Scott O’Neil ON: Quality Time Over Quantity Time & Why Presence is the Key to Deeper Relationships in Life, Love, and Work

Scott O'Neil sits down with Jay Shetty to talk about positive intent. It’s in assuming a positive intent in all that we do where we can calmly and level-headedly make important decisions, resolve conflicts, and engage in difficult conversations. And when we transition into another phase in our life, we all need to surround ourselves with people who can give us constructive, honest feedback. Scott is the Chief Executive Officer of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, an organization with the mission of building passionate, high-performing teams that inspire people to enhance the communities where its teams live, work, play and win. With more than 20 years of experience in the NBA, NHL and NFL, O’Neil has earned a reputation as a leader of leaders and is one of the most connected, dynamic and driven executives in the industry today. Get your copy of Think Like a Monk today by clicking this link!https://thinklikeamonkbook.com/ What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:34 Finding you “be where your feet are” moment 06:23 Have the community control their destiny 09:12 Common language: Assume Positive Intent (API) 13:20 When no one is assuming positive intent 19:54 Learning a lot more when you trip and fall 22:47 A formula for your mental health 27:12 We all just need to ask for help if we need it 31:41 Find your true perspective 37:42 Find your own morning routine to start your day 44:38 Try to track your happy thoughts daily 47:15 Seek authentic feedback from people who can help you grow 56:15 Transitions are hard for a lot of people 57:52 Hunt and Kill vs Seek and Grow 01:04:26 Why it’s hard to say NO 01:07:58 Three most important things: health, sadhana, savor 01:13:19 Be present and create meaningful moments with your family 01:15:59 It’s the positive things that you remember 01:18:29 How not to get distracted and stay in the moment 01:21:07 Scott on Final Five Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Episode Resources: Scott O'Neil | Twitter Scott O'Neil | LinkedIn Be Where Your Feet Are Achieve success in every area of your life with Jay Shetty’s Genius Community. Join over 10,000 members taking their holistic well-being to the next level today, at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGenius See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:45Jay Shetty?

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• 1:28Jay Shetty?

  Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Confidence isn't something Mazda finds, it's something they practise. That's the thinking behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features designed to help keep you more aware, more connected, and more engaged with the road ahead. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Awards than any other car brand as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't.

• 2:12Jay Shetty?

  Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  My best friend took his own life. And I'd seen him two weeks earlier, Jay. Two weeks earlier. And you know what I said? It's the saddest. Most disappointing life experience learning I've ever had. He's going through his depression and I'm saying, just be happy. Choose happiness. I didn't understand mental illness. I didn't understand depression. I didn't understand what I was saying, why I was saying it. And then he was gone. And then I'm speaking at his funeral and I fall apart.

• 2:49Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, to learn and grow. Now, you know that I love reading books. I love diving into people's minds and stories. But what I love especially is when someone had a different career. They had a different journey, but they found a way to use their platform for a higher purpose, using their incredible talent, their skills, their gifts, their lessons to have an impact in the world. And today's guest, since I've had his book in my home, even before I've met him, has been doing just that. I'm speaking with none other than Scott O'Neil, the author of this incredible new book called,

• 3:31Jay Shetty?

  Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving. Now, I had this book sent to me and even before I read it, I've read it now, but before I read it, I would look at this title every day and it became an affirmation. It became a mantra. It became a part of my life. So when I picked this book up, I was already excited to dive in. And today we get to sit down with Scott, who's here with me in the studio. And Scott, I honestly have to tell you, from the moment you walked in through the door with your friends that you've kindly brought and introduced me to as well and people you work with, I felt nothing but presence, intentionality, groundedness. And it's beautiful to see that and how aligned you are with what you've just written. But thank you for being here.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Well, Jay, I'm humbled first off, and you've taught me how to think like a monk. Now I want to try to be like a monk and I hope I'm like that in this podcast. This is a dream come true. You are truly one of the great thought leaders of the world. And talking about using a platform, you're influencing people, you're driving change, and you're helping us be more grounded and more present. So thank you for all you do.

• 4:39Jay Shetty?

  No, thank you so much. I hope your wife doesn't listen to this part of the podcast. That monk thing, the monk thing, I'm gonna be massively in trouble for it. Next thing you know, you're gonna shave your head and leave, leave home. And that's, that's definitely not, that's why I think like a monk, don't live like one.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  One of the stories you told that I just absolutely love is when you were sent back on the path to find something new. To me, that is a be where your feet are moment. And I think you found a rock, a stone or, right? And, and you said, and what I loved most is you said, and I placed it back there for someone else to find it. And I just thought, man, could you imagine if we spent our entire life being present so we can discover new things? I say, put your phone down, get your head up. And I'm not, I'm, I'm far from perfect. In fact, being in the sports business, you know, we've lost our fair share of games. I have a competitive issue and problem. And I remember coming home one night and Lisa's my wife's name. And the Sixers, we were on, we, we, we famously went through this thing called the process. Trust the process where we took the team down.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  We lost more games over three year span than any team in NBA history. And for an effort to now we're the number one team in the East. So it, it for a purpose, purposefully, intentionally, kind of having a long view of the world, which I like. I like the sense of, you know, if you want to go to the moon, don't bring a ladder type of mentality. And I came home, I was anxious, I was upset, I was frustrated. We'd just been booed off the court and I was stomping around the house like a child. And my wife says, hey, you doing okay? I said, yeah, I'm doing fine. She's like, no, no, what's going on here? And I said, well, did you see the game? She said, yeah, no, I watched the game. Did you see the fourth quarter? I was like, yes, I saw the fourth quarter. I said, did you hear us being booed?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  She said, Scott, I didn't even need to have the TV on to hear those boos. And I said, right, so I'm, I'm a little fired up, I'm a little frustrated. And she raised her hand at me and says, this is not gonna work. It's not gonna work for me and it's not gonna work for the kids. And I said, well, um.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  She said, "How good's your team?" I said, "Honey, you know, we're not gonna win a lot of games." She's like, "You need a new system. You need a new process. This is a family." And it really struck me. It struck me like, "Am I being present? Am I the dad I wanna be? Am I the husband I wanna be when I come home? And how am I letting these outside forces impact and influence who I am and who I wanna be? And how I want my energy to show up?" So I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, it's a great line, he said, "I have a worry tree." I said, "What's a worry tree?" He said, "Well, I come home, I put my hand on this tree right outside my house, all my worries float up into the tree, into the universe, and then I walk in my house." And I said to him, "I don't have one of those trees." That was funny.

• 7:18Jay Shetty?

  Where do I get one?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Right. And, but I did use that philosophically. When I'm in the car, I go silent. I don't listen to music anymore. I try to find some peace in silence. If I'm frustrated, I howl at the moon. If I need an outlet, I call a friend. But that time is my time to decompress, 'cause when I walk in that house, I want to be the best version of myself.

• 7:40Jay Shetty?

  I love hearing that. Often what happens is I think we carry that from the car into the home, and then we expect someone at home to carry it. Or, like you experienced, you were just lashing out in your own space and then your wife or your kids are experiencing that energy. And it reminds me recently, the first thing I thought about when you were saying that is England losing in the final of the Euros. And what was fascinating to me is that the city of London looked terrible even before the game. So it wasn't even that we lost and then everyone chucked trash on the ground. It was like there was already trash on the ground.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:18Jay Shetty?

  And then it got worse and worse and worse. And it's incredible how, you know, I've seen studies that show how like domestic abuse rises when England loses and even when they win. And so you can see that these issues that you're talking about, for you, it was just the experience of your wife noticing you feeling angry and stomping your feet. But some of these things can get quite extreme when we're dissatisfied and when we're disappointed with our lives.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I think you're right. It reminds me of a great story. In Camden, New Jersey, which is arguably the most violent city in America, and a good friend of mine in 2012 was named police chief. Name is Scott Thompson, incredible guy. And he had a very different philosophy on people and policing. And... He would put all the police officers in the back of a SWAT vehicle, driving around, drop them on quarters. He said, "Hey, if you have to go to the bathroom, you better get to know the neighbors. If you're hungry, I hope you know who's a good cook on this block, because I'm picking you up in 12 hours, so good luck." What he was saying was, was, "We have to be part of this community, part of the fabric of the community." And so the police officers started to get it. They started to reclaim the streets. They started to roll back the open-air drug markets.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  So instead of 50, there were now two, so they're contained. They added infrastructure and IT so they could be smarter, some great technology. And then unfortunately, a young teenager was killed by a stray bullet from some gang nonsense. And so they came in 2:00 in the morning on a Saturday morning or Sunday morning, and all the lieutenants were saying the same thing. "Let's break out the SWAT. Let's go get them. Let's do what we have to do." And he says, "No, I don't think that's the right answer." And they said, "Let's lock down. Let's go door-to-door. Let's find who did this." And so he sent everybody home. It was 3:00 in the morning, and he walked over to a 7-Eleven and got an ice cream. Imagine, 3:00 in the morning. And he went back to his office, and he went into this little safe where they keep money that they take when they arrest somebody.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  And he ordered two ice cream trucks. And the next day, they drove these- Two ice cream trucks? Trucks. The next day, he drove these two trucks on both ends of the street, because people just retreat into their house when there's violence. And he had the police officers give out free ice cream for an entire day. And to me, that's... And by the way, crime is down 65%. Murder rate is down 48%. And so, can you... Is it because of the ice cream? No, it's because his intention is to love people. His intention is to have the community, have the citizens, control their destiny. Yeah. And get it back. I just... Again, the notion of, my wife, if I pick up a phone and I'm talking to her, saying like, "I'll wait." You know, do we have people in our lives that will tell us the truth?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  They love us enough to tell us the truth and give us feedback so we can stay present. If you're a police chief in a really dangerous city, how are you going to be? Like, how are you going to change the world? Because the reality is, is like, we keep throwing the same solutions at the same problems.

• 11:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And nothing's changing.

• 11:11Jay Shetty?

  You said something really important there. You said that, you know, we need to surround ourselves with people who can be honest with us and tell us the truth. But we also have to be able to receive that. Often, a lot of us have people in our lives that are honest with us. I'm sure there's many people's wives, or husbands, or partners, or kids that have looked them in the face and said, "I need you to think differently about your life." What have you done differently on the receiving end of that feedback? And how have you processed that feedback uniquely? So that you don't retaliate with your ego or your insecurity of like, "Well, you don't know how hard I'm working." "You don't know how hard it is to run a team and do this and start, you know, start noting down all your wins and all your achievements." How do you do that without ego?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  I think that a common language helps. In our house, if you walked into our house and you were leaving the back door, you would see API, Assume Positive Intent. The letters API are etched into stone outside of our house. All of our daughters have API carved into rocks, sitting on their dressers. And every, we have chalkboards in our house. It's a house of girls. And there's API written on every single one of them. So that's Assume Positive Intent. We also use the term palms up, meaning you're literally, your palms are up. I'm open to listening, learning, and loving. I'm not closed off, frustrated. I don't know everything. I haven't solved every problem. I'm palms up. And so if there's an issue, if there's an issue in our house, if there's an issue at work,

• 12:37Speaker 01

  an executive might come and say, "Scott," because they know I'm very emotional, "Scott, I need you API, and I need your palms up." And what they're saying to me in their own way is, "I know you're emotional." I know you're very competitive. I know you're very driven. I know you want to quote unquote, win. But what I need is I need your ideas. I need your love. I need your understanding and I need your solutions. So come play with me. And so that's helped me the most. Kind of overcome my own human frailty of emotion and ego and all that other crap. That doesn't allow us to be the best version of ourselves.

• 13:12Jay Shetty?

  I love that. So you talk about in the book, obviously API. I thought that was beautiful. I'm gonna start putting that in my offices. Inspired by you and sharing that with everyone I meet. I absolutely loved that when I read about it. And just for anyone who who missed it, assume positive intent. I think that is such an incredible way to live. How did you learn to live that way? I'm sure you've had experiences where you've assumed positive intent and people have taken advantage of you. And or people came in with malicious intent. Or people came in. How did you continue to practice that? I think a lot of people who are listening, they'll be thinking right now. I love that, but too many people have taken advantage of me.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:49Jay Shetty?

  How have you continued to do that throughout your career in family and professional life?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  It's such a different way to go through life. I always say when you have that one finger pointing out, you've got these three pointing right back at you. And I love to spend more time focusing on the guy in the mirror. We spend so much time blaming or assigning blame or looking for excuses or finding 10 reasons why I can't. Or this guy took advantage of me or this woman was too nasty. And how could I assume positive intent? She was mean. Assume positive intent has nothing to do with her attitude. It has nothing to do with how malicious he is. It has all to do with me because I am in control. I have the right intentions. Again, I perfectly say this, I'm not, I'm not perfectly perfect in this area.

• 14:31Jay Shetty?

  Of course, yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  But in I'm, I'm leaving, living my best self. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt every time. What's the alternative? The alternative is, is that Jay, you said something I didn't like last week. Or I was in church and a woman was up talking and she said something I didn't like. Or my sister took my shirt. Or my teacher, I got a bad grade on a test. And so what does that do? Well, Jay, I don't want to talk to you. Next time I talk to you, when you come in, I'm walking out the door. Your boss sends you a text and immediately your blood pressure rises. That is not a great way to any sort of success. It just isn't. Yeah. Personally, and how you go through the life. And life is better. You're happier. You're more grounded. The interactions are better. But we've all been uptight with that one person, right? That one person that gets your goat.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  You know, for a teenage girl, it's her mother. Like, your mother can say anything. You have three teenage daughters. Her, the mother can say, hey, do you mind grabbing that, that sweatshirt off the, off the stairs? What, Mom, because I'm a mess? Because I can't clean my room? We're like, no, I just, why don't you grab the sweatshirt so no one trips on it? Yeah. I've got an awful story about that. I'm going to share it. It's completely on the edge. Please, tell us. So I have an, my oldest daughter is Alexa. She's 21 years old. And when she, and she's wonderful. When she was a teenager, she wasn't so wonderful. She was always wonderful, but not wonderful with her mother. And amazingly, I have this wife who's just terrific. She is balanced and smart and driven and intellectually curious and tough and strong.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  And she's just wonderful. Those two together, when my daughter was a teenager, she wasn't so wonderful. Okay? So I would walk in the house and I'd be like, they would be arguing over nothing. And I would say, can you two just go away? Just separate? Like, I'd, two wonderful people, just oil and water and argued about everything for nothing. And so one particular Thanksgiving, I've never told this story publicly. It's going to be awesome. I love it. One particular Thanksgiving, my mom was there and my sister, and my sister's a single mom with her son. And they're in the kitchen, we're all making potatoes and all the stuffing and all this stuff. And Lisa sounds something like this. Alexa, get downstairs and get your clothes off the stairs. And I'm like, looking at her like, I don't, I don't think I've ever heard her raise her voice. This is going to be awesome.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  And Alexa says, Mom, what did you say? I'm like, oh, boy, here we go. Now, my mother is here. So I kind of look at my mom like, I love you, sorry. So they go back and forth. Get down here right now. She goes, you want me to come here right now? Yes, right there. Get down these stairs, right now, Mom. I'm like. She walks down the stairs, not a single article of clothing on, completely naked, walks down the stairs, picks up the clothes, looks my wife dead in the eye, turns around and walks upstairs. And the only thing my mother could muster say is, "Well, she is confident, hon."

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Now, in that particular story, nobody's assuming positive intent.

• 17:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Except for my mother.

• 17:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  I'm not, you know, I'm like, "Lisa, stop. Alexa, just stop." And they're not with each other. And I wonder, like, how many interactions like that do we have in our lives that we can change and fix by worrying about us, not the people we're dealing with? Give them the benefit of doubt. Clear your head. Go in empty-headed and ready to engage into conversations.

• 17:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, thank you for taking us there because I am so glad you told that story. Because we always assume that we have positive intent. So often, we assume in any given scenario, "I've got good intentions. Everyone else, I'm not so sure about." But the example you just told us, no one had good intentions, apart from your mother, as you said.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  And I can't unsee that as a dad, just so you know. Yeah. I'll never unsee that.

• 18:11Jay Shetty?

  And I love that idea of when you think you're stopping someone, you think that's a positive intention.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:16Jay Shetty?

  But actually, there's something much deeper happening. And one thing that you said that I was literally talking about this morning with a friend was the idea of why we're so addicted to the news. And I was speaking about this with someone. I was saying, "The reason we're so addicted to the news is because it makes us believe the problem is out there. It makes us believe the problem's over here, the issue's over here, the challenge is over there. That place, that country, they've got issues." It stops you from having to actually take a look at the person in the mirror, as you said.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:45Jay Shetty?

  And it just keeps telling you, "Everything's going on out there, all the problems, all the enemies, all the challenges are all out there. And let's be scared of out there." But you then never get a chance to say, "Well, what am I going to work on today? You know, what do I need to do about it?"

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Such a great insight. And I feel like that with my friends that live all over the world is if we had, you know, something happen, they said, "Is it really dangerous there?" I'm like, "No." Or I talk to a friend in Jerusalem and I'll say, Is everything okay? They're like, yeah. No, there was a bombing. It was last week. It was Tuesday. You know, you know, or my friends in China. They're like, is it really bad there? I'm like, no, it's actually wonderful here. It's really interesting. Yeah, those snippets of news are impacting us and influencing us.

• 19:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And again, I'm not saying don't watch the news. Be informed. I'm just saying that that mentality

• 19:27Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 19:28Jay Shetty?

  of of what you were saying, getting lost in blame, discontent.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:33Jay Shetty?

  Feeling like the issues there, there are issues there, of course there are. But as you're saying, it's about starting with us.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  I wanted to tell you a little bit. I was telling you before that I was in Mozambique, which is one of the, it's the third poorest country in the world.

• 19:45Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Terrible employment rates, abject poverty. I went over there with my seventeen year old daughter, Kira, to help build a school, this incredible organization called Hefy, H E F Y. I don't have any discernible skills. I can barely hold a hammer. I am worthless around the house.

• 20:00Jay Shetty?

  That makes me feel a lot better.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Okay, good. No, nothing.

• 20:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, same. My wife's a million times better than me.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  It's really humbling. And my father, my father in law grew up, you know, building houses. So, bad stories when I'm growing up. Anyway, nonetheless, I'm at this work site, construction site. The foreman doesn't speak English, and I don't speak Portuguese, and neither do any of the teenagers we're with. And so I volunteer for unskilled labor. I'm thinking like, it's the safest place. Put me in the cement mixing. So I'm in this little cement mixing area. And mixing cement, I mean, it's not hard, but it's simple. It's, you know, you carry these hundred and ten bag, pound bags of cement, hundred yards. You drop four for every two wheelbarrows of sand you put in, and then you mix water. And I'm nine hours, okay, of doing this. I'm thinking like, there's a lot of things going through my mind. And I can barely sit still for ten minutes.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And it's hard work, and I just kept thinking about the water and how that might be reflective of of us. Because if you put too much water in the cement, the cement's worthless. It just runs away and it becomes nothing. And if you don't put enough water into that cement, it becomes hard, also worthless. And I thought about that in relation to us. It's like, what are those things in our lives that we do too much of? You know, the simple ones, when you're talking to teenagers are really simple. It's like, put your phone down, stop with the social media, enough with the TikTok videos. It might be, and then what aren't we doing enough of? Are we spending time intentionally meditating or praying or reading scriptures? If that's something that you do. Are you taking care of your body? Are you taking care of your mind?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  What are you learning today? Are you practicing gratitude? You know, so I think like to me, I had so many moments in Mozambique, in particular on the construction site where I was like, huh. What, what, how analogous is this for life?

• 21:52Jay Shetty?

  When I hear that, it sounds like sometimes we have to get out of our own comfort zones, areas that we think we learn, get out of the classroom almost. Like that, that seems like an amazing classroom, even though you didn't go there for that lesson or you didn't sign up for that course or program, but you went there and that's the lesson you took away. What have you found over your whole career? Do you think you've learned more lessons away from classrooms? And I don't mean schools or universities or colleges. I mean, have you learned some of the biggest life lessons when you're away from home team or, you know, home stadium?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I consider myself a lifelong learner. I love to walk through the world thinking about how I might grow or learn. That's how I walk through the world.

• 22:38Jay Shetty?

  Where does that come from?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Boy, I grew up with two parents, both PhDs. We didn't have many means when we were young and they were entrepreneurs. So I saw a lot of things. I mean, I was co- my parents became management, leadership, team building type trainers for Xerox and ADP and Texco and big, big companies around the world eventually as I got older. So I was co-lating books. I saw my mom present when she was in, I don't know, I was probably 12 years old to Xerox. All white men at the time, that was the, the day and age in the eighties. And I see this little five foot two Italian woman and making them laugh and making them cry and making them think and pushing them. And I just remember.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Just wanting to be her and wanting to grow and be different and interesting and interested. I mean, I was literally, that was probably the first moment in my life where I'm like, okay, I need to know more. But I do love, I walk through the world thinking about what I can learn. What I've found is, and I'd be interested in your insights in there, I seem to learn a lot more when I trip and fall. You know, I ended up, I wrote this book when my best friend took his own life. Like, he, my best friend, I'd seen him two weeks earlier, Jay, two weeks earlier. And you know what I said? This is the saddest, most disappointing, frustrating life experience learning I've ever had,

• 24:05Speaker 01

  is he's going through his depression and I'm saying, just be happy, choose happiness. Hey, Will, you're gonna be fine. Go serve people. When I'm sad, I serve people. Like, I had no idea. I had, I didn't understand mental illness. I didn't understand depression. I didn't understand what I was saying, why I was saying it. And then he was gone. And then I'm speaking at his funeral. And I fall apart. And I fall apart in a way that, you know, I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't fall asleep or I couldn't get out of bed. And then I'd be in a meeting at work and someone would say something completely unrelated, I would burst into tears and walk out. For three months. Didn't raise my hand. No, I need help. Didn't raise my hand. And I started to write to heal.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  And what I started to write was all around stories of where I slipped and fell and fell down and learned. And one of the things that I've come to, which I'm interested in bouncing off you and seeing where your, what your thoughts are, but I have a formula for mental health. And it's, you do something for your mind, something for your body, and something for your soul every day. You get the right amount of sleep. You practice gratitude and you'd be where your feet are. Meaning you put your phone down and get your head up. Now, something for your mind, to me, sounds simple, but people don't do it. Because we're on the treadmill and all we do is work. Or whatever we're doing, we're doing. And you've got to have an interest outside of work. You have to have a passion. You have to be learning. It doesn't have to be complicated.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  It could be a TED Talk. It could be this podcast. It could be an article, but you've got to be learning and stretching your mind in different ways. Your body, you have to take care of yourself. And for me, it's pick a basketball or a Peloton. If I can't get a run in, I'm on the Peloton for 45 minutes. And I'm not advocating for anything for anyone. And if you haven't worked out and you're more happy sitting on the couch, go for a walk for 20 minutes. Get the heart rate up a little bit. And then the soul, at work, it's easy to talk about on your podcast, harder at work in work environments. But you have to feed your soul. And for me, that's prayer and scriptures and going to church and having a strong faith. And I know that doesn't work for everybody and that's okay. But you need to find stillness. And that stillness can be meditation. It can be yoga.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  It can be sitting out and listening to the birds chirp in the morning. And sleep is the most misunderstood superpower you can ever have. Because when I was growing up in the business world, it was sleeps for the weak. Money never sleeps. You need four hours, get back to work. And when I found it, we brought in sleep experts with our athletes, with the Sixers and Devils, and they all said the same thing. You need sleep. Sleep lets the mind, body and soul heal. And so you need somewhere between six and a half and eight and a half hours, depending on what your DNA is and your makeup and your lifestyle. And then gratitude. I know you talk about gratitude, but I was, when Will passed away, died, took his own life, I wanted to move from grief to gratitude. But that was hard for me.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  And it was the one thing that lifted me up every day. And I have this practice. And when I speak to corporate groups, I always tell them, I start the session every time and I say, "Okay, take your phones out," because they think I'm gonna say, "Put your phones down." I say, "Nope, get your phones out. I want you to text your mom. And I want you to tell her that you love her. Why you appreciate her is something you learned from her." Because when I did that to my mom, going through my own healing process, my mom said the worst thing you could ever hear from your mother. "Hon, are you okay?" And we need to be better and do better.

• 27:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  But practicing gratitude. So my challenge is, is 60 seconds a day, send a note of gratitude, love or appreciation to someone in your life. 60 seconds! Not 60 minutes, not 60 hours, not 60 months, 60 seconds a day. And then be where your feet are is put your phone down and head up. And we all need rules because we can't regulate. It's very hard. And our rules, like my teenage daughters hate our rules. Because their phones aren't in, the phones and electronic devices are not in their rooms. And they're not in the kitchen. So no bedroom, no kitchen for all of us. We have regulations on how much social media they can actually watch. I know nobody wants to say it and do it. And I wish they could regulate. But you know what? I've been the victim of some really tough criticism on Twitter and Reddit. Okay. I've been attacked and come after it.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  And, and I consider myself very confident, very self-assured, stable. And I fell apart a few times. And I wonder like if that's happened to me, what's happening to a 14 year old girl? Who's seen her friends at a party on, on Instagram that she's not invited to. She's falling apart. She's not feeling good about herself. She's not feeling good about her body. She's figuring out what she has to wear, how she wants to do it. But we have to set, if, if we can't regulate ourselves, we need to put rules in. I go out to dinner the other day. What happens? My friends are sitting at the table on their phones. Guys, we haven't seen each other in years. What are we doing? Put your phones in your car. And so I think it's going back to simple. Do something for your mind, something for your body, something for your soul every day.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Get some sleep, practice gratitude and be where your feet are.

• 29:02Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I, I completely align with you.

• 29:06Jay Shetty?

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• 29:49Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details. This episode is brought to you by Vinted.

• 30:33Jay Shetty?

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• 31:18Jay Shetty?

  The thing that I loved about what you were saying that stood out to me, which I appreciate, is you calling out toxic positivity. So I appreciate you calling out toxic positivity because you saying that, hey, when Will told me that he was sad, I just told him to be happy. When he was struggling with this, I told him, well, this is what I do. Why don't you just try it? And I think that's such a valuable conversation to have. What were the conversations you learned after you lost him that you felt you should have been having with him or could have been having with him? And that our listeners could be having with people? Because I think what's also happened is that there are so many people in our lives that are now considered the drain. Or they're like, oh God, I don't want to see them because they're a headache.

• 32:03Jay Shetty?

  They always drain me. It's always about them. But you never know what someone's going through.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  After my cement mixing days, I got quote unquote promoted to wheelbarrowing cement. Okay, so now I'd hit the big time. And the way you wheel cement, and I'd done it as a 14 year old where I was digging pools, is you, you know, you get this heavy wheelbarrow and you just cruise it down this little two by four. And there's a hard left. It goes up on the sidewalk. You move it down to the classroom of a building and two kids pick it up and you're wheeled into the classroom. Pretty simple, but it's heavy. I'm like a relatively fit guy. Now I'm a man. When I was 14, I could barely, you know, I could barely. But I was like, I got this covered. So the first time I get this wheelbarrow and I'm cruising down a little faster than I'd hoped down the slope. And I go to make the left turn and I can't move it. And I go right into the sand. Okay, into the sand.

• 32:52Jay Shetty?

  At speed or?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  At speed. Okay, no, no, no cement comes out. And now I'm moving it at probably like an inch every 10 seconds. And I'm like just leaning in with my thigh just to kind of push it forward. And these two teenage girls, one of whom was my daughter, come and they're like, hey Scott, you need help? Sure. They pick it up, put me back on this two by four and I'm on my way. Okay, that's my first trip. So the lesson and how it relates to your question. Well, one is, is that path to me, that two by four, that's life. And guess what? Life's messy and life's hard. And we think like we have this fairy tale when we're growing up. We have this vision of who we want to be and where we want to go and what we're going to accomplish.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  And me, I remember someone telling me, every CEO gets fired. I was like, I'm not getting fired. Every startup guy goes bankrupt. That's not going to happen. It both happened to me. Okay? And so, so I'm sitting in this sand and I get the offer to help. And you might say like, how humbling was that to have two teenage girls help you? I was like, I have a house of teenage girls. I know how strong they are, I know how smart they are. That didn't bother me at all. They put me back on. But I thought about that whole analogy of like, how hard it is to be on that two by four. And then I thought about, and for me, two by four is going through my six steps. Something for my mind, something for my body, something for my soul, sleep, gratitude, being where my feet are, okay? Living the right way, making the right decisions, having high integrity, serving others,

• 34:22Speaker 01

  having true purpose in developing people, because we all have need, and I know you talk about this in your book a lot. It's like, we all need our why, our own personal why. And so if I'm living that, it's hard, okay? But you know what's harder? Not living it. That's the irony that you don't think about.

• 34:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Right? Because now I'm in the sand, and the sand for me is sin, or mistakes, or bad decisions, or not assuming positive intent, or not focusing on what's most important in my life. That's the sand. And you know what I needed? Just like Will needed? Just raise my hand. Hey, guys, ladies, can you come help me here? And when someone's suffering from depression and really struggling, they need help. I'm not going to be able to help someone. He needs to check into a facility. I need his professional help.

• 35:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  And medication. And he'd done that before, and I will, you know, that's something that I think about a lot, quite frankly.

• 35:12Jay Shetty?

  And thank you for sharing that, and thank you for writing about it in the book and creating the book from that place, because, you know, it takes a lot of courage to say that, what you just said, and what you're sharing, and even sharing all of this based on a loss, because there's so much self-reflection that comes with that. And when you were saying that journey from grief to gratitude was, you know, the most difficult journey, and obviously will continue to be, in the book you also talk about how to create presence, and your four steps for creating presence. And I wanted to talk about them individually, because I find these to be really deeply profound and insightful, if we can really get, if we can really go there.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Sure, let's try.

• 35:53Jay Shetty?

  And so the first one is find perspective. And I find like, that is something, as you talk about in the book, when you're moving at 115 miles per hour. When you've got all this going on, finding perspective is the thing that we never do. And if we do it, we do it once, maybe for our New Year's resolutions, or maybe on our birthday, if you're lucky. How do you truly stop to find perspective? What has helped you when you've been at your busiest, hectic, most chaotic weeks, days, months and years?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  For me, it's coming home and the humility of being a father helps a lot. It really does. Changing a diaper helps. Taking out the garbage helps.

• 36:30Jay Shetty?

  I love hearing you say that.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Going to grab grocery helps. But you know, we all have those moments in our life where we truly find, where we truly find humility and perspective. And, and I don't mean to go back, keep going back to Mozambique, but I'm going to. It's like, I'm in houses without any running water or electricity. And I'm thinking to my, and I'm, I'm looking out over a work site and the kids are under a tree in the shade with a blackboard and a teacher. And I'm thinking like, life isn't fair.

• 36:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  You know, there's a story in the book about Dave Schaller, who's a dear friend, who grew up in a trailer park and was mad, you know? It's like, why do, why is this my lot in life? His dad had some addiction issues and was at a shelter and they were going to pick him up. And he pulls up to the shelter and he remembers, even at a young age, he's got three younger siblings. And he's feeling mad, not awkward, not embarrassed, mad. And as his dad's walking down the stairs, he looks to the left and there's a woman with a blue duffel bag. And she's got three kids and instantly he finds perspective. She's got nowhere to go. She doesn't have a trailer. She didn't have a crappy Astro van to take me home. And she's got no dad to pick up, even with all his issues.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  This is it for her. And for him, that was that grounding moment. For me, quite frankly, my faith has given me so, it's put my feet on the ground. You know, the humility to get on your knees and be prayerful and humble and, and understand kind of your role, your, your place, your...

• 38:03Speaker 01

  The the dot you have in the universe. And has really helped trips like Mozambique. I've had daughters, one of my, my oldest daughter, the one that I told you about, about her episode. She's served in a Syrian refugee camp in Athens. She's been with orphans in Zambia, living on a dirt floor. You know, I'm thinking like, good for these kids. Our next gen, our Gen Z's, they're special, they're different and they're special. And they, they have this incredible light in life. And social contract, which is different for employers and for all of us. And I, I love how they're global citizens and I love how they don't see the world like we do it.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And I love how their expectation is that, that we do things differently. And that we help each other and that we serve one another and that we love one another. And that's the expectation. And if you don't, if you're an employer and you don't do it, let's leave. They don't have cars, no house, they don't care. They don't even have their jobs. I love the way the world is going. And I know a lot of people are, they're down, they're down. They've been down on America or they're down on the world or they're down on the next generation. Or it's not the same. I don't, I don't agree. I, I love this, I love this country. And I know we struggle, but we struggle out loud, you know? We struggle with free press. We struggle with being better. We struggle with like, meeting the ideals that we have that are so unrealistic and so high and not attainable. And we struggle to get there. I love that struggle.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  I love the fight and I love that there are sides. I wish we did it differently. I wish we didn't curate our own media so much and create all this friction. I wish that we had a vision for some, for doing something better and being something better together. But I do, I do, I am grateful. I am grounded and I have perspective. And a lot of that is intentional. A lot of it's like, where, how are you spending your Thanksgiving? You know? How are you spending your summer vacations? How are we raising our children? Are we willing to learn from our children? Are we learn to listen to them? They know, they know how to treat each other. So I think there are whole, it's a, it's a whole host of questions and a complicated answer to a really complicated question.

• 40:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, I, I mean, I asked the question because I think. As soon as you answered it, it was really clear what your perspective is, what your focus is. And you can go on Instagram and find a very different perspective. Or you could be following places of charity, service, work, and you could get that perspective too. The thing is, today you can go on YouTube and search Mozambique Building Schools, and you can find an incredible video about the inspiring stories that are right there. You don't have to visit, you don't have to have the means to go over there and help to be a part of this. And we found that this year, my wife and I led a COVID relief for India.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 40:54Jay Shetty?

  Because India was going through just so much. We knew that one person was dying every five minutes. The resources and the infrastructure didn't exist. My wife and I are heritages from India. My monk life was spent in India, so I feel a certain level of responsibility towards India. And what I saw was that everyone's perspective was dialed in. Like, our social media community raised five million dollars in one weekend. And that, to me, showed just how incredible the perspective is when people are dialed in. I know how amazing my community is.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 41:27Jay Shetty?

  And it showed me the power of when everyone's like, oh, well, social media does this and social media is... I'm like, we couldn't have done this without social media.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Right, but your intention is pure.

• 41:35Jay Shetty?

  And so is our community.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  And your community is pure, and the love that you show and have, and the way you even celebrate your listeners and who comment. Like, that community is, it's a Jay Shetty community. I mean, it's wonderful and full of love, and I agree. It's like when I say, pick up your phone and text your mom or text someone you love. Or, I'm gonna use my social media platform for good. That intention, that like, how you set your day, I'd love to talk about that too. It's like, I'd be so interested in how you set your day every day. I mean, we talk about doing it through a leadership constitution or a mantra, but they're like, I don't know. I just invite, I'd be interested. Like, do you set a, like, do you read something? Do you say something? How do you, how do you set your intention for the day?

• 42:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's changed over time, and now I always try and find a... A pattern, because I like patterns and I like routines and I like commitment. And so it's changed over time. At one point, this was truly one of my favorite morning routines. Every day I would wake up and I would listen to Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford. And I listened to it every day.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 42:38Jay Shetty?

  And I listened to it every day for nine months. And I promise you, not only did I know the words off by heart, but the words like started to really affect my heart. To the point that I realized that all the choices I made were all based on his voice in my head. Now, I didn't know Steve Jobs. I don't even know anyone who knows Steve Jobs. But I feel like I know him because I've spent so much time studying his life and listening to him and and reading through his work. So that was something I did. I don't do that anymore, but that was something I did. Recently, we had Matthew McConaughey on the podcast. And I told him that at one point, I listened to his speech from the Oscars when he won for Dallas Buyers Club. I think that was the movie he won for. And it's a five-minute speech and it's his Oscars acceptance speech.

• 43:23Jay Shetty?

  It's rooted in faith and God and growth. It's beautiful. And I listened to it every day for thirty days. And that was my thing that I did first thing in the morning. So those have been said and things that I really like that are practical for people without learning a new habit or learning a new skill or learning how to meditate. But the primary focus of my schedule now is when I wake up, the first thing I do is I have a small post-it note on the side of my bed and it says, what am I grateful for? And so that's the first thing I see.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 43:55Jay Shetty?

  And so the reason I do that is because so often my first thought when I wake up is I'm tired. Right? That's so, it's such a natural autopilot thought. Oh, let me look at my schedule. Oh my gosh, got so much to do today, right? Like, that's such a normal thought. And I've read so many studies about choosing our thoughts. And my belief is if that the first choice I make in the morning is to choose a grateful thought.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 44:22Jay Shetty?

  Then that will transform every choice I make for the rest of the day. If you choose to love your child the first thing in the morning, you're more likely to love them throughout the day. If you choose to plant a beautiful seed, it's more likely to grow into a tree and a fruit by the evening. So for me, that's been the first thing I do. Straight after that, I go to my meditation practice, which has always been mantra meditation for many, many years. And I've developed this, I don't recommend this to anyone. I meditate for about one and a half hours to two hours every morning. It's the first thing I do. And for me, that's my connection to God. It's my spiritual connection. It's my faith connection. It's me learning to be an instrument to purify all of the impurities and issues that I have so that I can actually be a vessel of service. And so that's what that does for me.

• 45:07Jay Shetty?

  And then it's very similar to what you said, mind, body. Straight after that, I'm out playing tennis.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 45:12Jay Shetty?

  So tennis has been my exercise consistently now for maybe the last year. And I started to realize I didn't enjoy gyms, but I love sport. I love competition. I love play. And there was a beautiful quote from Richard Branson that stuck with my head. And I probably read this when I was 16. I remember reading his books when I, in my teens. And I, I read this when I was 16. And it's funny because now, obviously, I'm not old, but I'm older than I was when I was 16. And he said, "We don't stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing." And that's what drew me to tennis.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 45:45Jay Shetty?

  I was like, I need to add more play into my life. And then, uh, straight after that, I'll sit down and set an intention for the day. So I'll look at my schedule and I'll think, what energy do I need? So today, I've got a day of interviews. I'm, I'm sitting with people. Some people I've met, some people I haven't met. And so my intention is, how can I truly serve this person the best so that they can serve humanity through what we're doing? Uh, and so now when I'm sitting here with you, all I'm thinking about is just, I cannot wait for everyone listening to read this book. Not only are you a great author, you're a phenomenal storyteller. I'm sitting on this podcast going, Scott, I had no idea you were this good a storyteller. And, and I'm loving it. I'm enjoying that because I'm appreciating just how much people are going to be moved

• 46:29Jay Shetty?

  when they finally get to dive into your work. And so that's, that's my general morning routine every day that I follow. And that, that works for me.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I love that. I would love to tell you, my youngest daughter, Eliza, was 14.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Every night before she's gone to bed, now this is a four-year practice, every day, has not missed a day, she writes down 14 things. I have no idea why it's 14.

• 46:52Jay Shetty?

  But she's 14 years old.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  She is.

• 46:53Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  That she's grateful for every day. Okay?

• 46:56Jay Shetty?

  That's a lot.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Has never repeated once.

• 46:58Jay Shetty?

  Never repeated.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  So now, think about what that says to you for the next day, because now you have to be in tune as to what you're being grateful for, much like you do in the morning. I like it better in the morning like you do, but I love the notion of that. The other thing she does, which is, I think, it's the cutest, she'll be embarrassed if I ever say this, I'm gonna say it, but it's the cutest, she has a happiness clicker, happy thoughts clicker. So if you go by her room at night, you'll hear click, click, click, click, click, click, click, and it just warms my heart to hear someone who's actually having happy thoughts and rewarding herself for the happy thoughts. Is that beautiful?

• 47:33Jay Shetty?

  Scott, I think we have the wrong person on the podcast. She sounds amazing. Those are by far two of my fa- you've just, there's, there's two things that you've just shared, and I can't, what's her name?

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Eliza.

• 47:46Jay Shetty?

  Eliza, okay. Eliza, when you listen to this, if you ever do, if you watch this, I just want you to know, you have taught me something, two incredible lessons today, that I'm gonna share with so many people.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Oh, that's true.

• 47:56Jay Shetty?

  I'm gonna quote you on it, I'm gonna put it out there, because you've blown my mind. First of all, I love that piece of advice, that she has never repeated one. That is incredible. That's amazing. That is so easy to-

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Because you remember at first, you're like, Mom, Dad, my house, my school, my friends, right, the first-

• 48:15Jay Shetty?

  Oxygen.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  First month, right?

• 48:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's, but to not repeat?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:20Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  It's like this beautiful flower I saw, now you're actually digging and looking. Yeah, I love that.

• 48:26Jay Shetty?

  I love that. And then the second one that you said, so don't repeat your gratitude. I think that is such a beautiful message. And the reason why I love the happiness clicker is because I was, I was literally quoting a study yesterday. The study on our thoughts shows that we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day. And eighty percent are not only repetitive, but negative. And so the fact that your daughter is counting her positive thoughts, and we both know, I mean, you know better than anyone, if you don't measure something, it's not gonna grow, it's not gonna change. The fact that she is counting her positive thoughts, that gives her a tally to try and live up to the next day and grow. I love that.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  I love that too.

• 49:05Jay Shetty?

  That is genius. I, I, it's funny, I was actually thinking about it. I, I wanted to, I was speaking to someone about this a few months ago, and that's why I love that so much. I was talking to someone about how measuring how many steps they took changed their lives, right? Like whether you use a Fitbit or an Oura ring or whatever you use. The idea is that measuring that you did your ten thousand steps. And I saw families getting into these league tables with each other and kids and families competing. And I literally said this to a very close friend of mine who we've had on the podcast as well. And I said to him, I said, how cool would it be if you could measure someone's positive thoughts?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  That would be so amazing.

• 49:42Jay Shetty?

  Like if we had a device that could track your thoughts and could say to you every day, you're three thousand thoughts away from having ten thousand positive thoughts. Right? And you could measure someone's positivity. That would engage them, like, no one wants to have ten thousand steps. We just do it when we know we're at eight thousand, you're like, all right, two thousand more, I can do that.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  But I wonder if we could, you know, I have this notion that negative self-talk.

• 50:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Um, especially, again, I'm, I'm with a lot of teenagers.

• 50:11Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  They, they say things. And I had this notion that when you say something, it's not how you intuitively think. You say it and it goes into your subconscious, it's affected. And, um, you know, I'm a, I'm a product of, of, you know, two PhDs, hippie, hippie parents. And they were all about, you know, positive affirmations.

• 50:29Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  You know, and we got away from that, you know, the last few years, but, but, and, and we, and we replaced it with a mantra or a leadership.

• 50:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Constitution.

• 50:36Jay Shetty?

  I love positive affirmations.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  But like, I wonder if those positive thoughts is something that we can be saying in the morning.

• 50:42Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Like, get them out there because it'll make you happier.

• 50:46Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  It'll make the world better. It'll make your interactions better. It'll help you assume positive intent. It will help you focus on what's most important. It will do all those positive things that we need.

• 50:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  You know, and like writing them down is good saying that matters.

• 50:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes. Eliza, you have, uh, I'm never gonna forget those two statements. I'm gonna be sharing them a lot with people. They're so powerful. They're so powerful and there's so much wisdom in that. In that, writing down what you're grateful for is such an overused tip and it's great. And that's why I love what you said. Share it, express it, that 60 second text to your mom. Like that's where it starts working, but it also works when it's not repetitive. So I think that's incredible. Thank you so much, Eliza. The second step is seek authentic feedback. This one I, I think is become more and more difficult for people to do because seeking authentic feedback means you have authentic relationships.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:37Jay Shetty?

  Because you can only seek authentic feedback from people you genuinely have a relationship with or that understand you. Tell us about your journey to, tell me about a time when you sought authentic feedback and examples of both types of feedback you received, inauthentic or authentic.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  You know, what happens in a career is hard. When you're young, you have mentors. And then you start hopping over your mentors. And

• 52:05Jay Shetty?

  Yes, that's true.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  And then you get a big job. And even the people that you love the most and have worked with side by side for three companies or two companies or those that you've groomed since their early days and they're now your direct reports. They're not gonna tell you the truth. And then your board, in my case, or your bosses, they're not gonna tell you the truth anyway. And you're not sure you want it, you know? And so that becomes really complicated. I've found a couple of places that are, you know, solid. There's a group called YPO, Young Presidents Organization, which puts you in a room with eight to 10 other CEOs. And you have what they call forum confidential meetings where nothing comes out.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  And you talk about things that you can't really talk about, you know? Issues at home, troubles with a child, troubles at work, negotiating a contract, like who are you gonna call? So that was an incredible source of strength for me for the last 15 years. My forum and YPO. So that's one group where they, they love me, they don't judge me. They're honest, they're strong, they're my peers. So I think that formula, whether it's YPO or some other group of your peers is good. My brothers are incredible sources of strength and my sister, I have three brothers and sister, all running companies, but they love me too much, you know, and they'll always take my side. Always. My wife, not so much.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  And she loves me, but she'll tell me, you know, and I imagine for you, for your wife, she sees Jay Shetty. Okay, Jay, Jay, do your laundry. Okay.

• 53:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, literally, yeah.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  You know, and there's a partnership that is critical and that I'm sure your wife is strong. You know, my wife is strong and I needed a strong woman. And so, and we have complete division of labor and, you know, but there is an expectation that when, when I need it, she gives it to me, whether I ask for it or not, which I absolutely love. I'm a little more delicate, just in terms of style with her. I say it a lot nicer.

• 54:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I think I do the same.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's a good tactic. Twenty-five years together. It's working, it's working. And she's been amazing. So those are my two sources, YPO and then, and then my wife.

• 54:26Jay Shetty?

  I love those. Those are great.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  How about you? How's it work for you? Is it hard because you're a celebrity and star? Like, is that like so different?

• 54:34Jay Shetty?

  You know what? I'm really fortunate and, and I made this a conscious, like intention as, as my life grew is that I'm always the poorest, least successful and least wise, you know, least wise person in the room. And so I try and surround myself by people who are far ahead of me in every way I possibly can. And they're not always the same rooms because you don't necessarily find people across all three of those in the same rooms.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  It might be getting harder on all three fronts for you.

• 55:02Jay Shetty?

  Definitely not getting harder.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Those rooms are getting smaller.

• 55:04Jay Shetty?

  No, no, definitely not, not as small. I feel like, I feel like the higher you go, you realize how big the world is and just how big people's visions are. When I, when I want the wise, I go to the monks. I was, I was just talking about this the other day. I shared this with Randy, actually, and I was saying that I was, I was coaching, I was working with someone recently and I was speaking to my monk teacher about who I was working with. So my monk teacher is 70 years old. He's been a monk for 40 years. He's lived life. He's like got every life experience. He's coached children since they're born to go on to become incredible people. He's coached, you know, heads of societies and states. And, you know, he's, he's had an amazing. Life. And so when I go to him and he's seventy years old and you know, I'm half his age and you know,

• 55:49Jay Shetty?

  it's you, you start recognizing just how much more there is to life and how much you still have to learn and live. And I was telling him, I'm coaching this person on this and I'm working with this celebrity on this or whatever it is. And he goes, he said to me, he said, he said, I'm so happy for you because I'm so happy. He said, I'm so happy because you get to help everyone with your problems. And it was like that humbling reminder of like, you're getting to coach people on what you need coaching for. And that is God's gift to you that you're getting to help people with what you're gonna need help with. And so I think, you know, that wisdom that I get from these, the monk teachers that I have, that I still am very much in touch with. Uh, they're always very humbling and grounding. And I think my sister, you were saying family. So my sister,

• 56:33Jay Shetty?

  what you were saying, my sister, whenever I start speaking to her, she'll be like, stop going all Jay Shetty on me. Like she'll literally say that to me. And my sister loves me and I love her. She's one of my best friends. She's four and a half years younger than me. And she'll listen, stop giving me a Jay Shetty video. Like I just want my brother. Like, and I'm like, this is me. Like, but she has to say that to me. And it, you know, in the beginning it used to irk me. Now I find it cute and, and adorable. And then my wife, you're spot on. Like there was an interview that Robert Downey Jr. Did, and he talked about how they were like, how do you stay humble? You're Iron Man. You built the Marvel Universe. I mean, this guy's, you know, he's, he's crushed it over the last few years with all the amazing movies he did. And he just said, he said, you know what? When I get home,

• 57:11Jay Shetty?

  you know, my kids are not like, oh my God, it's Iron Man. You know, he was like, he was like, my wife's like, take the trash out. And he was just like, well, you said, same thing. Like, you know, your family. And I think that's a beautiful thing. I think often, this is what I was sharing with a lot of my male friends. I said, especially as men, I think often we want our wives to validate us for what we achieve and not who we are.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:33Jay Shetty?

  And we forget that they chose, my wife has been with me since I didn't have a job. Like, you know, and so my wife, my wife's parents took way better care than I did of her in the first three years of our marriage. And what I could offer her was far less than what her parents could offer her. But I think we forget that is we wanna be validated for like being that singer or that athlete or being a speaker or like, can't you see I'm a number one New York Times best, like, but that, you don't wanna be loved for that.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  No, you're so right. I was thinking of that you said that I thought was really interesting. And I forgot to mention, I've had three great coaches. Um, Tricia Nadoff and Spencer Holt, and then Brendan Burchard, most recently.

• 58:09Jay Shetty?

  I didn't realize you worked with him.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:11Jay Shetty?

  I was just with him too.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  You're kidding me.

• 58:12Jay Shetty?

  I didn't realize that. We were lit- so Brendan just, we were all part of the same mastermind and we just literally were with Brendan.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 58:19Jay Shetty?

  For four days. I love Brendan.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  He is, he helped me rediscover what it meant to be a leader again.

• 58:25Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  And I think that's the gift that coaches can give you. They, he, he does not dance around issues either. So he gave me some incredible feedback over time, but helped me get there on my own, which I love. Like, we had so many fascinating conversations and he's been a, been a true recent source of strength.

• 58:43Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. I love hearing that. Please tell me about the first two because I got excited about Brendan and.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Tricia is amazing. She is a little bit like bohemian and I was at Madison Square Garden and struggling with all sorts of things personally and professionally. And she had this big notion of like, you want to be a warrior? I'm like, yes, I want to be a warrior. No, she's like, no, no, Scott, Scott, Scott, sit down. I'm like, no, no, I do want to be. She's like, no, you want to hunt and kill. I'm like, right. And she's like, no, you need to grow. You need to go into that sage phase. I'm like, but I don't want to be a sage, you know? Now I was 38, okay?

• 59:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  And she said, well, you're gonna have to get there because if you want to lead at an elite level, the reward isn't you anymore.

• 59:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  And that's where I am. I told her, I sent her notes every once in a while that I found it, you know? And she always sends me funny ones back. But I, I now get my, my joy, my win is seeing someone become a vice president for the first time or leave me and go run an incredible company and be an extraordinary leader or, you know, someone that goes and can change the world in their world. Or, you know, someone who leaves me and goes and builds this incredible foundation and is changing things in the world. That is now my killer, my win. So I think she, I hope she would say she's proud that I just didn't go in her pace.

• 1:00:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  But that always stuck in my mind. And, and I had some classic fight back and arguments and pushback with her. And she, she, I remember her saying, Scott, you need to meditate. And like, the sweetest, smartest, tough woman. And I'm like. I can't sit still for five seconds. Stop telling me to meditate. Help me with my job, you know? And of course, I learned how to meditate over time because I need to find stillness and peace. And it helps me sleep, helps me go to sleep, helps me live better. And so she was a wonderful source and Spencer Holt, who's been longtime friend as well, great guy, smart guy. And he helped me on two transitions. And I think transitions are hard for people.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  You know, I've been out of work, out of luck and out of money. And I've been out of work and really comfortable. And I like the latter a lot better than the former. Of course. But when you go on these walkabouts in life, you have an opportunity to step back, see the world for what it is, reflect back on the decisions you made, why you made them, the impact they had, good and bad, the lessons you learned, the people you met. And you just have this overwhelming sense of gratitude. Yeah. For life, even the mistakes you made because they taught you such valuable lessons. And then you get to take all that in and look forward and say, why am I doing? It's actually my wife said like, Scott, why do you do this? Because every time I leave a job, I'm like, I'm never doing this again, every time.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  And she's like, okay, but why do you do what you do? I said, well, I want to help. I want to help develop the next generation of great leaders. And I want to build a platform so I can leave the world better than I found it. And I want to help my church, quite frankly, grow. And so, and she's like, well, that's why you're in these platforms. I'm like, yes, that's why I'm in these platforms. And so that's why I keep signing up, you know? And I keep getting the rush and going through the pain and the fun and the exhilaration and the torture and all that together. But it's these walkabouts, these years, like the year that you take off, that really gives you that freedom that most people don't have in life. And I know I'm blessed to have that opportunity to go do it. But that's the time I'm in now.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  And I feel like I'm fresh and different and in a, in my version of a Zen state, that I can actually see the world as it is.

• 1:02:23Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colours, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods, Market, in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life.

• 1:03:07Jay Shetty?

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• 1:03:52Jay Shetty?

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• 1:04:35Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I love that. And while you were sharing that, the thing I was thinking about was when you look at the sage versus the original mindset, as you, as you put it.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Warrior, warrior face.

• 1:04:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, the warrior. And it's, it's like that hunt and kill changes to seek and grow.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Yes, that's better, better taken.

• 1:04:53Jay Shetty?

  And seek and grow doesn't sound attractive, like when you wanna be a warrior.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:58Jay Shetty?

  Like, when you wanna be a warrior, seek and grow. It's like a much rather hunt and kill. But we realize hunt and kill, if you even look at those words, they all lead to an end.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  It's terrible.

• 1:05:06Jay Shetty?

  They're aggressive.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  But when you were, when you went to, to become a monk at first, like, what I was surprised when I was reading, reading Think Like a Monk was that you had a struggle. Because I know people see you as like, you know, it's like your sister's coming, "Jay, shetty on me." Like, okay, I have it all figured out. Like, I, I do this. I coach the stars. I, you know, have this incredible influence in podcasts. Like, is that something you anticipated and expected? Or did that surprise you when you were there and went through that struggle?

• 1:05:35Jay Shetty?

  My whole life is a surprise to me. I'd say everything's been a surprise. I never thought I would become a monk. If someone told me, two years ago, before I became a monk, uh, no, not two years ago, let's say if someone told me, 18, I decided, 21, 22, I became a monk. So if, if someone told me at 16, "Jay, one day you're gonna be a monk," I would have probably thrown a bottle of alcohol at them. Like, you know, like, that's, that's the state I would have been in because that's how I was at 16. And then, when I became a monk, it was hard because living with that level of discipline isn't easy for anyone, especially just an average kid from London who's not grown up with that level of military-style discipline, which is what a monastery is.

• 1:06:17Jay Shetty?

  And then, to leave it all to come back, I mean, I thought my life was over then. When I came back, I was just like, "Well, that's it, I guess. I guess I'm just gonna figure out how to pay the bills and life's gonna go on." Because all the feedback I had from everyone was just like, "Who cares that you're a monk? And what's that got to do with anything? And what transferable skills do you have? You can sit still and be silent. Like, our company doesn't need that." And so... It was, it was fear and insecurity and doubt at every step. And so today, when I get to do all the cool stuff you said, I'm just feel blessed every day and grateful. And of course, there's been strategy and there's been thought, of course, of course there has. But I'm saying that the initial seed of that.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  But when you were a monk.

• 1:06:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  And you're like, you know, they said like, no, you need to do X. And you're like, it, it felt like when I was reading your book, like how many times you rolled your eyes like, oh, man.

• 1:07:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I did. I did. I did because.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  But that's your version of the warrior phase, right?

• 1:07:09Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes. And I think I still have that. And that's partly why I had to leave. And what I've realized is that some of us don't have it naturally. And some of us have to engage it for a higher purpose, to purify it.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, that's.

• 1:07:23Jay Shetty?

  So not everyone can just give up the rebel. Like I would say, the rebel is very much part of my DNA.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have that, some of that.

• 1:07:30Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm a rebel, like even more than a warrior, I'm a rebel. Like warrior still feels like you wanna.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:35Jay Shetty?

  I never wanted to beat anyone else. I'm just a rebel. I don't like going with the flow and I wanna go against the grain. And I think I know how to do things differently. But that doesn't make me better or worse than anyone. I've just, I've always seen it as me. But I realized that I had to engage the rebel in the service of humanity to purify the rebel, to try and aspire to be a sage. Whereas if you try and, what was often called in the monk society as monkey renunciation. So what that means is monkey detachment is if you offer a monkey a banana, it will give you whatever it has. And then if you offer it a credit card, it will trade you back the banana. And then if you give it this, so the monkey will keep swapping with you because it doesn't really know what it wants. And it doesn't matter. It will just give it up without thinking about it.

• 1:08:20Jay Shetty?

  And as humans, sometimes we feel forced to give up who we are as opposed to saying, well, let me engage this and use my skills to help people. Like it's like you saying, all right, I'm just gonna go off and become a monk at thirty eight instead of building what you've built. And now getting to have the impact through your book, your work, the Mozambique work that you get to have.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:08:39Jay Shetty?

  That's your journey. Uh, you know, when I sit down with. There were teachers, like, there was a point where the Beatles, there were members of the Beatles that wanted to become monks. And their teachers told them, your journey is to make spiritual music. Like, your identity is to share the message of God through your music. Your destiny is not to become a monk. You're gonna rob millions of people of the impact that you could have. And that's the same with you.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:05Jay Shetty?

  If you traded it off.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Teams, right.

• 1:09:06Jay Shetty?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:09:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, so I think.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Perfectly said.

• 1:09:09Jay Shetty?

  So for me, it's been that journey of purifying my impurities by giving them in service. Or trying to use them for something better than yourself. So that's always been the philosophy of the monkhood that I studied in, which was, don't force people to change who they are and become someone they're not. Get them to use who they are for helping and serving others, and the world will become a special place.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  All right, so there's this concept in the book called WMI.

• 1:09:34Jay Shetty?

  Yes, I love it. Yeah, let's talk about it.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  And Brendan says that, it's Brendan Burchard, he says that high performers spend 65% of their time on the three things that matter most at work.

• 1:09:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Okay, so I broaden that a little bit, and I say like, work, yes, we should talk about work, but what about your home? Like, what matters most to you at home? What about your relationships? What are those three key relationships? And then at work, what are those three things that matter? And I went through the audit, okay?

• 1:10:00Jay Shetty?

  I love the audit.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so painful. Okay, so you go to, you take your calendar and then you map, okay, where am I spending my time? And the reason I add the personal stuff is because, especially with COVID, the line between work and home and home and work, or work, home and church, or work, home and play, it's all the same.

• 1:10:18Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  It's just like life. And so we have to be more disciplined, we have to be more organized, and we have to learn the magic word of no, which is very hard for me because I'm a people pleaser. But I go through my audit, and I'm at 23%. And I was embarrassed to tell them, like, I didn't, I just buried it. But then I just asked myself, like, I said, like, okay, I got a choice.

• 1:10:39Jay Shetty?

  23% at home?

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  No, 23% of my calendar was spent on what I said.

• 1:10:44Jay Shetty?

  Got it, got it. Instead of 65%, which was what he said, yeah.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Okay, that's not great. I literally, I'm like, talking to myself, and I'm saying, okay, I need to either change what's on this paper or change the way I do. So my question for you is, is how do you? With all the demands on your time and pulls, because I imagine you could speak anywhere you want and whenever you want. You probably get thirty calls a week to go speak somewhere. You got probably you could do TV, you could do a whole bunch of things. How do you focus on what's most important to you?

• 1:11:13Jay Shetty?

  I fail it all the time. That's the honest answer. It's so hard. It's, it's, uh, yeah, it's so hard, isn't it? It's, I agree with you. It's so hard to say no because I feel like there's so many transitions. So let's talk about those transitions and why it's hard to say no, because I think everyone can relate to that.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:32Jay Shetty?

  And you can, why don't we do one each? You tell me why you think it's hard to say no, and I'll tell you why I think it's hard to say no. So I'll start and then we'll go back and forth. I think one of the reasons why it's hard to say no is because at one point in time, that would have been something you died for. Some of the opportunities I have today that come my way, that I have the, now the opportunity to say no to, at one point in time, I would have begged to have had that opportunity. So you feel a sense of guilt. You feel a sense of responsibility. You feel a sense of, am I ungrateful? Am I now becoming, you know, do I think I'm too good for my, like, I think I go through that. Does that make sense?

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  That's an internal struggle. I would say one for me is that I feel like I can help people. And, and for me to not help, it feels like a tug on everything that I say I, I stand for.

• 1:12:20Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  And so what's simple for me might be really hard for somebody.

• 1:12:23Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  And so to say no, it's, it's counter to what I, who I aspire to be.

• 1:12:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that one. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. I, I can definitely relate to that. I feel like, I'm like, it's only ten minutes of my time. I could make a difference to someone. It's worth it. Uh, another reason why I struggle to say no, I'd say is, apart from your one, which I agree with too, say another reason, internal struggle of why I struggle to say no is because I do want to be liked.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  I was, that was my, or makes them happy, like, it's the same thing, but what?

• 1:12:54Jay Shetty?

  But like, I, you do want to be liked. And you want, you, you know, and, and I have to monitor this. And that's what I'm saying. The reason why I'm, I'm sharing these with everyone listening is because if you haven't articulated them, it means you're not aware of them.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:06Jay Shetty?

  And so if you haven't put it down on a piece of paper and you haven't written down why you struggle to say no, you don't know why you don't say that.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Right. So I literally said, I just finally said like, I'm gonna eliminate inter informational interviews.

• 1:13:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Okay. Now, it's like the kid that comes in and it's your friend's son or nephew or the cousin of so and so, and, and I just don't, I'd said no.

• 1:13:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  And for me, can you imagine like your best friend calls you and is like, "It's my son."

• 1:13:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  "No, no, I'll get him to somebody." Like, "Can't you spend 10 minutes?" And I'm like, "No, I can't."

• 1:13:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And that to me was like awful. It's awful. Like, the feeling's awful because I love him.

• 1:13:42Jay Shetty?

  I'm really a pain right now.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, it's awkward. And so now, on my walkabout, like, my constraint is no longer time, which I'm sure for you is impossible right now.

• 1:13:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, time.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  But your constraint is time.

• 1:13:54Jay Shetty?

  Yep.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  And mine is not anymore. So I'm actually...

• 1:13:57Jay Shetty?

  And I'll ask you a question. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  I'm rethinking like...

• 1:14:00Jay Shetty?

  So with me, it's not necessarily the most... And I've made some mistakes on this. I'll say professionally, I made some mistakes on this because I was constantly trying to outsource the only thing I was able to do. And that was something that I probably spent too much money on in 12 months on where I was constantly trying to hire for what is my superpower. And I was hoping that I could find someone to do that so I could do more superpower stuff.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:29Jay Shetty?

  But I kept trying to find someone. I kept hiring someone. And no matter how much I paid and where we looked and whatever we did, I realized it wasn't possible to outsource that specific skill. And I finally owned it. And I said, "Well, I need to do that for myself." So I actually did make a lot of mistakes on that. But going back to your question, I see as the three most important things, but I see them in order. So...

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Ooh, I like that. Like chronological?

• 1:14:49Jay Shetty?

  Correct. Priority.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:50Jay Shetty?

  So we had a set of rules in the monastery, which I still completely connect with. And the three words, one of... A couple of them are Sanskrit, one of them is English. But it was health, sadhana, sava. These were three words, and it was always in that order. So it was considered, "These are the three most important things." And the good thing is, you can't do one before you finish the other one. That's the rule.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:15:15Jay Shetty?

  And so the rule is, health is first. And that includes your physical and mental and spiritual health. And you give beautiful examples of how to do that. So before you have moved in the morning, you can't do any of the others. So if you haven't done your yoga, you haven't done your tennis, you haven't done your workout, whatever it is, you can't do anything else. You're just not allowed.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:32Jay Shetty?

  Because without you being of health, without you being of everything you mentioned already, who are you gonna serve?

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:39Jay Shetty?

  What energy are you giving them? You haven't even got your own mind right. How are you gonna inspire a young man, no matter how, whatever you have, or a young woman? The second thing was sadhana. Sadhana was your personal rituals and practices. Your personal eating of yourself. Like, when you were going out in Mozambique, you can't build a school if you haven't worked on your own fitness and you haven't eaten a meal. How long are you gonna last? So the second thing was, once you've made sure your body and mind are right, have you prepared your soul? Exactly as you said. Have you prepared your consciousness?

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  I should have been a monk.

• 1:16:10Jay Shetty?

  Have you prepared? Yeah, you should have, basically. Should have been a teacher. Have you prepared your intention? And the final, sava is service. That's the final. Giving to others is the final. Not that it's the least important, it's the most important.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:23Jay Shetty?

  If you look at any tree around you, if it wasn't watered properly, if it wasn't taken care of properly, you look up, it's got no fruits. What fruits are you giving to people? You're giving people rotten fruits. And that's where you start. So it's not that service is the least important. It's the most important. And therefore, you've got to water the roots well. So for me, that's how I think about what's most important, is by first taking care of the first two, so that the third can be done to its best. But don't say yes to an opportunity for the third before you've done the first two. Does that make sense?

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  It makes so much sense. It reminds me of a story. There's this tree, Tree of Tenerae. Have you ever heard of it?

• 1:16:59Jay Shetty?

  No, I haven't.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Sahara Desert, this tree lives to be 350 years old. It used to be a wooded area, but then the climate changed and became a desert, and only one tree survived, Tree of Tenerae. And the roots went down hundreds of feet into this little watering hole. And then, unfortunately, like, and it was on maps, because it was the one tree, you know, hundreds of miles around. And a driver came with a truck and hit it, knocked it over, and that was it for the tree.

• 1:17:24Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  And then, I always contrast that with pando. And pando is the second-largest living organism in the world. Eighty thousand trees. It's in Utah, in the US. Eighty thousand trees, and it's been around for 70,000 years. So here's one tree, okay? That can survive for 350 years in ridiculous conditions. And I always say, like, that's incredible. But then, one driver out, done. See you later. Sayonara. Now with seventy thousand trees and they share a common root system.

• 1:17:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Okay, I always think about that. When you were saying that, I just kept thinking Pando, Pando, Pando kept going through my head because we need each other.

• 1:18:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  And we need people.

• 1:18:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  And we need to connect. And that, that to me is like, you know, that is the secret sauce today.

• 1:18:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  In a world where isolation is our kryptonite.

• 1:18:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  The connectivity of roots and the connectivity of people and how you, Jay Shetty, are able to bring us together through a common language and that, your monks' three-step process, I mean, it's so, it's, it's pure, it's genius and it's so intuitive.

• 1:18:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  It's brilliant.

• 1:18:34Jay Shetty?

  And even what you're writing about in the book, what you just said, you today have more of a luxury of time in your life today.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:18:41Jay Shetty?

  Obviously, that wasn't how it was at all. I do not have a luxury of time. And at this current stage in my life, as a monk, I did more so for sure. What I've realized is time is the wrong metric and the wrong divisible. So we divide our life by time. We say, okay, I need time with my family, I need time with my partner, I need time with Scott, I need time with this, I need time with that. And I realized a few years ago, no one wanted my time. Everyone wanted my presence and everyone wanted my energy. So if I could give ten minutes of my time, but a hundred percent of my energy,

• 1:19:23Jay Shetty?

  that's what someone wanted. And I started changing how I looked at it, looking at the ratio of my energy versus my time.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:19:31Jay Shetty?

  And saying, how much time can I give at a hundred percent energy? And sometimes the time went down to sixty seconds and that was fine. Because I realized that people would rather have a hundred percent of my energy than one percent of my energy and a hundred percent of my time. Giving someone an hour, being on my phone all the time, as you were saying when you got with your friends. No one wants that.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:54Jay Shetty?

  No one wants to see me and you both on our phones right now and have a couple of questions about your book. People want to hear us have presence.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  Right, Jay, that's why I say be where your feet are and not balance. If you're in a place like, how do I find balance?

• 1:20:04Jay Shetty?

  All right, let's, let's talk about, let's totally destroy balance.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Okay, I want to talk about it. It's the first question I get, in particular with young people. I talk to high school kids or college kids.

• 1:20:12Jay Shetty?

  I can't believe kids are asking that question.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Everyone.

• 1:20:15Jay Shetty?

  That's worrying.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Everyone. Well, how do I find balance? I'm like, get to work. But I, I literally say, like, I think about my life and I think about home. Well, how do you have such a good, strong relationship? You seem focused on your faith and your family and work and how do you do it? I was like, hey, here's the thing, okay? Let's talk about life. Let's talk about real life. Not, you know, the Huxtables on TV. Let's talk about real, real life. Okay, here's what real life looks like for me. I get up in the morning, it's chaos. I call it the NCAA tournament. We're just surviving in advance. We are trying to get out the door without a nuclear meltdown. You borrowed my shirt. I can't find my, you didn't charge my computer, all that crap. The girl's good to school, okay? How many meaningful moments can I have at that point? How about zero? I have to be okay with that because it's not happening.

• 1:21:01Jay Shetty?

  Yep.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Okay, one can't get out of bed, the other one's up at five in the morning. I mean, it is, you know, it's chaos. Then I go to work, they go to school. They've got cheerleading, they've got basketball, they've got boyfriends, which we do not want to talk about ever. We have homework, I have work, I have events. We come home. They, how much time? Talk about energy. How do I, how do I be present? How much time do you have? Forty-five minutes?

• 1:21:26Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Your family, the people you say you love most, that matter most in your life. An hour? Two hours and you're the luckiest person in the world. So what are you gonna do with that one hour? And I say, let's create some meaningful moments. Let's create a memory. Let's have a real conversation. And by the way, what's great today? There's so many things to talk about. The world is falling apart. We have social unrest, we have challenges to the core of faith and, and the church and this country. We have the education system, we have a political system that's a complete adventure. We become global citizens. We have all these topics and we can talk to our children. Or you know what we can do? Write them a love letter. Or you know what we can do? Tell them three things you really want them to remember. Or you know what we could do? Tell them everything you ever wanted to tell them, but haven't spent the time yet.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Because those moments are what they will remember and will matter. Go on a family walk. Oh, it took an hour. And we actually left our phones in the house and we went to go walk for forty-five minutes. That time, that's what we have to protect. That's what we have to put our energy and effort on. That's where our attention should go. This notion of balance, what are we gonna do? Sitting around watching reruns or binging on Netflix? Or sitting around watching a show? Typing on our iPad, messing around on our phone and eating licorice? Okay, cuz that's what life looks like.

• 1:22:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, literally.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  But like me, it's like be present. I love the notion of energy over time. I'm gonna steal that.

• 1:22:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, it's been game changing for me. I found, and obviously I don't have children yet, so I'll have to come take notes from you. My wife and I, one of the things we did, especially as things were taking off for me, I started a new routine with her where every thirty days, I realized that the notion of what you just said, if you're lucky of two hours a day to spend with the people you love the most. And that's the same with me. When life was, when I was putting in the work and I was working eighteen hours a day to to build everything that we have today, it, I didn't have that luxury of time with her. So every thirty days, we would take three days and we'd go away together somewhere three hours away from where we live. We'd pack the car, drive up, get a bed and breakfast, get an Airbnb, get a small motel, hotel, whatever you could afford.

• 1:23:30Jay Shetty?

  And we'd be there for two nights and three days. And we would lock our phones in the safe and we'd just spend time together.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  That's wonderful.

• 1:23:38Jay Shetty?

  And I realized that doing those three days every month had a bigger impact on our relationship than if we sat in front of the TV every day for two hours.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:23:47Jay Shetty?

  It just didn't, it didn't compare because of what you just said.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:51Jay Shetty?

  That making a memory, making an experience, that's what we all want in life. No one's gonna count and be like, Dad, I know you spent ten hours with me this week. No one's counting that. There's no, no one's keeping a clock of that. But my wife remembers, oh, remember that weekend we went to Palm Springs? Or remember when we went to Temecula and we rode those e-bikes around for the whole day? Or do you remember when we went up and we went to Santa Barbara and we just walked on the beach? Like, those are the things you remember.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so true.

• 1:24:19Jay Shetty?

  And they weren't expensive. None of those things were expensive. They were all free, walk, bike.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Here's a, here's a real free one you can add.

• 1:24:24Jay Shetty?

  Go for it.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  We have, my wife and I, when things are good and we're in our zone, we go on one walk a week that we call non-transactional.

• 1:24:33Jay Shetty?

  Nice.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Think about like, life is transactional and non-transactional. Transactional is, okay, we got the kids, got this, oh, she's got practice, oh, there's a game on Tuesday. Okay, okay, um, what are we doing this Friday? None of that. We just talk and we stay in the moment and we stay present. And when we do that, I feel like our relationship is more solid. We are more grounded and we are more connected.

• 1:24:55Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  And it's our version of your three-day trip, which I love.

• 1:24:57Jay Shetty?

  Non-transactional. I love that. That's, and that's hard, I'm sure, with kids.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:01Jay Shetty?

  Like, that's harder and harder as you have more people to talk about and their lives and their minds and their challenges and their boyfriends that shall not be mentioned.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:10Jay Shetty?

  All that kind of stuff. Like, that gets harder, I'm sure. How do you, how do you honor the time so that you don't get distracted? I find it so easy to, you, you say that, but then when you get there, you just got off a phone or you, you spoke to, how do you really honor that? How have you found, how have you tried to do that best?

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  The best thing for me is, is, is abstinence. I leave my phone in the house.

• 1:25:33Jay Shetty?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  And I know that sounds crazy and I wish I were more disciplined and I wish I could keep it in my back pocket and walk for 45 minutes. I don't have the, I don't have the, I do not have the gear. I don't. So I leave it. If we go to dinner and I know I need to focus, it stays in the car. Now, someone's saying right now, I would never leave my phone in the car. Why? Where's it going? What are you missing? What is your ESPN notification telling you? What is the TikTok video you're gonna miss? What's the text you're gonna miss? What's the CNN notification? It's okay. You will be okay. The world will move on without you. You are okay. You are not gonna miss anything. I think we just have to be where our feet are. We have to just, like, it goes back to something that you said more. What is your intention? And can we be more intentional about what we are and how we live and, and be more grounded?

• 1:26:15Jay Shetty?

  Scott, I could talk to you for hours, genuinely. This has been so much fun. And I count podcasts now, as I do them more and more, and as we've done them for a couple of years in interviews, I count when I'm having fun on a podcast as the best indicator of a good conversation.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Terrific.

• 1:26:33Jay Shetty?

  And I've had so much fun today. And I also know, and I just saw the clock when I was looking at it, I was like, we're about to beat our record of like, this is in the top three longest episodes we've ever done. That is also a sign of fun.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:26:46Jay Shetty?

  When you don't look at the time. But I want to encourage everyone, and what you just said now was such a beautiful note, I want to encourage everyone who's listening to go and grab a copy of Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving. We have not even touched some of my favorite chapters in the book. Like, we haven't even gone over the concepts of some of my favorite chapters in the book. We've touched a lot of the, a lot of my favorite ones, but there are still some more. And we have just scratched the surface on what's really inside this book, what Scott has to offer. And Scott, I'm hoping that not everyone, not only does everyone read your book, I hope everyone goes and follows you. I hope everyone stays connected with your journey and story, like I'm excited to do. I would hope that we turn this podcast

• 1:27:28Jay Shetty?

  into a long friendship. I've learned so much from you today. I've deeply enjoyed your company, and I can't wait to meet your Eliza, 14-year-old daughter, who's taught me so much in such simple ways. But I highly recommend, we'll have the link in the caption and everywhere, please go and grab a copy of Be Where Your Feet Are. I couldn't recommend it more highly. As you know, Scott, we end every episode with five, fast five, final five questions. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. So if you're ready, Scott, we'll do it.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:28:01Jay Shetty?

  Your fast five. All right. So the first question I have for you is, what is the best advice you've ever received?

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Be present.

• 1:28:06Jay Shetty?

  What is the worst advice you've ever received?

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Money never sleeps.

• 1:28:10Jay Shetty?

  What's the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  First thing I do in the morning is say my prayers. Last thing I do at night is say my prayers.

• 1:28:21Jay Shetty?

  Beautiful. I love that. What a, what a great life. That's, that's so simple as well. Patterns are great. Okay. Question number four. How would you describe your current purpose in life at this stage of your life?

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  My current purpose in life is to help develop leaders. Whole mind, body, soul leaders, both personally and professionally.

• 1:28:42Jay Shetty?

  I love that. And I'm excited to see you do that. I think this book is going to be the manual for leaders. I really do. I really believe that because it's about who you are and it's how, what you've done, but it's how you show up and it's, I love how simple you've made it, yet how profound it is. And I think that balance is, is exactly what's needed. And the fact that you've sat in those meetings, board meetings, phone calls that have caused you so much stress and anxiety, and found that the answers and antidotes are actually the amazing principles that you've laid out in this book. I really think it's going to be a manual for leaders. So.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Thank you. This has been a gift. You are a gift to the world. And it's no accident that this is the number one podcast for your health.

• 1:29:28Jay Shetty?

  Thank you. Thank you. And I've got one more question.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Go ahead.

• 1:29:30Jay Shetty?

  Final one. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Be nice to each other.

• 1:29:39Jay Shetty?

  That'd be an amazing law. I really hope that everyone does try and follow that, even when it's really hard.

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  Just be nice and smile and take care of each other and serve others and love others. And assume positive intent. Make the world better. There's too much angst in this world and you have to do your part. And if we all do our little part, life gets better for everybody.

• 1:30:02Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Everyone, Scott O'Neil, please go and get the book, Be Where Your Feet Are. Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving. We'll have all the links. And go and follow Scott across social media. And what I really want you to do, as you know, I love it when you do this. I want you to tag me and Scott on any platform you're using, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever you're on. And I want you to tell us what Scott said that's going to resonate with you, that you're going to practice, maybe what I. Eliza said, maybe what his wife said. Whoever said it, I want to know. Please tag me and him on your post. I'd love to see him feel all the love for this next phase, the next chapter that he's doing in his life of going out to help build conscious leaders. Scott, we're so grateful to have had you on On Purpose, and I'm really, really happy that we spent this time together. So, thank you so much. Thank you.

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