with them, they'll share something back. I know that if I show up on time, they'll show up on time. I know that if I have a financial exchange, that everything's gonna go clearly. We now have got to transactional trust. The third level of trust is something I call reciprocal trust. That's where me and you are at.

• 11:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  You do me favors all the time. I'll reach out to you and be like, Darshan, can you see my, you just saw my monk teacher recently who came into Next Health. You saw my sister recently who was in town. And that's just me reaching out to you and I'm not thinking, oh, what's Darshan gonna ask for back and what's the trade? It's like, we're at reciprocal trust. We've gone beyond that. You'll reach out to me, I'm happy to do the same for you. So reciprocal trust is, I'm not now measuring or matching. We've got to a place where there's a friendship and there's comfortability. And then the fourth sense is godlike trust or unconditional trust. And that's what we really want, but the problem is we often give it away too freely. I'd say unconditional trust is something like maybe a parent. You know, maybe a parent is probably the closest thing to it if you have a good relationship with your parents.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  But beyond that, not many people are gonna come into that category, maybe your partner. And so I like to think about vulnerability and disclosure in that way. We have to see it as a spectrum. We have to see it as a pathway, not as an either or. And the final thing I'll say about how do we get to that point after testing it, after practicing it, is there's always, always, always, always going to be some risk with sharing your heart. There is always going to be some risk with sharing your pain. There is never going to be a foolproof plan of opening up to someone and knowing that they can't do something with that in five, 10, 15, 20 years. You just don't know.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And so the act of trusting, the act of being vulnerable in itself is a risk. But it's one of the most beautiful risks to take because it could turn into an investment into one of the best relationships of your life. I promise you, you've made amazing friends because you took that risk. And if you never took that risk, yes, you'd have no pain, but you'd also have no joy. And so take that risk knowingly that there will be fallout, there will be pain. But there'll be an opportunity to have the most beautiful friendships and relationships and exchanges for the rest of your life.

• 13:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so beautifully said, absolutely true. And I, once again, I put myself in the Shoes of who you're talking about and taking your advices and processing it. And I think about maybe another way, point number three you made is to seek out professional help.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Right?

• 13:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think it's easier to have a relationship where you can open up to someone who's professionally trained, who's not going to be judgmental, they're there to help you. And so, do you feel that whether or not you are going through any emotional crisis, which I believe probably ninety-nine to a hundred percent of us are having some level of emotional pain happening at some point. Do you feel that it's worthwhile to seek out someone just prophylactively? Almost like have someone that you is a trained professional, whether it be a life coach or or a, you know, a psychiatrist, psychologist. Is is there some utility in having someone like on your health team that fulfills that role in a professional sense?

• 14:09Speaker 01

  I think the biggest challenge right now, and I think there are lots of places that are trying to democratize this is access. Right? Access is hard. It's expensive. It's hard to find. It's also like dating. Like I find a lot of people looking for coaches or therapists. It feels like dating where you're trying to find that chemistry. I'm sure it's the same with doctors too. Like we hit it off from the moment we met and we've had a great relationship ever since. And I think that's partly like dating where you have to date your doctors, you have to date your coaches, you have to date your therapists. I don't mean literally, guys, like just just being really clear, just just just for the caveat for anyone who's gonna misconstrue what I'm trying to say. But there has to be that. And I think we often don't do that. I think we meet a doctor and we think, oh, even if I don't vibe with them, I'm just gonna work with them because they're a doctor. I don't think it's like that. I think there has to be chemistry. I think there has to be compatibility.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I think there has to be a sense of this person cares about me. I think we often take that out when we see authority or we see certificates or we see some sort of achievement. We take out this idea that there needs to be a personal connection.

• 15:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  And I would argue that that personal connection should be there even more importantly when it comes to your health and wellbeing. So if you have the resources, I think having a therapist, having a coach, et cetera, are great investments to make. For people who don't have it, I think we're lucky to live at a time where there are podcasts like. These where there are incredible books out there like friends of ours like Peter Attia, right? Like longevity books that are out there and available. You've got so many other people in our field that we both know and love. Andrew Huberman, who's doing amazing work in the world. And all of those people are giving away great advice for free, you know, on my podcast, I sit down with some of the biggest experts across, whether it's mental health, physical health, nutritional health, gut health, something that I'm always learning about. And so I feel we are living at a time where expertise

• 15:53Speaker 01

  has become more democratized. And so even if someone doesn't have the ability, the funds, the access, we now all have that same information at our fingertips.

• 16:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  And so, yes, I would encourage people to find their gut doctor, whether it's online, in a book, or real life. I'd encourage people to find their brain doctor.

• 16:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Whether it's, you know, online or in real life. I would encourage people to think about the most critical parts of their body, internally, externally, emotionally and psychologically. So if I look at my body, I'm like, okay, my gut's pretty important. My brain's pretty important. If I don't think about my gut and my brain, where is my health? Right? I can think about my abs as much as I want. I can think about my biceps as much as I want, but that's not gonna be the same factor. Now, at the same time, I do have to think about physical strength. It doesn't matter how long, as much as I don't like leg day, my trainer's always getting me to do leg day, right? Like, it matters. And so I think we have to look at our health by going, how am I investing in the needle-moving parts of my health?

• 16:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Not just how am I, do I feel okay today? If we, if we leave it that open, you could miss out on some really critical factors.

• 17:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's so true. You know, I kind of think about when you evaluate someone's physical health, you have things like blood pressure, you have blood tests, you know, there's, you can step on a scale and see what your skeletal muscle mass is. Do you know of any tools or any like ways to self-assess? Where, where am I today emotionally in my mental health? Do you have anything along those lines that people can use?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of my favorites is, and I often do this with clients when I meet them for the first time, I ask someone to set a one-minute timer on their phone and put it, put it to their side. And For that one minute, I want you to pick one thing to focus on. So that could be, it could be focusing on a flame, which is like an old meditation technique. It could be focusing on a picture you love, could be your family. It could be anything, like it literally doesn't matter. It could be this light, it could be my own hand. And you're just trying to pick one focal point of attention. It could be a sound, it could be that you listen to your favorite, you know, one minute segment of a speech that you love or an audiobook, whatever, just one minute. You could do it for longer if you want, but for one minute, sixty seconds.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  And all I want you to do in that sixty seconds while you're tuned in is note down how many times you get distracted. So every time you get distracted, just, just put a little tally and just have a little, you know, piece of paper next to you and just tally for that sixty seconds. What I've found when I've done that with different clients is it's not about, the problem we have is we think when we lose attention or when we get distracted, we immediately spiral into, ah, I'm so distracted. We immediately spiral into, oh, I'm just, oh, God, I wish I could just focus, like, we automatically spiral into this kind of aggressive, shameful, most people I talk to, if I ask them, hey, how did you feel when you stopped listening to your partner at a dinner, they'll be like, I felt the worst and I didn't know what to say and now I don't know where they're at in the story and they, they start getting nervous.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  What this does is, first of all, you're removing shame and guilt and what you're trying to get to a point is a point of awareness. So in sixty seconds, I was distracted twenty times, thirty times, ten times, five times, right? Obviously, the lower is better. I find that to be a really great tool to check in with how you feel today. Because what it allows you to do is see how present you are from a standing start. So you're now not evaluating yourself in a relationship. You're not saying, oh, God, I, I wish I was more present with my wife. I wish, it's like, no, no, no, that's just where you're at today. Right? It's a starter for a metric for yourself. It's not like now I'm not reflecting it onto, oh, was it, was I bored of my partner today or, or am I stressed out with? No, no, no, this is where I'm at today and maybe today I am a bit distracted. Maybe today isn't the most present and guess what?

• 19:35Speaker 01

  That's okay, because if by the end of today, I've kind of made it through and, and maybe by the end of the day, if I do that activity, we're at the same place, then we did okay, right? It's a self measure of distraction and presence. And the reason why I start with presence is because all the mental health studies talk about presence as being one of the core experiences of happiness and joy.

• 19:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you look at studies on mental wellbeing, presence is a key factor in how we feel. Our distracted nature is what causes tension, it's what causes conflict within and without, it's what causes us stress. Like, if you think about, basically, this is how I'd like to explain it. Most of us are at work and we're thinking about our vacation. So we're not where we are.

• 20:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  And then when we go on vacation, guess what? You're now thinking about the work you have to come to because you've just trained yourself to not be where you are. So even though it entertains your mind when you're at work to think about your vacation, what you've done is you've stolen time away from your vacation. So being present is not something you get to switch on and off. You can't say I'm absent at work and present at home. It doesn't work like that. You're either present at home and present at work, or you're absent at work and absent at home. It bleeds over. And so I think practicing presence as a core aspect of mental health is huge. I know it's not techie and it's not geeky, but it's, but to me, it's, it's simple and it's easy and anyone can do it.

• 20:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Another marker that I like for checking in with how you feel today is asking yourself whether today is going to be an efficient day or an effective day. And what I mean by that is, an efficient day is where you got a lot of things done, but they were all little things. Got the laundry done, did the dishes, cleaned it, sent a bunch of emails, made a bunch of phone calls, went to all the meetings, check, check, check. I had a really efficient day.

• 21:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  An effective day is I got the one thing done today that I needed to do. I handed in that project that was late at work. I made sure that I took my partner out on their birthday. I made sure that I recorded the podcast that I needed to do or finished that chapter in my book. It was an effective day. I think often we don't ask ourselves this question and what we end up doing is we're chasing the day. We're just living the day that comes. If you check in with yourself and you say to yourself, Is today an efficient day or an effective day? At the end of the day, you'll also be more satisfied.

• 22:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Cause you look back and say, I did the most important thing today because I wanted it to be an effective day. Or today was the day I got all the chores done, all the stuff I don't like doing, and it was an efficient day.

• 22:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  And that way you feel satisfaction. So I check in that way. And a third check in, that's probably my, one of my favorite ones is what's the one thing I'm going to do for myself today?

• 22:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  It's so simple to see how you feel because what you're saying is I'm trusting my body and mind to tell me what I need today. And I think this is me and Radhi have been talking about this a lot. My wife, Radhi and I talk about this a lot of, we actually know what we need. But because we're not connected, we're too outside of our bodies, we actually don't listen carefully enough to how we feel, what we need. And I'll sit there and I'll be like, okay, well, what do I actually need today? Now, this, this changes slightly because I think if we're not living a healthier life, often what we feel we need isn't good for us. Like I feel like I want a chocolate bar every day, right? That's, that's me because I love sugar and I know sugar is not great for me. So, so that's work that's taken.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  So what I look at is, I always try to remind people that whatever's good for you will be hard in the beginning and easy at the end.

• 23:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  And whatever's bad for you will generally feel easier in the beginning and hard at the end.

• 23:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  And so I've trained myself to remember to check in with myself and say, every time I come back from a workout, I tell Radhi, I say, remind me how good I felt.

• 23:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Remind me how good I feel after a workout. Remember, remind me how good I feel after I eat a salad bowl with quinoa and proteins. Then I do versus when I just ate a pizza. Remind me how good I feel. And so I find that to be a great way of checking in with what you need. Because now you can remind yourself of how you felt after doing something good and now you can practice it again. Those are just something to get started.

• 23:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Those are awesome check ins. I particularly like the one about effective versus efficient day. And I find myself, you know, when I have an efficient day, I'm mad at myself for not being effective and vice versa.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 24:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it creates a lot of stress throughout the day, too. So I think even just even maybe deciding at the beginning of the day, today I'm gonna get one big thing done versus all the little things is also helpful.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  It's huge. I think you have to start your week that way. I sometimes look at a week and say, is this an efficient week? Or an effective week? Is this an efficient month or an effective month? And I think when you get that intentional, you save yourself that future stress.

• 24:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Which comes from just trying to play catch up and figure it out as it goes along.

• 24:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, that also brings up for me the topic of stress, which I know you have a lot of great advice around. And all of us are stressed. It's just part of life right now is to say, you know, I'm stressed, you know? And and I I almost feel like it's it's so counterproductive to to say that because what's making up that stress is just normal life now, you know? And so I'm just curious how you think about stress. If if I'm a client of yours and I come to you and say, my number one problem is stress, how would you address that with a with a client?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Hmm. Again, it starts with empathy and compassion because you are right. We're just all leading stressful lives. And it feels like everything causes us stress. The need for performing at work, the need for performing at home, the need for being a great friend. I think I'd say a lot of our stress comes from this new modality that we've created, this idea that I've got to be the perfect parent. I've got to be the perfect professional. I've got to be the perfect partner and I've got to be the perfect person. I think there's this feeling that we have that if I'm not being a perfect parent, then I'm failing. But then I have to be the perfect professional at work as well. So that means I'm gonna fail at something.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  And I don't think we're giving ourselves permission to make mistakes and get stuff wrong. And that's where our stress is coming on from. We're trying to hold on to everything and hoping nothing falls. And then what happens? You fall, right? If you think about that, it's like if you don't, if you're carrying a bunch of bags home from the grocery store and you don't put some down sometimes because it gets too heavy, the only things that falls is you if you don't let something drop. And so I think I start with an emotional conversation. About stress, I I start not with tips and tricks and hacks and insights because it's an emotional challenge that most people are, when people talk to me about stress, I think people are asking me for the permission to say, Jay, is it okay if I'm not

• 26:28Speaker 01

  perfect at work today? Like, like, is it okay if maybe I did kind of like didn't get that dad conversation perfectly with my kid? Or maybe, you know, me and my wife could have dealt with that situation better, but maybe we didn't today and it wasn't serious, but maybe I shouldn't be so stressed about it. Like, why am I trying to be perfect? And I think a lot of people today are carrying too much weight. One of the things that I've been really interested by, which is it's it's an old theory, but it it has this concept that I think applies to today. So there's something known as third space theory, and I'm bringing it into how it affects our modern life. Today, we're either at work or at home, or our home is work because we work from home.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  So what's happened is our life has gone from living in three spaces, and I'll explain what those three spaces are, to living in two or one space. So back in the day, most people had three spaces. They had home, they had work, and then they had church.

• 27:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Or they had temple.

• 27:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Or they had a community center, or they had some sort of congregational place.

• 27:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Where you'd come together with community and people, whether it was religious or non-religious. And it was a space where you got to look back at the other two.

• 27:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  So it was a third space that made you make sense of home and work. Maybe that was where you talked about how hard everything was at work. And you didn't have the pressure of, well, why are you not performing at home? Because of, it was hopefully a place of no performance. It was hopefully a place of no need for perfection. Now, I know some, you know, religious places can become that as well, and non-religious can as well, but the idea that you had this place to actually step back on your life. And look, so I always ask people, what's your third space? What's the space that you're creating? Is it the gym for you? Right? Is it games night with the friends on Friday night? Is it the dinners that you throw with your friends? What's that third space, which isn't really work? And isn't really home, that allows you to de-stress.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Because if you're just playing tennis and ping pong between these two places, you get exhausted because every time you're reflecting on work, you're feeling like you're not doing enough at home. And every time you're reflecting at home, you're not doing enough at work. So this third, and we've lost time for that third space. We've lost, we've lost time, but I think when you look at things through, do I have time? You can make bad decisions.

• 28:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Because time in and of itself isn't, like for example, if I think about, do I have time to go and do any of this third space stuff? I don't have time either. Personally, I don't have time. I'm too busy. You probably don't have time either. But I know every time I do the third space stuff, it all of a sudden gives me a new zest for life for the other two areas.

• 29:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  So I was just back in London and we had a gathering with some of my older friends in one of their homes. And we all just hung out and we were talking and these are a bunch of guys that I grew up with. And it was my third space. It was a space where I could completely let go. Didn't have to perform, didn't have to be anyone. Another thing I talk to people about stress, so that one I love because I feel like people aren't talking about that enough. It's, it's, sorry.

• 29:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I just want to say one quick thing about that because it just reminds me, you know, I, I was recently in France and I, we took a drive from the south of France to Paris. And you pass by all these little French towns that are like stuck in history, you know, stuck in medieval times. And what's so obvious in these towns is the church and the steeple. And the entire town looks at that place because it is the highest kind of steeple. So it's the highest building in town as a place to go to for relief from day to day.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Stress and day to day work and day to day family problems. And they look forward to going there on Sundays. And like you said, looking back on the other aspects of life.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And learning something new about how to interact with the world, how to be with God, whatever it might be. And I find like a lot of it has nothing to do with religion. It's more about getting away from the other spaces. And that's, that church had such an important meaning throughout all civilizations, throughout time and history. And like you said, we've lost that.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We've lost that as a space. Like a physical space, as a time space, as even something that exists in our, in our brain, right?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that is so powerful to, everyone should just really think and meditate on what is your third space? How often are you going to visit that third space? How much time are you going to be there? And what are you going to do? What are you going to look at when you're in there? And so for me personally, like I feel like, what is my third space? I don't even know anymore.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we all, we all do.

• 30:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, yeah. What, what is your third space? I'm curious.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  I'd say my third, third space is definitely pickleball. Right now, like I think it's good. And I have a bunch of guys that I only play pickleball with. And it's great. We play a bit of pickleball, then we hang out, talk a little bit, you know, it's, it's great. It's community building. It's active. We're doing something good for our health and wellbeing.

• 31:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  I, I love that. That's been a good third space. For me, I've actually been missing the ability to go to a temple. I've been missing that small community feel that I had in London and I've had in other parts of the world. And so I'm missing that. I'm trying to think about how to recreate it here. So I've been talking to a few friends who are, you know, who like to practice meditation and mindfulness. And I'm thinking, how do we do that outside of our homes? And what does that take? So I'm also trying to rebuild and rediscover, but.

• 31:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Come to the Malibu Temple with me. There's a temple down the street on Las Virginas in Malibu. Absolutely beautiful.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, okay.

• 31:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So quiet. And I just sit there sometimes, like I only get a chance to go once every month. And this is probably my third space. It should be the temple, I think, for me. And you just sit there and no one's around and you just, you know, you're in the presence of God, or it doesn't even matter.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 32:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But it's quiet and you get to reflect. And I take my kids and we just sit there for like 15 minutes and it's game changer.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  That's beautiful. I love that. Especially with the kids. It's so nice for them to have a third space early. What you were saying though about your travels reminded me of, I saw this research that showed how the tallest building in a town or a city shows us what we value as humans. So in the past, the tallest buildings used to be the church. You could see the cross from anywhere, or in India, you would see the chakra from anywhere. You would see a spiritual symbol, whatever that may have been. As time progressed, it became the capital building. It was the state building. That would be the highest in the building. Government became more important than faith. And then today, if you look at any city and you look at the tallest building, it will be business. It will be finance.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  It will be commercial. And so you can see how over time, humans, this research is saying, have gone from valuing faith to valuing state to valuing money.

• 33:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And if you look at how even cities are built, especially those European cities, what's at the center and what's at the highest is what you value. And so I often say to people, think about what's at the center of your home. What's the first thing you see when you walk through the door? And what do you consider to be the highest in your life? And whatever you place as the number one priority, not in your mind, but intentionally in your time. I always say to people, it's like you look at how you spend your money and how you spend your time, and that's what shows you your values, not what we think. Right? We think, like, I may think health is really important. And then when I look at how I spend my time and money, it it can often be the opposite. Or ninety nine percent of people say my family is my number one priority. But then when you look at your time and your money, it may not look like that.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  And so I think looking at what is highest in your life and looking at what is central in your physical space. What's the first thing you see when you wake up? What's the first thing you see when you walk through the door? What's the first thing, what's the last thing you see at night? These things are so important for stress. And I think a lot of us underestimate sight, scent, and sound for how we manage stress. We think of them as quite secondary things. So I look at, one thing I've always loved is Rudi is really good at having diffusers and candles in different rooms. So we have a scent that is work-off scent. What I mean by that is when I finish work and I'm in the kitchen and she's cooking or whatever it may be, that scent tells me and my nervous system to calm down. It's time to switch off from work.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I have a scent by my office table, which is more of an invigorating scent. So I light the candle when I get there, or I have a diffuser on when I get there. And all of a sudden, I'm feeling enthused to work. We underestimate how powerful scent is. There's a reason why you feel calm in a massage studio because of the scent. There's a reason why you feel stressed on busy streets. Because of the scent.

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  So that scent, sound, I looked into this when I lived in New York because I used to feel, when I lived in New York, I used to feel so exhausted by the end of the day. And I remember before I moved there, my friend said to me, he said, Jay, New York is gonna tie you out, it's gonna exhaust you. And I was like, ah, whatever, I'm healthy, I don't care. And I was humbled because it was, by the end of the day, I was out of energy.

• 35:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  And I used to wonder why, I was like, I'm eating right, I'm working out, what's going on? And I was reading again, and I found this research on something known as cognitive load. And it was saying that actually the unnecessary sounds in New York City of traffic, of the pollution sounds, of the roadworks, like every, the ambulance, the sirens, all of this, that, and your brain is trying to make sense of unnecessary sound. So now you're using so much of your brain's background capacity, it's getting exhausted making sense of it. So think about your day, are you working in unnecessary sound? Is there sound that isn't intentionally there? And is there a sound you wanna wake up to? Is there a sound you wanna sleep to? What's that sound going to be that's gonna give you the feeling?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  There's again a reason why music can transport you back to college.

• 36:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Where you can hear a song and you're back there at prom or whatever it was, or you can hear a song and you're back at a birthday party. I feel like we don't use sound enough to heal ourselves. And in our tradition, mantra meditation and the chanting of mantras is sacred sound. That sound is there to create an immersive effect for the mind, body and soul to feel completely submerged. And then you also have the last one, sight. I, I think we underestimate how much looking at beautiful art.

• 36:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  How much being in nature is so powerful for stress. And I encourage more people to look out of windows. I know it sounds so basic, but it's like, if you can look out of a window every hour and just look far into the distance, so much of our life has become so close. All of our life is short sighted nowadays, your laptop, your iPad.

• 36:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Everything is up in your face, FaceTime, Zoom. We actually don't look further than six feet maybe on a daily basis. And because of that, I also think we feel a sense of being claustrophobic. There's a feeling of stress that comes from everything's in my

• 37:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Closed in.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Everything's closed in, everything's in my face. And when you take an opportunity to just look into the sky and spot a bird, spot a cloud, just observe it. Observe the shape, observe the color, observe the texture, observe the movement. I'm not saying this is some spiritual woo woo thing. I'm saying it just to stretch your eyes and give your eyes the ability to be long sighted for a second. All of a sudden, you're going to feel your mind expand as well because your eyes are expanding. What you're taking in is expanding. Whereas if everything's up close, you just feel more and more boxed in. And that creates this tight chestedness, creates this stress. So those are some of the more practical tips and tricks.

• 37:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Those are awesome. I mean, I think we discount the effect of what's going on in the background a lot. Like what you're mentioning, being in New York, all the sounds in the background, what you're maybe looking at all the time and not taking a break from it. Even like having like a beautiful screensaver versus just like something that's just like a pattern or something like those little things make a huge difference, right?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Huge. I love that you said that. I literally take so long on my laptop to select backgrounds.

• 38:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  And now Apple's done these really cool moving backgrounds.

• 38:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love those, yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  They're stunning and I'm just like this, it sounds ridiculous, but I promise you, if you surround yourself with beauty, whether it's digital or not.

• 38:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  There's, there's power to it and, and you can see it affecting people. Like we can't, to be, and there's, you know, I remember years ago when Meta first, as Facebook launched Oculus.

• 38:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  And I worked with Meta back then, they called, they called me in and I got to try on the first Oculus. And I remember being chased by a dinosaur in one of them. And in another one, it was rock climbing. And I remember looking off the edge of a cliff while I was rock climbing and I literally did not want to put my foot over the edge. And then I was looking at the research behind virtual reality and it was talking about how the brain can't actually make sense of the difference between reality and virtual reality.

• 39:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  So when you're looking at it through the goggles and you think you're on the edge of a cliff, even though you know you're standing on a floor at your home, your brain for a second has to think about it.

• 39:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  We've got to use that trickery.

• 39:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  To trick ourselves through.

• 39:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  You may not have the most beautiful view. Have it on your desktop. You may not have the ability to look out of a window and you might just see a building next to you. I remember in New York, that's how it felt, right? You're just surrounded by like blocks and buildings. Find a way to put up a beautiful piece of art to look at. It's a little thing, but it will make a big difference.

• 39:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Big difference, right. You know, it's funny, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Andrew Huberman onstage at the same conference where I interviewed you as well. And he, he talked about our brain having like two spotlights. And we have basically two spotlights that we can hone in for attention. But most of the days, we're just focusing on that one spotlight that's just looking at our laptop. But there's always a secondary spotlight that's, that's in the environment that we subconsciously have, but we forget about consciously. And doing things like the scents and the like the background on your screensaver and eliminating the noise or maybe putting some white noise on or music on, it's so powerful, isn't it?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  So powerful.

• 40:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  So powerful. Essential oils.

• 40:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Essential oils.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Just being able to have a little scent when you're stressed.

• 40:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Finding a scent that calms you down.

• 40:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Like, we all know the feeling of smelling a beautiful flower. We know the idea that when you smell sandalwood or eucalyptus or whatever, you have a reaction to it.

• 40:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  And I think we've got to use all these free, cheap, easy, like, simple. I think sometimes health can get very techie.

• 40:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  And I'm definitely far more of, at least in my personal life, quite like a, a naturalist in that sense.

• 40:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like an analog person.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, I'm an analog person. I'm like, how can I find really simple ways?

• 40:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Forget the analog things.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  The analogs, and the analog is what we are raised by. It's, the analog is us.

• 40:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is us, right.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Is us. Like, we are nature. Like, I think we think of, today we talk about nature and then we talk about us. And it's like, no, we are nature. Like, we're the same thing. Like, we function in the same way as nature. And the closer we spend more time in technology, we will start functioning like technology. And I think that's partly the challenge.

• 41:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That is.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  That we think we have an on and off button.

• 41:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  We think that it's instant to go from cold to hot. So if I'm feeling hot and I can't cool myself down, I panic. You feel stressed. You're like, why is my body not doing that? Because you get so used to playing around with a button. That does everything you want in an instant. And life doesn't work like that. And so we're programming our minds to be more like technology.

• 41:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Whereas if you watch nature, you'll watch the seasons, you'll watch the blooming of a tree, you'll watch the leaves fall. You'll you'll notice how everything has a purpose and a time and an intention that it wasn't bad when the trees withered away in winter. It wasn't like they'll never bloom again.

• 41:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  But, you know, if something breaks technologically, it's out, it's done. Nature doesn't work like that. It takes years for like a tree to say, I'm done. You know, it's like that. That takes years, whereas tech dies every two, three years, you know, and so we're all. So I think we have to, again, I use technology, I love technology, I'm not, I'm not, you know, a technophobe. I I think the point I'm making is that we are analog and until someone sticks a chip in us, we should, we should make the most of it.

• 42:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. I really want to dive into the subject of getting back to nature with you, but I want to give one quick tip as well. You know, one of the things I find is that we end up sitting in front of our laptop for hours and hours, just hyper focused on one thing. And maybe it's getting through all your emails, you know, but really, you really got to break up that that attention. And like you said, look outside, exercise your eyes, look in the distance, open your window, look outside. Get up and walk around to break up that sedentary behavior. So another tip that I give people is buy yourself a little egg timer to put on your desk. Turn it to thirty or forty five, and when it goes off, just get up, move around, go outside, look at something else. There's an app that does this now too, it's called Flow App, if you can download it for your Mac.

• 42:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think it's available for PCs as well, where in forty five minutes, it just turns your screen green. And it says, puts a five minute timer on, so you can get up and move around for five minutes.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so powerful because it just breaks that stress cycle. Because the problem with stress is if you have it for long periods of time, it builds up cortisol. And this turns into a physiologic stress. And so breaking it up is also very.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think if anyone's having, you know, long term stress, it's definitely worth, you know, investing in the coaches, the therapist, the the professional support. Because it's, again, it's something that you would never let happen in your life. Or a swelling that just kept getting bigger.

• 43:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  And you'd go get it checked out, right? And so, and yeah, you're so right about the, I think we think of like, oh, I can shake that off. I can deal with that. I used to be like that at a certain point. And then I realized my body was storing all my stress.

• 43:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  So I was someone who didn't feel stressed mentally, but it all stood. And I think I said this to you the first time I met you, probably. I was like, mentally, I like rarely feel stressed.

• 43:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You said that to me, right?

• 43:56Speaker 01

  But all my stress is held somewhere. It took me years to realize that stress just doesn't disappear if it's not here. It has to go somewhere if it's not cleansed and purified.

• 44:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For sure. It's so, it's so true. And people need to bring that more to their forefront of their consciousness. If you're experiencing chronic stress, if all these tips and techniques we're giving you, these little hacks and things don't work, it's definitely time to seek out some professional advice on that front. The conversation I had at dinner last night with a few incredible people that you know as well, was about getting back to nature. We've disconnected ourselves so far from nature that, I mean, there's times a lot of people don't even step foot outside, especially in this work from home environment. You know, we're doing all these hacks to simulate nature, getting in the sauna to simulate sunlight exposure, getting in cryotherapy to simulate like, you know, cold exposure and heat and temperature changes.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  And I love all of that.

• 44:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love all of it too. It's great and it's fun. And, you know, I, I do it once a week as well, you know? But really, you know, some, how can you bring to the forefront of people's consciousness, how disconnected we are from nature and what are some tools to get back into this?

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's tough. I think so many of us are living in cities. You know, we're lucky, LA has so much nature accessible. It's rare though, it's, you might have, you might live in a city where the weather's terrible all the time.

• 45:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, you know, it's hard to get out. Speak to the New Yorker, how do they get back to nature? It's so easy for us to say, right?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so easy. And that's why I empathize again because of friends who live in London. It's the same thing. It's like, there's beautiful parks in and around London, but the weather's not always great. So you're gonna get out and, you know, go in the rain constantly and it may not be comfortable. And so I think we have to, again, all of these conversations I approach through, you know, unlimited empathy. Because I, I think shame and guilt and force and all of this kind of, sometimes it can get you off your backside. Like, it's, it's great as a Starting point, but it isn't sustainable. And I think constant shaming yourself, constant guilting yourself, constant pressurizing yourself, actually creates more stress. And I think sometimes trying to become more healthy can become the most stressful thing in the world. Because you're doing it from this place of, I'm not doing enough. Oh no, we messed it up.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  And I, and I think as soon as you feel those thoughts come up, you'll feel like your stress levels just going through the roof. So how do you get out in nature? I think realistically, I think if everyone could find a way to spend, and this is a starting point, not an end point. If you could pick one day on the weekend or when you have a break, and you find one hour to spend time in nature. It could be a long walk in a park, it could be a local hike. It could be the ability to just spend time in a local area that just has greenery wherever. If you really struggle, it doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be beautiful. It's just being in nature and having the ability in that space to really immerse yourself in it.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Because I think for most of us, the biggest challenge is actually mindset. And what I mean by that is you'll only build up a habit if you feel the immense benefits of something. So I think when you see, when you hear us say, hey, you should spend more time in nature. It's like, okay, another thing to check off my health checklist. And I would prefer someone to spend an hour a week and take in that time in nature. Forest bath as it's known. Right. Give yourself an ability, maybe take your shoes off, walk barefoot on the grass. Have the ability to touch leaves, plants. One of my favorite activities to do with clients of mine is asking them to discover something new in a wood. Be a kid again, be childlike again. And all of a sudden, being in nature now isn't just another thing on your checklist.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  It's an experience that you take home with you and you go, I think I want to do that again. And try and be in nature without anything. Like I think also we have the tendency today to be like, okay, I'll be in nature and I'll, you know, listen or read. And sure, if you need that to give you company and you're uncomfortable being alone, in the beginning, it's okay. But if you can truly just be there with no digital device, no physical device, and just truly walk, be, feel your feet every step. Breathe and feel the natural air, hopefully the clean air. Take a moment to feel the textures around you. I think you want it again, and I think that's the key. It's you've got to trick your mind into wanting good things again.

• 48:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Because if you're just forcing yourself to go there and you're trying to check it off. I did my 10 minutes today. You actually haven't changed your habit.

• 48:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  You've just created an unsustainable thing that won't last. So we've got to trick our minds and go, actually, I love that. I want to go back again. And so my advice would be instead of trying to do 10 minutes a day because you're like, Jay, where am I going to get that? Try and get that one hour a week and make it so beautiful that you're like, I probably want to do 10 minutes a day.

• 48:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's such powerful. I think it's like, you know, I think when you're living in a city, I lived in Kansas City for a long time going to medical school. And, you know, you just kind of discount nature as being part of your life anymore. You're just going to just say, you know, I'm living here. This is what I'm meant to do. And, and you forget that being out in nature is so powerful. Um, I mean, there's even chemicals that come from trees that affect how we feel and our stress levels that can only be made by a live tree. And, and these are almost like pheromones that come into our, uh, come into our biology. Anyway, this connection to nature, we forget it's necessary. And I, I agree with you. It's just even an hour a week is makes such a massive difference.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  And making it fun, I think that's the point. And make it childlike.

• 49:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  I, I think there's a discovery. I think there's, there's, there's ways of making it less clinical. I think a lot of healthcare and taking care of yourself becomes very clinical and functional.

• 49:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of it needs to become more playful and free to really make it powerful and useful for us because that's what we're all looking for, right? We're looking for a place where you're free. And I think being in nature is somewhere where everything is free. Like there's no rules in nature that like a bug's not like walking a certain path. It's not like, oh, this is the grid structure in New York. I'm going to stick on this little path and go back and forth. Or it's not like, oh, the traffic goes clockwise or anti-clockwise in the forest. There is no, like, so it allows you to also break free. I think the creativity that you're exposed to, the ability to break free from all of these boundaries that city life sets.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Sets up. I think it can be amazing for that as well. And so the more playful, the more fun, the more exploratory you can do. Uh, your time in a time in the woods, time in the forest, time in the beach, whatever it may be. It's huge.

• 50:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. I love that. Gee, I want to talk to you about another topic that you're an expert at. One of the things I listen to every morning is my, my minute with Jay and my five minutes with Jay.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 50:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On the calm app, yeah. It's, it's so, it's such a game changer because you not, it's not only a meditation, it's also, I learn something new every day. So I thank you so much for putting that out into the world. It's, it's, I know it's a game changer for me and for many people. But I think a lot of people struggle with the concept of meditation. I, I think, you know, there's so much research showing how beneficial it is for brain health. And I try to encourage patients to look into it, to try to make this a part of their routine in life. And, you know, this is your expertise for sure. And I would love to get a few pieces of advice from you. First of all, what do people get wrong when they're looking to get into meditation?

• 51:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And how can someone, you know, with empathy for themselves, start aiming for this being a part of their life?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Uh huh. The biggest mistake we make when it comes to meditation is we think we have to empty our mind. At some point, I don't know where it was, I need to look at it, but there was some point in time. And it was definitely propagated by the West, but that meditation was this idea that you didn't think about anything.

• 51:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  And that you had an empty mind.

• 51:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And that's a really attractive concept. Like I get why people would want an empty mind because you're constantly thinking your mind's too full. That's what stress is. Oh gosh, I gotta do this thing. I gotta do that thing. I gotta do another thing. So the concept of an empty mind is great marketing. But it's just not real.

• 51:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think it is marketing because it's the opposite of stress.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 51:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So people think like, this is what I need to do.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  This is what I need to do. And then the problem becomes, okay, so we're going to tell you, if you do this, you'll have an empty mind. You do whatever it is, right? Because an empty mind feels like complete bliss.

• 52:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  When your mind is so preoccupied.

• 52:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  I still don't know any real meditation path that has, and all meditation that we do. Today has existed for thousands of years. I don't know a meditation technique that either truly promises or trains people in having an empty mind.

• 52:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  All meditation practices, and I'll talk about different ones. All methods are about one pointed attention. It's the one pointed attention and the immersiveness in that one pointed attention that leads to the calmness and stillness that we see. It's almost like being submerged. If you ever heard a repetitive hum.

• 52:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Or you've heard the kind of sounds that they'll play in a spa. Where you just have that repetitive drone like sound and all of a sudden you feel completely submerged. Your mind isn't off. You drew your mind to one pointed attention. Today we talk a lot about breathwork.

• 53:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  You know, Wim Hof's done brilliant work to propagate Patanjali's breathwork across the world. And what is it? It's one pointed attention on the breath.

• 53:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  You're feeling the breath in through your nostrils. You're feeling the breath release. So your mind may empty, maybe, but really it's one pointed attention.

• 53:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  I talked about the flame earlier, one pointed attention. In Indian tradition, eating food is a meditation. Because you're tasting every flavor, you're feeling every texture because you're present. Again, it's one pointed attention. If you look at visualization, it's one pointed attention. You're visualizing something within your mind. If you look at mantra meditation or sound meditation or sound bowl, sound healing that a lot of people do at yoga studios these days, it's one pointed attention. There's no, I've just named most prominent meditation techniques. They're all one pointed attention. So if anyone tells you to sit there, and I don't think anyone's telling you this anymore, but I think we walk into meditation going, I can't wait for my mind to be empty. And then our mind isn't empty. And so the first thing we get wrong is wanting an empty mind,

• 54:03Speaker 01

  expecting an empty mind, or believing we're going to empty our minds. So the second mistake that we make when it comes to meditation is we immediately when you get, you assume that if you're meditating well, you'll never get distracted. So you assume that if I'm locked in, there'll be no distraction and that. Every time I get distracted, I've done something wrong. Now, that's not the case because the art of meditation is simply awareness. So if you notice yourself being distracted from your breath, from a flame, from a mantra, from a sound, that's the perfection of meditation. And bringing it back is the ultimate perfection.

• 54:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  So meditation isn't the art of I don't get distracted. Meditation is the art of I'm aware that I got distracted. If you think about driving, when you're driving, do you get distracted? Be honest, we all do. You get distracted by some billboard, you get distracted by if someone calls you. You get distracted if your messages are going off. You get distracted by someone sitting next to you. We get distracted all the time.

• 55:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Now, if you said, I'm never gonna get distracted when I'm driving, I think that'd be pretty impossible.

• 55:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  And if we're all honest with ourselves, I think all of us get distracted, whether it's a beautiful bird or whatever, like anything, right? But the art of being a good driver is simply becoming aware that you got distracted, getting two hands back on the wheel and making sure you're driving in a safe way for yourself, your passengers and other people on the street. That's the art of meditation. So believing that meditation is that I never get distracted, I never feel like I lose awareness. You'll never get there.

• 55:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  I've been meditating, you know, daily, two hours a day for nineteen years now.

• 55:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  And I still get distracted.

• 55:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh huh.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  But the distraction is not a lack of attention if you notice it.

• 55:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  And so the quicker you notice it, you bring it back. So I'd say those are two big mistakes.

• 55:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And those are so important because I feel like people try meditating, but then they feel that if they're getting distracted or their mind is not empty, they just feel like I'm just not good at this and I can't do this and they give up so easily.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 56:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So those are such important points.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and and I think they're the simplest points, but they are the core of why people quit.

• 56:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  It didn't work for me because I was distracted, my mind wasn't empty, I didn't know what I was doing. And so we should talk about that too. I think another mistake is how do you know if you're doing it right?

• 56:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Because I think that a lot of people are like, okay, Jay, if I meditate, but then I got distracted, did I come back? How do how do I know I'm doing it right? And first of all, I'd say that there is no right or wrong. Turning up is the right path because chances are there's nothing else in your day that is letting you switch off in this way. There's nothing. So even if you tuned in and you don't remember anything in a meditation, you didn't really lock in whatever, it was probably the only stillness your mind actually had today. Even if your mind was active, it was probably more still than the rest of the day. So that level of just decompression is is huge. The second thing I'd say is you know you're getting better at meditation, the quicker you are at spotting your distractions and the quicker you are at coming back to what you initially focused on.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  So in the beginning, when I used to meditate and I'd feel like there was pain in my knee, all of my dialogue would be like, oh, there's pain in my knee. Why am I doing this? I wish I wasn't doing this. And maybe I'd let that last for like 10 minutes. And then I'd be like, oh, wait, I was meditating. And now if I feel a pain in my knee, I'm like, okay, there's pain in my knee. Can I sit here for for a second or do I need to stand up? Okay, stand up and meditate for the rest of the time. It's it's solved, it's moved on, we've got somewhere. And so you're aware of your distraction, you're bringing it back quicker. That's how you know you're getting better. Another way of knowing you're getting better is there's, I mean, these are, these are like getting into higher states, but there is a sense of feeling of an immersion, feeling submerged, feeling like you lose a sense of your physical self.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  And I would say that that is beautiful when it comes, but it's not something you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to achieve that, you're not going to get there because now you've lost track of attention. If you're trying to achieve, you're now no longer attentive. And I think, again, all of these promise statements of these amazing states actually make us lose out on the basics, which is just be present with your point of attention, whether it's breath, whether it's a visualization, or whether it's a sound.

• 58:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Just be present with it and keep coming back to that sound.

• 58:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. No, that's such great advice. And I think on the the last thing where you said, you know, this kind of grand promise of transcending into this, into this other realm or something, that's something that could be achieved potentially when you become an expert after years of practice, or maybe not. But really, that's not the point of meditation, right? The point of meditation is really the stillness that you You feel for even ten minutes a day has massive benefits, both to your stress levels, but also to your just overall mental wellbeing. We know it's also preventative for a lot of neurocognitive diseases. And so that's why for me, it's it's I constantly harp on this with patients. I give it another try, give it another try. And I think those three pieces of advice, I'm going to incorporate that into all my all my.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  I love it. I love it. Yeah. And I'd also add one more thing, just this idea of don't expect to feel good after you first start meditating. Yeah. In the beginning, it's going to feel like wrestling.

• 59:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  You're wrestling with your mind. There's going to be a bit of push and pull. There's going to be this feeling of God, I keep trying to pull my mind back. And then what you start recognizing is you want to pull your mind back more gracefully. So now it becomes a request, not a demand. It becomes a sincere pledge rather than a pull. I think we have this feeling like if you've ever seen, you know, parents trying to like pull their kid a certain way. And the kid's pulling the other way. Your mind is a child.

• 59:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  And you've got to talk to it with grace and understanding. And I think we have this, oh, just going to push this this way. And that that aggression doesn't help. It it doesn't solve it. That's just false willpower that doesn't break anything. It's the gracefulness. I, when I was a monk, the mind was always defined like a monkey. So it's called the monk mind and the monkey mind. And the reason why it's defined as a monkey, if you've ever seen a monkey in India, and for those who have not been to India, I'll explain. Monkeys are the funniest, silliest, most playful creatures. They will steal your sunglasses to trade it back for a banana. They'll rip the bottom of your bag to steal an apple. They're so funny and they they can be quite combative if you get into it with them.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  They'll show their teeth, they can be vicious in a funny way, in a cute way. And sometimes, I mean, they'll they'll bite you for sure, so be careful. But the reason why the mind was described like a monkey was because we have to see it that way. We have to see it as playful and silly. And often we see our mind as like a petulant child that we're like trying to discipline and doesn't listen to us. And we're trying to treat it that way. And all that's creating is more anger and resentment inside of us. And it's creating more friction with the mind.

• 1:00:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Was when you go, oh, that's my silly mind again. It just went and jumped on another branch and another tree. Oh, that's my silly mind again. Let me just, let me just bring it back. It's okay.

• 1:01:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  It's okay. Let me, let me learn to give myself grace and compassion and love and let me, let me allow myself to be kinder to myself. That mind will just melt and that's when it, that's when it gets comfortable and easy and still.

• 1:01:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's, I love that. And then, you know, I always think about, by the way, the monkeys in India.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Have you ever been to that monkey island outside of Mumbai?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I have not. Which one? Which one is it?

• 1:01:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's incredible. You take a boat from, from Mumbai, basically where the, where the archway is, the gateway to India.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:01:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And there's boats there. They'll take you through the dense, you know, smog of Mumbai. To this island that just like opens up outside of Mumbai and there's millions of monkeys there.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 1:01:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And these, all these caves that are carved into the cave. There's, there's all these gods and, and figures.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. I do know what you're talking about. Yes, yes, yes, of course.

• 1:01:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's incredible.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  What's it called? There's, I, yes.

• 1:01:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Elephant Island.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Elephant Island. Yeah, but, oh, sorry, of course I've been there. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:02:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that's why, I, I, when you were talking about monkeys, I remember the monkeys there. And you're right, they're like all around you playing and running and. You have no idea like.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  I haven't been there for a while, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

• 1:02:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's a great spot.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a great spot.

• 1:02:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's kind of a magical spot because you're in a boat and all of a sudden you end up there. There's like monkeys and carvings and everything for.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Anyone that goes to Mumbai, check it out for sure. Elephant Island. I want to talk to you. God, I feel like I could talk to you forever and I, I only have you for a couple of hours. I could just talk to you for.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 1:02:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  A millennia, I think. But I want to, I have a few questions for you about more specific things. Community. I think about community a lot. And I think about community for different people because, you know, right now I feel like there's this trend for people to have less of a physical community and more of a digital community, right? We see it with social media. We see it with a lot of people gaming a lot. And then, you know, while they're gaming, they're meeting people and these become their friends, you know, making quotes. And so I worry about the change in. The definition of community. And I would love to get your thoughts around this.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's two things to look at. The first is, let's, let's talk about digital and physical first. I, I crave physical community.

• 1:03:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, me too.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  But I saw the value of digital community during the pandemic. And so the reason I talk about that is, I was, uh, Joe Jonas has talked about this. I was working with him at the time and we were, he'd asked me if I would lead a weekly meditation session for him and his friends during the pandemic digitally. Now, we'd never met at the time, but we'd connected during that time. And him and twenty five to thirty of his friends would get together on Zoom every week. And I would lead a meditation and then we'd discuss our reflections and experiences and emotions. I'm not kidding you, Darshan. After, we did that for seventy five weeks.

• 1:03:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Seventy five weeks.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  And I could be wrong. It might have been longer actually, but I think, no, seventy five weeks. I'm pretty sure. We did it for seventy five weeks. We didn't miss one. Whoever came, came. Sometimes it was eight people, sometimes it was thirty. I'm not kidding you. I feel so deeply connected to those people. And when I met some of them in person, I still haven't met all of them. But when I met a lot of them in person after the pandemic, I felt like they were my deepest friends. And what that showed me was that it wasn't, it's what we did together. It's why we came together. That was community. And I think there's a lot of people today who feel surrounded by people, but feel alone. There's a lot of people who feel like they're in a crowd, but then no one understands them.

• 1:04:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like they're in a physical community, but they're still feel alone, right?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  A lot of people, a lot of couples will hide at couples dinners.

• 1:04:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Like couples can be going through so much pain and stress. I found this for research for my last book, Eight Rules of Love. That couples would choose to go out on multiple couples' date nights because it would allow them to hide what they were going through. And no one would ever know because from the outside, when there's that many people, no one has a clue. So people can be physically surrounded by so many people and not feel fulfilled. People can be digitally connected to so many people and not feel fulfilled. But what's at the core of it, at the core of it's Does my community make me feel seen? Does my community make me feel heard? And does my community make me feel understood? And I would add, do I choose to make people feel seen? Do I choose to make people feel heard?

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  And do I choose to understand people? I think it has to be both ways. I think it's really easy to look at the people around you and think, well, they never asked me about me. When was the last time you asked someone about them? Right. It's really easy to be like, oh, no one understands me. I'm going through so much. When was the last time you tried to understand them? And community is two ways. So what I would say is it's what you do and how you come together and why you come together. That actually has a deeper impact. We were a bunch of strangers. The only thing we had in common was Joe Jonas. We didn't have anyone else in common. We were all strangers, as in people were strangers to me and they were strangers to each other, some of them. But everyone feels a deep bond and a deep connection because we came together and we opened our hearts. Everyone was equal. I would lead a meditation, but everyone was equal in their opinion.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  And and everyone had a space to share and everyone listened to whoever wanted to speak. So I would say whether it's digital or whether it's physical, it still depends on what you do with it. Yeah. Because it could be physical, but hey, you're coming together and everyone's just watching the game and there's a bunch of people having a thing and sure, that's great. That's better than nothing, but it needs to go beyond that. It's like, are you creating space for that? And so I often think about this idea of have you found belonging? Or are you simply trying to fit in? Right. And I think a lot of us confuse the two. A lot of us are trying to like wear the right thing to be in the crowd. We're making sure that we talk about the right stuff. Oh yeah, do we all know about crypto and AI and whatever it is, like just to feel like we belong at the table.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  But that's not belonging, that's fitting in. That's that's not what you're looking for. You could go to a table of monks and feel like you don't know enough about meditation. They wouldn't make you feel that way, but or you could go to a table that's all about AI and be like, I don't know enough about AI. I should learn more AI. Or you go to a table and you're with a bunch of health experts like yourself and your friends and you go, oh gosh, I know nothing about gut microbiome. And you constantly feel insecure at whatever table you're at. Yeah. But that's not belonging, that's fitting in. And so I'm encouraging. People to really search for belonging. Where's a place where you can truly share your heart? And you give space to others to share theirs. That's what you're searching for. And again, it goes back to our third space point. That's often a third space.

• 1:07:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  It's it's not really in the circles you're already at. But you should develop this at work. I always say to people like, I looked at this, the statistics a couple of weeks ago. It said, the average person will work three thousand five hundred and fifteen days in their life. We work around one thousand seven hundred and ninety five hours per year.

• 1:08:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  And that's roughly ninety thousand hours across a lifetime.

• 1:08:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  You should have healthy relationships at work.

• 1:08:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You should try to create a space of belonging at work.

• 1:08:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  It's not good enough for you to say for your own health and wellbeing. It doesn't matter about work, I'll find it at home. That's great, but don't lose out on developing it at work. And in any space that you spend ninety thousand hours of your lifetime.

• 1:08:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  So with belonging for me, whether it's physical or digital, I think we're so far gone.

• 1:08:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  That we can't tell people that digital community won't work.

• 1:08:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  But it's what you do and why you do it and how you come together. That will change the depth of that relationship.

• 1:08:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It it's so interesting you say this because I think people that grew up kind of in my generation, where digital community wasn't really a thing. And now you see people on their phones, interacting with their friends constantly. We think there's something inherently not natural about that, right? However, I had a conversation last night where in a high school in California, someone, a tragic death had happened, right? And digitally, the entire high school came together and were texting and supporting each other through this. And it was just a mode of communication rather than anything like being addicted to their phones. They were they're communicating and that's how they came even closer as a community.

• 1:09:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I think, like you said, the digital is just a tool to create new communities.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Bigger communities, but it's all about how you're interacting with that community that. Really makes a difference and having that perspective shift can be very empowering.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Correct. It goes back to what we talked about earlier. What is the highest thing in that community? And what's the central thing in that community? Just like when we built cities that were good for people. We thought about what's the highest building and what's the central building.

• 1:09:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  And so when you build community, ask yourself the same question. What's the highest thing here and what's the central thing? So for these kids, the highest thing was love for their fellow friends who'd gone through this tragic and traumatic event. And the central thing was let's all come together.

• 1:10:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  And they did that through tech. I think we we definitely don't realize that tech is just amplifying everything that we are already thinking and feeling. Social media didn't make us more anything. It just accelerated it, exposed us and showed us who we really are.

• 1:10:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  And we also have to realize that hate and negativity and that kind of stuff is generally louder.

• 1:10:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  On platforms. Like I always say to people, if you have a good experience, how many people do you tell? If you have a bad experience, how many people do you tell?

• 1:10:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Right? If it was a bad journey on the way getting here today, I might have told of my journey. If it's a good journey, I don't even say anything. Right? If if you had a good review to leave, you may or may not leave it. If you had a bad review to leave, you're definitely gonna leave it.

• 1:10:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That comes down to like our primitive wiring, right? We're made to focus in on things that will kill us, things that will harm us. And if the things that don't harm us or kill us, our brain does not focus on them because our brain is wired to survive.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? And that is amplified, like you said, in social media, on the news, in ways people communicate.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's just the way we're wired.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Totally. It's the way we're wired. But we have to rewire that.

• 1:11:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  We have to rewire that. This isn't about positive thinking or only focusing on the good stuff. It's when you have good experiences, tell those stories.

• 1:11:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  Right? When you have a good exchange, tell those stories. And I think when you're having a good experience, tell it on social media, to share it. And I think we're not gonna be able to, we we're too far gone to reverse whether people will build digital communities. And we've got to stop kind of, it's it's such an age old thing, but we always do it with the next generation. You realize you're old when there's a habit you don't understand. Like that's where you have. To remind yourself, it's like, if you don't understand how someone's communicating, it's because you're getting older and disconnected. And so you either learn that this is the new way things are done, or you just keep living in this nostalgia of, oh, it was so much better when we were young and we were so lucky. And, and by the way, there's great research. I mean, I introduced, interviewed Jonathan Haidt, and he had a great book called The Anxious Generation.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  And I love the work he's doing to try and keep kids off social media and phones up until fourteen or sixteen. I think those things as a starting point, I'm actually a big fan of that.

• 1:12:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Because I think it helps them develop other skills and it allows their brain to develop to a point where they can be better with the other harmful effects of technology. So I actually am a proponent of that. But I think with the people who already have access to it, I think we should encourage them, we should be teaching them how to make it meaningful and thoughtful and powerful, as opposed to trying to get them off it.

• 1:12:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, absolutely. There's no reversing in now. And it's so funny, because even now, like with this advent of artificial intelligence, right? There's so much talk about how this is going to potentially take over and damage humanity somehow. But if you talk to a kid about it, like my son, he's ten years old, and I have him use all the AI things out there. He's like, I don't see what the big deal is. It's just a tool. Like, I mean, just, you know, I'm asking you questions, it's giving me answers, it's helping me think about things, it's helping me create like, you know, a new paragraph or something that I'm going to think about and edit myself, because I'm not going to use that.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, I think, I think it's, and like, you can use AI to cheat on writing essays, but then that's just amplifying your, the behavior of that human to naturally want to just take a shortcut, right?

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:13:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so it's really, these are all just tools that humans develop that amplify our natural tendencies. And like you said, there's not, you can't put this back in the bag, right? It's the cat's out of the bag.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Totally. And that's, and that's why I feel that like, the real need right now is morals and character and education. Like my, I always say this, like, people always ask me, like, do you think AI will ever have a soul? And my response is always, I hope the people making and using and building AI have a soul. Because that's really what we don't understand. If there's anything we're scared of in new technology is because it exists in humanity. Robots and tech and AI is not going to do anything that we wouldn't think of doing. And it will do it better than us and it will do it faster than us and it will do it worse than us or better than us.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Depending on what we tune in from ourself. And so I think that intentionality and the training of character and the training of why and how we create things, if that's coming from a purer, more sacred, more sincere place, that will benefit humanity and people will use things for what they can do. But if we're not giving that, which I don't think we are, I don't think there's any conversation around that. There's in the worlds that it matters in, like, there's no conversation around how do you help AI have good character?

• 1:14:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Like, that's the conversation. Like, we're not having conversations about how do you encourage AI to have healthy morals? And healthy habits and attributes that doesn't train us to be worse or seek more negativity. Because we still are just trying to make the next new coolest thing that makes the most money and, you know, expands this and expands that or whatever. But that's the question we need to be asking is,

• 1:15:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  how do we make it so that it doesn't hurt us?

• 1:15:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Right? Like, you're gonna make something, it's gonna hurt you naturally. Like, when they, you know, my monk teachers would always say, when they invented the knife, some doctors would use a knife to save someone's life and someone would use a knife to take someone's life.

• 1:15:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Such, such a good point.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  It can do both. And so it's just a tool.

• 1:15:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  But the person who made it, hopefully made it with the intention that you would use it in a medical sense.

• 1:15:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  But then what about the person who made it in a harmful sense? So, but it was a tool and there's different types of knives and there's all different sets that can be used for different things. But how do we train people to say, use this for good?

• 1:15:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Use this to change the world. Use this to benefit humanity. Use this to serve your communities. Use this to make your family's life better. But don't use it to hurt other people.

• 1:15:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. So, so, so true. It's, it's, at the end of the day, it's in the hands of humanity with what happens with all the tools that we make. It's such, it's so powerful. And I think we have to hold each other to a higher standard on making these tools and having the conversations as well.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Gee, I want to ask you a little bit about you. You know, I, I know you so well and, but I learn something new about you every time I read about you.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  I'm intrigued.

• 1:16:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or, or someone speaks about you and I'm. Always been curious, you know, you you grew up in London, right? And then you decided to go to monk school, basically, I call him monk school. You decided to go to a monastery and and learn the ways of the monks. And you, obviously, you learned a tremendous amount that you are now sharing your wisdom with with all of us, thankfully. What was that moment in time where you decided like, I'm here in school, I've learned all of these things. I'm gonna step back out into the world and become a digital creator. And I remember your original posts were all on Facebook, right? It was Facebook where you first started and from your very first thing I saw, I was like, I gotta follow this guy. And if it wouldn't come up on my feed, I would just like look for you and and so this was years, what was like?

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Eight years ago.

• 1:16:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Eight years ago. Seems like even longer ago, but what was that moment that brought you back out into, you know, the the world of spreading your message?

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, they weren't connected feelings. There was like, I think leaving being a monk was the hardest thing I'd gone through at that time.

• 1:17:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really?

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  Because it was my dream ever since I'd kind of made that decision while I was at college and when I graduated. And I've always described it as feeling like a divorce. Like it, it felt like my first love and it felt like it didn't work.

• 1:17:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  And so I would always describe it as probably one of the most worst thing I'd been through at that time because I was like, God, I didn't make it. What's my family gonna say? What are my friends gonna say? It was the first time I was having that experience of other people's opinions really matter about me. Because when I left, it's really interesting, I I talk about this because I think people see it differently now. But when I chose to become a monk, most of my friends thought it was the worst decision ever. Like, it wasn't like a, oh, this is really cool. It was random. It was like, why are you becoming a monk? Like, why are you giving up your education? My family, an extended family, imagine an Indian family was like, you're letting your parents down. You've wasted all of your investment in your education, like, you're never gonna get a job. What about your future?

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  So it came with a lot of negativity. So I left not to a fanfare of this is the best decision of your life. I left to like, you're making the biggest mistake. And now, three years on, when I was leaving, I was like, gosh, I just proved them all right. So there was this pressure in me of like, hmm, maybe they were right. And so when I came back, it wasn't about wanting, I didn't even imagine where I was gonna go. I kind of came back and was just like, what am I even gonna do with my life? Like, that was it. I would say I went through like months of depression.

• 1:18:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, so there was a time period between leaving.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Oh, there's, there's three years between me leaving the monastery and my first video coming out.

• 1:18:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  So there's three years.

• 1:18:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Something new every time.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Yes, it's just figuring, it was like, it took, because I came out in twenty thirteen.

• 1:18:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  And I literally applied because I was moved back in with my parents.

• 1:18:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Because I had no money to pay for anything.

• 1:18:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  So I moved back in with my parents, staying in their loft. And I was like, I need to get out of here because I'm twenty five going on twenty six, something like that. And I was like, I need to figure it out. And I applied to all these jobs that would have given me a job. I'm a first class honors degree student, did really well at school. And forty companies rejected me before an interview because they were like, well, you haven't worked for three years. Like, why are we gonna give you a job? So it took me like ten months to get a job when I left. And finally, I got a job at Accenture.

• 1:19:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  And I'm so grateful to that company for giving me a shot. But I say all of that to make the point of when I left, it was a down depressive time. It wasn't a, sorry, it wasn't a time of like, oh, I can't wait to do something with this.

• 1:19:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  And then what I started to do was, and I used to do this before too, before I became a monk, when I was learning from the monks. But I started to just teach locally. So I had an event in London called Conscious Living. And I'd rent out a little space and we'd serve food and people would come and maybe five people would show up, maybe ten people would show up. And I loved it. I was like, this is the dream. I've, I'm paying the bills and I'm getting to do what I love. And so I was happy doing events for years for five to ten people showing up, just to sit and listen to people's problems. It's kind of what you just told me earlier when I was saying that you were so great on my podcast when you came on earlier this year. And you were saying, you know, you've spent times with thousands of patients.

• 1:20:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  So I kind of spent.

• 1:20:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's what it was.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Thousands of hours with so many people, just dealing with one on one issues and challenges and hearing people's problems and staying with them for like three, four hours. And just after the talk and presentation that I'd prepare for, there was no money, no followers, no, you know, none of that. And I got to a point where my confidence started to build in what I was doing because at Accenture, I, they learned that about my background. And so they asked me to teach meditation and mindfulness at Accenture. So I would travel around the company teaching and my confidence built that I had something of value. So it took me years to realize that even what I'd learned had value in the modern world. So in twenty fourteen, I was invited by my director at Accenture to lead a stage session in front of a thousand of my colleagues.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  And no one knows who I am. I don't have a brand. I don't, it's like, who's this guy? He's just one of us, like, you know. And so I went on stage and I was asked to speak about my role and then I also was asked to lead a meditation. And I was so scared because I was going up in between our company UK CEO and Will Greenwood, who won the Rugby World Cup with England. So it's like going up between a Super Bowl winner and the UK CEO of the company. And I'm thinking, I'm just like, what am I gonna do? And so I practiced my breath work, practiced my mindfulness and my meditation before I went on, put in a little prayer. And I went on stage and I, and I taught what I knew. And my director told me afterwards, they were like, we've never heard a group of young people be that silent and that still ever.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Like, that was amazing. And then they allowed me to go across the whole company and travel and teach meditation and mindfulness on top of my day job. So my confidence grew over those couple of years. And then I got to a point where I was like, I think this has value for the real world. Like, I think this needs to reach beyond a meeting room, a company room, a boardroom, a company event. It needs to get further. And so that's, I say all of that to tell people, like, you never come out and have a plan and have a vision. It doesn't work like that. It's years of self doubt and confidence building and feeling like you're not good enough and figuring it out and then having confidence and, you know, luckily I finally put out a video in twenty sixteen, but it was a long journey to get there. And, and I just, I don't want anyone to ever feel that,

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  you know, there's, you know, all the famous quotes from everyone that say there's no such thing as an overnight success. Like, it's so true. It's, it takes, it takes years and it takes time and it, it's, it's something that you're constantly working on too.

• 1:22:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. I love, I love your humility in that where, you know, you're starting off not being confident about yourself. Even for myself, like, you know, doing this podcast, I'm like, who am I to sit here and do a podcast, right? And the confidence builds over years and years and years of talking to people. And I think people need to give themselves. That space to grow into who they want to be rather than trying to be an overnight success.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Totally. And just knowing what you know in the moment, like all I knew was I couldn't be a monk anymore. It what the lifestyle wasn't working for me. It wasn't my it's it's I always say that monk training is meant to make you more self aware. And I became so self aware that I wasn't a monk. Like that was the feeling. I was like, my awareness was you're not meant to be a monk.

• 1:23:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  You're you're a bit more out there, you're a bit more rebellious, you're a bit more independent, like monk life is very regimented. It's very disciplined. Now, I'm very disciplined in my own life today, but you're disciplined with a cohort of people. You will eat the same thing. My health was massively affected by that. Like my body couldn't deal with communal living.

• 1:23:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  It doesn't work for me. It worked with some of my monk teachers and friends who are still monks today, like they're great at it, but for me it was like. I, you know, when you're a monk, you generally you wake up at four AM, but some monks will wake up at two or three. And I remember alarms going off and I'm a light sleeper and people waking up and you it was it was tough on my body and mind. And so for me, I realized that a life outside would be better, but at that time I had no idea what it would lead to. I was scared. I was worried. And I remember saying to my monk teacher, I said to him, I said, I'm really scared. That me leaving will stop me from serving you. And I'm really worried that I may not be able to continue this.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  And he was just so reassuring and he was just like, I trust that you'll always continue to serve. I trust that you'll find a way to serve. And just hearing that at the time was like, like a relief. Because I was carrying this weight of just, I can't believe I I didn't make it, you know? So I I describe it like a divorce. If anyone's ever been through a divorce, you're like, God, I thought I loved this person and they loved me and we didn't make it. Now everyone's gonna judge us for getting divorced. Everyone's gonna think we're failures. That's how I felt.

• 1:24:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. Wow. That's an incredible story. You know, I always think of monk life as, obviously it's like this black box. I have no idea what that's really like. I mean, you see it in movies.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You hear people talk about it like yourself, but I wonder, what are like the top learnings that you got throughout your time? In in the monastery, um what what do you think is the top two or three things that you would say really changed your mindset? That you would love to pass on to everybody?

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  I'd say number one, which is very helpful right now, is find home within yourself. Find, find your foundation within yourself. So as a monk, you don't have a space that is yours to sleep. Every day in a big room, depending on which monastery you're in, you'll literally roll down a mat, have a bed sheet and go sleep. Like, it's not like that's your designated space. Right. Someone could take your space and you take theirs and vice versa. You have a gym locker and all your possessions fit inside a gym locker. So you don't really have anything that's yours that you own beyond this couple of robes and, you know, a couple of things here and there. And so there's a feeling that you're able to be quite flexible and quite free because you don't have anything that's holding you Sure.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  down. And you're flexible with the idea of this is my bed. It's like, no, I'm, I can sleep anywhere I need to be. This is my space. No, no, no, I can, I can figure it out. And so you learn to find that Within yourself. me within yourself because it gives you stability while everything around you is uncertain. Wow. Right? Everything around you is uncertain. So you have to find stability here. Whereas what we try and do is we try and make stability everywhere here. Uh huh. And then there's instability in here because we never found it within. Yes. So I think that would be one of my big, big, big lessons that's helped me now. And I find that today when I'm traveling the world and living in a lot of hotels and sometimes away from home for a long period of time. Trust me, I miss my home too and I miss being at home, of course. But there's a sense of this is good for me because it keeps me detached, it keeps me disconnected. And sometimes you're in the most comfortable and sometimes

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  you're not. And it's okay, it's fine. So that flexibility was really good. That flexibility also of you never got to choose what you ate. You eat what everyone eats. Yes. So there's a flexibility in that. There's, there's a sense of you lose your rigidity and this is what I want and this is how it should be. Which is healthy, I think it's needed. You're adaptable. Adaptable. Adaptable. Right. Another thing I'd say is there's a real sense of purification being the ultimate goal.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  And what I mean by that is, we often talk about what leads to a happy, successful life.

• 1:27:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  And I think we'll talk about if you add this, it will make your life better.

• 1:27:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  Like add meditation, add this, add working out, add this, and those are all true and they're all good things. But I think we'll also say, oh yeah, if you have this ambition, if you have this drive, if you have goals, if you have this, that makes your life happier and successful. All of that is also true in cases. So it's not that any of that is untrue. I think it's incomplete.

• 1:27:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  And what I mean by that is, I've found that if you're not able to purify yourself of envy, of greed, of anger, of ego, there's no chance of happiness. Because you could have everything you ever wanted and still be envious of someone else, and that will destroy everything that you've earned. Or you could achieve every goal you ever had, but be egotistic and therefore be lonely, and therefore not feel understood and not feel close to people, and everything is lost. So I'm not saying things are not good or money doesn't buy you happiness. I think money's amazing. I think it's a tool. I think things are amazing. They're great. I'm saying have it all.

• 1:28:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Have it all, but then reduce and purify envy, ego, because that will be the final thing that will ruin all the happiness that you ever wanted. So you should be healthy. You should have ambition. You should have goals. And then with all of that, work on all of this, because otherwise you get to the top of the mountain and you still feel envious of someone on another mountain.

• 1:28:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  And you still feel, oh, I must stay better than those people. And you still feel greedy that you don't have enough. And so it's not about whether you have stuff or not. It's about whether you have envy or not.

• 1:29:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  And that will make a difference of how happy you are.

• 1:29:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's so powerful. And so, you know, I think about that a lot because, you know, living in L.A., you see people always trying to outdo their neighbors and their friends and try to climb constantly higher, not because they're unhappy with what they currently have, is because they see someone else. With more than what they have.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then that they end up never achieving happiness and it's purifying yourself of those feelings. You mentioned envy, greed.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, anger.

• 1:29:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Anger.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Ego and illusion.

• 1:29:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ego and illusion, yeah. Those are the five big ones.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Uh, illusion, can you, can you explain that one a little bit more?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, illusion's almost like the belief that I can control everything. Illusion's the belief that I'm the controller, I'm in charge and I can control everything.

• 1:29:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  And that is an illusion because you can't. And so, again, you could have everything, everything's great, but then you're trying to control the things you can't control.

• 1:29:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  That's illusion.

• 1:29:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  The, the belief that I have become the master of everything.

• 1:29:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of people, when you become really successful, you can get deluded very quickly that because I'm good at this, I'm good at everything. And I can control everything and that again leads to dissatisfaction.

• 1:30:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  And so I think we have to get away from the rhetoric of, we live in an external world where we say, oh, if someone has nice things, they can't be humble.

• 1:30:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  Which I disagree with. I know plenty of people who have loads of stuff who are really humble and grounded. And we also glorify minimalism, like, oh, if someone lives simply, then they must be the highest in humanity. I think those things are quite basic, quite rudimentary ways of assessing someone's internal spiritual growth.

• 1:30:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  I look at it as, yeah, how prideless is someone, how envyless is someone, I think that really, really shows someone's spiritual growth. That's a marker of spiritual growth.

• 1:30:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's, I, I, I really like the way you frame that and you, you know, it kind of gives people the space to have ambition.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:30:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  If that's what they want, you know, it's fine to have things, but just remove those five.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Then that leads to happiness.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, get things and lose envy, right?

• 1:31:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Like dude, because you need to have goals, that we need to pursue something, like, you can't live a life where there's no pursuit.

• 1:31:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  We all have to pursue.

• 1:31:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Pursuit of purpose, the pursuit of goals, the pursuit of something.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Wonderful, and the pursuit of who you become.

• 1:31:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  But what I'm saying is in that becoming, unbecome envious and unbecome egotistic and unbecome all these other things. That's the, that's the part that I think will be everyone's Achilles heel.

• 1:31:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  That, that, that's the Achilles heel of the, the person who achieves everything. Is the presence of envy.

• 1:31:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's so true.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Jay, I always learn so much from you. This is why you are a spiritual guru. Like, I just learned so much.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Just trying to be everyone's spiritual friend. That's my, that's my, uh, that's one of my big, big priorities is I just want to be everyone's spiritual friend.

• 1:31:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Because I think a friend, the difference between a friend and a guru is a guru teaches and a friend just nudges you. A guru tells you what, may tell you what to do, instructs you, but a friend just holds you, you know? It's like, I just want to be everyone's spiritual friend, so.

• 1:32:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, I mean, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because you are my spiritual friend and friend.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:32:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For you to come here on your birthday, of all things, record a podcast.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  Of course, man.

• 1:32:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so, it's so amazing.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Anytime for you, anytime.

• 1:32:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you, buddy, thank you. You've been, you've been so powerful in my life and the life of many others. Jay, last question. You've done so much already. You've written some incredible books. You've, you know, you have the incredible podcast apps. You know, you've done so many things. What's next for you?

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  It's a great question, and I think, uh, I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday. I was saying that what I'm trying to do is create the space to reflect on that exact question. That's what's next for me. What's next for me is to think about the next 10, 15, 25 years. Because if someone told me eight years ago that we'd be where we are today, I wouldn't have believed them in a million years. I would have laughed at them. And I would have been like, you're on, I have no idea what you're, you know, smoking because I don't believe any of it. And so I now look at where I'm at very responsibly, very gratefully, very humbly. And I go, what, what is really being asked of me? And I'm really asking that question. What's really being called of me? Not what can I do, but what am I being called to do? And I'm, I'm really sitting with that question.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  And I trust that the answer will unfold in its own time as I take more steps. I think for me, my goal has always been to make wisdom viral. And what I mean by that is to spread wisdom at the pace we consume entertainment. Because I think only when. Things that are good for you feel good, do we take them up? Right? When I come to next health, I feel good. That's why I keep coming back. If I don't feel good, then why would I be there? And so to me, I wanna keep making education and wisdom and insight and sacred understanding so accessible and so practical and so ever alive that it becomes so easy for someone to say, I wanna live a healthier,

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  happier and more healed life. And that's what I've committed in my life to is I wanna help the world become happier, healthier and more healed through everything we touch. And I think the world, healing is really important. Because I think we think of healthiness and happiness as endpoints. But I love the word healing because in the own word, it feels endless.

• 1:34:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Right? Happiness isn't endless. It feels like there's an end. Health feels like an end, but healing, like you're healing the body through your work. I'm trying to heal and help people heal their minds. Like, I think we need a world that's healing constantly. And I think if we can push people towards realizing that healing is the goal, then you'll become happy and healthy.

• 1:34:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, it's such incredibly monumentally beautiful words. And I will definitely add healing is one of my goals because, you know, I think that all of us have things to heal from, whether it be past relationships, past experiences. And that is kind of something that's endless because things keep happening to us.

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so we have to keep the healing journey continuing. Well, Jay, I sincerely, like, once again, from the bottom of my heart, love everything that we share. And I truly want to thank you for coming today.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Thank you, Darshan. It's such a pleasure. I'm so excited for Extend to continue to grow. And I'm so excited by everything you're doing. Congratulations. And thank you so much for taking care of my health so I can keep doing what I wanna do for the world. I think I said that to you when I first met you too. I was like, you gotta keep me healthy, man, because I got a lot left to do. So thank you for looking out for me.

• 1:35:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You got it, man. Anytime, anytime.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  Thank you, buddy. Thank you.

• 1:35:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.