4 Steps to Develop a Growth Mindset & 4 Ways to Stop Listening to the Opinions of Others

Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm When negative thoughts turn into action, that turns into habits, and then become an addiction that ruins our life, surrounding yourself with people that can talk you out of these negative thoughts will change your life. Having people around with positive influence on you is the best way to combat addiction. In this episode of On Purpose, we get to listen again to Jay’s conversation with Russell Brand on Follow The Reader with Jay Shetty. They talk about why we become addicted to things and how to pivot from it. Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 02:48 We suffer from the notion that something’s missing in our life 05:08 We all function on a certain programming 07:16 When we live in a projected image of ourselves 09:21 Acknowledging that we all are flawed 11:41 Take a personal inventory of the unpleasant things in your life 14:54 Economic culture that’s based upon productivity 16:30 It’s important to have a counsel of people 18:58 Engaging your rational mind takes you out of your emotion 20:36 Here’s a postcard from the other side 21:42 Be careful not to judge your parents 23:00 Russell on Quick Fire questions 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! 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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• 0:42Jay Shetty?

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• 1:26Jay Shetty?

  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. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so grateful to be your daily, weekly, monthly listener. Every time you join me, it means the world to me.

• 2:09Jay Shetty?

  And today, I'm gonna let you in on something really special. I'm excited for you to listen to this. This is a really rare, early, pre-On Purpose interview with Russell Brand. And this conversation was when I was just testing out my interview skills. I was just connecting deeper. It's one of those conversations that's gonna give you so many insights on some really, really fascinating things. If you know Russell, he's funny, he's clever, he's smart, he's got great insight. And we talked about everything from consumerist culture, living in a perception of a perception of ourselves, and how opinions of others affect our self-worth and image. This is genuinely one you don't wanna miss. Make sure you listen to this.

• 2:54Jay Shetty?

  It's one of those rare finds. I am so excited for you. Enjoy the episode.

• 3:05Jay Shetty?

  Hello everyone, welcome to this very special episode of Follow the Reader, the opportunity where I get to interview the great minds behind life-changing books and ideas. And today, I'm genuinely humbled, grateful, honoured to have with me in the studio someone who doesn't really need introduction, but I feel deserves one. And I'd like to give you one, Russell, if that's okay. But you know, award-winning actor, comedian, director, presenter, and on top of all of that, one of the most loved and recognised performers on stage, and someone that I think is a fellow meditator and a very dear spiritual friend. So Russell, I'm so genuinely deeply grateful that you took the time out to be here with me.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Thanks. I'm really glad that you did the introduction, because that's really boosted me up. I feel really charged and positive now, thanks Jay.

• 3:50Jay Shetty?

  Good, I'm glad. Well, you definitely deserve it. And Russell, I wanted to start on something that you shared with everyone on a video recently. And these were the stats around addiction.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:01Jay Shetty?

  And they were quite alarming for me. I hadn't really come across them. I've got some of them here. You said that over 20 million Americans over the age of 12 have an addiction. 142 people die every day from drug overdoses, which you rightly pointed out is like having 9/11 every three weeks. On top of all of that, 21 million men think that they're addicted to pornography. And that's only the ones that think it.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 4:21Jay Shetty?

  And then you have over 90% of those with an addiction began drinking or smoking before the age of 18. But what connected with me most is that with this book that we're talking about today, Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions, I've popped the link into the comments section on Facebook right now, so you can order it while we're having this conversation, is you expanded that definition of addiction out, and you said that actually, in some form or another, we're all addicts, whether it's mobiles, whether it's food, whether it's money, whether it's power. Introduce us to that perspective, because it really resonated with me.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  You've completely understood the raison d'etre of the book, the reasoning behind it, mate. I think it's inevitable, in a capitalist consumer culture, that addiction is a component, because what consumerism is, is that we acquire an external commodity in order to make us feel better. I got these Nike trainers yesterday, I'm not wearing them now, these are Saint Laurent, I mean, I also like these, but these Nike ones I bought yesterday, there was a moment before I purchased them where I thought, I want them, and the guy in the store, Alexis he was called, and the other guy, I think he was called Mike, when I was getting these trainers, I thought, yes, these are the ones, these are the ones. Now, I'm speaking to you as a recovering crack and heroin addict, so I know what addiction is. All substance

• 5:34Speaker 01

  addiction is, is it distills perfectly the phenomena of addiction, because if you withdraw from heroin, you know what it is you need. But I think a lot of us, Jay, suffer from the notion that there is something missing from our lives, that there is something that is not whole about us, that we are in some way inadequate, and we can address this through consuming. Now, our culture relies on us feeling like this, mate. Marxist critique says, like, that capitalism operates on the basis of the perennial stimulation of desire. If you don't need nothing, you ain't gonna buy no Saint Laurent's or no Nikes. As long as I feel like I need things, I am a good obedient consumer, and consumerism has delivered some very good things, this is not necessarily an attack on consumerism, it's just pointing

• 6:18Speaker 01

  out that addiction, I see as really like the outlier force of consumerism. You know, like, when there's a tsunami, mate, and like, apocryphally, people tell you that some animals, before the tsunami, they go to the highlands. I think that the addicts are the people that are on the highlands, they know the storm is coming, they have one less layer of skin, they get addicted to the smack and to the food and to the sex and to the porn, but everyone, I believe, on some level is suffering from this feeling of absence, this feeling of loss.

• 6:45Jay Shetty?

  I completely agree with you, and one of, yeah, no, I genuinely agree with you, and I think that's why we're looking for it in all these different places. And one of the things that stood out to me is that you said your qualification for writing this book. Is that you're worse than everyone and you're crazy than everyone. And I felt that that was one of the most refreshing approaches I'd ever read. Because most of the time, people are like quoting all their accolades and their achievements to say why they're an expert. How do you, someone who feels that way and reflect on yourself in that way. But then you adopted this system and this structure and in your own words, you say, when you first heard about it, you thought, oh, that's not for me. That program seems too systematic, right? It seems too structured. How were you able to do that?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  The reason that it was important to me to express that I'm not coming from a didactic position is because now that, even when I come in this room here now at Facebook, I meet young people that are competent, lucid, brilliant communicators. Seem like they're at ease and comfortable with themselves in ways that I wasn't when I was that age. And I don't want to be writing a book that comes at you from the perspective of, oh, I've sorted myself out. I've been famous. I've had these various experiences, conjugally and physically and sexually and anatomically. No, it comes from the position of me saying, the reason I know this program works is because it has to work because I'm messed up. That I get very attached to things. I get attached to other people's feelings about me. Fame, celebrity, money, those things really matter to me, but this helped me to unstitch it.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  And this is what I believe, Jay Shetty, that we don't choose between working a pro, like between having a program and not having a program. Everyone's working a program. You choose between your unconscious program and your conscious program. If you don't deliberately have a program, you are working an unconscious one. You're working the program of your family. You're working the program of your society. You're working the program of your culture. And a lot of that programming is very negative. And it's by this diagnosis that I say that we're all on the scale of addiction. We're all using external things to hold our lives together and those things ultimately will not work.

• 8:40Jay Shetty?

  Definitely. And one of the biggest ones that stood out to me, and I think it was articulated really well by Charles Cooley. I, I, when I read this, I thought you may like it.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 8:47Jay Shetty?

  It was, uh, Charles Cooley who said that, today, I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:55Jay Shetty?

  And so we live in this.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  That's brilliant.

• 8:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And, and he wrote this in the 1800s or something like that. And it, and it's like. He's reflecting on how today we're a perception of a perception of ourselves. Our perception is a perception of a perception. And I really thought that resonated with what you were talking about. With how one of the things that the programme helps with is dealing, how people view us.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yes, mate.

• 9:13Jay Shetty?

  Like, so many of us are wrapped up in, we need to have this thing because it makes us look good.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yes, mate.

• 9:17Jay Shetty?

  So, so tell us a bit about that.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Well, I think what that quote you just used there from Charles Cooley really well illustrates is the idea that we feel like we live in illusions. All the time when he says, oh, it's an illusion, it's an illusion. Well, if you're living in what you think other people think of you, that's already an illusion. It's built on conjecture, it's built on speculation. You're not having a truthful and visceral experience of your own life. You're thinking, what does my life look like to other people? Do I belong? Am I good enough? You're living in a projected image of the self. That other great trope of mystical traditions is stay present in the moment, stay connected in the moment. This programme is a system that delivers you to that point where you can be present in the moment. And then, once you're there, there's a strong moral and ethical aspect to it. It's not just like, let's bliss out and sit in a cave, or sit on the top of some mountain,

• 10:05Speaker 01

  or lose yourself in a loft. It's connect, and once you are connected, be of service to others. Because that is where true connection and happiness is found.

• 10:13Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. I'm addicted to hearing from you.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I've been following you for the last week, watching you talk about the book. And, and I get addicted to your articulation of how you've been through this transformation and this journey.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Well, possibly, Jay, it's worth pointing out that I've always believed that the drive behind addiction isn't itself negative, it's the yearning to come back home. Like, I think on some level, we all are aware, this isn't real, I'm defining my life by stuff that doesn't matter. Think of the problems you had five years ago, where are they now? They've all gone, all of the things we cared about, all of the cultural artefacts that fascinated us. Where are they gone? Where are even the great leaders that this country produced 60 years ago? Your civil rights geniuses, they too lie dead. But their ethics, their morals, and the things that are permanent and universal live on. So we all have to find our own way to making those kind of connections. If I'm not very careful, if I'm not deliberate, if I'm not focused,

• 11:04Speaker 01

  this culture, along with my biochemistry, will pull me towards being a passive consumer, a possible, a commodifier of all things, looking at human beings as just commodities to be consumed.

• 11:16Jay Shetty?

  Now, I'm gonna be taking some of your questions. And I've seen a great one come through just a moment ago from Kevin. And he says, Russell, can you recall any specific moments in your life that shifted your perspective from the everyday norms to who you are now?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Well, yes, I can recall many. When it comes to addiction, there are moments where I was brought so low by addiction that it seemed apparent that it couldn't go on. Like I got scars on my body and scars on my mind from getting arrested and into situations that made me realise, oh, that level of reality won't work for you anymore. I suspect from the way that that question is posited, that you're talking about my relationship with reality and consciousness. I suppose, mate, because I've been in positions where I've been like super, super famous and well ensconced in celebrity, there's been these odd eerie... They say the word epiphany means the revelation of essence. Do you know what I mean by that? The revelation of truth. There have been moments where I've been surrounded by a lot of glamour and a lot of power, and

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I felt oddly brittle and disconnected from it, like it's not real, like it's not real. So I suppose like various times around, possibly, golly, that when I came home from the MTV VMA Awards, the first time after I hosted it, I got back to my house and there'd been all these celebratory helium balloons put in my bedroom and they were half full by now and floating at an eerie height like subaquatic creatures, way down in the deep, deep mind. And I got back to my room and I was getting all this hate mail and all these messages of hatred were coming and I felt, ah, this is never gonna work for you, Russell. Plus, I met this swami in India who says, Russell, the material world has got nothing else to give you, it can only take from you now. Made me feel a bit sick, I didn't like it.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I want the material world to give me things, I want it to give me sex, I want it to give me money, I want it to give me power, but I kind of know now that it can't. The only thing that's useful to me is true connection. But the reason this book is written from the perspective of me saying I'm worse than you is I'm capable of making a mess of this on the way home in the car. Someone can affect me in traffic, someone can say something I don't like and I'll be affected by it. It's important that we acknowledge that we are flawed, we are not perfect. So awakening is a continual process. We must awaken unto ourselves moment to moment, try to recognise the patterns we have, recognise the things that chain us to our habits, bad relationships, bad beliefs, bad eating, recognise them and you can slowly become liberated using various systems, one of which I've outlined in that book.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Step four in the book is you take a personal inventory of all the things that have ever messed you up. So it might be things in your childhood, it might be something that your mum did, it could be something serious, like maybe you didn't grow up around your dad or someone died that you needed or somebody abused you. Or it could be something quite trivial. You put it all down in a system. You use these columns to diagnose and analyse what happened to you. You do it yourself, but then you share it with another person. It's important you don't do this stuff alone, particularly if you're dealing with deep stuff. Now, it took me five years and two days to do this. Five years not to do it and then two days to do it. Because I procrastinated and I didn't want to do it and I avoided it. I avoided it like I owed it money. But once I'd done it, it revealed to me a lot of unconscious patterns. It revealed to me that I get in trouble a lot in the same way.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Because as I keep saying to you, you don't choose between having a programme and not having a programme. You choose between having a conscious programme or unconscious programme. That revealed to me that I care too much about what other people think of me, that I let fear govern me, that I don't feel like I'm good enough, I'm looking for other people's approval. I don't trust people and yet I don't want to be alone. And once you recognise these things in yourself, you can begin a journey of recovery, a journey of healing and get back on your intended path. Become the person you were meant to be. This feeling of frustration you have, it's because something in you knows that you can be something else. But that your culture and your circumstances are preventing you from realising. This is what is meant by transcendence. An opportunity to connect to what is true, what is real, what is trying to be realised in you.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  You know your culture, you know your life, you know the forces that are in your life that are stopping you being who you are. You have, God is not in the constellations of the stars, God is in your belly. God is telling you when you're doing something you didn't want to do. No, does anybody feel good after looking at pornography? I don't, I don't immediately afterwards when I slam that lid down thinking, well, that was a good job, well done. I feel like, oh, I've let myself down. What have I just participated in? So it's not that I'm trying to live my life in accordance with an external morality. It's the morality is innate, inherent, is present within already.

• 15:37Jay Shetty?

  And how, how did you recognise that it was that, that it was internal?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Ah, I suppose because after this, what these steps do, mate, is they reveal the truth of who you are. But they also acknowledge that you're a flawed person and it's very easy to drift back to your own habits. It made me realise that I'm better when I'm in a relationship with another person, when I speak openly with people that I can trust, when I accept help from others and when I offer help to people as well. So I suppose it came like, you know, getting rid of heroin and crack, that was one level. Recognising that promiscuity wasn't working for me, that was another level. Acknowledging that fame and materialism weren't working for me is another level. Now, I still participate in the world, I still eat food and wear trainers and stuff. But what I no longer have is the expectation that these things are going to fill me up or make me better.

• 16:25Jay Shetty?

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• 17:08Jay Shetty?

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• 17:47Speaker 02

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• 18:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and I think I love that balance because I think sometimes it's really easy for people to go totally the other way and say, actually, I don't need any of it, and none of it has any purpose, and it's all false, it's all fake, and it's not going to do anything. But you're coming at from the point of view of... I get it, I like these trainers, I bought them.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:31Jay Shetty?

  I know that they're not gonna give me eternal transcendental happiness. But I know that they're gonna make me feel good for a day. And it's almost like a realistic expectation.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I believe so, Jay. I mean, we know people who have a stronger path than us. Some people's path is they're not gonna participate at all in that thing. And I think our culture needs that. Traditionally, in smaller societies, on the periphery of the village would be the shaman, the wild man, the priest, the people that were not quite in keeping with society. So I think it's just, it's difficult because we live in an economic culture that's based upon productivity. That if you're not a productive member of that society, and I mean economically productive, then you aren't given a role. We need people that can't wear trainers, that can't look at TV, that just wanna spend all time meditating, blitzing out, bringing down radiant new dreams, imagining new realms for us. There's a place in a utopia for those people.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  It's just it's difficult to find a role for them in a system of capitalist consumerism.

• 19:28Jay Shetty?

  You've touched on it a few times, Russell, you've talked about not doing this on your own, having people around that you trust, you talk about in the book, needing mentors. How useful is that for you in the process of having worked with people who've been through these steps and these programs before you?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  It's absolutely vital for me, Jay, to have mentors, because I'm still crazy. I still have bad ideas every single day. Now I have the opportunity, if I'm thinking of doing something crazy, I ring someone before I do it. That's the key bit, before I do it and go, hey, I'm thinking of doing this crazy thing, shall I do it? And they go, don't do the crazy thing. And then I have a moment and I don't do the crazy thing. Because when you're emotionally involved in your own life, and your emotions stop you being rational and clear-headed. But other people, you know this, that when I give advice to other people, I give good advice. If Jay were to ask me, ah, listen, this is happening in my life, I'd go, no, don't do that, Jay, da, da, da. But in my own life, I'm like an idiot, I'm making stupid mistakes, I'm knocking stuff over, I'm being sick down my own top, I'm a fool. But in Jay's life, I'm very wise.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  So it's important to have the council of other people collectively and in community. We are powerful, it's only as individuals we're very, very stupid.

• 20:32Jay Shetty?

  And how long did it take you to go from calling someone after you messed up to before?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  That's a key part of the journey, because like, it's very. It's easy to ring someone when you're smacked up off your head, or if you're drunk, or if you've just made yourself puke up in a toilet, or you've bought some dumb stuff, or you've looked at some pornography, you've spent too much time staring at your phone, go, oh, I've done it, I feel filthy, I don't feel good anymore. If you ring them in advance of it, then you get an opportunity to do something else. Here are the simple things you do. You speak with someone who's further down the path than you are. You speak to someone who's not so far down the path, and you help them, and you just think about what they're doing for a change. And then also, in addition to this, you seek the collective company so that you recognise your identity as a member of a community, however you identify, and importantly, prayer and meditation for me. A recognition of the transcendence and people that can help you in those areas that are further down that particular path.

• 21:18Jay Shetty?

  And how much have you seen that help other people that were on the journey with you? Has that been a strong part of their journey, or was that very unique to yours?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  I think it is universal. I think it's for all of us, but how we conceive of a higher power changes. You know, there's nine or whatever people in this room, and we all have a different idea of what God or higher power might be. Some of us will be atheist, we believe that everything has come from material. My sense is that there must have been consciousness prior to material, that material cannot produce consciousness. But other people think that, no, no, material can produce consciousness. It's a big debate, it's been going on forever, it'll probably go on forever. The important thing is that we recognise that however it got here, spirit is a part of who we are. Now, so I know people that are atheists that stay clean and improve their lives. I know people that are Sikh, or Buddhist, or Christian, or Muslim, that get clean. The important thing is that we have a sense of connection to one another and a connection to a higher self,

• 22:07Speaker 01

  rather than just thinking, I'm just me, and what I want is important. Because if I think like that, I'm gonna spend all my time hitting up the pipe, watching porn, making bad choices.

• 22:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, definitely. And how incredible would it be if we had a planet where everyone was thinking about everyone else? Because then everyone would have 7.999 billion people thinking about them. As opposed to one, which is quite an incredible thing to think about. I just wanna comment on how much I love the book, how step-oriented it is and how structured it is. So, when you flick through this book, there's loads of little activities that you can actually do, and I love that. Because I love being able to put your thoughts down on paper, just getting out of your head is such an important thing. And I think if you don't have frameworks and structures to get them down, we just kind of live up going round and round and round, which I'm sure you've experienced a lot of. I love how, yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Jay, it's funny you bring that up, mate, because I heard a thing from a neurologist the other day. It was on a podcast, I'm not hanging out with neurologists. And there goes that when you engage your rational mind, it takes you out of your emotion. It's very curious, the step 10 thing in this programme is if something's bothering you, say like if Jay when we're outside went, Russell, you look terribly overweight, which Jay would never say because he's too enlightened, as I've already mentioned. And I'm like, instead of thinking about that and worrying about it, I'd go, Jay, because he said that thing about me being overweight, this affects my pride, it affects my self-esteem, it affects my personal relations. That's not the script I'd give Jay, I want Jay to say other stuff. Does it affect my sexual relations? No, Jay and I are both married. And then my ambitions, yeah, my ambition to be like in control of my own life. There's a whole system.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Now, when you go into the fourth column, and you should check this stuff out on my website, russellbrand.com, you can see it. Who's that lovely guy? It asks you various questions. Did I make any mistakes? Yeah, I care too much about what other people think of me. What are your fears? My fears are that if other people don't love me, I'm not good enough. Now, when you, so it puts you in a rational part of your mind, and it also starts to help you to understand what patterns are at play when you feel bad about yourself. What are the patterns? You know, like, why is it so, if people let me down, I'm really strongly affected by it because it reaches back into my past of times when I was let down when I was small and fragile, I guess. And I think everybody's got their own version of that. This helps you to unpick the tapestry of your broken consciousness and restore to you a screen of pure mind

• 24:18Speaker 01

  through which a new radiant light can emerge and self-realisation can take place.

• 24:22Jay Shetty?

  I wanted to read a bit of the book, if you don't mind. I'm sure your audio version is far better.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  So sweet, isn't he? He's married, lady.

• 24:31Jay Shetty?

  There's this beautiful, beautiful piece in the book, which you call, Here is a postcard from the other side. Here is a postcard from the other side. Fame, luxury items and glamour are not real and cannot solve you. Whether it's a pair of shoes, a stream of orgies, a movie career or global adulation, they're all just passing clouds of imaginary pleasure.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  It's true, you know, although I still got those shoes. But it's very well read that, Jay, and it's true. No, you did it more than justice. You brought it to life. It was wonderful. But like, so I suppose, yeah, I like that. You know, it's a very common metaphor, the idea of passing clouds. We all recognise that clouds are impermanent and the result of precipitation. And similarly, the vapours of consciousness form into clouds, but they will pass. What we attach to is what's important, particularly if you want to create a sort of a positive ecology in our own consciousness.

• 25:23Jay Shetty?

  So I'm going to touch on this before we're going to go. We're going to do a quickfire round with Russell, which, as you know, is the on the spot questions. Nice rapid fire. You're

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Rapid fire.

• 25:30Jay Shetty?

  Genius of this. So but before we do that, I did want to touch on something which I thought was pretty incredible. You say in the book, I believe it's in the seventh step, where you say that you're careful not to judge your parents. And and I, when I was reading that bit, I was just thinking, even judging or shifting blame is an addiction in our lives. We always try and find to fob it off onto someone else. So we think it's actually that person's fault that I never got there, or it's because of that person that I had these difficulties. And I was thinking, how did you stop yourself? Or grow to the point where you didn't want to judge your parents or judge anyone who'd?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yes, mate. Well, what it is, is of course, people make mistakes, but I've learned to recognise as I've got older, the older I get, the more easy my childhood was, the more I recognised that my parents, just ordinary people like me, making their way through life. By justifying your pain and by blaming, we recommit to the pain. Well, of course, I feel like this. This happened to me. That happened to me. You're signing another contract to continue with the pain. If you say, okay, those things happened, but I want to let go of them now. And I want to move forward. You have an opportunity to reimagine your world and reimagine your place within it. So I'm sure terrible things have happened to people. People are abused. People are let down. People don't do what they should do as parents. People make all sorts of mistakes.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  But by holding on to that pain, you recommit to reliving it. Of course, it's wrong that you were abused if you were abused. But what's even more wrong than that is that you continue to allow it to affect your consciousness now in this moment when you could be free.

• 26:54Jay Shetty?

  Definitely. So guys, if you're ready for the quickfire on the spot round with Russell Brand, press the like button, press the like button, press that share button. I'm going to ask him these questions. They're going to evolve from what may seem quite. Inferior and insignificant, but then walking into deeper depths of yourself.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Alright mate, so we're gonna start in very shallow waters, like a paddle in a stream, and then we're leaping into the deep blue.

• 27:16Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I'll follow you there, with or without trunks.

• 27:19Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, Ross. So, here we go. Are you a morning person or a night owl, Ross?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling pretty depressed, actually, but I can't go to bed late no more because I've got a baby. So you have to become a morning person because that baby determines it.

• 27:32Jay Shetty?

  And how's that been, becoming a father, obviously, very recently? Congratulations.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 27:35Jay Shetty?

  And a lot of love. I've had a beautiful child you have, and yeah, how's that been?

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Well, what it's done is it's unraveled my narcissism and puked and spat on it and done a poo on it. Because I now know I'm not the most important person in the world because there's a little baby who just thinks I'm an absolute idiot and punches me in the face pretty regularly. And she just thinks I'm the guy that holds the screen in the nightgarden, Don. So that's put me really in my place.

• 27:57Jay Shetty?

  You know, it's really funny. Someone said to me recently that when they had a child, that was the first time they realized that life was about service. And I was thinking that often we wait so long to figure that out. It's like what you're saying in this book, it's just like, get on with it. Like wherever you are, whatever stage you're at, whatever challenges you've had. It's like the quicker you can get to that, like why wait that long?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  That's a good way of putting it, mate.

• 28:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it was just, someone shared that with me. So, favourite word or quote?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:22Jay Shetty?

  You quote a lot of great people.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Here's this Herman Melville quote that I like. "All of human science are but passing fables." I like this because when we think of how advanced we are scientifically, here we sit in this great hub of technology. One day, it's hard to think, isn't it, that we will look back at this and it will be like some whirring steampunk daft old engine of silly old pistons and buckles and cogs. Similarly, with our understanding of quantum physics and entanglement, ideas that are so baffling now, it will be revealed to us new truths, deeper truths. So what we understand as reality on the physical and mechanical level is constantly evolving, therefore we have to find a transcendent perennial truth. And this, I believe, is available to you in some of the ancient scriptures, possibly all of them. It's usually to do with oneness and love.

• 29:08Jay Shetty?

  As you can tell, this is not going very rapid fire, but it's good.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it may be rapid fire.

• 29:12Jay Shetty?

  But it's fine, it's good, it's good. Last book you read?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  I'm reading Moby Dick at the moment. I like that book by Herman Melville.

• 29:19Jay Shetty?

  Awesome. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Okay. I want to be able to subdivide myself into loads of people, like clone me's.

• 29:27Jay Shetty?

  Okay, not be inside people and not think like they are, but.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Oh, now that's quite a good one. Well, I leap into other people's consciousness. I didn't know that was available. Yeah, I'm having your one. Yours is better.

• 29:37Jay Shetty?

  Okay. If you were not what you are today, what would you be?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  God knows, man. I mean, like, I probably want to work with children because the only thing other than like showing off is hanging out with kids.

• 29:48Jay Shetty?

  What job would you be terrible at?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Like, anything where I had to be involved in rational thought and organising stuff. I'd be like, when I used to be a mailman, for example, I stole the letters and then delivered them. So that's quite bad, isn't it?

• 30:00Jay Shetty?

  Why do you meditate?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Uh, because none of this is real and I need to attach to truth.

• 30:05Jay Shetty?

  Best thing about being a dad?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  That kid has opened new continents of love in my heart like Columbus.

• 30:11Jay Shetty?

  Best thing about being a husband?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Constancy, permanent love.

• 30:15Jay Shetty?

  Best thing about knowing you're more than the body and the mind?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Freedom.

• 30:19Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. Best lesson from Hollywood?

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Don't determine your self-worth on what other people think of you.

• 30:25Jay Shetty?

  Best advice you've ever received?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Oh, no, like from our shared friend and teacher Radhanath Swamy. He goes, uh, uh, goes, what if I become a monk? He laughed in my face, said, I do not think it's your Dharma to become a monk. The monks don't want me. So not becoming a monk, good advice.

• 30:43Jay Shetty?

  And best advice you've ever given?

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Hmm, I don't know really because I don't know the effects of it, but like hopefully it's something like you have everything you need. You are enough. You are enough. You are beautiful.

• 30:53Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing. Guys, that's it. You've been watching Recovery with Russell Brand. Follow the reader. I hope that you're gonna go and click and order this book today. It's there in the comments. If anything we said connected with you, resonated with you, please, please, please. Go through. I know that reading this for me has made me find new ways of reflecting on flaws that I thought I'd overcome.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 31:11Jay Shetty?

  And I thought that was really quite incredible. There were things that I thought, oh, maybe I've overcome this. Maybe, maybe this is done now. And then when I read this, I was like, no, it's not. I've not made that list and gone through every single part of it. So I've got loads from this and I really hope you will too. But thank you, Russell.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Wow, Jay Shetty, thank you.

• 31:26Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Hare Krishna.

• 31:28Jay Shetty?

  Hare Krishna.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Well done, man.

• 31:29Jay Shetty?

  Thank you.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 31:31Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please leave a review. It means the world to me and I can't wait to see you next week. I am so excited. I've got some big announcements coming up. You'll hear about them soon. Thank you so much for listening.

• 31:53Speaker 03

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• 32:22Speaker 04

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• 32:37Speaker 05

  Mr. President, my company for me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd.

• 32:42Jay Shetty?

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

• 32:48Speaker 06

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 32:54Speaker 05

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

• 32:58Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 33:02Speaker 06

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