3 Strategies To Rapidly Improve Your Resilience and Mental Strength

In today’s episode, Jay Shetty reveals that the most important muscles we can develop are those of resilience and learning to use pain for positive growth. Whether you struggle with resilience or not, this podcast will serve you. You'll learn how to use pain for good, what it means to build resilience and how we can build a stronger legacy on the foundation of struggle. Shetty offers practical steps and encouraging insight on how hard times bring strength and beauty. Text Jay Shetty 310-997-4177 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have.

• 0:43Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop.

• 1:26Jay Shetty?

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• 2:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 2:45Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. You can actually break through pain. So what quality, what are you aspiring for? What are you so clear about? What do you have clarity about? That is pushing you in that direction? Because see, here's the thing. The opposite of humility is ego.

• 3:30Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for coming back every single week to listen, learn, and grow. It is a new day, a new week, and I am so happy that we have been so strong, been so resilient at this time together. I know that you, each and every single one of you, has stayed with me, has stayed listening, has stayed learning through this difficult time. And I just want to take a moment to help you realise how powerful that truly is and how meaningful that truly is. And I want you to congratulate yourself. I want you to really recognise what an incredible statement

• 4:13Jay Shetty?

  that is to yourself and to everyone else around you, that when you choose growth, even in tough times, amazing things can happen. Now, today, I want to talk to you about exactly that subject. Because we underestimate how much pain is useful. We underestimate how much pain is meaningful. We underestimate how much pain is the path to progress and uncovering our potential and making a difference in our lives. And usually, we think of pain as extremely negative. We try to avoid it.

• 4:58Jay Shetty?

  We try to get around it. We try to make sure that we're never in pain. Now, that is sensible, and that is the right thing to do. But as we know, even if we find a way to avoid pain, pain rarely avoids us. Right? Have you ever experienced that before? You may find every possible way to avoid pain, but pain rarely avoids us. There's no one in the world who doesn't have pain in common. Everyone has pain. Everyone has their pain and their version of it, but we all share pain.

• 5:37Jay Shetty?

  And so, instead of trying to avoid it, instead of just trying to overcome it, instead of just trying to hope it never happens again, having the skill and the ability to navigate pain, to use pain, to make pain useful and meaningful, seems like a pretty important skill to have. This is probably the number one skill needed in life. Because if pain is something that never avoids us, and pain is something that is common to all of us, then knowing how to navigate pain, knowing how to process pain, is probably the number one skill needed, especially because we've seen what happens when we don't process it properly.

• 6:22Jay Shetty?

  Think about any time in your life where you think you haven't processed pain properly. The results have probably not been good. And you've probably observed people in your life, whether it was parents or family members or friends, who haven't processed pain properly. Now, I'm not saying there's only one way to process pain, but there are certain principles that we can all adopt and use and navigate to get to that place. And especially seeing as the last four months have been full of pain for each and every one of us in different ways. Maybe you've lost something, maybe you've lost someone,

• 7:05Jay Shetty?

  maybe you've missed out on some event or some important occasion or anniversary. Everyone has lost something and many people have lost someone. And therefore, developing the skill to understand and process pain is so vital. And that skill is resilience. That's what my definition of resilience is. The dictionary definition of resilience is the capacity to recover from difficult times, the capacity to quickly recover from difficult times. Or the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape, like an holistic band, right? Like that ability, you've seen those things in your home that they just look the same,

• 7:49Jay Shetty?

  no matter how much you've put them through. How many of you have a bike that is extremely resilient? How many of you have a laptop that is? Okay, this is the one. How many of you have a phone that is extremely resilient? How many of you have a phone that is not resilient, right? As soon as you drop it, it doesn't work anymore. But resilience, in my opinion, is the ability to understand and process pain effectively. And I think that this is a skill that you can apply to any area of your life. Today, we are going to develop that skill. Today, we're going to focus on that muscle in our lives. And I am so, so excited that we get to address this together because this is a topic that tons of companies right now are asking me to speak on and inviting me to do keynotes on. But I wanted to record a very special episode

• 8:34Jay Shetty?

  for each and every single one of you to talk about the three reflections. On resilience that will help you take care of yourself, take care of your family and friends and loved ones, and make an impact on the world. To me, life is lived in three key circles. Life is lived with ourselves. Life is lived with those who love us and we love. And life is lived in the world with the news, with everything else happening around us. And I'm going to give you one reflection for each of these circles that we live in, so that you can deepen your resilience skill. Are you with me? Does that sound like a good idea? I hope that you're all putting your hands up, shouting out wherever you are, if you're on a run or a jog, or you're walking your dog, or you're cooking,

• 9:18Jay Shetty?

  or you're cleaning, or whatever you're up to right now. I want you to know that I am so happy that you chose to listen on purpose, and I can't wait to dissect resilience with you. Now, let me ask you this question. How many of you feel that you're resilient? How many of you feel that you are resilient already? That you've been through tough times and you know it, and you want to refine that skill with me today, but you already have it? And how many of you are listening going, Jay, I don't think I'm resilient at all. I, you know, I fall apart at the first hurdle. I'm one of those people that really, really tries to avoid pain. And whenever pain comes up, I'm like, oh no, why is this happening to me? Right? Like, how many of you are in that bucket?

• 10:00Jay Shetty?

  Now, eighty-three percent of people think that they are resilient. That's a pretty high number. I was quite shocked by that. When I saw this research, I was like, wow, that many people think they're resilient? Now, when those people did the resilience test, the studies came back and it shows that fifty-seven percent of people are actually resilient. So a lot of us are less resilient than we believe, which means if we feel that we're resilient, there's probably blind spots. Now, blind spots are these things that we all have. They're areas of our life that are so unknown or we're so unaware of, and they end up tripping us up. It's almost like you're walking through your garden

• 10:45Jay Shetty?

  and you didn't realize there was an uneven stone or an uneven twig or path, and you trip over. And imagine that's happening in your life. Now you may say, actually, I'm fine, Jay. I'm pretty resilient. I'm pretty strong. Well, then you need to listen to this for your family and friends. Because guess what? Inspiring someone to be resilient, helping someone else be resilient, is also a big part of resilience. So if you're listening right now and you're saying, Jay, I've got this down. I'm resilient. Then I want you to listen to this for everyone else in your life. Because if only 57% of people are actually resilient, then there is a high proportion of people, 43%, that are not resilient. And resilience changes as we move down in generations. So this study showed that 67% of boomers

• 11:30Jay Shetty?

  rate themselves as resilient, but only 37% of Gen Z'ers. So you may have a child who's a Gen Z. You may have a cousin. You may have a brother or a sister or a family member. If you know anyone who's a Gen Z, their resilience drops by almost half of the boomers. Now, I want to start with a brilliant equation that was shared with me by one of our very own on-purpose guests. Now, this was a very, very popular episode. So if you haven't listened to it, I recommend you go back and listen to it. Maybe you can guess who it's from. But first, I'm going to share this equation with you. Pain plus reflection equals progress.

• 12:15Jay Shetty?

  Pain plus reflection equals progress. Write this down right now, and it comes from one of our podcast guests. Can you guess who it is? Now, I don't know what you're shouting out or saying, but if you haven't listened to this episode, I highly recommend it. This was said by none other than Ray Dalio. It's in his book, Principles. Brilliant interview, one of our most popular, incredible interview as well with Ray Dalio. Pain plus reflection equals progress.

• 12:48Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 13:23Jay Shetty?

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

• 14:07Jay Shetty?

  Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors,

• 14:53Jay Shetty?

  high fructose corn syrup, and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online.

• 15:01Jay Shetty?

  Now, think about this for a moment. When we spoke about this, he spoke about the value of pain. Pain is expected. But see, if you remove reflection, if you've written this down, I want you to cross out that word reflection. If you've written down, "pain plus reflection equals progress", if you cross out the word "reflection", all you're left with is pain. Pain doesn't equal progress. Pain plus reflection equals progress. See, if you take away the word "reflection", you're just left with pain. And it creates more pain. And most of us, when we're in pain, when pain is trying to make us pay attention, we're usually trying to do one of three things with pain. We're trying to avoid it. We're trying to distract ourselves from it.

• 15:46Jay Shetty?

  Or we're trying to numb ourselves to it. How many of you have tried one of these methods at least? Right? How many of you have ever tried this before? That when you're going through pain or you're about to experience pain, you try to avoid it? You try to distract yourself from it? Or you try to numb yourself to it? So many of us do this. Right? We distract ourselves with another project or another activity. We numb ourselves by doing some numbing activity, whether it's some lazy form of entertainment. Or of course, we try and avoid it. But instead, Ray Dalio said, "If we choose to reflect, we can actually rapidly grow and evolve and help those around us do the same." But guess what?

• 16:30Jay Shetty?

  We all find it hard to reflect in pain. How many of you have stubbed your toe? And someone looks at you and says, "Everything happens for a reason." And you're like, "What? Are you kidding me? My toe isn't so much pain." Or how many of you have had someone say to you when you're going through a really tough time? When you're going through the toughest time ever and someone says to you, "You know, everything happens for your own good." And you're like, "What? I'm gonna show you what happens for your own good." When we're in pain, it's hard to reflect. And so you may not be able to reflect in pain immediately. But the point here is that at one point, we have to reflect. Because we turn pain into progress when we reflect. And therefore, reflection is one of the biggest skills in building resilience.

• 17:16Jay Shetty?

  You may not have thought that, but reflection is one of the biggest skills that we are never trained in. That can lead to perspective, it can lead to gratitude, it can lead to resilience. Reflection is an incredibly powerful, powerful skill. So, our first reflection is learning. And I want us to learn about self-awareness. This is a great time to become more aware and have more clarity and simplicity in our lives. I want you to ask you about what have you learned about yourself at this time? And I'm going to ask you two questions, because I'm going to give you more specificity.

• 17:58Jay Shetty?

  During the pandemic, during the uprising, for the past five months, these are your two questions to reflect, to learn and guide yourself towards self-awareness. What's one thing you value more? What is that one thing that you value more because of the last four to five months? Is it your family? Is it your friends? Is it your personal time? Is it a place that you go to? What is it that you have learned to value more? Because guess what? That is such an important reflection to build resilience, because you realize that pain has value. Pain has value when it gives you value. How does pain give you value? When you reflect on it. When you reflect on it, how does it give you value?

• 18:42Jay Shetty?

  Because it gives you a gift, it shows you something. When pain can show you something, it has been of value, which means now you realize that when you're in pain, there is something valuable to be gained there. Whereas if you always feel that pain adds no value to your life, and you feel pain is negative, and pain is bad, and pain shouldn't be experienced, then you will not see value in it. And therefore, the thing that makes you see value in pain is reflection. Does that make sense? So, reflect for me. What's one thing you value more? And the second question, what's one thing you value less?

• 19:23Jay Shetty?

  Pain has this amazing ability to also make us realize what we value less. What's meaningless to us right now?

• 19:33Jay Shetty?

  What's purposeless to us right now? What's useless to us right now? What is it that you value less at this time? Now, you may not be able to answer these questions right away, but I want you to reflect on these because we are strengthening your reflection muscle right now. That's what we're doing, right? Reflection is like a muscle and sometimes we procrastinate and overthink. And there's a difference between reflecting and procrastinating and overthinking is almost like being in a maze and you're just guessing and trying to find out where to go. Whereas reflection is saying, okay, I've been through this pain. What have I learned from it? What have I gained from it? What have I lost from it? Like that's reflection.

• 20:15Jay Shetty?

  It's very specific, whereas procrastination and overthinking is just like, oh, I don't know what's going on, like this thoughts in my mind, you know, it's aimless. It's meandering aimlessly. So that is your first reflection, which is learning and all about self-awareness. Now, the second question I have for you, or the second reflection, sorry, is all about leadership. Now, you may say, Jay, I'm not a leader in my company. Or maybe you're listening and going, Jay, yeah, I'm a leader. I'm a manager. I'm a leader. I lead people. People depend on me. But the truth is, we're all leaders. We have family that depend on us. We have partners that depend on us. We are also dependent as well.

• 20:56Jay Shetty?

  But everyone in the world is a leader to someone or in some way. And as leaders, there is such a need for us to realize and never forget what our aspiration is, even in pain. See, even in pain, leaders are able to know what they are working on. And this is what we all get upset about in leaders. How many of you have watched Leaders and you're just saying, well, you're not a leader. You're not acting like a leader. So ask ourselves, how can we ask in our own lives? How can we improve leadership in our lives? Now, let me explain to you what that means.

• 21:41Jay Shetty?

  There's a great story about Benjamin Franklin. And in this story, it said that he carried with him a journal of sorts. And inside he had 13 virtues he was working on.

• 21:53Jay Shetty?

  These virtues included everything from silence to cleanliness to tranquility and sincerity as well, I think. And he jokes that he often fell short and made mistakes like us all, like we all do. He ate too much and drank too much. He says he spent too much money. But as the story goes, in his final days, he was asked, which of the thirteen did he not accomplish? And he said it was the thirteenth one. You wanna know what the thirteenth one was? Humility. It's ironic because obviously if he said that I achieved humility, then maybe it's not possible to. But what I love about this story is that as a leader,

• 22:38Jay Shetty?

  he was very clear on what qualities he was working on. And I can imagine, being Benjamin Franklin, he went through a lot of pain. He had a lot of challenges. But leaders have this ability to build skills even in pain. And I ask you, and I wanna invite you to ask yourself this question. Where can you develop more humility? Or where in your life are you working on equality? Are you working on vulnerability? Are you working on openness? Are you working on generosity or gratitude or genuineness? What are you working on right now? Because that's what builds resilience. Resilience means having a vision of what you're building and not letting go of that just because there's some pain.

• 23:22Jay Shetty?

  If I told you that hung the goal of your life on the top of this tree is what you've been wanting your whole life, I'm sure you would climb, you would get through the thorns, the branches, the leaves. You would get there because it was valuable. So when you hold that vision, you can actually break through pain. So what quality, what are you aspiring for? What are you so clear about? What do you have clarity about that is pushing you in that direction? Because see, here's the thing. The opposite of humility is ego. And what ego does is that it eliminates gratitude out. It eliminates genuineness out. It eliminates generosity out. So ask yourself, what qualities are your friends and family around you demanding?

• 24:06Jay Shetty?

  What qualities are your children demanding? What qualities?

• 24:10Jay Shetty?

  And maybe not even demanding, but just need. And how can you rise? How can you grow? How can you keep that vision so clear that you feel motivated? Because guess what? You can stretch more than you even know. That's the truth. We can stretch more than we even know. And I have experienced this in my personal life where, you know, the comfort zone is a scary thing. But if you don't stretch it, you just never know. And the third reflection I wanted to share with you, the third and final reflection is about legacy. And I want you to really think about this one. And I really want you to put yourself in the shoes of what I'm about to paint the picture.

• 24:53Jay Shetty?

  If you're in a safe environment, close your eyes and just go with me on this. Imagine a history class in 2030, or let's say in 2040 or in 2050, in 10, 20, 30 years' time. And let's say your children go to this class at school, however school looks in 10, 20, 30 years. And your children or your grandchildren, they go to this class. And after their class, they come up to you and they ask you about the historic year of 2020. And they ask you about their school assignment. And their school assignment is to ask their parents or their grandparents who were alive in 2020, what did you do? How would you like to remember this year at that time?

• 25:38Jay Shetty?

  This is a great reflection because by future pacing, you can make the right decision now. How do you want your children and grandchildren to remember you and this year? And how do you want to remember this year? Do you want to remember this year because you got stronger? You got tougher? You got more powerful? You got more focused? Do you want to remember this year because you rested? You refueled? You calmed? You learned to meditate? Or do you want to remember this year just like any other year where you just let it go by? We've got to start doing now what we want to feel in the future. The thing that will fill others' will hope. Because if you do that, you know you're going to be okay right now.

• 26:19Jay Shetty?

  Therefore, my three reflections for you are to learn with drive, lead with humility, and leave a legacy. These are the three reflections that I want you to take time on. Right now and after this podcast, the first one, as I said, was to ask yourself the two questions about what you value more and what you value less. The second one was leadership, knowing how you can lead others. What do you need to aspire for? What's your vision to help others? And finally, legacy, thinking 10, 20, 30 years ahead and asking, what can I do? Because the truth is, these are the three top questions we can ask ourselves on how

• 27:04Jay Shetty?

  to help ourselves with the first question, learning, how to help others with the second question, leadership, and how to help the world and the future, legacy. Because everything else is a distraction. And I want to tell you a story about a distraction, a brilliant story that I heard recently about a study, and it's called Steelig's $5 Challenge. And in a class at Stanford, the professor Steelig came in and said to the Stanford students, they said, "I'm going to give you $5, just $5, and in two hours, you have to turn this $5 into as much money as you can." Now, what would you think? Right? What would you think? How would you do this?

• 27:49Jay Shetty?

  Think about it right now. They're giving you $5, and you've got two hours, you've got to turn it into as much money as you can. And then afterwards, the professor said, "And then afterwards, you've got to present what you did and why you did it in three minutes to the audience, three minutes back to your class." So, all these Stanford students, lots of them ran out, and they started buying equipment for a lemonade stand or a car wash. They got some makeshift goods, makeshift stuff. As you can imagine, they ran out pretty quickly. I mean, how many cars are you going to wash with $5? How many, you know, how many lemonades are you going to be able to make with $5? And how much is that going to make in terms of a profit? So they failed very early on. A second group of students realized that actually, they said, "You know what?

• 28:34Jay Shetty?

  This $5, it's actually a distraction."

• 28:39Jay Shetty?

  That doesn't make any sense. Like, really, what we have of value is the two hours, right? Turning five dollars into more money, you're never gonna turn five dollars into lots of money, but these two hours, that's valuable. What can we do in two hours that makes the most money? So this group of students, they went and they booked reservation at fancy restaurants that corporate companies wanted to go to, and they started selling the optimal time slots to these companies. They made a lot more money because these companies had a high demand for sending their clients and their employees to dinners. But now, they didn't do the best either. A third group of students, they realized that the five dollars was a distraction, but also the two hours was a distraction.

• 29:22Jay Shetty?

  They realized that the most valuable thing they had was this three minutes in front of a Stanford class. And they realized that a company would pay top dollar to have three minutes in front of a Stanford class.

• 29:40Jay Shetty?

  They sold that three minutes for $650 and won the competition. So smart, right? When you hear it that way, you're like, oh, that makes complete sense. But notice how the first two groups got lost in the distraction. The most painful thing was three minutes of presenting what you did and why you did it, but that became the thing with the greatest potential. Don't get distracted by everything else that's out there. Often, the thing that we're running away from can give us the most value. So I hope today has been another enjoyable podcast. I hope it's expanded your mind, extended your learning. And again, I want to thank you so much for your ears and for listening to this podcast. I'm so grateful to each and every one of you.

• 30:25Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much for tuning into On Purpose. Make sure you tag me with your biggest learnings, your biggest lessons, what you love from this podcast. Make sure you recommend it to a friend and tag me on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, everywhere, because I love seeing what you learn, and I can't wait for next week. Thank you so much.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  And Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  I'm not the first then.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.