Jay Shetty: The 3 Simple Things A Happy Life Needs

Jay Shetty is the best-selling author of Think Like a Monk, host of the No. 1 podcast On Purpose, spiritual friend to celebrities from Ellen Degeneres to Oprah Winfrey, and a former monk. Jay is one of the most wise people I have ever met. Very few people can reach into depths of insight on such a wide array of topics like he does. I learnt so many things I didn't even realise I needed to know from this conversation, and I know you will too. I definitely was able to put things into perspective in this conversation. Jay has a way of linking very practical advice to really profound insights about life. This conversation went in so many unexpected directions and was definitely one of the discussions I've found most personally valuable. Jay, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. Follow Jay: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayshetty Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JayShettyIW Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is a really difficult question to ask, but it is the best question you can ask yourself.

• 0:06Steven Bartlett?

  I don't need to tell you who he is, because his reputation precedes himself.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  I enjoyed being a monk as much as I enjoy understanding media. And that's really paradoxical for a lot of people, but that's just my truth. I've always wanted to share meditation at scale with the world. If you just keep trying to change your environment, hoping that your life's going to improve, you're going to feel dissatisfied at the next place. And I feel we're just conditioned to say, okay, you don't like your job, quit your job. You don't like your relationship, quit your relationship. And I think we just keep saying that it's this external shell that we're in, when it's actually this shell and what's happening inside of it that's defining all of these perspectives. I believe that to create happiness day to day in one year, in one month, in a week, you have to have...

• 1:00Steven Bartlett?

  Jay Shetty is a household name all around the world. He is someone that's provided inspiration, wisdom and insight to billions of people using social media. I don't need to tell you who he is, because his reputation precedes himself. In his early years, he was lost. Becoming a monk helped him to find himself. And through service, he's gone on to touch the lives of billions of people through social media. But who is he really? Who's the guy behind the following? Me and Jay have a connection that I'm yet to experience with pretty much any guest that's sat here with me. And I know you're going to feel that today. This is a truly special, honest, open conversation

• 1:45Steven Bartlett?

  between two men about so many things that I genuinely think the world needs to hear. Thank you, Jay. And when I say thank you today, you're going to understand why shortly. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Butler and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 2:13Steven Bartlett?

  Jane, first of all, you know, I usually start these podcasts in a much more serious way, but it's good to see you back in the UK.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Mate, it's good to see you. And I was just saying this to you offline, that I think the first time we met was around three years ago, three or four years ago in New York. And I think we had this plan to become best friends.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  We're like, we're gonna see each other, this, this, this, this, and then all of a sudden, I moved to LA.

• 2:36Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  And then you moved back to London too. But it's so good to see you, man.

• 2:40Steven Bartlett?

  No, it's great to be reunited. I do feel like we've got so much in common in so many unbelievable ways. But the reason why I was so excited by this conversation is because we've also got so many, we've walked a different path in our lives. And you're such a self-aware, sort of self-analytical human being. So the wisdom that I've gained from watching you online over the years, as someone that comes from London, is from the UK as well, and is speaking to the world through their content and channels, I find, I found truly inspirational. So let's get into it. So one of the things I always start with with people, and I think this comes from my experience with like, studying childhood psychology, is trying to understand what it was in their early years that that has led them to go on the path they went on, and ultimately to be sat here. When you look

• 3:22Steven Bartlett?

  back at those early years in your life, in growing up in London, what were the formative things that you point out in hindsight and go, you know, I wouldn't be who I am now, a bit of an anomaly, if that hadn't happened?

• 3:36Speaker 00

  I think one of the biggest things would be that I felt I mediated my parents' marriage when I was younger. And so I was their go-to person for my mom and my dad. And I have a really good relationship with both of them, and love them both. And they would come to me with their challenges, and their issues, and their pain points. And as I was growing up, I felt that I was always trying to reconcile, discuss, converse, negotiate for both of them on either side. And one thing I realized very early on as a young child was, I never wanted to take a side. I never wanted to make one of them win and one of them lose. I never saw one of them right and one of them wrong.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  I really saw them both as two humans who were trying their best, but just like me, were naturally flawed and fallible and made mistakes. And I think that gave me a sense of compassion that runs through to today for myself and for others and for people that I work with and the people that we communicate through the podcast and videos. Because I just saw very early on in my life that people could mean well, people could try their best, people could try to be loving and share kindness. But they could still feel that things weren't working out for them. So I look at that as a massive moment in my past.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Because now, when I look back at it, I think I've just been doing this for so long. Like, I feel like I started doing this when I was probably six, seven, maybe 10 years old. And so now, to be still doing it today, it feels like something that was a natural role that I embodied at that time. And it's now a role that has evolved into looking internally for myself, also looking at the things that I adopted from that time that were uncomfortable and things that made me question my own self-worth and my own meaning of life. What were those things? I would say that, for me, I realized that we either try to repeat

• 5:49Speaker 00

  or avoid what we saw in our childhood. And that happens either unconsciously or consciously. So you could be unconsciously repeating what you saw in your childhood, or you could be consciously avoiding it. And I found that there were parts of me that were really great at avoiding some of the negative things, but there were also subconscious parts of me that adopted some of those behavior traits that I only discovered in the last two years. And so I'll give you an example with my wife. I sometimes played the role of sacrificing and over-giving.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  But then expecting her to give the same amount back. Now, the way I see sacrifice now is that if you sacrifice something for someone and then you want it back, it's not a sacrifice, it's a transaction. You can't give someone a discount and then ask them to pay full price and then say it was a sacrifice, because it wasn't, it was a transaction. And I saw that in my life, because of the way I'd received loved from extended families or love from school or teachers or whatever it may have been. I was loved in that way, where I was loved, but then made to feel guilty if I didn't repay it in full. And I saw myself adopting that in my own loving relationships with my wife,

• 7:14Speaker 00

  with my family, with my sister, and I literally only spotted that two years ago. And I thought to myself, this has to stop, I can't repeat this cycle.

• 7:23Steven Bartlett?

  What is the work you do to spot those, to illuminate some of those kind of subconscious behaviour patterns that, because we all have them going on in the backroom of our lives and our minds. We have our childhood, the lessons we learn and the limiting beliefs we learn, almost acting as the puppet master of our adult lives. And so how does one become, get to a point where they can spot that and go, do you know what? That comes from that. What, is there an exercise you've done, is there, you know, tell me?

• 7:50Speaker 00

  I think the first thing is that when you experience conflict with someone or you experience a disagreement or a disconnect with someone, our society version is blame them, it's their fault, they upset you, they're wrong. And our friends will agree with that. When you go and tell your friend that so and so did something, they'll say, oh yeah, well, you know, he or she's a X Y Z, X Y Z, sorry, X Y Z. The, the, it's very too much time in America, the, the X Y Z of they're so and so, they're like this, they're like that. And actually, in that moment, I think the best thing we can do is, what's my accountability in this? What part of this have I created for myself?

• 8:33Speaker 00

  This is a really uncomfortable, difficult question to ask, but it is the best question you can ask yourself. If every time something goes wrong or something doesn't work out, instead of blaming someone else or blaming yourself. If you can pause and say, what part of this am I responsible for? And I think the reason why that's difficult is because we see everything as binary. We see it as it's either their fault or it's all my fault. It's all your fault or it's all my fault. And the truth is, there is no all. It's all parts. It's partly your fault and it's partly my fault.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  But if I don't understand what my part to play is, then I can't actually understand it. So the first step is, what's my part? That's the first part of the exercise. The second part of the exercise is now that I know what my part is, let me focus on what skill I'm missing. Let me focus on what growth I haven't had. Let me focus on what part of my life feels incomplete that makes me act in my incomplete way with others. So what part of me is missing? And I found that when I was over sacrificing or over giving, that's because I was trying to demand love from someone else and demand validation from someone else. So I was almost trying to achieve or earn that love and validation. And so I realized I wasn't giving it to myself.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  And so now I've realized that whatever you want from someone else, give it to yourself first. If you want compliments from someone else, give them to yourself first. If you want validation from someone else, give it to yourself first. Because no matter how many of them they give you, if you never gave it to yourself in the first place, it will never be enough. So that's the second step. Whatever you want from someone else, give it to yourself first. And the third step, I'd say, to get to that self-awareness, is simply sitting down and plotting the three most difficult times in your life. So sit down and write down what would have been the three most difficult times in my life or the most painful decision-making points of transition in my life.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  And then ask yourself, when you made good decisions, what was the environment like? Who were you listening to? What were people saying around you? And when you made poor decisions, what was the environment like? What were people saying? Who were you listening to? And you'll start to spot a pattern. And I've found that in my life, anytime I make a good decision, most people disagree with me. I have to listen to my inner voice and I'm usually doing something against the grain. Now that's my pattern, but everyone has to find their own.

• 11:20Steven Bartlett?

  You've reached a point of self-awareness where you can literally pinpoint the steps of doing that. And obviously your coaching and all the work you do has exacerbated that extremely. Is there like a practical day-to-day habit you've installed in your life to be able to look back at how Jay's behaving? On like, is it a notepad? Is it voice notes in your phone? Is it meditation? What is the day-to-day practice that's got you to this point?

• 11:45Speaker 00

  So I would say that over time, I've done journaling. I love voice notes because I like speaking sometimes more than writing. But I'd say the biggest one, if I'm completely honest with you, Stephen, like sitting here with you and you're looking in my eyes, asking me that question. I'm like, the honest answer is I talk to myself a lot while driving. I talk out loud to myself a lot. And I will sit there while I'm driving and I will talk through that day about a situation where I didn't like how I behaved or a situation where I was really happy about how I behaved. And so I'll pinpoint, and I always think it's really powerful to pinpoint a point where you were below your expectation and a point where you were above your expectation.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  And I'll sit there and I'll ask myself, why was it that I was above my expectation? Why did I have the ability in that moment to act in that way? I'll give an example of where I was below my expectation the other day. I was going to play tennis with a friend in the morning and I was running late because I woke up. I was figuring things out that morning. I had a few work emails from the night before. I'm eight hours ahead of LA right now, so I had things to catch up on. I'm running late to play tennis. We've got the court booked and it's only booked for an hour, so we might be late. Something really insignificant, by the way. I turn up and.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  I meet the lady at the front and they haven't been able to give me a membership card because I'm only here for 10 days and then I'm like, here's my membership number and, and they can't figure it out and they don't know if I'm in the system and now we're getting later for the court. And I'm holding my own and I'm on the verge of just being like, get on with it, like can't we, this is not that complicated. And I resist from that, but in my head, I'm thinking, why did that even happen? Like, why am I even feeling the urge to put a simple person trying to do their job? Why am I thinking to release my anger and anguish onto them? And when I thought about that later that day, it was all because I was late. I was frustrated that my friend's going to be upset that we're 30 minutes late for the court.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I was upset that we're going to get even less time and I was about to take it out on an innocent person who actually has nothing to do with any of it, who's trying to do their job. And so for me, talking out loud when I'm on my own, spending time, actually now when I'm answering your question, spending time alone is the only place where you get to have these conversations and most of us are spending time away from being alone because we're scared of having these conversations. I'm sure you've seen, they did that study where they asked men and women whether they either wanted to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or give themselves an electric shock.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Now, the results will surprise you, 30% of women gave themselves an electric shock and 60% of men gave themselves an electric shock. And the reason was because they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. We struggle so much with the idea of being present in our own minds and bodies and hearts that we distract ourselves. So really the habit is being present with myself, with my thoughts and working through when I'm happy with myself and when I think I could have done better.

• 15:10Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I really, really can relate to that point about not wanting to be alone with with your thoughts, not from my own experiences, but because I've got friends around me specifically over the last year when we've been in this lockdown, who have really struggled. And even over the Christmas period, I've got a couple of friends who really, really struggle because they are alone with their thoughts. And you've spoken there to the value of sitting alone with your thoughts and silence and self contemplation. But what is it in the human, in a human that makes them not want to be alone with their thoughts? Why for some are their thoughts so, such an unpleasant place to be?

• 15:46Speaker 00

  I think it's because we've equated loneliness and being alone with abandonment. And those are two completely different ideas. You can be lonely, but that doesn't mean you've been abandoned. And we confuse this so much. Paul Tillett writes about this, and he says that the challenge today is that we think that there's only one word for being alone, and we call it loneliness. And he says, we've forgotten about a second word. It's called solitude. Solitude and loneliness externally look the same, but they're completely different

• 16:31Speaker 00

  things. And he says that solitude is the strength of being alone, and loneliness is the weakness. And to me, it's because being alone feels like abandonment. It feels like everyone has left us. It feels like we're alone at the end of the party and no one's going to stay. We've created a feeling of being enamored and being forced to admire being together. My other half, my better half, the person who completes me. It's like all of this language is phrased in a way to make you feel half and incomplete. When someone came to school and they didn't have someone to sit next to them, that person was considered the loner.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  If you had a birthday party and no one showed up, you were considered unpopular. All of our self-worth since we were young has been defined by do you have people around you? Not the quality of those people, not the depth of those people, not how much those people actually love you. Just did you have people around you? And so we've just been conditioned to believe that being alone means being lonely, means being abandoned. When actually, being in solitude could be the most beautiful thing we could do. So it's just as a society, we've got to unlearn that conditioning.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  That's made us forcefully believe that if you don't have someone else, if you turn up to a wedding and you don't have a plus one. That's like one of the most stressful things for people. I don't know who I'm gonna take. Why is it that prom, if you don't have a date? Every single major life event, graduating, weddings, they're all based around having someone else there to celebrate you. Why? Like, why, why, why can't we just celebrate ourselves? And I think that's where we've lost it. We've lost the idea of celebrating ourselves.

• 18:29Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think that, I was just thinking, thinking that through and I was thinking, you know, if 10,000 years ago on the, in the tribes of Africa, if I was without, if I was without a tribe, I would have been, um, from a reproductive standpoint, less attractive. No woman would want to have been with me because a tribe speaks to the resources I can provide in bringing up a, you know, a baby for our family. But also, you know, I would have been in great danger, my social status would have decayed. And typically, they see this in tribes, I think in monkeys, where if you, if you fall out of the tribe, eventually you get sick or die. Um, so do you think that's a prehistoric part of our conditioning? Or is it like a social, new age social, um, construct?

• 19:08Speaker 00

  I think prehistorically, it makes sense, but I think the social construct has been that equating.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Solitude or loneliness with isolation, seclusion and separation.

• 19:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  And I think we confuse the two ideas. Spending time every day in solitude is not me saying to you, don't talk to anyone all year.

• 19:30Steven Bartlett?

  You're not good enough.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Right, yeah. And it's not like me saying, spending some time talking to yourself and being alone with your thoughts means never go to a party or an event. Like, I think, I just think we've got really poor as humans as entertaining two ideas that are supposedly conflicting, but recognizing that there's a middle ground. Like, we're, we're poor at saying, okay, well, Jay and Stephen aren't saying be alone or be surrounded by people. We're saying, spend some time alone and be intentional about who you spend your time with. And for some reason, the human mind goes, no, no, no, I think you're telling me that I have to go live in a forest and be away from everyone. But that's not really what solitude is. Solitude is, I am comfortable spending time with myself for a few moments a day, enjoying my own company.

• 20:15Steven Bartlett?

  And speaking of spending time with people then, so one of the concepts you write a lot about is this kind of seventy-five percent rule.

• 20:23Steven Bartlett?

  People often discuss the importance of the company you keep, whether it's their wisdom, their attitude, their positivity, their optimism, whatever, and the effect that can have on you as a human being. What have you done in your life? And also, what is the importance, from what you've experienced, of surrounding yourself with people that have good values, that are equally ambitious, that share a sort of similarities as it relates to who you want to become? Is it important? Does it matter?

• 20:48Speaker 00

  I, I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made, and I think we make as humans, is we often look for divinity in humanity. You're looking for that divine person that has all the answers and that is infallible and perfect. And when you seek divinity in humanity, you're left with insecurity and anxiety because no one fulfills that divine search. And so for me, what I really had to understand as I went down that road and felt like I was let down and felt like people made me feel unworthy or unequipped,

• 21:30Speaker 00

  was I recognized that there were four pillars of relationships. And they are care, competence, consistency, and character. Every single person in your life is going to be able to give you, or should be able to give you, at least one of these four characteristics. Very rarely, if ever, will one person give you all four. And if you're lucky, you might have a few people in your life that give you two or three. So let's talk about each of them. Care. My mom, there is no one in the world who cares for me more than my mom. She would do anything for me, she'd be there for me. All she wants to make sure, doesn't matter what I've achieved or what I've done.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  If she picks up the phone to me, her first question is, have you eaten? What did you eat? Are you safe? Are you healthy? Right, like that's all she cares about. Now, my mom isn't the person that I go to for business advice. Or she's not the person, I'm saying hypothetically, that I go to for social media advice. That's not her competence. But she doesn't need to be, she cares for me and that's what I get from her. Now, let's go to competence. If I'm thinking about starting a business, new dragon over here, right? Like you'd be a great friend to call up. You're someone who understands what it takes to get investors, scale a business, build teams, manage internationally, grow, scale, sell.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Like you have that journey and you have that network, you have that career.

• 23:00Steven Bartlett?

  I'd also care about you.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  I know you also care about me. So I've got two out of four in you. And you've got good character. You don't have the consistency though, because we don't see each other enough. So, so three out of four.

• 23:10Steven Bartlett?

  Seventy-five percent.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, seventy-five percent. And so for that, for me is that perfect example of there's competence there and there is care there, which is wonderful. And there's character there, I believe you're someone of good character. And that's the next one, character. There are some people in our life that hold us to higher values. They help us grow with greater integrity. They help us see things beyond what we're chasing. They make us look beyond our desires and make us recognize that there's so much more to life. And those people are massively important. And those people may not be the people we see every week. They may not be the people we see every day. They may not be the people that we call up, but you need them as your compass. The people with character are your compass. And then finally, you have the people that are consistent.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  You have some mates that you just know are always going to pick up the phone. You know that if you need to move house, you've got a family emergency. You know which friend you call. They may not be the competent business advisor. They may care about you, but they don't care about you as deeply as your mom does. But they are consistently always there for you. And that's beautiful. But the problem is when we look at our consistent friend, we think, well, why are you not competent? We look at our competent friend, we think, why don't you have good character? We look at our character friend and say, well, why aren't you always there? And so we're always looking for which C they don't have, rather than appreciating for them for exactly what they bring to our life.

• 24:33Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I met your wonderful wife.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, you did. Yeah, in New York. Yeah.

• 24:37Steven Bartlett?

  Honestly, in a room full of hundreds and hundreds of people, if there was a light, like if she felt like a physical, like a light in the room, just her energy was just unbelievable. And it's remarkable because she felt so much like you in so many ways. I'm guessing when you were talking about that third point about character and values and showing you things in life that are beyond what you might have thought and the meaning of life. And, you know, from my own 10 minute, you know, conversation with her, I feel like she must be in that category, right?

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. I always used to say to people like, so people become friends with me and I hope they like me and then I introduce them to my wife and then I never hear from them again. So she steals all my friends and I'm not, I'm not even just saying that, like, that's genuinely true. She has stolen every single one of my friends as soon as they meet her. So I can't introduce anyone to her anymore. But yeah, she's just, I don't know how, and it's been interesting because my wife has taught me so much more about me and life than I ever thought a partner could.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  And it's because as my, so my wife and I have been together since before my external career took off. And so she was with me when I had no money, no job. She introduced me to her family when I had no money, no job. I met her parents, I met her extended family. I had no career plan. So I've been with her for around eight years now and far, far before everything kind of took off externally. And what was really, really phenomenal was as my life took off externally, I started to develop this need for validation from her for what I

• 26:23Speaker 00

  was achieving. So if I'd get a big deal, I'd be like, look, look, look, look what I did. Like, look what I did. Isn't this amazing? And she wouldn't be impressed by it. And then if I did something and it, it went viral, I'd be, oh, look at this, look at this, like, look how cool this is. Like, isn't this amazing? And she wasn't impressed by it. And then if I was on the front cover of a magazine or something, I'd be like, oh, look how cool this is. Like, look, look at this. And she wouldn't admire it. And for a long time, I started to think, did I marry the wrong person? And I was thinking to myself, did I, am I with the wrong person? Because I know plenty of people who are telling me that that cover's amazing and that video is amazing and that podcast is amazing and that person's amazing. Like, am I like, am I not

• 27:06Speaker 00

  worthy of respect? And I realized, as I, and I reflected on that, as I said earlier, I was like, what part of this am I accountable for? And the answer was really simple. My life, my wife loved me for everything that came before that. She loves me despite all of that. If all of that was to go away tomorrow, she'd still love me. And I was like, isn't that the most beautiful thing? Like, isn't that what we all want? Isn't that what we're truly craving? Is that we are loved beyond our appearance, our achievements, our ambitions and our goals? And I had that. But I wasn't seeing that because I wanted to be loved for my ambitions, my achievements,

• 27:51Speaker 00

  my goals. And so, yes, when you talk about my wife being a light, she's one of those people for sure, because she's been my guide, my coach, my teacher, without even knowing, if you asked her this question, she, she wouldn't say that she was doing it intentionally. But she's been such a great teacher and light in my life in so many ways. And so I'm always just trying to, anytime she annoys me, I'm like, there's a lesson in this for me. And there's going to be something really profound in this for me because she's, she's, she's cut from a different cloth. She's, she's remarkable. I don't even know how she's like, her parents, her parents are incredible. And, you know, they've, they've given her a lot of love. And so I see that kind of flow through her.

• 28:31Steven Bartlett?

  It's so funny, I burst out laughing then because it reminds me a lot of my girlfriend. And I, I've said this on this podcast a lot, and it's, I've never actually realised

• 28:41Steven Bartlett?

  the, the kind of fundamental truth in what you said there. But whenever I talk about my girlfriend, I say, she doesn't really care when I, if I'm number one in the charts, or if I'm number one here or that. The reaction I get from her versus other people like my boys is kind of a bit more mute. And I was like, maybe she just doesn't care about my, you know, my like, but you've, what you've highlighted there is in fact, that is somebody that values something else.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:09Steven Bartlett?

  In you. So but my girlfriend would be very, very happy and very, very impressed with me doing a bunch of other things that would maybe be a bit more pure in their values. She would celebrate those things. It's not like she's not celebrating me. It's just, I don't get the euphoria from the like, number one in the podcast chart.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:25Steven Bartlett?

  And it's a question of values. And in fact, as you say, that's what we should all be looking for.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:29Steven Bartlett?

  But society has taught me that you clap when you get big numbers on stuff, or you go number one, or the bank balance is big. So, that's so interesting. It's probably, I guess someone's going to draw the conclusion from that, they're going to look at their partner who's been clapping because they've got like a promotion at work.

• 29:46Steven Bartlett?

  You've got bad values, love.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  And not at all. We should, we should, we should be supportive partners about everything that our partners do, but it is beautiful that you get an opportunity to learn about your partner's values by what they value in your own success. And that doesn't mean that, like you just said, like your girlfriend or my wife is not happy when something goes number one or does great. Of course they're happy, but there's something deeper than that that makes them happier.

• 30:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  And I think that's really special and that's that character and that life.

• 30:16Steven Bartlett?

  When I was reading through your story and from what I've observed with your story, there was some really interesting similarities that really reminded me of mine, but I feel like are an exception. And it's, you, and you know what? You said it before we started talking. You said, um, we were talking about various business things and business decisions you've made. And also you, we were talking about you moving to LA after just going there with your wife for a week. And you said, well, it just felt like the right thing to do. We were there for one week and it felt like the right thing to do. So although you were leaving New York where you had all of this stuff and you were starting to build your presence there, you used your, your compass became how you felt. And when I looked through

• 31:00Steven Bartlett?

  your, your history from your very, very early days, from a teenager to school to university, to going off and becoming a monk, to getting a job at a center, then getting picked up by Arianna Huffington at Huffington Post and quitting after six months because you were doing this other thing. You are a remarkable quitter. And you seem to be one that's guided by this compass of how does this feel? Not what will people think? Talk to me about that. And is that observation accurate?

• 31:30Speaker 00

  It's such a hard way to live in one sense and such an easy way to live in one sense. That observation, I, I never put it in those words, but I love those words. And I've heard you talk about that before about being a good quitter. And I love that. I, I, I think what you're saying is true. I agree with you. I've, I've never articulated in the way you just did, but it feels so true. I, from a very young age, just felt there was this strong inner voice. And I believe everyone has it. This isn't me being religious, or spiritual, or woo woo. This is me saying that there is a voice that we all hear in our minds, in our hearts, in our heads, wherever you want to say it is, it's there.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  And the challenge that happens is, in our early years, you're told to tell it to be quiet. So every time that voice says, "Well, maybe..." "No, no, no, no, no, just, just do what they're saying, do what they're told. Get on that conveyor belt, get on that assembly line, stick that barcode on your back, become a machine. Go be a robot." And, and it's almost programmed. And so that voice that is not machine-like, that voice is the human inside of us, is being trained to be a machine. And so we start treating ourselves like machines. And machines, you just program them, and then press Enter, and then it gives you what it wants. But we don't function that way. We're a conversation in the universe, we're not a program.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  And so if you're a conversation, and you're an interaction, you're dynamic, that inner voice becomes so squashed that now by the time we're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever age you are, you can't hear it anymore. So you say, "Oh, that's some spiritual mumbo jumbo stuff, because I don't hear that voice." But that's just because we quietened it. So for me, even till this day, and by the way, I have more things trying to quiet that voice today. I had a conversation with my team recently. I was talking about a few new things I wanted to try out this year. And a lot of people said to me, they said, "Jay, don't you think that's a risk to the brand you've created? Don't you think that's a risk to who you are?"

• 33:40Speaker 00

  And I said, "Well, I haven't worked this hard to not do what I truly want. Like, I haven't got this far by being someone else. I've got this far by being true to myself. So I can only continue to do that." And so, yes, there are things that I do that are slightly unconventional for people who've been monks in the past. There are certain ways that I live my life, and there are certain things that I enjoy. And I always say this, I enjoy being a monk as much as I enjoy understanding media. And that's really paradoxical for a lot of people, but that's just my truth. I enjoy building a business and learning about what it takes. As much as I learn trying to understand how to meditate deeper and go internal.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  I enjoy and appreciate what I gain from all these pursuits. And I see them as being this beautiful,

• 34:32Speaker 00

  you know, beautiful symbiotic, synergistic combination of learning and life and experience. But the problem is our mind has said, no, those things are paradoxical. That's an oxymoron. You can't connect those two things. Those two things are unconnectable. And I'm like, well, Steve Jobs said that creativity is connecting things. And connected thinkers will rule the future. So if we can't spot connections in anomalies, then I think we actually sell ourselves short. And so when you say being a remarkable quitter, I see that as me saying, I only have trained myself to know that I can only do what I really feel like doing with the awareness that this could be a risk, but I'm okay with that. Does that answer your question?

• 35:17Steven Bartlett?

  A hundred percent. And you know, you brought up another point there, which I think is equally, this sounds a bit like a pun, but equally connected, which is, you know, society will give you a label. They'll say, okay, you're a monk, so act like and behave like a monk. We know what monks are. Here's the instruction manual of being a monk. And if you do anything other than the instruction manual there, then they'll say contradiction. They'll say, you're a monk. How do you live in LAJ?

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:38Steven Bartlett?

  You have a, you have a nice home, you make money. And so what is, what is it about these labels that we give people? And then we, society then tries to enforce. And if you step outside of the implicit instructions of the box that we've labeled you in, we go fraud.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:54Steven Bartlett?

  What is that?

• 35:55Speaker 00

  There's a really good meme on social media that I've seen fly about for years. And it says, society says be yourself. And then it says, no, not like that. And I don't know who invented it, but it's been out there in the meme world for years. And I love it because I'm like, that's exactly it. And the way you just explained what you said, I've actually never heard it said better than that. So you've just explained in 30 seconds, what I've been trying to ramble on about for the past three minutes. But that's exactly it, that we want to label people, we want to label things, we want to label everyone. Now let's take The Rock, Dwayne The Rock Johnson. We could label him a wrestler, but that wrestler is one of the biggest actors in the world today.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  And forget actors, he's a brand beyond that. Now, if we labeled him as a wrestler and said, no, no, no, you just have to stay a wrestler. You never get to see this. If you look at Steve Jobs, well, you started by making computers. You're a computer maker, so just make computers. Why are you inventing iTunes? Why are you inventing the phone? Now, I think it gets harder when it gets to things that are spiritually intertwined. And I grew up with a belief for a long time that if you were truly spiritual, you had to be poor. You had to have nothing. You had to be completely detached and disconnected. And I found that that's a worthy pursuit and has some beautiful rewards at the end of it as a journey.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  But I also saw, having lived that life as a monk, that there were certain areas of impact, certain conversations that we never got to be a part of. There were certain things in mainstream society that we never got to shift. And that's something that called out to my heart personally, where I felt, well, what if mental health was mainstream? That that was a mainstream conversation, that everyone in the world had access to the tools to help themselves for free through podcasting, through interviews, through books, through videos, through content. What if everyone in the world had access to what I have access to as a monk? But what does that need?

• 38:00Speaker 00

  That needs staff, it needs employees, it needs eight cameras, it needs a microphone, it needs people, it needs teams, it needs a business. So what looks like a business on the outside is just purpose on the inside, but we're so. Schooled and trained to judge things for what they externally look like, not what they internally are, that we don't give ourselves that expansive abundant mindset to say, well, maybe this could be more. Now, I'm not saying that I don't have imperfections and I'm not saying that I don't love things as well. Like, I like nice things. I like nice clothes. I like fashion. I like, I like living in a nice space. So I like, I like nice things and I would never shy

• 38:44Speaker 00

  away from that. But I'm also fully aware that I don't depend on my happiness on those things. I'm not putting what I believe is going to make me joyful on those things. But I appreciate having them. But I've also appreciated life when I didn't have them. So they've never defined whether I've worked hard or worked on my purpose, if that makes sense.

• 39:03Steven Bartlett?

  Hundred percent. Now, there's two times in this conversation where you've, you've made points where, where the kind of conclusion that my head has arrived at is, we have to meet in the middle if, if we're going to make progress. The first time you did that was when you were talking about having like an argument with, with a wife or a partner or whatever it might be. And you've got to actually like meet in the middle and say, this is maybe where I can improve. And maybe this is where, you know, you stepped to fall. And then you said it again there with, with the example of spirituality and probably like the business world. They're seen as polar opposites. One is all about, you know, maybe a less, a less of a desire for material possession and attainment and climbing and capitalism. And the other is the, the definition of it. And you're saying, well, really, if we are to spread the message of spirituality around the world, we're going to

• 39:47Steven Bartlett?

  need to learn a little bit from the other side about building and scaling. And, and I just think that phrase, the truth is in the middle, has haunted me for the last couple of weeks since I came back from Indonesia, because it seems to be the nature of everything. And we're actually moving away from that as a polarized society, black, white, police, the people, rich, poor.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  Man, woman.

• 40:07Steven Bartlett?

  Exactly. So.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  And, and it's beautiful. You said that actually, because the Buddha always talked about the middle path. So he called it the middle path.

• 40:15Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  For that reason, from what you just said, that it was always about the middle path, that the answer was somewhere. I interviewed Kristen Bell recently, and she wrote a book called Why the World Needs More Purple People. And that's because of the red and blue states. So the idea of this, idea of like meeting in the middle, that there's some answers that you only come across if you can entertain this idea and this idea and look for the connection. And what I love is that For everything we're talking about, someone's thought about it and talked about it before. And when I think of someone who defined what we're talking about really well, and this is a quote, a thought, an insight that I try and live my life by, and it's from Martin Luther King.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  And he said that the people that love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as the people who love war. And to me, that's what's been missing for so long in spirituality and wellness and health is that we can speak about these things in this really organic, beautiful way. But if it doesn't get organized, and if it doesn't get strategic, and it doesn't get focused, it just kind of feels like splattered paint. And it doesn't allow people to practically apply it in their life. So sometimes when people say, Jay, what you're saying is so simple, it's so basic. I'm like, yeah, I'm choosing to do that because

• 41:40Speaker 00

  that's what we all need. Like, don't we all need to make this really simple and easy and practical? I know that's what I need. And by the way, I love getting caught up in a heady intellectual conversation. And I've studied the Vedas that are 5,000 years old, and I can reel off verses and talk about philosophical intricacies. But I don't think that's going to help people at this stage. And that didn't help me when I started. So for me, I like to focus in on how can we get focused around powerful, simple ideas?

• 42:08Steven Bartlett?

  And a powerful, simple idea that loads of my guests come here and talk about, and it's interesting that they do because they are incredibly successful people typically, is this idea of meditation and the power of meditation. Now, I've heard this word meditation for many a year. And increasingly over time, I've become more compelled by it and started doing it. Thanks a lot to my girlfriend as well.

• 42:29Steven Bartlett?

  So, and you write about it a lot in your book. I mean, a couple of the chapters mention, I mean, pretty much several of the chapters mention the power of meditation. Talk to me about this simple idea of meditation and what the impact has been for you and can be for those listening.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  So in the book, I Present three different types of meditation that I was trained in as a monk and that I was exposed to, and they are breathwork, visualization, and mantra. So if you look at all types of meditations that exist today in the world, there are three tools or three formats in which you can do it. Breathwork, obviously, naturally, it says it in the name, it's all about your breathing, and breathwork is generally aimed at body and physical. So if you're having physical anxiety, physical stress, if you're rushing around, your heart rate's gone up, breathwork is a beautiful way to come back into alignment. Now visualization is really interesting because visualization is

• 43:24Speaker 00

  used by everyone from Lewis Hamilton when he's driving his car around a track through to David Beckham before he took a free kick. Visualization was the art of sitting in one place, closing your eyes, and visualizing, what's that track gonna look like? What's that turn gonna feel like? How's that ball gonna move? It's visualizing the process, not the result. And that's what's fascinating. Western societies made it all about visualizing the result. Visualize yourself at the top of the podium in the goal. The smartest people in the world are visualizing the process and the work and the journey. And that's where manifestation's gone wrong. We can get back to that. And then

• 44:02Speaker 00

  finally, mantra or sound. So the oldest texts on meditation believe that sound has the power to transport and connect us in a way that no other type of meditation can. Now, we can, we all have experience of this. When you hear a song from your past, you're taken back there immediately. When you hear a song that has maybe some ego in it, or there's a song that you, that you listen to on your way to a party or a nightclub because it pumps you up and it makes you feel good. There are songs that make you feel violent. Sound has the ability to wake you up in the morning. You don't wake up by sight. You don't wake up by scent. You don't wake up by taste. You

• 44:46Speaker 00

  wake up by sound. Sound has the power to awaken deeper parts of us, depending on what level it's at. So when you look at meditation, you have breathwork, you have visualization, you have sound. You can try a mix, you can try one or the other. Ultimately, for me, meditation is an opportunity to build a relationship with yourself. That's truly what it is, to build your relationship with your body, with your mind, with your heart and with your consciousness. And as you continue to meditate through breathwork, through visualization, through mantra and sound, that's all that's doing, it's just deepening your relationship with yourself. It's almost like saying, oh, when I'm with my girlfriend or my wife, what do I do? Oh, there is few activities and experiences that you do.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  You go out for dinner, you watch a movie, you go for a walk. Okay, well, what do I do on my own? Well, when I meditate on my own, I get to know myself better. And that's the beginning of what meditation is. But the greatest benefits of meditation come from using the right tool for the right part of your life. So before I'm coming on a podcast like this or going on stage, if I'm feeling nervous or my heart rate's going up, I've recognized that that's because I care. It's because I really, really care what I'm about to do and I want to be of service to others. I want what I say to help someone. I want what I say to hopefully start someone's meditation journey potentially. And if that's the case, then I need to be aligned. So I'll practice breathwork. I'll breathe in for four and out for four.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  This simple practice just brings me back into alignment. See, Stephen, we all have this experience. How many times have you ever woken up and you feel your mind is ahead of your body?

• 46:27Steven Bartlett?

  Every day.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Your body wants to stay in bed and your mind is racing.

• 46:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Or you experience the opposite. Your body is racing and your mind is still in bed. So most of our stress and tension in life comes from a lack of alignment in our body and our mind. Our body's racing a hundred miles per hour and our mind is slow or our mind's racing a hundred miles per hour and our body's slow. To bring them back into alignment, you breathe in for the same amount of time as you breathe out. Simply doing that brings you back into alignment. Visualization I use for when I think I'm about to start a difficult journey. And I think I may lose a bit of patience, or I feel like I really need to practice this. Imagine this as I'm about to go on stage, doing something that's really big deal and important for me.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  I'm going to visualize myself pacing back and forth on stage. I'm going to visualize myself communicating that message. I'm going to visualize myself being really energetic on stage. Notice I'm not visualizing people clapping. I'm not visualizing people saying that was amazing. Because that's just setting a false expectation. I'm visualizing my performance being the best that it possibly can. And then mantra and sound, which is a big part of my meditation every day. I do to connect with my deeper self. I do to awaken parts of me that are forgotten and to feel a connection to a higher power in the divine.

• 47:48Steven Bartlett?

  There's so many people listening, right? And you said that so beautifully and eloquently. Who I imagine listen to me doing these podcasts and they may be tuned in because they wanted a business podcast. And they go, oh, here goes Steve again, talking about meditation or whatever. And the react, that reaction is probably caused by the, I don't know. The historic kind of snobbery that surrounds spirituality. It can be quite a exclusive club, right? And the terminology can feel very exclusive to normal people and chakras and all of this stuff and alignment. And when, when words like that are said to some people who are, who aren't near the middle, who are very much at the other end of the spectrum, they just turn off to it.

• 48:29Steven Bartlett?

  So if I was to be someone who's listening to this now, driving in my van on my way to, to work this morning. And I see a lot of people in their vans, driving, listening to the podcast. What would you say is a really good, just a first step to, to investigate for themselves? Subjectively, if meditation can, can add value to their life, where would they start?

• 48:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say that the first thing you want to do is put something in your schedule, in your calendar, which is time for you. If you look at your schedule, you would never cancel an important meeting with someone else, but we don't even schedule one with ourself. There is nothing in the calendar that's time with myself, time for me, time for you, time for just this, this whole thing that's going on right now. Literally put it in for five minutes a day. If you can't do five minutes, do it for two minutes a day. Just put it in there because if you start putting that in there, you might then tomorrow go, okay, well, what am I going to do with this time? I've got five minutes. Wow, okay, what am I going to do with it? So start putting it in there. That's the first step. The second step, I would say, is definitely focus on your breath. I think the breath is just something we can all relate to.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  It's tangible. By the way, athletes have to learn how to control their breath. Musicians have to learn how to control their breath. Whether you're a Dell or whether you're a football player, you have to learn how to breathe in order to perform. Me, you and everyone, we're all athletes in different ways. We all use our bodies, we all use our minds, whether you're a business person or whether you're an actual athlete playing on a, on a court or a pitch.

• 49:56Steven Bartlett?

  But are you saying that I don't know how to breathe?

• 49:58Speaker 00

  I am saying you don't know how to breathe. Yeah, and not you specifically. I'm saying that most people don't know how to breathe. And I didn't know how to breathe until I was taught how to breathe. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but how many times a day do you get out of breath? I know there's times of days that I get out of breath. How many times of the day do you feel that when you're experiencing an emotion, your breath changes? Like when you're crying or you're sad or you're upset, your breath changes. When you're happy and elated, your breath changes. So our breath is connected to every single emotion. So if we want to navigate our emotions and our life, we have to train our breath. So I would just say to everyone, take out two to three minutes and just take a moment to breathe in and out and breathe in for four and out for four. Just try it as simply as that.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Now, if you're someone who struggles to get to sleep, which can often be something that I think everyone struggles with, that's when you want to breathe out for longer than you breathe in. So if you're breathing in for four, breathe out for more than four to relax and rest your body. And if you're one of these people that goes, Jay, I've got, you know, I've got, like you said, I've got to do a delivery today, I've got to run to this meeting, I've got to get to this, and you need more energy, breathe out for less time than you breathe in. So you may breathe in for a second and breathe out for a millisecond. It's a really sharp breath out. And if you do that, you'll feel this pumping energy in your body. And so to me, it's, these are really practical tools that I think we all need to sleep. So everyone knows their meditation for sleep. We all need to get energized. So that's a simple meditation for energized. And we all need to just feel like we're not rushing.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  So I think those are hopefully quick things that feel practical to anyone and everyone.

• 51:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I mean, I think my natural position on things is to be a little bit of a skeptic. And when I was in Indonesia, the last time, my girlfriend brought me to see a breathwork coach. And before we did the breathwork, he explained it to me. And so this is, as a logical guy like I am, the explanation matters a lot. And he was talking to me about how we pretty much live most of our lives these days because of the overstimulation, because of the stress, because of the screens, in this kind of like permanent state of fight or flight. And when you look at what happens in fight or flight, and I studied biology, I know what happens to the body anatomically and physically, what happens to your digestive tract. And I mean, this is what a lot of people say when they say I'm nervous and

• 52:12Steven Bartlett?

  they've lost their appetite. That's your body preparing and keeping the minerals and nutrients it needs to expend energy to help you in a situation on the Serengeti when a lion is running at you. That's a very prehistoric innate part of our conditioning. And we do live on edge. Our notifications run our lives and all of these things. So when we think about why people might be getting a little bit more anxious day to day, it's probably because we're living in like a heightened state of fight or flight. And one of the things that happens in fight or flight as well is your breathing changes. So yeah, and then I think about the moments where I'm feeling a little bit stressed. And one thing I've done, my funny, it's so funny, my head went straight to New York City, is I'll go, I'll stop and I'll just go. And whenever I do that, someone turns to me and goes, are you okay?

• 52:57Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, I'm fine.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  Look at him now.

• 52:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, but no, I completely agree. And I think it's one of those things that I think everybody listening, regardless of who you are or how much of a tough guy you are, you should definitely consider yourself.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  You're a tough guy, Stephen, so you know.

• 53:10Steven Bartlett?

  Well, not really.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  No, not really, no.

• 53:12Steven Bartlett?

  I'm a bit soft, you know, around the edges. This, let's talk a little bit about fear then, because we talked about that there. In your book, in chapter three, you talk about there being good fear and bad fear. How can fear be a good thing?

• 53:27Speaker 00

  I realized that fear could be healthy or unhealthy based on how I used it. And most of us don't realize that we get consumed by fear instead of using fear. So fear becomes our being in the sense that fear becomes what controls us. It tells us what we should do and what we shouldn't do. It tells us how we should think and we shouldn't think. It stops us from doing stuff that's really important to us. And it makes us do things that we would never, ever do. It makes us say things to people that we love that we would never want to say to them. And on the other end, it stops you from saying things you really wanna say to someone

• 54:12Speaker 00

  because you don't wanna appear weak and your ego won't let you. So fear takes this really magnetic controlling effect on our whole lives. But fear at the same time can be one of the healthiest things because it's basically giving you a signal as to what's important. It's basically giving you as a signal as to how you feel. And when you use it as a signal, not as a suggestion or a push, it changes everything. So let's, let's beg that practical. When you are in your home and if the fire alarm goes off, that gives you a signal to say, check for the fire. Check if there's a fire, right? Now, if you go, oh, just turn it off, it doesn't matter. Let's, let's avoid my fear.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Let's avoid it. Let's just turn it off. Let's forget about it. Your house could burn down. Or if you're lucky, there was nothing and it's fine. But the odds are that there could be a fire. Now, if you're someone who goes, well, let me inspect it. Let me be curious about that. I am scared that there's a fire in my house now that I've heard the fire alarm. But let me be curious. Let me inspect. Let me check. Imagine we approached our fear in that way. Imagine every time I felt scared of something, I said, well, let me get curious about this. Why am I scared of this? Why is it affecting me so much? What about this scares me? Is it all of it? Or is it just a part of it? When you start doing it, you start to break that fear down. And that's the healthy way of looking at fear rather than the unhealthy way of saying,

• 55:42Speaker 00

  forget about it, keep it away from me. I don't wanna go there. And so for me, I really feel that. Fear is what blocks us from these beautiful breakthroughs in life. And it has such a chokehold on us, like it has such a stronghold on us. And I think most of us are living our lives because we're scared of what someone will say, what someone will think, or what someone will do. And that feels like something that we're going to regret when we're at the end of our lives.

• 56:13Steven Bartlett?

  Well, they do, right? So they interview people, as you know, on their deathbed. And this is the number one regret of the dying. Your DMs, they must be full of people that are exhibiting exactly that behavior. Cause I know mine are. A young person saying, I'm in this job, I'm in this relationship. I, it sucks, but.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:30Steven Bartlett?

  Fear, right?

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 56:32Steven Bartlett?

  Fear of change, fear of uncertainty, whatever it might be. What do you typically say to those people that, you know, that they hate the situation they're in, but the fear is kind of imprisoning them to, into inaction?

• 56:43Speaker 00

  I think I always meet it, I always, I was saying this to someone on my team this morning, actually. I, I always try and meet everyone with compassion and not judgment. Because I know what it feels like to experience that. And I still experience that in different areas of my life. So it's always there. And I think if you don't meet it with compassion, you can kind of say something really energetic in the moment and kind of make them feel like they've solved it. But that isn't really wearing it down. I think for me, the first thing is to acknowledge that that fear is real. To acknowledge that there potentially will be backlash, that there potentially will be someone who's upset. Because I think often we're told, oh no, just do what you want and it doesn't matter. And I'm like, well, it does matter because maybe you are a good person and you don't want someone to be upset. Or you don't want to let your parents down.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  Or you don't want to hurt someone, right? Or you don't want to ruin your reputation by quitting your job or whatever it may be. And I think it's important to acknowledge that that's real and that may happen. But I think what I try and do next is say, okay, well, let's say you didn't change anything. How are you going to feel in five to 10 years? And that's my favorite question to ask someone. Let's not change anything about your life. How does it feel in five to 10 years? And if it feels worse than what you think it is now, chances are that even if you're going to hurt someone, that's probably the better way to go. But if you say you're going to feel the same or better, then sure, just accept that. And most people will say, well, no, if I, if I don't change anything, if I don't get out of this, my life's going to be worse. But here's the other thing.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  I think we're always conditioned to think that we need to change our situation to create a change in our life. And actually, with what both of us believe, it's all about a change in perspective and mindset. I have learned things from jobs that I hated, but that are so useful to me right now. I have learned things from relationships with people I've had and those people that I didn't get along with, but those lessons are still serving me today. I've been in countless situations where I wanted to get out of that situation, but that situation was perfectly designed to show me something. And the problem is, we're constantly trying to just move and get away.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  And so really what I say to everyone is, I want you to find out what is the perspective shift that this situation is trying to create in your life? Because if you take that with you, that perspective is going to stay with you no matter the situation. But if you just keep trying to change your environment, hoping that your life's going to improve, you're going to feel dissatisfied at the next place and the next place and the one after that. And I feel we're just conditioned to say, okay, you don't like your job, quit your job. You don't like your relationship, quit your relationship. It's not the job or relationship, it's the way you see it. And I think we just keep saying that it's this external shell that we're in, when it's actually this shell and what's happening inside of it that's defining all of these perspectives.

• 59:37Steven Bartlett?

  So much, I mean, that was an unbelievably beautiful answer. And I'm going to 100% steal that answer, I want you to know. Especially that five year point because it is a really good sort of mental game to to role play. One of the things I was thinking when you were talking then is about a lot of those messages that we'll get on Instagram, wherever it might be, they're centered in insecurity, some kind of insecurity. And because we have a lot of followers, you significantly more than me, and because we have a big audience, what people will assume is that we have all the answers, that we've got it all figured out and that we live our lives like saints. And I always want to be really clear on this podcast that I absolutely do not.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:00:15Steven Bartlett?

  So let's talk about that. How about we go back and forward and we just say a couple of things we're really, really bad at and we want to improve on, whether they are insecurities, they are lessons, wisdom we know, but we don't follow, et cetera, et cetera. You please be my guest.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  This one's been the one that the universe keeps teaching me. So when, if I think about this question, this is the first thing that came to my mind. I keep believing that I'm going to meet someone who's going to help me take my work to the next level. And so I always have had this belief and I don't know where it comes from. It's one of those ones that I still need to figure out, where every year I'll be like, oh, well, yeah, yeah. If I'm working with that person, that person like as a manager or an agent or whatever it was like, that person's gonna help me get to another stage. And the universe just keeps teaching me every year that it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, like you've got to do it for yourself. There's not going to be anyone that comes into your life and

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  changes your life. But my naivety every year is to try and look for that person. And if someone asked me and said, well, Jay, who's going to be that person for me? I would tell them, no, what are you talking about? It's you. That's what I would say to them. Off the bat, I would say to someone, stop depending on other people. Stop waiting for someone to change your life. You have to change your life. But then in my own life, I keep my action show that I'm still looking for that. So that's the first thing. I'm sure that, let's go back and forth. I like this. Yeah, there's, there's going to be plenty more.

• 1:01:39Steven Bartlett?

  Okay. So the first, loads came to mind. So I'll just, I'll try and start from the top. So the first thing that came to mind that I, I know the truth upon, and I would preach about on this podcast, but I find it hard to do is. I still kind of impose my own bias and beliefs on the world, onto others. And I still loosely don't understand why everybody doesn't want to do what I want to do with their life. So I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to be successful and push and climb the ladder and pursue and have nice things and build wealth and build an empire. So sometimes there's this real bias in the advice I give people and this real kind of like naivety and lack of understanding that happiness is the North Star. We will have our own paths to getting there. And I can even exhibit that as an employer.

• 1:02:24Steven Bartlett?

  I can, my, a voice can sometimes question why team members might not behave in the same way as me. And it's fundamentally because again, the North Star is happiness and their path to being happy is not the same as mine. And that's a really dangerous game to play, especially when you've got a big platform, because you'll make people feel inadequate for their journey to happiness because it doesn't resemble your own. And so I really need to get better at understanding, we will have different paths. And if I just say to myself, the North Star is happiness and we will have our own ways there, then I can stop preaching upon people or assuming that because they are not following my path, they are incorrect.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, I love that. I think one of the biggest things I obviously talk about is asking people to take time for themselves and make time for themselves.

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  You already know where this is going. And I think it's really interesting because I think I try and I think I do. But I know that this year, when it came to, so I try and take a full month off every year for myself. And usually I go to India and because of COVID, I haven't been able to go for the last two years. And I usually go and live with the monks again and, and take part in all the meditations and practices for a month. And it's one of my favorite things to do. And I haven't been able to do it for the last two years. So I still decided I would take a month off. And it came, and I said, I would do from the 15th of December to the 15th of Jan. And then I found out a week before that I kind of had to stay for an extra week in L A for work.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  So I delayed it and I was like, all right, I'm gonna do twenty second of December to the to the seventeenth of Jan. And then I I I got to London, I started taking that break off, but it was like, I got to a point where I could see that I'd been delaying my self care. And I kept delaying it even by that week. And in that week before I left, I could tell that I needed a break. Like I needed to switch off. And my advice to everyone is don't let it get to that point. You've got to take it just before that. And I was planning on doing that. It was scheduled. But because of commitments and priorities and important things, I had to push that extra mile and sure, I'm fine and I'm okay and I feel great. But I don't think that that's sustainable. And I think it was a different journey.

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  And and this is being honest, too. I don't think I I'm a proponent of work life balance, although it may appear that way. So this may actually be a perception thing. I think people may perceive that Jay believes in perfect work life balance. And the truth is, I don't. I believe in purpose and purpose to me is being obsessed about what you care about and what's important to you. And so for me, what I do is my purpose. And so I'm obsessed about it. I care about it. I love it. I breathe it. I live it. And when I was building, I was working eighteen hours a day. I was, you know, a couple of those were meditations, sure, but then I was sleeping for six hours. But I was working eighteen hours a day for two to three years straight, seven days a week.

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  And I think the perception is often people may feel that, no, Jay, you live a perfectly balanced life. And I'm like, well, no, no, I haven't like to. There's a different skill required to go upwards. Then stay, maintain, create momentum, like it's a different gear that you're in all the time. And so today, my life is far more disciplined in my health and wellness than it's ever been before. But there have been periods of the years getting here that didn't look like that at all.

• 1:05:51Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, 100%. I completely get that. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's super valuable. My next one would be what you described at the tennis court, which was some days, especially because, I mean, these are probably, everything I say now is probably going to be an excuse, but I'm going to say it anyway. But I presented it as an excuse, so hopefully that kind of is okay. But I think I've geared my mind to care so much about the, like, being time efficient.

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06:15Steven Bartlett?

  That in situations where things aren't moving with the efficiency that I would, I demand from my business life. Yeah, I can see you bring your hand up here. That I, my, because, because of my expectations are of efficiency and speed. When I encounter a situation, maybe like the people that were bumbling around with the clipboard at the tennis court that you described, trying to find your membership or whatever, my expectation goes unmet, frustration arrives, and then I might compromise on the way that I behave.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Steven Bartlett?

  And that might mean being abrupt, being too, too forward with somebody, or being too, too harsh, lacking compassion in the way that I say something. People don't know this about me, but when I'm alone, I think about this, it's probably the number one thing I think about. I reflect on how I treated people that day.

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06:57Steven Bartlett?

  And there's been too many days in a row where I've gone, you fucked that up again, Steve.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Steven Bartlett?

  Be better tomorrow. And then I'll come into tomorrow, the expectation will go unmet, I'll be, I'll become a person I don't want to be. And I'll say to myself in my private time, I say, you fucked that up again.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Steven Bartlett?

  And I've been doing that too much for too long.

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  I think we all have. I mean, I talk about it in my book, I had this, I had this moment, same thing as you just said, I, uh, this was a couple of years ago in LA and I was traveling around in, in Ubers and going here and there and getting in, or Lyft and calling one and jumping in and going on. And I got in and I was on my phone and doing whatever. And then five minutes later, I realized we hadn't moved. And, and that's how consumed I was on my phone, whether I was scrolling or texting or emailing. And I said to the driver, I said, is everything okay? And he said, you didn't say hello. And he said, I said a hello to you five minutes ago and you didn't say hello. And I just, it, it was such a like, I was late for my meeting, I was late for a big thing.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  Well, I felt terrible. I felt so, so bad. And I was like, I really want people to connect with everyone as a human. And I said, I'm so sorry. What's your name? Like, like, and then, and he started driving and he wasn't trying to, he wasn't even trying to be abrasive. Like some people say, oh, well, that's a bit, he's not doing his, I actually don't think it's his fault at all. I think he taught me such a valuable lesson because I was just kind of like, oh yeah, it's a service, I booked it. Treating him like a robot, treating him like a machine. And yeah, one day we'll have driverless cars and I won't have to say hello. Sure. But treating a human in that way, it, I, I think that goes against everything I stand for is that I want us to become more human.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  And I want us to not lose our humanity as technology advances. And I love technology and it's great. But let's not lose our ability to have human connection, which is what brings so much joy to our lives. And so, yeah, I, you know, that, that's one of those moments that I was like, you know, you're really trying to teach me a lesson here. Yeah.

• 1:09:00Steven Bartlett?

  You know what? This, this whole back and forward, if it's taught us anything, it's that even people that you presume to, to have the answers from the, from the outside. In fact, maybe the, the correct answer is to understand one's own faults, understand we're all really, really imperfect. To be self-aware about those faults and then make a commitment to being better every day. I think I'll die imperfect, but trying to be better. I don't think I'll die perfect. And I think, um, I think that is maybe, there'll probably be people that view the work that you do and say, God, he's got it all figured out. A hundred percent of things and I don't, so I'm inadequate.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:09:37Steven Bartlett?

  I need to be J. And if I'm not J, then I'm inadequate. I'm morally wrong. My values are bad. I'm a bad person. So that's kind of.

• 1:09:44Speaker 00

  I love that. I'm so glad. I love the back and forth too. I, you know, for me, it's, it's always wonderful to talk about these things. And I think that's what our generation is changed in this space. Because I think we did live at a time when gurus and guides and coaches were revered as flawless, perfect. And you never really saw. The behind the scenes and I think I always say to my team like I'm always trying to I don't want I don't even want that pressure. It's it's pressure and it actually stops you from being sincere and genuine and authentic and I feel that pressure sometimes like. I feel that pressure when someone has a question and I need to rush off and I'm like I want to answer it but I also need to rush off and I feel that pressure.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  And it's just I've realised I don't want that pressure like because I'm not perfect and I don't want to try and pretend I am. Or I don't want to have to live up to it because it will just let someone down and it's really interesting because. This was around probably around 11 years ago now. And this was I was mentoring before I became a monk when I was a monk I was a mentor and then I became a coach. And whenever I took on a mentee or a coach, coaching client or anyone. The one of the first things I'd say to them in our first meeting is I just want you to know that I will let you down. I just want you to know that that there will be something I do that upsets you disappoints you or lets you down. If you're okay with that, let's get started like let's get going. And I saw the amount of people that walked out that door. Really?

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, there were people that left because they were expecting divinity and humanity. And they were expecting perfection and I'm really happy that they left because. I would never have been able to live up to that and I don't even want the pressure. And so I'm really clear with people even now like I work with so many clients and that's one of the first things I'll say to them. And you see that the people that stay recognise that because they understand they have flaws and we all do. And I also took off the pressure, especially in coaching where. A lot of people think you can change their life. And as an immature coach or therapist, you may think you can change someone else's life. And the more I've coached and the more. Hours I've racked up with coaching, the more I've realised. I don't I can't change someone's life.

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  I don't have what it takes to change someone's life. I don't have to say something profound every word I say. And not everything I say is going to be perfect and incredible and insightful. And if I can let go of that, I actually might allow something beautiful to happen. Actually trying to do all those things, trying to say something profound every sentence, trying to magically solve someone's problems, trying to be perfect, all of these things actually block something beautiful from happening.

• 1:12:24Steven Bartlett?

  Kind of interesting because it very much links to what you said about not, not putting the expectation on the outcome. You said that earlier. I'm not going to try and change your life today, but let's just focus in, as you said earlier, on the process of like what we can do today. I guess part of my point, the first thing that came to mind there was we both write quotes and put them out on the internet and that kind of thing. But I'm going to be completely honest. When I write quotes on Instagram, I have no expectation that it's going to change the life of pretty much. I actually don't think even if people agree with it, most of them won't actually do anything, probably over 95, maybe 99% of them. But what does it take to have an impact on someone's life? Is it something that you can do as a coach? Or is it something inside them that is you're just the oxygen to their flame? What is it?

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  I believe that we need different language, different perspectives, different faces, different voices to connect with every person on the planet. You're going to say the same thing in your own way, from your own mind and heart and your experience, and that's going to touch someone in a way that what I said can't. And then I'm going to say something in a context that's going to impact someone else that your words may not speak to because I've, I've heard truths again and again and again and again and again. And then I hear it again last week and it clicks because I heard it from someone that said it in a way that speaks to the language of my soul, that speaks to the language of my mind and heart. And I think that's what's so fascinating about needing more voices and more faces

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  and more people trying to serve. But when you talk about what creates change in coaching, there's, there's four steps to making a change in someone's life. It goes theoretical.

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  Meaningful, practical and applicable. So, most people, when they like a post on Instagram, or maybe they comment, that's them saying theoretically, I agree with this and I understand it. I understand the theory that what you're saying is true and I like it and I agree with it theoretically. But that theoretical understanding doesn't create transformation. That theoretical understanding doesn't change someone's life. It may hit them here and hit them here. The next step actually is from here to here, which is, is it meaningful to them? So I'll give an example. Let's say someone reads a quote, but they just lost their parent or they just lost a family member they love. I know I've had that happen to me in the last couple of years.

• 1:14:49Speaker 00

  I'm sure many people listening have. Now it's not theory, it's meaningful because it's hit your heart. It's gone from here to here and you're like, okay, that really resonated. But again, that doesn't change your life. Because now it's meaningful, it's emotional, it's internal, but that hasn't changed in your action or your behaviour. So the next step is making that practical. Okay, Stephen wrote that amazing quote. How do I make that practical? Let me reflect. This is the work that the coachee or the client needs to do. Okay, Stephen presented it beautifully. It connected with my head, it hit my heart. How do I actually make that practical in my day to day life? I'm not Stephen, I'm not Jay. How do I actually practically do that? And then finally, what's the part that I apply and take action on?

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  So as a receiver of wisdom and knowledge, you have to do half that journey. All you can do is the theoretical and the meaningful. And you may even help with practical tips and application, but someone still has to sit there and go, how do I do that? Unless you're sitting there with them one on one, obviously.

• 1:15:49Steven Bartlett?

  And you can't do the practical bit for someone else forever.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  Ever, yeah.

• 1:15:54Steven Bartlett?

  You could maybe help them today or tomorrow.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 1:15:56Steven Bartlett?

  Not for a lifetime, it's not going to be the fishing rod. Over the years, I've tried to kind of simplify what happiness is. And I sit here with my guests and Mogadha was great at that as well.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, of course.

• 1:16:05Steven Bartlett?

  He's unbelievable at kind of the concept of happiness. What are the kind of simple fundamentals that Jay Shetty requires in his life to live a happy life? I'm going to use the word happy. I know it's a shitty word in many respects, but I just want to use that as the word.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd say that I look at happiness as...

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  Daily habits and then deeper purpose. So there's things you can do daily that keep that happiness kind of moving and feel it's growing. And then there's almost the objective, the compass, the reason why you live and why you exist. And for me, it's been really clear that finding your passion and using it in the service of others is what creates the greatest, deepest happiness. When you find what you love, what you excel at, what you're brilliant at, and then you can actually use that to improve people's lives and you can use that skill, that passion, that energy to make a difference in someone's life.

• 1:17:10Speaker 00

  There is no better feeling than that. And what I find is I meet a lot of people who've mastered their passion, but not for service. They mastered it for business, they mastered it for money, they mastered it for success. And they have all of that, but they haven't got the service element in their life. They don't understand how to use their passion for a purpose. And so they feel unequipped. And then I know lots of people who are trying to serve, who are trying to make a difference, who are trying to do charity work, they're trying to do all this good work. And they feel good about it, but they still don't feel fulfilled because they're missing, what is my special role? Like, what's my position? What's my offering in this space? You kind of get lost after a while.

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  And so to me, happiness is where both come together, where it's like, I know what I love and what makes me happy. And when I do that for others to improve their lives, it makes them happy. So if you can do what makes you happy and do it for others and it makes them happy, that's going to give you happiness. And I have tested that principle time and time again with clients, with friends, with family, with myself. And I've seen it to be true again and again and again. But that's that bigger happiness piece. Let's go to the daily habits, like the daily stuff. And I want to try and avoid the stuff that I think people have heard and people have probably come across before in many different places. Maybe I've spoken about them, maybe other people have. But one of the biggest ones for me is, I read a book a few years ago about flow state.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  And that book really transformed how I felt about things. And it talks about how being in flow is the intersection where your skills and your challenge match.

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  So if your skills are higher than your challenge, you'll feel bored, lethargic, and maybe feel stuck. But if your challenge is greater than your skills, you feel overwhelmed, potentially depressed, and disconnected and disappointed. So most of us are living in one of those discrepancies. And I find on a daily basis, I'm playing around with that equation for happiness. Because that flow state, when you know you have a skill, and your challenge is met, and even if you lose, you still get such a joy out of it because you know that you're still working in the right direction. And I think that is an underplayed part of happiness. Because it doesn't sound like something predictable or obvious. Because people go, well, that's achievement, that's ambition.

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  It's actually not. It's just saying, for most people, it's either or. Their challenges are greater than their skill, or their skill is greater than their challenge. So I would ask everyone to say, look at your life. Do you need to improve your skills? Or do you need to broaden your challenge? Is this a year of expanding your challenges? Or is this a year of broadening your skills? And I promise you, if you start with that, you're gonna get so busy and active, changing one of those, that happiness is gonna naturally flow. This comes into a little, little model I created of creating happiness for my year. And that one sits in one of them, so I'll explain which one it's in. I believe that to create happiness, day to day, in one year, in one month, in a week,

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  you have to have three things. You have to learn something every year. You have to launch something every year. And you have to love something every year. And that's how I've lived for the last three to five years. Every year I'm learning something. Every year I'm launching something. And every year I'm loving something. And I'll give you an example. So when I talk about flow state, That comes into the idea of raising your challenge is like launching something. The reason why launching something creates happiness is because it creates a feeling of nervousness. It creates a feeling of butterflies, creates a feeling of excitement, like I don't know what's gonna happen. We all need a feeling of surprise in life. We all need that feeling of, I don't know.

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  The sense of the unknown can actually cause happiness. And so launching something is such a powerful way. And I think too many people will think for five years and think for 10 years and maybe launch one thing in their whole life. And me and you, but I mean, I'd love to, I can't wait to interview on my podcast, but I have launched so much stuff that has failed.

• 1:21:25Steven Bartlett?

  We're gonna get into that.

• 1:21:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that launch creates so much joy. It creates so much happiness. So launch something and we can dive into that. Then there's learn something, which is what we just talked about, learning a skill. So that's the, that's the idea of creating your flow state by saying, what skill do I want to learn? And every year I pick a skill and it's usually based on what I want to launch the next year. So I'll go, okay, I need to learn podcasting. So 2018, I studied podcasting. 2019, we launched the podcast. So what you learn turns in what to, what you launch and what you launch turns into what you love. And what we try and do is we try and do it the other way around. We try and love something before we learn and launch it. It doesn't make sense. You've got to learn about something first and then you can fall in love with it.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  You can't love something and then learn about it. You can, but it doesn't always work that way. So I try and plan my years out in that way. I go, what am I gonna learn? What am I gonna launch and what am I gonna love? So yeah, I think that's how I try and create happiness on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, without diving into things like gratitude and meditation, which are huge parts of my daily happiness. But I think those are ideas that are out there and that we've talked about before, probably.

• 1:22:33Steven Bartlett?

  And you've launched a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. And we're gonna talk a little bit about some of those things that you've launched. I mean, you've got your, your genius community, which you, which has been going for a long time now, brilliant. A really brilliant business and really a standout business in this whole industry in terms of the way you executed it and the, I mean, even the, the design of the, the programs. And I mean, I remember going on the website and trying to, I thinking to myself, would I be able to make something as quality as this in the future? And I'm sort of modeling myself on that. You've got your certification school for coaches as well. You've launched your T business and there's also a really, I guess this is a bit of an exclusive, your partnership with Calm, the mindfulness meditation app.

• 1:23:17Steven Bartlett?

  And I think they also call themselves a sleep app as well now. I think that's a more modern description of them. So why did you partner with Calm?

• 1:23:26Speaker 00

  So Michael and I, Michael's one of the co-founders of Calm.

• 1:23:29Steven Bartlett?

  He's been on this podcast?

• 1:23:30Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. Yes. And we, we got introduced probably around four years ago now. And he came over for lunch to my place. We were hanging out, connecting, getting to know each other. He was being told that he should really connect with me and I was being told I should connect with him. And finally we got together. So we had lunch at my home. My wife made us this incredible lunch and we sat down and he brought, brought a friend and I had a couple of people there and we just hung out. And in that meeting, I met someone who I really believed was not trying to build an app. And I met someone who was not trying to build a platform. And I met someone who was not trying to build technology.

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  He was trying to build an experience. He was trying to build a journey for people to go on. He was trying to build a practical daily habit for each and every single person in the world. And that was really beautiful for me to hear because I'd been an admirer of Calm when it first started out and I first heard about it, probably. Eight years before we met and I'd been seeing what they were doing and creating and to meet the person behind it and for them to be as genuine, sincere and wonderful as Michael is, you've met him, so you know what he's like. I was really blown away by that. I was just blown away by that vision. And having spent hours and years meditating in the monastery and then

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  meditating afterwards, I've always wanted to share meditation at scale with the world. I think it's a habit that eighty to ninety percent of the world's most healthy, wealthy and successful people live by. So if we could make it accessible, practical and relevant to each and every person's daily life, can you imagine the transformation that they'll have? And I've experienced that as a monk, I saw it for years and years and years. I've seen it last year during the pandemic, I went live for twenty days on Instagram and taught meditation just to everyone and anyone because I felt quite inadequate. I was like, I'm not a frontline worker. I can't save lives. I'm not

• 1:25:40Speaker 00

  a delivery person. I'm not helping people with their groceries and their food. I was like, what can I offer? And I thought, well, maybe if people can have a minute of peace and calm, then that might be worth it. And across forty days, I ended up doing forty instead of twenty, across forty days, we had twenty million people tune in. And it was just so mind blowing to me. And most of the people were saying they'd never meditated before. And I thought to myself how beautiful that was. And one of the biggest pieces of feedback I get from my audiences, well, Jay, we want to meditate with you every day. Why can't we keep doing that? And I was like, wow, those forty days of live meditations were really intense and a lot of work went into them. So I wanted a home for where I could share meditation every single day, a new piece of meditation

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  insight that each and every single person could build a daily habit.

• 1:26:30Steven Bartlett?

  Every day?

• 1:26:31Speaker 00

  Every day.

• 1:26:31Steven Bartlett?

  What?

• 1:26:32Speaker 00

  Of seven minutes a day.

• 1:26:34Steven Bartlett?

  You're gonna do seven minutes a day every day?

• 1:26:35Speaker 00

  Seven minutes a day every day.

• 1:26:36Steven Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  Five days a week, five days a week, not weekends. You get days off. Everyone gets two days off. You don't have to meditate on the weekends. You can sleep in.

• 1:26:42Steven Bartlett?

  But you're gonna, you've recorded a meditation in Calm. Three hundred and sixty five.

• 1:26:47Speaker 00

  We haven't recorded all of them. We haven't recorded all of them because they're fresh and they're moving and they're based on my weekly inspiration. So we record them monthly.

• 1:26:53Steven Bartlett?

  Nice.

• 1:26:54Speaker 00

  So we record them monthly. So I've recorded for the next month ahead because I have to because everyone's going to need them. But I'm basing it on like what my inspiration is that week and what my day is that week. But it's a seven minute meditation. And I truly believe that everyone can find seven minutes. And if everyone could just find seven minutes in their day, in their calendar, as I said, that they put aside for themselves. I believe in those seven minutes, everyone could build a beautiful habit. Now, the difference with our meditation is that the meditations we've created, we believe they're meditations that inspire action. So all of them are not just sitting there on your own with yourself breathing, they're interconnected with a change in your daily behavior.

• 1:27:33Speaker 00

  So each and every single one of them have a takeaway, have an insight that you can go and apply no matter what you do across the world. So the goal is where meditation meets action, where meditation can actually help you change how you feel that day through your real life. And so why I chose Calm was I wanted a home. I wanted to work with Michael and the team who I just believe are dreaming beautifully about how to bring meditation to the world. And so sincerely and genuinely care about each and every person. And I just love how,

• 1:28:08Speaker 00

  I would say I love how universally they approach meditation. I think they approach meditation in this universal expansive abundant mindset way, which makes story be a part of meditation, which makes visualization be a part of meditation. And that's how I was trained in meditation as a monk. So it feels very philosophically aligned as well.

• 1:28:30Steven Bartlett?

  You know, you've done so much. And really, from what I observed even, you really started in two thousand and I'd say the the sort of external social media content journey started in two thousand and sixteen.

• 1:28:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:28:42Steven Bartlett?

  That is mad. That is mad. You've gone from 2016, making your first content to in 2022 now just, and you're this global household name as it relates to content, self-improvement, meditation, all of these topics, right? That's a short period of time. When you look back and you try and connect the dots, as Steve Jobs often did about how Apple came to be in the little moments and the little things, whether it was a moment of good fortune, or whether it was something that you have spotted in hindsight in your character. Why was Jay Shetty successful in such a short period of time in such a big way? Give me the honest, practical answer. I don't want any, I want the, why, why were you successful?

• 1:29:26Speaker 00

  So I'm, I'm gonna give you the, I'm gonna give you my monk answer and then I'm gonna, then I'm gonna give the media answer. So, and, and I live by both, right? Like you have, you have to see things as both. And that's why I love my, my monk answer is, I was really fortunate to meet incredible people when I was young. I met a few people that absolutely transformed my life. I'm eternally indebted to them, grateful to them. And I owe it all to them. And so I give all my success to them, you know, without meeting those amazing mentors and those phenomenal thought leaders and thinkers who are not famous, who are not known, who are not present, like they're not, they're not in the social media world, they're not big names or whatever. Those people, you know, those people, if I never met them, none of this would have happened.

• 1:30:10Steven Bartlett?

  I can see the emotion in your face when you say this.

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just, I, I really, you know, we, we skipped it earlier, but I, I just feel like

• 1:30:19Speaker 00

  the gratitude that I have for people who saw potential in me when I didn't see it in myself. That is just the greatest gift you can give to someone. Like I today have self-awareness and I have confidence and I know who I am and I, I wasn't always like that. Like there were tons of years where I was insecure and, you know, I was bullied for being overweight and I was bullied for being the only Indian at school. And there was so much like baggage to do with just my body, my, how, how, the language I used and all this kind of stuff. And to, to have someone notice that you may have something. I mean, you've had that and that is just you you like honor that person for the rest of your life. And the best thing is those people don't even want it. So you know, the best thing

• 1:31:03Speaker 00

  about all of this is the people there are not going, oh, yeah, we did that. They're actually saying, no, no, no, it's not us like it's you. And and I think that's the beauty of that. So I have to say that I it's important that I share that answer, not because I'm trying to give a more strategic answer, but I think it's important because it is a big part of it. And so that would be the monks that I met, it would be the coaches that I met, the guides that I met, looking at it from a very practical strategic standpoint, shifting now. My parents forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11 years old. And I really didn't want to go because I was shy. I was unconfident. I was insecure about being on stage or being in a public setting. I actually loved acting growing up. I really enjoyed acting and doing theater

• 1:31:47Speaker 00

  and things like that, where I was playing another character. But being myself on stage, that was the last thing I wanted to do. And my parents saw that and they saw that as something that I should work on. So they forced me and my school to enroll me in a public speaking course. So from the age of 11 through to the age of 18, for three hours a day, three days a week, so nine hours a week, for seven years, I went to public speaking school.

• 1:32:12Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:32:13Speaker 00

  For seven years of my life, I went to public speaking school. So when I look back at my ability to communicate, my ability to understand ideas, and by the way, public speaking school is examination based too. So we had exams where they would give you a topic 15 minutes before, you have 15 minutes to research a topic from the books in the room that they give you because there was no smartphone at the time when we were 11, 12 years old. And you'd have to create a speech in 15 minutes about that subject from the books that were in the room. You had to read from a book that you'd never read before. They'd pick a random page and they'd ask you to read it out. So the examination of a public, and this was at the London Academy of Music, Drama and Arts, it's called Lambda. And that's where I studied for seven years. So that's a very strategic skill set that I had the time to develop, thanks to my parents, you know, like without my parents,

• 1:32:58Speaker 00

  that none of that would have ever happened. And I think that's a big part of why people hopefully appreciate how I communicate ideas, because I've spent a lot of time understanding communication. But when I was 18, I had nothing to talk about. So even though I had all these tools and skills, I didn't really use them because I didn't care about anything. So sure, I gave a good presentation at university and work experience and an internship, but it was never something that brought me to life. And so then when I met the monks and I got an opportunity to study the Vedas, which are 5,000 years old, and again, we were put through rigorous study. We sat down, we had to learn verses, we had to analyze purports, commentaries on ancient scriptures. We had to do comparative analysis of religions and tradition.

• 1:33:40Speaker 00

  Like when I was a monk, we were massively trained in philosophical analysis. And that to me gave me a real strength and confidence in these ideas. So some of the ideas I present today that may sound simple, they're based on these really ancient, deep truths that I've had the time to grapple with, with the greats who really understand them. So that to me is a big benefit I've had where I've had three years of complete dedication to studying philosophy and not just studying the intellectual areas, but the practical and the applicable areas as well. So thanks to my monk teachers who gave me that. And then when I went to Accenture, where people were like, Jay, you're just a monk. Why did you go to Accenture? I had to pay the bills.

• 1:34:24Speaker 00

  I couldn't rely on my parents and, you know, my parents are not wealthy that they could pay my way through life. And I moved back into their, I moved back into my childhood bedroom when I was 26, living with my parents with 25,000, 18,000 pounds worth of debt and just feeling that, you know, I was like, what do I do now? And I applied to 40 companies that would have given me a job. I'm a first class honors degree student. I'm a straight A student and I was rejected from 40 companies because surprise, surprise, no one wanted to hire a monk. So everyone goes, what are your transferable skills? Sitting quietly and sitting on the floor, like no one needs that. So 40 companies say no to me. Accenture finally gave me a shot and I meet someone called Thomas Power. And Thomas Power, I don't know if you ever met him actually, he's London based.

• 1:35:10Speaker 00

  He started up like an early LinkedIn kind of version called Academy and he was, he's very networked in London in the business space. Definitely want to introduce you guys, he's awesome. And he was brought in by Accenture to train us in social media and train us in, in this new wave of this new thing that was happening. And it's really interesting because we've talked about it, me and him many times. I'm going to have him on my podcast soon. And I realized, I was like, you didn't really teach me much about social media, but you really taught me about breaking my mindset. And he would always repeat Napoleon Hill, you become what you think about. And he'd always tell me that, he'd be like, keep saying that to yourself. And I'd keep saying that to myself, you become what you think about, you become. And then I was like, oh, what am I thinking about? I'm not thinking about anything. So what am I gonna become? Nothing. And, and it was just really interesting. And so he would give me these little tools and little things to play with.

• 1:35:55Speaker 00

  He had another one called O R S, which he would say that successful people have to be open, random and supportive. And he'd say that most unsuccessful people are closed, selective and controlling, C S C. And he was saying that when you live in a C S C mindset, you limit your growth. But when you live in an O R S mindset, open, random and supportive, you expand your growth. So he would encourage me to be open with strangers on Twitter. He'd encourage me to be open with random people with me at a conference. And he was just training me in behaviors and mindsets. It wasn't like how to post and what time to post and this is how you make. It wasn't how to make something go viral, like that wasn't it. It was how to engage, how to push your comfort zone, how to challenge your fear. Why are you so uncomfortable to walk up to that person and tweet them?

• 1:36:39Speaker 00

  You know, all of those kinds of things. And I saw that my mind just became just open to the idea. So he would always tell me, you're an entrepreneur. I'd be like, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. I'm meant to work for someone. And so he would keep pushing me until I'd get really angry with him. I'm like, you don't even know who I am. Only for me to realize he saw something in me that I never saw. And then I'd say from there on, that's kind of what gets me to the beginning of it. I would say that for 10 years before 2016, I was making content and delivering it in small venues in London. So I had an event in London at university called Think Out Loud. Every single week, I would design a poster on Photoshop.

• 1:37:20Speaker 00

  I taught myself Photoshop and I would make a poster and I would talk about a movie from a philosophical, psychological and spiritual perspective. So I'd take a movie like Inception and I'd break it down. And 10 students would come every week. And then I'd teach meditation, which I'd learned from the monks. And then 20 students would come. And then by the time I finished university, 100 people came every single week to hear me break down. And this was no followers. The events were free. I was preparing for free, doing everything for free. And I loved it and I got so much joy. And then afterwards, when I was at Accenture, I ran an event in London called Conscious Living. And it was just a, it was an event which was probably like five pound on a Friday night. And again, I was teaching philosophy, spirituality and meditation. And I was lucky if five people turned up.

• 1:38:04Speaker 00

  It wasn't university anymore where you could go and deck the halls with flyers and posters and the common room and the community area. So we'd get like five to 10 people every Friday night, paying five to 10 quid just for the food that we gave and, you know, the posters that we made just to cover the costs. So for 10 years before I ever made a piece of content online, I've practiced, rehearsed, experimented, grappled, challenged these ideas again and again and again and again and again, without any followers, without any money and without anything else coming from it, apart from the fact that I love it. I love the idea of reading a book and trying to make it relevant. So I would say that the biggest reason is because I've done this for 10 years offline before it ever went online.

• 1:38:47Speaker 00

  So I've been doing it for like 16 years and that doesn't count the 11 year old public speaking classes.

• 1:38:53Steven Bartlett?

  It's really, there's something really beautiful about that because it, I think it gives them a sense of, it's incredibly inspiring, but it also gives a sense of peace to people who are at a stage in their journey where they're sat on the, the phones in a call centre selling, I don't know, double glazing like I was, and they're thinking, this is a waste of time. They're thinking, picking up this phone and trying to persuade Margaret to buy some windows is a waste of time and it's not serving my, where I want to go. And it's only in hindsight, when you speak to people like yourself, where you hear about Steve Jobs' journey, or really anybody that sits here on this podcast.

• 1:39:24Speaker 00

  You.

• 1:39:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, like, so those are some of the most unbelievably formative and most pivotal experiences as it relates to the thing you will go on to do. And you never know when that's going to happen, right? You never know when opportunity is going to meet preparation in your life.

• 1:39:39Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 1:39:39Steven Bartlett?

  And that also speaks to something you said earlier, which is, it's about the mindset you have when you're doing those things. And if, if you believe, I think if you believe that sitting on that phone is going to be the rest of your life forever, you're increasing the chances of that being the case. And I'm not putting down people that do call centre jobs. It's actually one of my, one of my favourite and the job I did the longest. But I just think that's such an important mindset shift that can inspire and not demotivate.

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think we have to look at our life as a series of things that add up each other, rather than like, this is a waste, this is a waste and that's not a waste. And by the way, you said call centre, that sparked a memory. I had a internship when I was 16 years old at the Business Design Centre in Angel. And I was working for a company called Upper Street Events that sold event space to companies for these big exhibitions and events that happen in the venue. And I remember at 16 having to call up Nissan, BMW, VW, Audi, Vauxhall, et cetera, because they were doing a big car exhibition. Now, by the way, I was a 16 year old kid who didn't really know what I was doing, but the people trained me really well and I was cold calling.

• 1:40:48Speaker 00

  And I completely agree with you. I think that gave me so much confidence to be able to pick up the phone to anyone and everyone, to tweet anyone and everyone, to DM anyone and everyone. By the way, Cristiano Ronaldo has the longest list of DMs from me that he's never seen. Right? He has the longest list of DMs from me that he's never seen, but I'm hoping that one day he's gonna see them. And I'm gonna get to interview him and it's the idea of like, I don't, I'm not worried if he doesn't see them. I'm not upset if one day he sees 30 DMs from me, because I know that that's what it takes. And I'm okay with that. There's no ego there. I'm so happy. If Cristiano Ronaldo opened it up and saw, oh, this guy's desperate. I would take that all day because I think he's a, I think he has a phenomenal mind and I would love to sit down with him.

• 1:41:28Steven Bartlett?

  And what did you lose?

• 1:41:29Speaker 00

  What did you lose, right? But that comes from when you're cold calling in the call center. You learn that mindset of what did I lose if this person said no? And there's 300 people on this list and that person might be the one that wants it now. And that person might come back around and you get to develop those skills. So I just, I just hope that wherever you are listening to this right now, wherever you're watching it, you just take a moment to realize that that place can teach you everything you need to know about your purpose. And if you just approach it in that way, you're gonna walk to work with a pep in your step and like this energy that's gonna be so electric and so magnetic that everyone's gonna know what's going on with you. And all it is, is that you're looking at life as an addition rather than a subtraction.

• 1:42:11Steven Bartlett?

  And you'll receive in a completely different way, right?

• 1:42:13Speaker 00

  Correct, yeah.

• 1:42:14Steven Bartlett?

  We have a longstanding tradition on this podcast where the previous guest writes a question for the next guest in the diary.

• 1:42:19Speaker 00

  That's genius.

• 1:42:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's a fairly new addition.

• 1:42:22Speaker 00

  It's beautiful. I love it.

• 1:42:24Steven Bartlett?

  The reason why we did it, and I've never really explained this, is we wanna basically connect the, the episodes together and the guests together in some way and doing that by a question written in the diary is our way.

• 1:42:34Speaker 00

  Who came up with that? Great idea. It's brilliant. It's absolutely fantastic. I'm gonna tell my team.

• 1:42:38Steven Bartlett?

  The team can have all the credit.

• 1:42:39Speaker 00

  I'm not happy with my team, man.

• 1:42:42Speaker 00

  From what we were talking.

• 1:42:43Steven Bartlett?

  It's funny.

• 1:42:44Speaker 00

  Gonna message my team.

• 1:42:45Steven Bartlett?

  It's funny because this question is actually one I think I asked you already. So.

• 1:42:49Speaker 00

  You can ask me another one if you want. You can pick a, pick a random one.

• 1:42:52Steven Bartlett?

  I can just make one up. So the question asked, what is your definition of true success?

• 1:43:09Speaker 00

  I'd say my definition of true success is that

• 1:43:16Speaker 00

  there are four important decisions we make in our life. And if you can make every decision intentionally

• 1:43:26Speaker 00

  with the desire to learn and serve, then that's all you can do. So the four most important decisions we make in our life are how do I feel about myself?

• 1:43:39Speaker 00

  What do I do for money? Who do I give my love to? And how do I serve others? And if you spend your life focusing on intentionally making those choices, then your life is a success. Because all you can do is try to live intentionally and try to hope that it helps other people.

• 1:44:00Steven Bartlett?

  Amen. Listen, Jay, I can't thank you enough for coming here and doing this. I know you are very in demand, very, very, very successful man who's, who's only in the UK for a short period of time. So it was a true honor that you would come here and sit with me and have this conversation. For me, you've been a real role model in many, many ways. And you know, you've led the way in the, the content, the self-development, the helping people change their lives domain, especially as someone that comes from the same country as me for the longest time. So I've always looked, looked to you for the last, I don't know, seven years since I've, I've started doing this. And I think your success has propelled and enabled mine from a point of inspiration, but also from giving me a blueprint on how to serve. So I've never got to say that to you before, but I really want to say thank you because that's, you know, you've helped, you're probably the reason I get to help people as well in my own way.

• 1:44:45Steven Bartlett?

  So that means, you know, it means a ton to me that you would come here and sit with me. And yeah, it's just one of those.

• 1:44:50Speaker 00

  That is probably one of the most humbling things anyone's ever said to me because I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I think you do an incredible job and I think you have some amazing guests, guests that I've never sat down with or, you know, may not be in my ra, my radar or radius. And you've shared things with them that have just been phenomenal. And so when I'm listening and watching, I went to get my haircut, yeah, I was talking to my hairdresser about you. And I was like, oh, I'm going to this podcast tomorrow and, and you know, and he listens to you as well and knows who you are. And, and I was just like, yeah. And the easiest thing that came back to me was just, yeah, Stephen's a really nice guy. Like, he's really down to earth. He's really humble. And I find that phenomenal because of your age, because of what you've achieved. I've never felt like even

• 1:45:34Speaker 00

  a drop of ego around you. And whether that's in your online presence, whether that's when we met in New York, whether that's on Twitter all those years ago, whether it's today, before we were on camera. And I've really appreciated that. I think as monks, we were trained that the most admirable quality in a human is humility. Like, that was seen as like the, if we could say that in the material world, the highest thing about someone is whatever it is. The currency in monk life was humility. And so when I meet people who have humility, I really, they're like my, they're like the people that I get drawn to the most. And, and you just have it in bags for. And I, I just think you're gonna go off and do even more incredible, successful,

• 1:46:18Speaker 00

  phenomenal things for the world. And I'm excited to watch. I'm excited to be a fan, a friend. And hopefully we get to do stuff together too. But this was beautiful, man. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I wanted to come on. This is, this is beautiful. This is brilliant. I hope we, I hope we do it more. And I can't wait to have you on. I'm very excited. Now that you're coming to LA, so we're gonna have you on. It's gonna be amazing. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.