Pod Insights On Purpose with Jay Shetty Dave Hollis ON: How To Stop Listening To People’s Opinions & Writing Your Own Story About this episode When Dave Hollis left a secure job at Disney to jump into the growth and self-development industry with wife Rachel Hollis, he discovered more freedom than fear. The husband, father and CEO shares passionately with Jay Shetty how leaving a life of comfort has been both his greatest risk and the greatest thing to happen to him.
Listen to learn more about Hollis’ new book, Get Out Of Your Own Way. Hollis also shares his journey to fulfillment and his secrets for success. He and Jay Shetty also discuss how to find true happiness and what saves their marriages.
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Transcript 14,316 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:29 Jay Shetty? AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.
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3:09 Speaker 01 There isn't a single one of them that is standing on top of something I admire. And that thing they're standing on isn't a bunch of learning that came out of a bunch of failures. And so, normalizing that the price of entry, the cost of the thing we're trying to build, trust me, it has worked against every ounce of muscle that I've ever had. I've been way more fixed mindset oriented in trying to avoid failure than running toward it.
3:39 Jay 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 who come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. I'm genuinely so grateful for the amazing and incredible audience that you are. And you know that my genuine heart and job is to try and find you guests that I believe are going to help you learn and listen and grow and help you actually live the life that is full of potential, full of joy, and full of happiness. And today's guest is definitely not going to disappoint. I'm actually personally very excited about this conversation because I think. Not only are we gonna love this conversation, I'm gonna be really surprised by a lot of the stuff that comes out of it. I'm excited for that element of surprise and delight that I'm expecting from this.
4:24 Jay Shetty? No pressure, of course. But as you know, today's guest is an incredible husband, father, CEO, entrepreneur, and his new book, which is launching this year in March, is called Get Out of Your Own Way: A Skeptic's Guide to Growth and Fulfillment. We have none other than Dave Hollis. Dave?
4:46 Speaker 01 Jay.
4:47 Jay Shetty? Thank you for doing this.
4:47 Speaker 01 No, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
4:49 Jay Shetty? No, and I'm gonna add this because for anyone who knows Dave, you already know what he's like. I've only, I've been admiring Dave and watching him from afar, probably for, I think, one and a half years. And I only met him a couple of days ago, but we've been exchanging emails and messages back and forth. He's very prompt, festival, which tells me lots of stuff about someone. And, but more than that, he's just got this beautiful aura emanating, and he has this energy, which is just very, it's like, he can give you a hug and tell you the truth at the same time, which I think is like a very cool, very cool mix. But I'm excited to build our friendship, man, honestly.
5:25 Speaker 01 I am too. And here's the thing, as an admirer from afar for a long time, you always are somewhat leery to meet someone who you've been admiring for the risk of them letting you down, and you do not do that. So, man, I really, really appreciate the chance to connect in person and look forward to everything that comes, man.
5:40 Jay Shetty? Yeah, absolutely. So, let's dive straight into it because I feel like there's a lot of stuff we can jump into.
5:46 Speaker 01 Yep.
5:47 Jay Shetty? When we talk about your book, Get Out of Your Own Way, as soon as I heard the title, I was like, oh.
5:54 Jay Shetty? Oh, I was like, that is exactly it. Like, I just couldn't, I was just with you. I was like, yes, get out of your own way. When was the first time in your life that you realized you were in your own way?
6:07 Speaker 01 Oh, I mean, here's the headline. I was and have been in my own way forever and ever, but probably had the hubris, the conceit ego to not fully confess or admit it until... Maybe even just in the last decade, but I, after having constructed a life around a whole host of capital T truths that had been ingrained in me, that fed into an identity I thought I had to live into, started asking a bigger set of questions as I was crossing this chasm between 30 and 40, where these existential things that sometimes come up around milestone birthdays weren't just lasting for the week of the birthday, it was a longer period of time. Why am I here? What am I not doing that I could be doing?
6:50 Speaker 01 Why do I have this gift, this potential from God or Creator that isn't fully being exploited? And if I spend the next 20 years stuck here in my way, not fully using these gifts, will I have regret? Will my kids sitting around a table at my 60th birthday have something to toast? Will I die not having done the things that I was put on this planet to do? And it was a funk at first that really had me, to be honest, not showing up as well as I'd committed to with my wife, or how well I wanted to show up for my kids. And I had to do a lot of soul searching around, well, why? And the book really, truly ends
7:30 Speaker 01 up being these 20 lies that I believe that at one time or another had me in my own way, that in shining the light of truth on them made them unbelievable, and in their unbelievability, kept me out of my own way.
7:43 Jay Shetty? That's amazing. And hearing you say that is like, now, when you say it, it sounds so simple, but I'm sure the process is anything but. And what you add to it even more than the process. And, you know, in this space, you meet a lot of people who'll talk about like, the stuff they've broke through and challenges they've been through. The part that I love about yours is you sprinkle this line, a skeptic's guide, right? And it's like, you were a skeptic. Like, tell me what you were skeptical about, and why, where that skepticism came from. Because that just, when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's just added a whole flavor for me. Because I kind of see myself as indifferent. Before I was involved in this whole world, I was indifferent. I wasn't skeptical, but I wasn't pro all of this stuff. So I was indifferent. But when I hear someone specifically say
8:27 Jay Shetty? skeptical, I'm like, all right, tell me about that.
8:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's such a variety of factors, right? My family of origin. Downloading software early on in my life about how you do or don't need certain things. Masculinity is defined by society telling me as a man, whether I was good or not for being able to stand on my own or reach for help. I truly had skepticism generally about the tools that I now use every single day to fully unlock the things in my life as only being reserved for people who are broken. That if you needed to use the tools of development, of growth, that it somehow indicted you for not being whole enough, worthy today.
9:09 Speaker 01 And of course, now I think completely differently, but my skepticism showed its head most when my wife, who has now written some books inside of this space, was trying to find ways to solve some of the things that were getting in her way. Anxiety, a big thing. Everyone's dealing with anxiety today. And some negative coping mechanisms, a handful of things. And so she went on this pursuit of how can I, through self-education, through books, podcasts, personal development conferences, learn why I suffer? And in understanding my suffering, stop. And to me, I was like, well, that is, that's hocus pocus. That's snake oil. That's crazy.
9:51 Speaker 01 And if you go into these environments and accept their Kool-Aid, well, I just think that you're being scammed. And so I, clinging to some of the ways I was raised, some of the tropes about masculinity as a person that was raised inside of a church community, the idea that you could learn from someone who wasn't holding a Bible in some ways was sacrilegious. And so I, just for a host of reasons, was skeptical. And as she dove in and really started emerging into this woman that she's become, whole, just on fire for life, full of passion, motivation burning inside of her, I was stuck. I was like in this stuck place.
10:33 Speaker 01 And there was a distance growing between us that finally created enough leverage for me to toe dip some of the things that I was skeptical about.
10:40 Jay Shetty? Wow, I love that. And I love hearing the, especially when someone in your life goes in deep. Like that, that can be really, really tough. It was like that for my mom, actually, because my father got really into spirituality when I was about 10. And he just took a massive deep dive into a spiritual search. He was like going to every religious conference and all of these different backgrounds in personal development and self growth. And for my mom and me as a 10 year old kid, it was a massive shock as to how much it changed our lifestyle and the choices we made and the holidays we went on and all that kind of stuff.
11:10 Speaker 01 By the way, I was not a fan. You know, like I may have toe dipped, but I maybe skipped the part where as she comes back from her first personal development conference and is on fire for her life, I am begrudging her. I am resentful almost. And it feels sad for me to say it, like I'm not rooting for my wife, my best friend, partner for life to be the best version of herself. But it was really more a reflection of how stuck I was that she was so able to reach for more. And as she got up at five in the morning to jumpstart her day, I'd roll over, make a grunt in disapproval of her wanting to live her best life as I was truly descending into a version of my worst. So it took us
11:54 Speaker 01 some time. The turning point to be even like, put a finer point on it was when I'd stand just stuck for such a long period of time as she continued to grow, we had to have the hardest conversation of our marriage. And that was the if I, Rachel, were to continue to reach for growth because of it being one of, if not the most important commodity that I value in life, and you, Dave, decide to stay suck or really descend into a lesser version of yourself, as that trajectory creates greater distance between us, in three months, will we still make out? In six months, will we still go on dates? In three years, will
12:35 Speaker 01 we still be married? And I knew the answer to each. And the leverage of connecting to the reality that inaction would create disruption for the things I cared and loved about most was powerful. I mean, I am a paint the most terrifying picture and let that get you up and going in the day.
12:56 Jay Shetty? Yeah, I love that. And, and sometimes there is no other way than actually almost fast forwarding and wondering where's this going right now. But do you think that, I'm fascinated by this. I don't know what you're gonna say, but do you think that skepticism actually made you better at practicing it? Like, do you think that skepticism actually made you? Be more fast and present and smart when you were in there so that you could apply these tools quicker. Was it useful anyway?
13:23 Speaker 01 It it was useful ish. I mean, truly, right? Like the my first real experience inside of development was a willingness to sit on the couch of a therapist and start doing some of the things that my practical mind needed to progress on this journey. And for me, it started with understanding why. Why do I believe the things I believe? Where did these beliefs come from? In your book, you would talk about identity, like, what is the source? What did it mean? Does it still apply? I mean, like, man, I feel that because I, in sitting on the couch of a therapist, was, for the first time, trying to uncover what what do these
14:05 Speaker 01 beliefs of mine, where do they come from? What do they mean? And do they have practical application in my life today? Is the source of that truth still credible in 2015 and 2020 as it was in 1984, when it formed how I believe the world ought to work? And so, therapy for me softened the soil and changed my absolutely not, I will never sit in that personal development conference to, uh, okay, fine, I'll go. And here's the thing, like, my skepticism still had me a begrudging attendee. But the conditions of my yes were informed a little bit by having truly, like, reached a state that I wasn't proud of, and my knowledge that if I didn't
14:50 Speaker 01 make dramatic change in my life, I was putting at risk my marriage to my wife, the way that I could be a father to my four kids. And so I said I'd go all in. And in making that choice against my muscle memory of skepticism, I jumped up and down. I drank all the Kool-Aid. I still had things that felt weird and strange and it changed my life. Truly had a transformational experience in a stadium, jumping up and down.
15:18 Jay Shetty? And the best thing I see now is now you're jumping up and down on stage.
15:21 Speaker 01 100%.
15:22 Jay Shetty? I saw that picture of you.
15:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, so I've come full circle and am the biggest advocate for every tool that previously I was skeptical of, of it not being for broken people, but for being, yes, as much for people who are going through a season of brokenness. I don't believe any of us are broken, but we experience broken seasons as it is for people who are whole, healthy and interested in the full life.
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18:01 Jay Shetty? Yeah, absolutely. No, I love hearing that. And I love that you didn't have to wait till it all went wrong. Like you had the foresight, you had the ability to go, this is getting bad? This could go there? Let's rein it in, right? Because I think for a lot of us, we wait till everything kind of goes totally bad, and sometimes it's harder to recover from that.
18:22 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, this idea of irreconcilable differences, as a for example, I originally, in my like years, thought of it as a line that frankly, people concocted when they were too lazy to work on their relationship. And I can see now with 100% clarity that I was very much on the beginning journey down a path of reconcilability with my wife in a way that, man, thank goodness, we saw that we were ahead of that now that way. It was still something that we could fix. It was still something that I could change. But too many people don't take the temperature until they're so far in the pot that they don't realize that the water's boiling.
19:02 Jay Shetty? I'm interested in how your friends took it with you. Like, how did they respond to your change? Because you go from being this skeptic, go from being this person who's like, not sure what my wife's doing. And then, you know, maybe a year later, or however long the period was, you're now in to that same world. How have your friends or family or whoever was involved in your life, who knew you as the old Dave,
19:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:25 Jay Shetty? reacted to your change?
19:27 Speaker 01 Well, what's crazy is the outcome of the work starting was a decision to wholesale change our life. And that is, I, for 17 years, had worked at the Walt Disney Company. When I'm having this crisis moment, I am outside world, having a very successful career. I am the head of sales at the Walt Disney Company's movie studio, the president of distribution, had been for seven years, putting the Marvel, Lucas, Pixar, Disney, Disney Animation films into movie theaters. It's a great job, but I'm feeling this sense of unfulfillment, in part because of how strong the team is, how strong the leaders are, how strong the films are, not having to work
20:11 Speaker 01 as hard to have success. You or I, regardless of our qualifications, could sell Avengers and Star Wars films to movie theaters. Trust me, they will take them, right? But my decision in the aftermath of the aha moments inside of this personal development environment was this connection between growth and fulfillment. That my unfulfillment was a signal of not being in a posture to grow. And so, rather than wait for someone else to create an opportunity for me to grow, I had to take action to create growth. So I left a job that most don't leave to pursue impact and work with my wife, moved
20:54 Speaker 01 our family from Los Angeles to Austin. And that decision to a person, as much as it was, yes, a manifestation or reflection of my adopting personal development and this work, it did not make sense to a single human in our circle. When I told people I'm gonna leave this job, they were wondering if I'd lost my mind. And by the way, like, if I, shoe were on the other foot, I'd be asking the same set of questions. But I left what I knew for what I needed. I left security and a harbor that, yep, kept my boat safe and did not rocket with any waves, for the perilous water that sits outside of the harbor, because that's where I could
21:39 Speaker 01 grow and in that growth feel fulfilled.
21:40 Jay Shetty? How did you get to the point of feeling...
21:44 Jay Shetty? Comfortable or open to that uncertainty? Because you're going from a very certain role. I'm sure you had another promotion coming up or another journey. How did you open yourself up to the fact that there was some new uncertainty? New skills you'd have to learn. Wouldn't be selling Avengers anymore. Like, you know, that that sounds like an uncertain step.
22:04 Speaker 01 It was uncertain. Now, here's the thing. It was uncertain. And my wife has had a couple of big books in the last of hers, right?
22:10 Jay Shetty? Incredible, by the way.
22:11 Speaker 01 Thank you, yeah. And before Girl, Wash Your Face came out, we made this choice. So as much as I'd read the book, I had a sense of what I believed its impact could be. I could have never captured what its impact would actually be. But she'd spent a long time working on building a company that was at a tipping point that she knew she needed to bring an operator in to offset some of what she brings as a visionary creator. And I happened to possess skills as a practical pragmatic operator that was it was either me or someone else that might come in. And considering that I had really had this light bulb go off. Man, you're not currently in a position to grow.
22:53 Speaker 01 And you don't know how to do any of the things that you'd be doing in this future with your wife. You don't know how to work together. You don't know how to work outside of a corporate environment. You don't know how to work on a team of six people. My team was a thousand in 72 countries, right? I didn't know how to do any of it. And that thing was frightening. Who that's scary. I don't know how to do it. But I'd just come to this appreciation that if I didn't go do something I didn't know how to do, that I could fail at, that I would not be able to generate the fulfillment that I was looking for. I I could make mistakes at the Walt Disney Company, but on the whole, I was not in a position to fail because the slate, the team and the leadership was just too good.
23:35 Speaker 01 Being in a position where you can fail is a requisite, is a prerequisite for you actually being able to grow and in that growth, being able to be fulfilled. If you don't have that growth, it's just an impossibility. So when I was faced with stay stuck, don't grow, be unfulfilled or take a chance. It wasn't, it actually ended up not being that hard of a choice because I had the rest of my life to fully live into this potential. And if I didn't move then, I don't know that I would have ever moved.
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24:38 Speaker 03 Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.
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25:40 Jay Shetty? That's amazing. That's, that's, yeah, that's insane. I feel like for so many people, it's, it takes a lot of courage to do that. And, and, you know, we've got to, regardless of what had been built and what had already worked, et cetera, it, it still takes so much. And I don't think it should be underestimated.
25:55 Speaker 01 I appreciate that. I will say this. What's interesting is. People assume that it takes a lot of courage often because of what other people who are watching will think of your decision to do something that lives outside of the construct of value that they've created, right? Every person that worked at the company, the team that had, you know, been working with me for the seven years of the seventeen, it didn't make sense to them. Because to a person on my team, they were working toward my job and the idea that I'd leave it voluntarily didn't make sense, right? So the courage, the bravery in part is because of the way that we often afford to what other people are thinking about
26:38 Speaker 01 our departing from their set of values or the construct that they've built. And the gift in this is that no one was thinking about me. And I say that in no way that indicts any of them. They are human like you, JR, and that like I am. We, we have a primary instinct to be considerate of ourselves.
27:00 Jay Shetty? Yes.
27:01 Speaker 01 And they do too. And, and you know, in the book, I talk about a story where I'd concocted this conspiracy theory that they were told to not get back in touch with me after I left for the time that went by when I didn't hear from people. And there was no conspiracy theory.
27:17 Jay Shetty? All right.
27:18 Speaker 01 They were busy working on their lives, their, their things at work. They, you know, and it's, you know, there's a weird part of ego that needs to feel like we'd be missed, that everything would crumble around us. And the gift in knowing that it won't, as much as it may be hard to stomach, is freeing.
27:38 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
27:38 Speaker 01 I can go do anything now.
27:41 Jay Shetty? Yes.
27:41 Speaker 01 And failure as a thing that maybe I wouldn't have run toward because of the worry of what they were thinking, keeping me from charging toward it, is now eliminated as a barrier because they're not even watching.
27:54 Jay Shetty? Totally, absolutely. You're spot on. Who was it? I think, I can't, I don't want to get this wrong, but I think it was Roosevelt. He said it best. It was like, If you, if you're caring, you'd stop caring about how often you think people think about you because of how seldom they actually do.
28:08 Speaker 01 If you knew how little they do.
28:09 Jay Shetty? Yeah, if you knew how little they do. And it's like, people are not thinking about us as much as we think they are.
28:14 Speaker 01 That's, it's so.
28:15 Jay Shetty? When we walk into a party, we're just like, it's like all eyes on me. We think that, right? We think that all cameras on me, all eyes on me. But actually, it's not that.
28:24 Speaker 01 It's not.
28:25 Jay Shetty? It's not, most people are looking at themselves the whole time.
28:27 Speaker 01 It doesn't, and again, it doesn't take anything away from the people that you
28:31 Jay Shetty? Correct, yeah.
28:31 Speaker 01 you love or crave love from. It doesn't. It's just a reflection of their humanity. And once you can connect to that, the way that you run towards trying things that you inevitably will not be great at, completely changes. I mean, I've really, in this role, the last two years of working with my wife and trying to scale a company, I've had to attach myself to the people I respect most and their stories of failure. Because there isn't a single one of them that is standing on top of something I admire. And that thing they're standing on isn't a bunch of learning that came out of a bunch of failures. And so, normalizing that the price of entry, the cost of the thing we're trying to build,
29:15 Speaker 01 is normalizing failure as an opportunity for data, has really, and like, it's, trust me, it has worked against every ounce of muscle that I've ever had. I've been way more fixed mindset oriented in trying to avoid failure than running toward it. But I'm now working, not in a corporate environment, but more of a startup environment, where the only way we'll grow is trying things that won't work when we first try them, so we can become better in learning.
29:42 Jay Shetty? Yeah, totally opposite to what you did before.
29:43 Speaker 01 Completely opposite, yeah.
29:45 Jay Shetty? Let's dive into some of these lies.
29:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, let's do it.
29:47 Jay Shetty? Because I love the way this book is structured. So, Dave was walking me through this, and you can see it, obviously, when you look at the book. So, Dave's listed out all the lies, or not all of them, probably, but enough. Yeah, 20 lies that he, at one point, believed to be true, and then breaks them down in each chapter, which I, I love that. I, I'm a big sucker for format, so I love that format. And I'm gonna pick some, and we're gonna ask Dave questions about stories, questions about his best takeaways and thoughts, depending on which one it is. So, the first one I want to focus on is this one. So, it's chapter three.
30:23 Speaker 01 Yep.
30:23 Jay Shetty? The lie, I have to have it all together. And I'm gonna tee it up, because I feel like. Everyone goes through that at some point in their life. And when I went through that of I have to have it all together. It was actually when I first got into personal growth and self improvement, because I was just like, oh, wow, like I have to fix everything about my life. Like I've been getting it all wrong. So it's almost like instead of it actually helping me, the first thing personal growth forced me to do was get panicky about the fact that I didn't have it all right. And so I have to have it all together. Let's dive into that lie and tell me the area in your life you felt that most in, the areas that were you felt that you were like, oh, I really need to get it together. And then break that down for me.
31:04 Speaker 01 When I was most stuck.
31:05 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
31:06 Speaker 01 My unwillingness to represent my struggle, which is universal. If you're listening to this, congratulations. As a human, you struggle. Own that. Give yourself permission to have struggle as a part of your story. My unwillingness to represent the and honor the reality of my experience and of my struggle meant one thing. I could not connect to anyone else who was struggling to normalize the fact that it was not me being broken, but a totally normal human condition struggle. And secondarily, it kept me from getting help. And so if you keep your struggle in the dark, if you keep your struggle from those that would help you,
31:50 Speaker 01 you will feel alone and you're not, and you will not get help and it's out there. Now that I've transitioned into this world, I went from a role where, among other things, as this head of sales at the Walt Disney Company, I was manicuring a story to press each week on how movies were doing and I was good at selling whatever it was that we were trying to position to the press. And that bled over into my life in this Facebook, Instagram world where I was manicuring a version of my life that, hey, everything's great, everything's okay. And now in this world where we exist as a company to put tools in people's hands to help them take control of their lives,
32:30 Speaker 01 modeling that we also struggle was a thing at the beginning I really struggled to do. It's a lot of struggle in one sentence. The reality though is right. At the beginning, I was still old Dave in new role, telling people that they could reach for their dreams or beat their fear or whatever it might be. And I wasn't being honest about the way that this identity shift was crushing me, how hard it was to work together, the insecurities I had of being really capable to do the work well. And this book, two years of live streams and podcasts and everything else, have completely rewritten what it's meant for me to own my experiences.
33:14 Speaker 01 And in the owning of it, I've been able to connect better with the people who are looking so badly for connection. And as a person who's perpetually, like for the rest of my life, looking for help, because I used to have help as a thing that was an indicator of me not being good, whole or worthy. I need help every day from now until the rest of time because I'm always growing into a better, more complicated version of myself. I get it now because of how willing I am to say, look, I'm struggling at this thing. Who has a solution to keep it from creating pain in my life?
33:45 Jay Shetty? Yeah, for sure. What you just said there, like the accepting that you're gonna need help every single day, like just being okay with that. Because you're so right, like we so push away help in all its forms. Our whole lives, I feel like we've avoided help.
34:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:03 Jay Shetty? And then it's weird because then our mind tricks us into going, you don't get any help.
34:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. What's interesting too in this, like truly, I struggled in writing the book because I am very, very honest about a lot of things that an older version of me, younger version of me would have never, ever confessed. I would have never owned struggling through 20 things that I am now representing as the truth of my experience. But in having owned them, I have taken the power that used to hold me down with shame, with insecurity, and completely reframed it as the power that I stand on top of for having become a warrior because of, equipped because of, capable because of the struggle. And if you, as a listener, are able to take the Experiences that you've been through and own them.
34:51 Speaker 01 You they didn't get you. You survive them. You are stronger for them. You learned because of them. It takes the shame. It takes the pain. It takes the stuff that would otherwise keep you from believing that you are capable of chasing whatever that thing is and turns it into the reason why you are uniquely qualified to chase it.
35:11 Jay Shetty? Yeah, absolutely. And you do that exactly this literally chapter four. Dave starts telling us the lie, a drink will make this better.
35:19 Speaker 01 Oh.
35:20 Jay Shetty? And you you get, you know, like, like you've mentioned, you're getting super vulnerable here. Like, you're so open and it's it's great to see that because I think that this is what's going to help the audience, even hearing what you just said now. It's like we can only do it when we see our heroes do it. And that's you're talking about Avengers earlier. That's one of the reasons why I love Avengers.
35:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:41 Jay Shetty? Because to me, Avengers is a bunch of people with a lot of issues, like each of them have so many issues. But they use all of those issues in trying to help the world.
35:51 Speaker 01 They become their strength.
35:52 Jay Shetty? They become their strength.
35:53 Speaker 01 I had a casual relationship with alcohol for most of my adult life. Drink after work, couple of drinks. Bad day, long day, triggering day, three drinks, right? Take the rough edges off the end of a long day. And in the transition in identity, in becoming accustomed to this new life, in the worry of what other people were thinking, in the grappling with all of it, what was a casual relationship turned into something that wasn't. And what I realized is I had made this decision. I got this little tattoo on my arm. A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships were built for, right? I am the ship. I was built for this. I made this decision to leave the harbor. I'm now chasing the growth that the waves will create.
36:39 Speaker 01 But when the waves get too rocky and trigger my anxiety and my imposter syndrome and the worry of what other people are thinking, I'm having a drink to reduce the rockiness of the waves at the expense of the growth that I was chasing. You did, you don't get the growth when you're muting the benefit that would have come from those waves. So I had to learn that that coping mechanism, it can't be applied as a local anesthetic, right? You can't have a drink just for your anxiety without muting your joy. You can't have a drink to mute your fear without muting your opportunity to grow. And so I had to find a new coping mechanism. By the way, the triggers, they still exist. In fact, with the way that I'm pursuing what I'm pursuing, they're coming at a faster
37:24 Speaker 01 rate. I needed to find something else. So I substituted bottles for running shoes. And as a sign of how much I've had to run in the year that I've stopped drinking, I've run about 900 miles.
37:36 Jay Shetty? That's insane.
37:37 Speaker 01 I mean, lots of running, but it's therapy. It's, it's a productive way of processing the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity that comes up in a way that still affords me the opportunity to show up well for my team, my wife, my kids, and allows me, as I lay my head on the pillow at night, when I'm alone with my own thoughts, to have pride for how I've taken control of a thing that previously was controlling me.
37:58 Jay Shetty? I've never heard it put that way. I love that. I've never heard it put that way, that when you're taking the edge off the anxiety, that's actually taking the edge off the joy.
38:07 Speaker 01 It is.
38:08 Jay Shetty? Like, that's phenomenal. That's such a great way of looking at it because you're so right. There's, there's no, you can't be selective about what it takes off.
38:16 Speaker 01 No. And it's a trick. I mean, truly, like, society, the, like, way that your family of origin maybe used the thing that you now use.
38:24 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
38:25 Speaker 01 It, you've, you've convinced yourself that, oh, no, no, this is just the nice way to segue out of a long day into a soft, you know, landing and evening. But you can't actually appreciate.
38:37 Speaker 01 The breaking down of the muscle, if you're muting the fruit that would have otherwise come from it, you have to sit in it. Brendan says you have to honor the struggle and I've really truly come to appreciate that that's a part of my journey as much as anything.
38:51 Jay Shetty? Yeah, who's listening to these lies, listening or watching right now going, wow, I've told myself some of these lies. I know I have, like, these are just, whatever your thing is, you may not have been drinks for you, it could have been something totally different, but the point is, you have told yourself at some point that something bad for you is good at taking the edge off. For me, I mean, my worst enemy a long time was sugar.
39:09 Speaker 01 Right.
39:09 Jay Shetty? Right? It was just tons of sugar. I grew up eating four chocolate products a day, like literally a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate bar, a chocolate yogurt, and a chocolate ice cream. And so I was addicted to chocolate. And people don't even realize how bad sugar can be. So sometimes you're thinking, oh, it's just sugar. But it's like, no, sugar can be terrible. And the other thing I had growing up was experimenting with drugs.
39:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:31 Jay Shetty? And I was experimenting with a ton of drugs and I just did not realize it until I saw someone go through a really bad experience with drugs. It didn't hit me in the face as to how bad it was.
39:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:42 Jay Shetty? And I always think that if we're not exposed to stories and people who have shed that pain, and sometimes you don't, you see somebody still going through it, you just can't stop it. So I'm really happy you're talking about it.
39:53 Speaker 01 Thank you. Now, it was hard to write, I'll be honest. And it's hard to write in one of the proudest chapters.
39:58 Jay Shetty? Why was it hard to write, really? Why was it genuinely hard?
40:01 Speaker 01 It was hard because admitting that something got away from me is something that I'm, you know, like, I don't have shame for it still, but I had shame for it at the time.
40:12 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
40:13 Speaker 01 It was hard to have to look myself in the mirror, sit across from my wife and have a hard conversation about having let something that I'd convinced myself I was completely and totally in control of, become something that was subconsciously or unconsciously a crutch to get through hard things. And I, you know, like any human, you don't want to have to admit that you're having to do something that isn't great for you to get through a hard thing. I'd like to have thought I was stronger for it. I feel way stronger now for having come through a season where it was, you know, really working against me. And if you're right now struggling with something and you're worried that maybe it'll Too much time or you don't know if you can do it. I am telling you, you can go from a low low to a high high in a very short amount of time.
40:55 Speaker 01 Just by considering what you could replace that bad habit with in terms of coping mechanism. Go from positive negative or negative to positive.
41:02 Jay Shetty? And I know you love the book, The Power of Habit.
41:04 Speaker 01 I love.
41:04 Jay Shetty? Yeah, I've seen you recommend it before and yeah, it's it's so true. And but tell me now, what happens now when, like you're saying, you're probably invited to more events. You're probably invited to more parties. You're probably invited to more networking events. When all those triggers, what are you doing? When it's like, when now you're coming home late, you're probably working harder than you've ever worked before. You're pushing yourself more. You're giving yourself more. What's happening when you're getting home later, whatever it may be, when it's like all those triggers? Like, what are you doing at that moment right now?
41:35 Speaker 01 Well, I I mean, I've gone through this interesting process of. It's a math equation in my mind.
41:41 Jay Shetty? Yeah, go for it.
41:41 Speaker 01 If then, if I want to have the energy to survive a day where triggers are guaranteed to come. Then I better have my morning routine happening so consistently that regardless of what life throws at me. I've established a foundation. If I want to have the energy to pour into an audience. That's showing up for me on the 18th stop of a 20 city book tour. Then I better have an exercise routine that has me so conditioned that I can show up well. If I want an exceptional relationship with my wife, then I better be actively pursuing her every single day. And I write these things down every morning, right?
42:21 Speaker 01 I write them down every morning in active word phrases so that it's a trigger for me. To preempt the triggers that are going to potentially throw off my intention, right? And the if then.
42:35 Speaker 01 It's one of those things where if you're listening, you're like, man, I don't want to have to get up that early. I don't. Okay, then you just have to change the then statement, right? Like, I want to honor if you find yourself in a season where you really want to commit to Netflix for two hours each night. If you do, that's fine, but change your like, make your expectations realistic of what you're able then to do. I have to go to bed at nine o'clock each night. If I have a night where I'm working late, it's altering my ability to get up and start my day the way that I have to, to have the kind of day that I intend to have. Like intention and routine is crazy important now that I'm really wanting to focus on what it takes to do the thing I want to do here every day.
43:15 Jay Shetty? Yeah, those are, I love that if then statements. Those are awesome.
43:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:18 Jay Shetty? I absolutely love that. Okay, let's do, let's do a couple more. Let's do a couple more before we move forward. Which other one did I want to pick out? This one I really like because I'm intrigued by it. Being right all the time doesn't make me an ass.
43:31 Speaker 01 Oh.
43:32 Jay Shetty? Tell me.
43:33 Speaker 01 I mean, I, if there were a debate club,
43:36 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
43:36 Speaker 01 I'd still be auditioning to be captain. I, you know, it's like your greatest strengths are your greatest weaknesses.
43:42 Jay Shetty? Yeah.
43:43 Speaker 01 Arguing negotiation, having worked in sales for a good part of my life, I, whether it's ego or whatever it is, right? Like winning arguments to me was affirming things for my ego at the expense of my personal brand, at the expense of my relationships. Right? Like you talk in your book about the difference between ego and self-esteem. And that line is not one that I had a great handle on for many of the, whether it was business transactions, I'm going to come in with bravado and I'm going to be right at the expense of potentially maintaining a healthy, long-term relationship. Or with your partner, with your kids. Like, like there's a, like, sometimes you gotta lose the battle to win the war
44:28 Speaker 01 kind of mentality that was just lost on a younger, more ego-focused version of myself. Being right all the time makes you an ass. There are times when absolutely you ought to yield for the benefit of changing a little bit of the reputation that you have.
44:44 Jay Shetty? Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a tough one because I think, you know, a lot of people have this fight for justice too. It's like when you think you know what's right and you're willing to go to town for it. And in a relationship, I mean, I'm married to, I don't have kids yet, but I definitely, a marriage definitely doesn't work.
44:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:00 Jay Shetty? And it also doesn't work because you're not really right half the time. Like, I mean, I've had to really open up to that. I think getting married, moving country, spending time with people from so many different backgrounds. We both travel a lot.
45:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:13 Jay Shetty? I go to different parts of the world. Their values are totally different.
45:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:17 Jay Shetty? And you realize your version of right is just what you had when you grew up, like.
45:21 Speaker 01 One hundred percent. I mean, here's the thing, there are hills to die on, right? There are things that I do believe you should fight to the death.
45:29 Jay Shetty? Totally.
45:29 Speaker 01 It doesn't matter, and I have those things.
45:31 Jay Shetty? Hmm.
45:32 Speaker 01 But those are the exceptions to the rule. And so often, there are those of us that think that all things have equal weight. We fight on that hill regardless of what the topic is. And to me, the like mature, the sign of maturity is having some objectivity for the sliding scale of which things really matter and which things you can bite your tongue and wait until some other time to see if there's another way to shape someone's opinion.
45:59 Jay Shetty? Yeah, for me, lose the battle, win the war. Or lose the battles, win the war has been like, I have lost so many battles in my life.
46:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:08 Jay Shetty? Whether it's been business, relationships, work, career. Like, I have lost so many battles and I will gladly lose them. And you get to a point where you start smiling when you're losing battles because you know it's helping you win the war. You can see that you're saving all that energy, all your reserves, all your grit, all your resilience.
46:26 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
46:27 Jay Shetty? You're holding on to so much more, whereas each one of those wars could just destroy you.
46:32 Speaker 01 My wife and I worked together for the first time in our life in this last two years. And it has been the best two years of our marriage. It's been the hardest two years of our marriage. And the nuance of learning this in applying it to our business relationships so that our personal relationship would still afford make out has been one of the things that, you know, like I've written this somewhat in real time as the events of these last two years have been unfolding. And this conversation is as much about Dave and Rachel working together and still wanting to have this exceptional relationship outside of work as anything else. It's hard work. If you work with your partner, you know, but the decision to, yep. Fight for the things that actually matter and then yield to the things that will afford
47:17 Speaker 01 you to still like each other as much as you love each other. That's important too.
47:21 Jay Shetty? And have you found that working together, because I've never worked with my wife professionally and it's not part of our plan in the work we do, at least for now, you never know.
47:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:29 Jay Shetty? You know, things. But have you found that you, the strength of your relationship for you affects the strength of your business relationship? Or actually, have you been able to keep it very separate where both of you can perform for the business, even if things weren't working out at home and then you're figuring them out? And then how hard is either of them?
47:48 Speaker 01 It's interesting because we've changed the nature of our relationship because of the responsibility of our business.
47:55 Jay Shetty? Yes.
47:55 Speaker 01 And so we would both, I think, self identify as recovering codependence, where our interest in keeping the other person happy, even if sometimes it tipped into unhealthy, like, we're not going to talk about this thing that we probably ought to talk about. That was a version of our past that in working together, we quickly had to change. And that meant like really embracing radical candor. Kim Scott's got a great book called Radical Candor. This idea of like responsibly and respectfully bringing up things that are hard in the moment for the benefit of not letting them fester and spoil. Our team, it's grown pretty quick.
48:34 Speaker 01 We had a 65 person team. Mommy and daddy can't be fighting, or they will lose focus. They will worry about the direction of the team. We don't want to fight. So instead of fighting, we have really hard conversations all the time so that nothing is ever unsaid. Well, that's just a fundamental change from who we were, but it's produced an unbelievably healthier, healthier version of who we are. Because now there's no, there's, there's nothing laying under the surface. It's all out there and it's brought out for the best of our relationship and the best of our work product.
49:12 Jay Shetty? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like these kind of formative experiences, especially done in short bursts, like you're talking about last couple of years. I feel like for relationships, and I know it sounds basic, but it's true. It's like either make or break. Like, it's very much like it then becomes about how much you both care. Like when me and my wife, in one year, we moved house three times, we moved country, I changed job three times. And we, yeah, we moved to New York. And so that was like in one year in twenty six, and we got married that year.
49:43 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness.
49:44 Jay Shetty? We got married that year. So literally, we got, we, we'd already moved home. We got married, we moved country, and I changed job three times in the same year. And then we got a new apartment in New York when we moved there. And we moved on to this five hundred square foot apartment in New York. It was going to afford anything else. It was tiny, living on top of each other. Few months later, I'm now working from home too. She's on the blender, I'm trying to do a Facebook Live.
50:07 Speaker 01 Unreal.
50:08 Jay Shetty? And like, it was just, you know, but, and we went through it that year, like that. Twenty sixteen was the hardest year for our relationship. And at the same time, like what you're saying, it was the best year for our relationship. Because I don't think we would have accelerated that fast.
50:23 Speaker 01 You had to.
50:23 Jay Shetty? We had to.
50:24 Speaker 01 It was a survival tactic. And man, the gift of having to figure it out that fast when things are moving as fast as they were then, or as fast as they are now. It, it's a gift, even though it's hard to see it as such in the midst of it.
50:39 Jay Shetty? Yeah, and I think that's where the test, and it's, I don't like the word test, but it is to some degree of like, how much you really love each other, what you really wanted, all the commitments you made, like all of that stuff, you have to really look at it in the mirror.
50:52 Speaker 01 One.
50:52 Jay Shetty? And, and you can't really let, nothing, nothing squeezes past in that year. Like, nothing gets past it.
50:57 Speaker 01 Our, our, having to come back to our relationship values in the last two years has been such an important thing. Because the emotion that comes up when life throws in chaos will have you forget the things that you priority ranked as your relationship values. And if you keep coming back to these things, do we still submit that these are the most important things in our relationship? If the answer is yes, then these emotional things have to be filtered through the lens of these values. And all of a sudden, you can create objectivity in a space that previously was being run by emotion. Who, thank goodness. But man, it takes forcing that and intentionality to come back to it,
51:41 Speaker 01 or you truly are just a victim to the wind blowing in a certain direction.
51:44 Jay Shetty? What are some of those relationship values that you both created together? And why did you choose those? Can you tell us some of them?
51:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, our marriage is more important than our business. Right? And so our marriage is more important than our business is a thing that we have to come back to a lot. Because we both are high performing achiever. We both are driven, have a lot of ambition, and are strong personalities. But I, through the lens of pragmatist, through the lens of operator, am thinking about the how, and she, through the lens of creative, through the lens of vision, is thinking about the what. And so like, our tension lives inside of a space that usually is me not having afforded her a chance to fully breathe the what out before I'm already attacking the how.
52:33 Speaker 01 And so it's been, okay, hold on, our marriage
52:39 Speaker 01 is more important, right? Is more important than the business. And now it's time to use discretion so that you don't step on this by letting your muscle memory, your instincts for the how corrupt her passion, her happiness, this thing that lights her up. So, but you know, we have, it's that, it's about our family. We have three boys and a girl. They're 13 to three. We have a thousand kids. And so our commitment to making sure that our family values stay connected to us showing up well for them, no matter what. That doesn't mean that we don't have to create creative solutions because of the way that we travel or have work pulling us in certain directions, but
53:24 Speaker 01 us spending one-on-one time with each of these individual humans, having a set dinner. There are some non-negotiables as a part of this so that we can maintain that like, our family has to be first. The commitment to a date night every single week, every Thursday, every single Thursday night. And here's the thing, in the last two years, this hardest and best two years of our life, we went on plenty of dates where we loved each other more than we liked each other. Right? We were in seasons of conflict. We just had four of those hard, candid conversations with each other. But we were committed to keeping the frequency of connecting in a date night,
54:05 Speaker 01 even though it was hard to want to go sometimes, because we just didn't want to let too much time ever get between the last time we really were intentional about creating that space.
54:15 Jay Shetty? What's your favorite date night activity?
54:17 Speaker 01 We love to try new restaurants, but honestly, our favorite lately has been anything that requires us pushing ourselves physically, which is like a crazy, it's like such a departure from who we ever were in the first 10 years of our marriage, but we both are now becoming long distance runners. We've just, anything that gets us out and makes us have to do something physical has been like, it's been our jam lately and we really are staying connected. Like move your body, change your mind has really been a mantra of ours and a season of needing to always change our mind. So whether it's, you know, during the day, hey, you're starting to feel the funk, get up, turn on some music, jump around, or if it's, hey, you're feeling triggered going a long run, we carry that into some
55:01 Speaker 01 of the date experiences that we have because it's in that like, let's go push ourselves to do something that's a little bit crazy, zany, different. We're finding a way to connect through those experiences in ways that just sitting in a movie or just sitting at a dinner wouldn't necessarily provoke us, you know, having that same kind of experience.
55:17 Jay Shetty? Yeah, I love that. And especially when you conquer challenges together.
55:20 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
55:20 Jay Shetty? There is so much bonding in that. It's like a team sport.
55:23 Speaker 01 We had the craziest experience of the year, truly. We, at the end of the year, we look back, what was the most formative experience of the year? We had a recommitment ceremony on the side of a hill in Ireland, 15 years of being married. It was amazing. But for me, we climbed this mountain 13 times to Everest. We like 29,000 feet of climbing, Jesse Itzler's event, bananas. But having persevered through something that was so beyond what either of us thought we were capable of physically was one of the most bonding, galvanizing experiences of our marriage and truly rewired what I believe I'm capable of physically because of having persevered, pushed through like just limits that I never thought were possible.
56:08 Jay Shetty? I love it. That's amazing. I'm going to take one more. I literally, okay, so I'm looking down this right now and I want to take seven more. So I'm going to pick one more, chapter number 17. The lie is, things that are possible for other people are not possible for me. That one is so real. I mean,
56:26 Speaker 01 It's so real.
56:27 Jay Shetty? It's so real.
56:28 Speaker 01 The story I tell at the beginning of this chapter is a story that had been told to me for 36 years of my life about my inability to be a runner. I'm six, I'm 6'4", right? I'm a taller person. And I'd been, I'd been told a story about how running was not a thing that tall people could do because of their back, their hips, their knees, a whole host of things. And these stories were coming through the lens of someone else's fear. Right? So someone else's fear was coloring my truth. And I accepted their fear-based story as my truth for 36 years. And then I was challenged by a colleague at work to run a 5K, three miles.
57:12 Speaker 01 I'd never run, but I'm competitive. He was a little older. I wanted to show him what a whippersnapper like me could do. So I said, yep, you know what? I'm gonna run. And I ran three miles. I didn't die. And for the first time in my life, at 36, I was challenging the truth of somebody else's fear and rewriting it as my now new story that, hey, guess what? I can run. And later that year, my wife and I trained for a half marathon. And later that year, we did a nut. And I have now just become a runner. I am a tall runner. I am running my first full marathon in 10 days.
57:45 Jay Shetty? That's amazing.
57:46 Speaker 01 I am here for it. Like, but the moral of the story truly is like, you have been fed stories about what you are capable of by people who may have represented your best interests, but had no concept for your capacity.
58:04 Jay Shetty? Oh, wow.
58:05 Speaker 01 And you have to question the source of the stories that you believe. And if they still are credible, if there is still a reason to believe the veracity of what they have represented as their capital T absolute truths.
58:22 Speaker 01 There are plenty of things that in uncovering that single lie, that limiting belief, that I got to go now chase and see if there weren't other things that I could do. And like, there are a bunch of stereotypes around masculinity that I have blown up. I can talk about emotion and my vulnerability around any of the struggle that I've had in a way that most of my life, my wiring, my dad who's amazing, and the like story of masculinity that came from my childhood, it just doesn't apply to me. I'm free from it. And if other people don't understand it, or they want to be critical of it, they are welcome to, and it doesn't matter to me. I just, I don't care. The way that I think about my capacity to challenge my fears,
59:05 Speaker 01 or stand on stages, or do the weird stuff that we do, and being really vulnerable with screens, on podcasts, is something that has truly become something that I've just changed and reframed over the course of time. Someone is listening to this who is believing a story that is full of lie, that is an untruth told through the lens of someone else's fear at the expense of honoring your truth. And you will only ever be able to experience this truth if you decide to test the waters, defy the worry of someone else, and find out what your true story, your true experience can be.
59:44 Jay Shetty? That line that you just said is so powerful. People can, you know, have all the best interest for you, but they have no idea of your capacity.
59:51 Speaker 01 No.
59:52 Jay Shetty? It's so true. And you can't expect them to either.
59:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:55 Jay Shetty? And you can't, you can't make their opinion your reality, and you can't expect that their capacity is yours, or their capacity for you is yours.
1:00:03 Speaker 01 I would tell you, like, other people's worry for you is often wrapped in love. Right? I say this out of experience with my wife, who in handing me the first draft of Girl Wash Your Face, printed out on eight and a half by 11 paper, binder clipped. I read it and thought that the vulnerability that she was representing in this book was a mistake. I was 100% certain of it. It was driven by my fear and my believing that we'd worked too hard on the managing of optics, that she might now compromise in her honesty and truth. And so I worked with every ounce of my being wrapped in love to convince her to not publish
1:00:46 Speaker 01 a book that has now sold four million copies, right? Like a book that frankly, because of the thousands of letters that I've read of its impact, actually afforded me the opportunity to write this book.
1:00:58 Jay Shetty? I love that.
1:00:59 Speaker 01 But I, best friend, partner, the person who loves her the most, who she loves and craves love from the most, was worried about her expressing her truth. And if I'd been successful in stunting, changing, stopping the publishing of that book, we wouldn't have the opportunity we have at this company. We wouldn't have moved. I may very well have still been stuck in this rut. So honor that the intentions of the people in your life that may be attempting to hold you back are being wrapped in good or in love, but do not hold them as holy. Do not hold them as a 100% truth,
1:01:43 Speaker 01 because they may very well just be a manifestation of their fear. And you will get to the end of your life as the one who gets to carry the regret, not the person who is afraid of you pursuing the full unlocking of the passion and potential of your life.
1:01:58 Jay Shetty? Thank you for sharing that. That, what you just shared, that's hard to live with. That's, you know, hard to live with if you haven't processes like you have. Like, thank you for sharing that, because, yeah, four million copies. You know, it's like, can you imagine the amount of lives that have been changed, impacted, the letters?
1:02:15 Speaker 01 Right.
1:02:16 Jay Shetty? Just imagine all of that would have been lost if she had... And what did she do? Did she believe you? Did she trust you? Where did she land in that process of processing you, the person who loves her the most? And she wants love from the most. How did she react to that initial fear that you shared?
1:02:32 Speaker 01 The great news is she had the blessing of having developed a skin for criticism earlier in her publishing career. The first book she wrote, she submitted to 22 publishing houses. There were seven that represented interest and each of them said if she were to add sex to the book, because it was a sweet romantic fiction book, without any of the things that at the time Fifty Shades of Grey is happening in the background that Fifty Shades of Grey had. And when she decided not to, to a person, they said, "This book will not work. It will not sell. You should not publish it." And she had to, in that moment, ask herself, "Do I listen to the authority of the experts
1:03:17 Speaker 01 in this field? Or do I publish this book myself?" After she got done being upset, she picked herself up, looked up online, "How do you publish a book yourself?", published it. It started working, worked so well that a publisher reached out and asked not only if they could acquire the rights, but turn it into a series. She wrote three books, led to a couple of cookbooks, led to the fiction, now transitioning into nonfiction, and she wrote Girl Wash Your Face. If she listened to voices of authority at the first book, that book would still be, as she would tell you, sitting on a screen of her computer. So she, bless her, like, had, from the word "go", this belief in self that was stronger
1:04:01 Speaker 01 than the voice of authority. And so as another voice of authority, her husband, best friend, the one who's looking out for her, walked into this journey to becoming the writer and author that she is. She had at least a track record and muscle memory herself of having pushed past the expert opinion of authorities in the space because of her staying grounded and connected to her truth and not their worry.
1:04:28 Jay Shetty? Thank you, man. Thank you for sharing that too. Yeah, so powerful. So powerful. Everything you're sharing, and I feel like we need you to get you back for part two to talk business, CEO, entrepreneurship. But today, we wanted to pay homage to your new book, which I can't wait for everyone to go and get. Get Out of Your Own Way: A Skeptic's Guide to Growth and Fulfillment. Dave Hollis, make sure you go out and grab a copy of this book. I can honestly say, just from my conversations with Dave, and from even just browsing through some of these chapters, the way it's written is it's perfectly designed to help you through whatever you're trying to break through. Like, I can see that. It's perfectly designed to
1:05:11 Jay Shetty? help you. Like, it's not, there's, there's no ego in this book. It's not about, it's not about him. It's about lies. And we can all identify with one of those lies, at least, probably all of them. And you may need to substitute a couple of words. But the point is, these are all the lies we've all been telling ourselves for our whole lives. So here's the book that's gonna help you unlie to yourself. And, and it's all in here. So please, please, please go out and get a copy of the book. You can preorder it right now, and it's out in March. What's the exact date? March 10. March 10th is the exact date. So if you're listening to this at the right time, then it's already out. Or go and preorder if you listened to it a bit before, we'll figure it out before we send this out. And please, please, please go check out Dave on Instagram.
1:05:53 Jay Shetty? That's where I kind of watch him and admire him and all the incredible work that he does. But I really feel we need to bring you back. I want a business session. I'm in. Entrepreneurship session. I want a coaching session to dive into your incredible mind. And, and I want to bring in Rachel as well and do a couple session as well. So we need to, we need to plan for that. But we end every interview with a final five. This is a rapid fire round. It's one word to one sentence answers maximum. Okay. I will probably ask you for more because you're, you're interesting and fascinating. But let's start with the number one question. The best relationship lesson you've learned in the past 12 months?
1:06:30 Speaker 01 Go to bed angry.
1:06:33 Jay Shetty? Oh, no. Okay. No. Oh, wow. Okay. Here we go. All right. Okay. There goes my final point. Explain that.
1:06:40 Speaker 01 I know there's such a colloquialism around like, don't go to bed angry. But most of the time when we're ready to have the conversation that we need to when we're angry, there's not enough time to fully unpack the conversation. And we're starting it in this emotional state that hasn't afforded us enough time to think about how we'd like to deliver it. So I would rather have backs turned, fall asleep, let the night, let some of the emotion go, and then have an objective conversation when you've been able to think about how you can represent your perspective in a way that they can hear it, and how you can hear them without formulating your response. Because every time we've had a conversation right
1:07:22 Speaker 01 before bedtime, it's, I'm not really listening. I am arming a response to the thing that you're saying. And it never ever works out. So go to bed angry.
1:07:33 Jay Shetty? Okay, so you need to come back for a relationship session also. That's brilliant. And that's so true. So my wife taught me that because I'm one of these people that's like, let's work it out. Let's figure it out. And I'm good even in the moment at putting my emotion aside to some degree. But my wife's always been the one who's like, no, I need to process this. Let me think about it. And so often, when we first got together, I'd be that guy going, we can't go to sleep. We're not going to sleep angry. Like, I'd be that guy. And then she'd be like, no, no, no, I just needed, I need time to process it. I'm like, no, we have to do it right now. And it took me a while, but she, she
1:08:00 Speaker 01 That's good.
1:08:00 Jay Shetty? take me in that direction.
1:08:01 Speaker 01 That's good.
1:08:01 Jay Shetty? So you and my wife are in agreement on this one. So, okay, awesome. The best business lesson you've learned in the last 12 months?
1:08:09 Speaker 01 Ah, we've had this opportunity unbelievably to learn from John Maxwell. He's become a mentor of Rachel's, and he gave us this word, a leader never has two good days in a row.
1:08:22 Jay Shetty? Wow. Okay, I've never heard that before.
1:08:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, use more than one sentence.
1:08:27 Jay Shetty? I'm ruining it. I'm ruining it. You're great at this, by the way.
1:08:29 Speaker 01 Here's the headline.
1:08:29 Jay Shetty? Over it, yeah.
1:08:31 Speaker 01 If you're pursuing something of
1:08:34 Speaker 01 Consequence, if you're pursuing something that matters that's going to have impact, it comes with the guarantee that things will inevitably go wrong because nothing of impact is simple. And if you are, you know, if you are someone who's adverse to the idea of having bad days, then you're not creating something that matters. And coming out of my corporate environment, trust me, I really struggled with this idea that things could go wrong at the frequency that they feel like they are, until I realized that the company that we're trying to be five years from now, will not come into existence if we don't have as many bad days as we do good, because the bad days are the one that help us grow.
1:09:14 Jay Shetty? Totally.
1:09:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:15 Jay Shetty? I love that. Great answer, by the way.
1:09:17 Speaker 01 Thank you.
1:09:17 Jay Shetty? Okay. Third, what is the best lesson you've learned for yourself in the last 12 months? Like, the lesson you've learned about yourself?
1:09:29 Speaker 01 So, I thought that the hardest decision, or the hard decision that I made was leaving the harbor, leaving certainty for the opportunity to grow, that leaving Disney for this entrepreneurial journey, doing this work together, was the hard choice. And what I've come to appreciate is that leaving the harbor is a hard choice, but staying on the boat in the waves is harder.
1:10:03 Speaker 01 And
1:10:04 Jay Shetty? So true.
1:10:05 Speaker 01 And, and, and so I, I want to encourage anyone who feels like they need to make life change, who it's now time for you to leave this harbor of certainty and security for the opportunity to grow. Yep, be prepared for that being triggering and tough, but also, the point is that leaving the harbor is hard. And so, it was, it was a thing that took some time for me to appreciate, that me becoming the captain, truly of this ship, where the waves, though they be rocky, I can stand sturdy on top of it for having acquired sea legs that really allow me now to command this ship at sea, that's been the work of this
1:10:47 Speaker 01 last year. And I didn't think it was going to be as hard as it was, but it's supposed to be hard. If it isn't hard, it isn't actually producing the growth.
1:10:58 Jay Shetty? Great, okay. Question number four. I know you believe in servant leadership inside the company that you've that you've built and built so wonderfully. Tell me the top three qualities you try and embody to embody service servant leadership.
1:11:17 Speaker 01 Well, we start with a commitment of giving back to the community that we're serving or supporting at a very least the causes that matter to them most. We set up a foundation. 10% of our company proceeds are immediately put back against causes that are either important to us and aligned with our company's core values or have been represented by the community as things that they care about. So when we go into a city for a live event, we find a cause for women that is in that city so that we can show up well for them. We were just recently in Florida and found a local women's shelter that we were able to show up, spend some time, and then surprise them from the stage with a donation of like,
1:12:02 Speaker 01 this is this audience, they were able to help support you by having come here today. So one is just by putting our money where our mouth is. We say servant leadership is leadership is important, but we want to be able to also support things. Showing up well for our team and trying our best to meet them where they need to be met. We are really interested in understanding the individual wiring of our employees. So we've they've each taken Enneagram tests. We've had them take love language tests so that when it comes to are you a words of affirmation person? Are you a three or are you a nine, right?
1:12:43 Jay Shetty? Yeah, yeah.
1:12:44 Speaker 01 And it's a little bit, right, like for anyone who's not familiar with these personality diagnostics, it might seem a little crazy and my former self would have called it voodoo. But truly, the wiring of each of these humans individually is different. And understanding how they're individually wired allows us to serve them as the people who are serving our audience really, really well. So we try to say connected to their humanity and show up show up well. And then just the work that we're doing truly.
1:13:14 Speaker 01 I left something that society put a lot of value on, working inside of Hollywood and entertainment and doing work that was about carpets and titles for this opportunity to place tools into people's hands. And the way that in seeing the comments or getting the letters, we have this opportunity once a week in our Hoco convo where the whole team comes together. Our customer service leader reads a couple of letters from the community who have represented the impact of the tools. And it makes the work, even on the days when it's hard, maybe especially on the days when it's hard,
1:13:54 Speaker 01 feel so worth it because you're connecting to someone's story of triumph through hard times, in part because of the way that you've come alongside them or encouraged them, whatever it might be.
1:14:05 Jay Shetty? I love it. And fifth and final question, as you can see, this has been the worst rapid fire.
1:14:09 Speaker 01 This is not a one word thing at all.
1:14:11 Jay Shetty? Because of me, because of me, because you're, no, actually because of you.
1:14:15 Speaker 01 It is because of me. This is terrible.
1:14:16 Jay Shetty? You're so interesting. Okay. Fifth and final question, which is going to be a one sentence answer. It was I wanted to be the one reason people should read this book.
1:14:29 Jay Shetty? And I know there's 20.
1:14:30 Speaker 01 Wow. One reason.
1:14:35 Speaker 01 Because you owe it to yourself to stay out of your own way.
1:14:41 Jay Shetty? Amazing. Perfect. Thank you, Dave.
1:14:43 Speaker 01 Jay, I really appreciate it, brother.
1:14:45 Jay Shetty? Dave, this is amazing. Anyone who's been listening and watching, make sure you go out and grab the book. Get out of your own way, a skeptic's guide to growth and fulfillment. Dave Hollis, make sure you go grab a copy of this book. And Dave will definitely be back with more business and relationship lessons. I'm going to make sure of it because we could talk about that for another hour too. So we will make sure of that. Thank you so much for listening and watching today. Make sure you share this. Make sure you tag me and Dave in any of the wisdom, the nuggets, any of the insights that Dave shared today that really stood out to you. There were a ton that stood out to me, you know, when he talked about people not understanding our capacity. Huge, like how many times do we let people decide our capacity? When he talked about being vulnerable with ourselves and. Breaking through when he was talking about drinking alcohol and having to find a habit to
1:15:27 Jay Shetty? replace that. Huge because we've all got vices that are slowing us down. And just now, what he was telling us about relationships and having rules about relationships, you can see that's a symphony that runs through everything Dave's talking about, rules in relationships. There's been huge ones for me. Make sure you tell me yours. Tag us both in to the Instagram post or Twitter, whatever you're on, and we'd love to interact with all of you. Thank you so much for listening, Dave. You're awesome. Thank you, man. Thank you, bro.
1:16:01 Speaker 02 Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, thehousemajority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
1:16:30 Speaker 03 Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.
1:16:34 Speaker 04 On October 2nd.
1:16:35 Speaker 03 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.
1:16:40 Speaker 04 Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.
1:16:47 Speaker 05 What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.
1:16:51 Speaker 04 With great power comes great deniability.
1:16:55 Speaker 05 I'm not the first daddy.
1:16:56 Speaker 04 Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.
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