If You Feel LOST, LAZY & UNMOTIVATED In Life, WATCH THIS! | Jay Shetty | Transcription

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Introduction

Intro (00:00)

you'll get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagined. And that's because the path that's paved up and down is far different to the path we paved. I've always had friends who are older than me.

Embracing Self Awareness & Confronting Fears

Is That The Life I Want (00:10)

And I could see a lot of them in the most successful careers, successful jobs, beautiful partners, whatever it was. But I saw a sense of lack of fulfillment, meaning and purpose in their lives. And I've always been an observer, and I would see these people who are like five years older than me, seven years older than me, maybe 10 years older than me. And I'd be watching them and go, is that the life I want? And often the advice I give to people today is, fast forward where you are, look at yourself in 10, 15, 20 years time, and ask yourself the question, is that where I want to be? If you're in a company, look at the person who's 20 years ahead of you and ask yourself, is that where I want to be? If you're in a startup, look at where other startups have got to in similar roles and go, is that where I want to be? And if the answer's no, then you need to find a new path. And for me, the answer at that time from observing was no. The path that my parents or society or the university I went through or the community I had that was carving out for me, it didn't feel like the path for me. So I was almost seeking an alternative or a new path. I was just so fortunate that it happened to be an uplifting, powerful path as opposed to something that could have actually taken me down the wrong road, because that could have been possible too. So walk me through the first time you step off the plane in India, it's summer. And so I'm living there, I'm waking up, I'm almost doing all the practices, just as if you were shadowing a CEO, I'm just shadowing a monk. And so I'm just shadowing his lifestyle. So we wake up, he's like one of the most elite monks. So we're waking up at like 2 a.m. every day after sleeping at like nine or 10 p.m. And then we study these ancient Vedas, which are 5,000 plus years old, together. And we spend two hours, and I'm studying with the best of the best years. So he can like analyze and assimilate, and I'm learning fast, taking notes. Then 4 a.m. we go to collective meditation. We do those practices with the other monks as well. 6 a.m. we have personal meditation. So I'm literally going through the life of a monk and falling in love with it step by step going, wow, I've never had this experience before. I just drew myself in. And I was practicing it to the T. Right? It wasn't like, oh no, my back hurts when I sit on the floor. I can't stay here for too long. You know, today when people are like, oh, I can't meditate for longer than two minutes. I was like, no, I'm going to do it for two hours. If that's what they're doing, I'm going to give it a go. Because I can only test the hypothesis will only be true if the experiment is carried out to the degree that they are. So if the hypothesis is, if you live like this, you're like happy, more fulfilled, then I want to do that. All right, so let's explore this then to the lens of creating one's own perfect life, which is pretty interesting, especially because-- interesting because I think this is so accurate to the way that most people are. It's not like, oh, there's some grand missing thing in my life. But you took that first action. So codify this for me or for anybody that wants-- they don't know what their ideal life looks like. They just know that they're not living it yet. So step number one is take it seriously.

Find Out If The Hypothesis is True (03:12)

To find out if the hypothesis is true or not, you have to take the experiment. You have to do it sincerely. What comes after that? I think even one step before that is opening yourself up to new role models and new experiences. See, we live in echo chambers. We're just surrounded by the same thinking. How often do you bump into a monk? It just doesn't happen. No one has a dinner party and goes, oh, yeah, we did this invite at the monk from town, like the local monk. No one ever does that. And so we meet people who are just like us most of the time. And we talk about this in business all the time. If you want to be a billionaire, spend time with billionaires. If you want to be a millionaire, spend time with millionaires. If you want to be a tech startup, spend time with-- that's the common rhetoric that we hear all the time. But what if you want to find the purpose and master the mind? There's no one better than a monk who's master the mind. So for me, the first step is just opening yourself up to new experiences and new role models. Because most of us can't see ourselves in people. So then we try and fit ourselves into the boxes that we do see. And I mean, there's this beautiful quote that I've been saying it everywhere. And I wish I wrote it, but I didn't. So it's by a philosopher and writer named Cooley. And he 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. And just let that blow your mind for a moment. It's so powerful. 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. So we live in this perception of a perception of ourselves. Hence, my identity is made by what my parents think I should be. My identity is made up by what my college or university thinks I should achieve. While you're living in that bubble and that echo chamber, getting to what you really want to do is impossible. Because maybe that just doesn't fit. And I think so many people feel that way today, that they don't fit into the current education system. They don't fit with the three or four or five careers that your taught exist. So that process of self excavation and actualization first requires being exposed. You can't be what you can't see. If I never saw a monk, I would never have wanted to be a monk. If I never meet a billionaire, I wouldn't want to be one. Because I wouldn't know what that feels like. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what it takes. And I think that's the biggest challenge of our society, that we're not exposed. So that's the first step. Being exposed to unique experiences and role models. Second step is finding that experience or role model that you're passionate about. And exactly like you said, taking it seriously, shadow their network with them, spend time with them, observe them, even from afar. It takes that observation being addicted to observing that person's lifestyle. And then the third step is growing yes or no. Does that work for me? Not everyone who's going to go off and become a monk is going to feel like the way I did. And that's cool. But not everyone is going to go and follow and shadow a billionaire and go, that's exactly the lifestyle I want. They may want the result, but do they want the hard work that goes with it? And so for me, that's the third step. It's observing, focusing, shadowing, getting as close to the process of that individual and then going, yes or no. Do I want that process? Not do I want the result. Everyone wants to be that monk who's fully enlightened, can walk through, has an incredible aura that people just gravitate towards. But when you realize he has to wake up at 2 AM every day and it's about four to six hours, you're like, ah, I don't want to do it. That doesn't sound like me. All right, so a couple of things. One, you said he's as powerful as he is. Find power for me. Power being-- so from a monk's perspective, the greatest power is to be self-controlled, to be able to train the mind and energy to focus it exactly where you want it and when you want it to be. You are completely detached and undeterred from external ups and downs.

The process of seeking higher values. (07:08)

You're able to navigate anything that seems tough, challenging, fun, excitement with the same amount of being equipoised and balanced in equanimity without being too excited in pleasure or being too depressed in pain. But knowing how to navigate every situation, to me, that's great strength and great power. I heard in one of your talks you were saying that if you look at a literal lifeline, a heartbeat, for instance, it's up and it's down and people have this sense that something like enlightenment would be that the equanimity forever and just an even keel. And you said, but what does that resemble? It resembles a flat line when you die. Correct. So what is it like-- what I love about you is you sort of went into the wilderness of being a monk, but you brought it back to the real world. Because when you talk about a monk, you talk about them being detached. And that, to me, seems like the only real way to have that sort of super even keel existence, which is not appealing to me personally. So if you're bringing back that notion of power, of having control over yourself, not letting your emotions take you everywhere, but knowing that life is the series of ups and downs, what does that power look like when it's brought back? Absolutely. And actually, that's the whole aim of monk training. It's more like a training system than it is a lifelong commitment. It is bringing that mindset into the real world where you get to test it. Now, I got to do that for real when I left being a monk around five years ago. And when I left, it was like, oh my god, I'm in the real world now again, real world. I have to think about how to apply all this. I'm going to test for real all this stuff that I've learned. And I was scared. Like, I was nervous. I was anxious. And all those things that I've been trained not to be rushed back. Because for the first time in my life, I had to really put it into practice. And I love that feeling. I'm so glad that I had to do that. So for me, actually, the mindset is completely trainable to bring it into the real world. That's what I'm trying to do. And what it allows you to do is, it allows you to bring clarity and perspective when you need it. Because you know when you can just take a bird's eye view from something. You know when you need to get close into something. You know when you need to pull back from something. There's a beautiful verse in the Bhagur Gita that says that detachment is not that you own nothing. Detachment is that nothing owns you. And I love it. Because to me, that summarizes detachment in a way that it's not usually explained. Usually people see detachment as being away from everything. Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. And that's real power. That's real strength. How many people do we know that have had fame and then that fame has ruined them? So for me, that definition of detachment is possible to practice even in the real world. Rather than saying, oh, I'm just going to have a really simple life. I'm just going to have nothing in life. What was the best part about being a monk? The best part about being a monk is that your morning routine and practices are so powerful that you can actually aspire for more incredible values in life. Because your mind is clear. Because your mind is clear. And you have that ability to have more clarity so you can seek that which is higher. So I'll give an example of what I mean. Define. Is that what you're about to define? What is higher? Yes, exactly. So for me, being able to overcome ego, being able to overcome envy, being able to overcome jealousy, being able to overcome the negative of competitive state. There's a positive competitive state. And there's a negative competitive state. Today, when people are looking on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, all you're looking at is, oh, she's got that many likes. Or he got that many likes. She got engaged or he got married. Or, oh my god, look at her body. Or look at that. And it's like, that stuff's destroying us inside. Envy, jealousy, ego, greed. To be able to have enough clarity to purify yourself of those things is going to alleviate the biggest anxieties and depressions of our time and mental health problems. And we know that. We know that because all the mental health research today suggests that things like isolation, overexposure, we now can have more pain consumption in one day because of what we're exposed to than the pain we would have had in a lifetime. That's huge. That's ridiculous to think that in one day, because of the media news and social media, we consume more negative than we did in a lifetime. For me, being able to have time, energy, and clarity to focus on self-purification, that is the best thing about being a monk. Because you have that time, reflection, and a process, and an environment that only allows you to become more purified of those things. So if I was the interviewer that I wanted to be, I would have asked you this question when we were on the topic, but I'm going to go back to this.

Defining Ikigai. (12:21)

This is important enough. You gave us the three ways that you can really construct your ideal life, but define an ideal life for me. So an ideal life for me is a life-- and this applies to a company, an organization, an institution for me-- is an ideal life is when we all have a head, a heart, and a hand, all three elements together, working in alignment. Without one or the other, we start to lose something. If you only have a head and a heart, you'll find that life is stable. And define it to those. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. So a head is the clarity of vision. What you want. What you want, knowing what you want the way you picture life, and being able to navigate and make the decisions together. That's a good head. A good heart is being able to understand what your intuition and heart wants. Being able to connect and tap into that, understanding, deeper and beyond the vision you may have painted for yourself. So I often say to people that you'll get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagined. And that's because the path that's paved up and down is far different to the path we pave. So you can have a great head and a great vision and a great mission and know where you want to go. But if your heart's not able to have that resilience and be able to adapt and have compassion and care and all of that, then you're not going to be able to make the toughest decisions without your heart. But to be able to realize that we need to care and be sustainable and long-lasting requires a heart. And a hand is that service. Wanting to pass that on, that which you have, wanting to give it forward, pay it forward. The idea of serving with what you have. I often say to people, your passion is for you, your purpose is for others. Your passion makes you happy. But when you use your passion to make a difference in someone else's life, that's a service. That's a purpose. And that's the hand. So those are my three elements of an ideal life. I like that a lot. Now, when you first said it, I'm glad you defined it. Because when you first said it, I thought the heart was going to be the part about just compassion and caring for others, doing something for other people. But I like that the hand being tied to service. So one thing that I think a lot about is deep fulfillment. Like, really, when I think about, OK, what is a life we're living, honestly, it comes down to neurochemistry for me. And it comes down to experiencing this world in a way that optimizes for sustainable pleasure, which I'll differentiate between a bowl of ice cream, a bump of cocaine. Those are pleasurable. And I haven't done the cocaine. But the ice cream I can speak for. I'm done both. So I'll trust that it holds up. But they don't bring a lasting fulfillment. It's not sustainable, right? So both of them end up creating this self-destructive loop. And purpose really does become that thing that gives you something that is, on a neurochemical level, deeply satisfying. Absolutely. And how much of this-- how did you marry the deeply spiritual, the often abstract, oftentimes I'll hear spiritual speakers talk.

Cosmic principles track back to science: (15:37)

And I feel them drifting off into the ether. How did you marry that to experimentation, neuroscience, practicality? Like, one, why do you find that interesting? And then two, what are you doing with that? So I studied behavioral science at universities. I've always been fascinated by why people do what they do. And whenever I was reading these books that are 5,000 years old, my greatest fascination was finding a principle and finding its relevance in modern science. And I said to myself, the day I can't find that, I'll quit. I won't believe in this anymore. So I'm still doing that. And I'm ready to quit. If someone shows me a piece of science and I can't find a principle in these ancient literature-- so actually what I like to call these timeless literatures-- then I'll give up my faith. Because for me, it has to track forward. And I'll give you a really basic example. Today we're in the gratitude movement. There's like a million gratitude journals out there. There's a million scientific studies on gratitude. And gratitude has been linked to better mental health, self-awareness, better relationships. I mean, there's so many scientific studies on the neuro level that shows that gratitude is great for your mind, brain, and fulfillment. Now, I look back. Gratitude is all over the timeless wisdom. One of the first things we were trying to do when we were a monk was to pay our respects to the earth for what it gives us. And you do that first thing in the morning. What is that, if not gratitude? When you wake up in the morning, you thank the earth for the food. You thank the earth for the water. You thank the earth for allowing yourself to walk. You start your day with gratitude. Today the biggest tip on Forbes and Inc and everything is start your day with gratitude. Like, where does it come from? It's right there. These things are old. So I get fascinated. I'm intrigued by the parallels and patterns because it saves you time. It's the same way as which if I say that this business person got invested by this company and that's why they're successful because they had the right investors, et cetera. That's a pattern. So I know if I'm building a business in that area, I'm going to look for investors like that. It's the same thing. That pattern saves you time. Rather than you trying to figure out, does gratitude work? How shall I be grateful? Creating your own process almost. - It's really interesting. Life has taught me to stop believing everything I think. And the way that it's taught me that is by relentlessly punishing me every time I over invest in being right.

Relentlessly punishing me every time I over invest in being right (18:07)

And I remember when my wife and I first got together, she used to get chest infections all the time. And she told me it's because of the AC. And I was like, that doesn't make sense. And she was like, no, no, no, my grandmother used to just swear up and down if you're hot and you stand in front of a fan that you're going to get sick. And I was like, that is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard in my life. That does not make sense. Like getting sick comes from either bacteria or virus. Like it's that simple. And she was like, I'm just saying, it's my grandma always said and it seems true to me. And I was just like, oh, this is exhausting. And then one time I went to a doctor and I was like, yeah, and my wife is crazy and thinks that when you're hot, if you stand in front of AC, it'll make you sick. And he goes, oh, yeah, she's right. And I was like, hold on. And he was like, well, she's sort of right. He's like, this is what's happening. You have a mucus layer membrane in your throat that's, it keeps it moist, keeps germs from being able to break through the barrier. And so they get trapped, they go to your stomach, they're killed by the acid or whatever. And he said, but if you get a crack in that, then the bacteria or virus can actually get into your bloodstream and that's how you get sick. And it's just drying her throat out. And I was like, whoa. And it was one of those moments where I was like, how many wives tales are true? Like directly, they're not accurate, but they're true if you didn't mean. And so that's how I think when you think of a book that's lasted as long as it has, and I know you and I, we've never talked about this, but we share a real fascination for storytelling. Because it's a way to convey an idea that resonates emotionally and allows people to carry it on and pass it on. And obviously this all starts long before we have science and can prove any of this, but we see the patterns. We need a way to encapsulate the pattern. We encapsulate it in a story. The story is in and of itself totally fake, but now in a modern context, we're getting lost in that the story is fake, even though the take home message is incredibly powerful. - Yes. - And so as I, I mean, it's the classic story, right? The more you learn, the less you realize you know. And just as I've gotten older and really started to understand the stuff and read as much as I do, and quite frankly live and suffer and go through things, like my wife having microbiome issues and at first thinking her, all of her descriptions make absolutely no sense. And then you stop passing a judgment on it and start saying, what if everything she's saying is actually true? Like how would we treat it then, right? And so there is something really fascinating there. Now I find myself, I'm way more emotionally drawn to the science because when I can picture it, I have a much easier time doing something about it. So when you were talking about the things that you learned from meditation, I've gotten tremendous value out of meditation, but it's nothing like what you've learned. So for me it was once I understood that diaphragm breathing made sense because it triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, then because I understood it, it like was the understanding becomes a force multiplier. - Absolutely.

Self Awareness (21:02)

- All right, let's talk about behavioral science, self-awareness, watching your content, which, have you ever looked at how much content you've put out? - No. - It's a lot, dude. Like when you search your name, like to go, 'cause I normally try to watch like basically everything and I was like, I give up. It's just, it's really incredible. And going through that stuff, it seems really clear to me that you have massive self-awareness. And what would you say, like, is there a process for people to gain more self-awareness? And then what are from a behavioral, you know, just human behavior level, what are things that trip up the average person? - The first answer, I mean, I'm a huge fan of the book Thinking Fast and Slow. I don't know how, if you've read it. Yeah, it's a great book because for me, it's got a really close pattern connection again to what I studied. So just understanding system one and system two, if anyone watching hasn't read it, I highly recommend it. Just being able to differentiate between system one and system two, as Daniel Kahneman calls it, in the Vedic philosophy we call differentiating between the mind and the intelligence. Knowing how the differentiate of the voices in your head is the first level of self-awareness. - So break down what system one and system two are. - Absolutely, so system one is your initial response to anything that happens. It's a stop that I can't really say. So if you say something I don't like, my system one naturally would be a face that I pull that I'm like, I don't agree with that. That's the understanding of what system one in it's your initial default reaction in the moment. That can be positive often. For example, if someone pulls out a knife, you feel scared and you run, that's system one. That's a good thing, it's safe for you. But also system one is, someone says something that hurts your ego and you start defending yourself immediately. That's also, that's a negative of system one. That we would refer to as the mind. It's built up of conditioning. Those responses are conditioned. Those default elements are all there because of habit and continuous practice. The system two is more like the intelligence. What I would say is more like the parent. If you can consider system one to be more like a child, system two is more like a parent. It looks more at the long term. It looks more at the bigger picture. It processes that default reaction through a set of checking and metrics to decide whether that's true. The child is the one that wants everything right away. Empatient, quickly, responding, straight away, reacting when it doesn't get what he wants. The intelligent parent, a good one, knows what the child wants and needs and what's better for it in the long term. Just starting there and being able to reflect and observe the different voices inside of us is a great place to start your self-awareness. Because the biggest challenge is that most of us don't know what we're listening to. And we don't, most of us don't even know that there are more than one voice inside of us. Just getting over that line is a huge win. Because now at least you're trying to differentiate in what you're hearing. And that's gonna help you make better decisions in the future. So that was on someone. Does that answer your question? - Yeah, yes, yes. - And second one was? - What, so that's awareness. What are like typical things that trip people up that, so in your answer just now, it's like, okay, if you wanna become more aware, just know that those two things are happening, right? You're gonna have an initial response and then one that's more calculated. Now, be aware of these two or three things that are also coming for you. - The biggest challenge is that there's just so much noise. It's like, have you ever had someone in your home, maybe it's a wife or maybe it's a friend or whatever, just play a really bad song too often. Right, just playing a song that you really don't have. - I actually heard my wife laugh because she knows how guilty she is. - Right, okay, there you go, right? There you go. And you just play a song and just think, you know, turn that off and after a while, it's been on for so long that you become immune to it. Like it's just there and it's still on. It's there in the back of your mind and you didn't manage to turn it off. So the noise that are describing life, whether it's your parents' expectations, whether it's society's expectations, whether it's your partner's expectations, all of those are like noise in the background and that noise drowns out your ability to understand the mind and the intelligence. That's one of the biggest trip ups. I was looking at, I gave a presentation called Build a Life, Not a Resume. It's also one of my popular videos. But. - Very good video, right? - Thank you, man. Thank you so much. And when I did the research, so you don't see this in the video 'cause this research didn't make it into the video. But the research that I was doing was around the most common resume lies.

Most Common resume lies (25:43)

The truth is over 40 to 50% of us lie on our resumes. - Yeah, if you don't, you're missing an opportunity. I'll just say that. - Yeah, there you go, right? So, and I started to dig deeper and I was looking at, you know, a lot of people lie about their dates of employment. So instead of three days, it's now three months, you know, whatever it may be. Now, I dug deeper and I wanted to meet some of these people and speak to people. And so I spoke to people who lie on their resumes and we know that at least 40 to 50% tell us they do. The thing is, no one was proud of that. No one was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. "Really what it came down to is we're really insecure "about our own abilities. "Really what it came down to is we're not confident "about what we have to offer. "What it came down to is a lack of self-awareness. "What it came down to is a lack of understanding. "What am I good at? "What am I passionate about? "What am I bringing to the table? "That's what people are really worried about. "They were worried about the job, "but when you dug beneath the surface, "the real behavioral trait that was coming out "was insecurity and being unconfident about one's potential." That, that tells us a lot. That indicates a lot about human behavior and human nature. That the noise from outside makes us want to fit into a container. And that stops us from differentiating between what is my mind saying and what is my intelligence saying. And what happens is that noise becomes your voice. So that noise becomes what you think is what you're saying. And most people don't realize that until 10, 20, 30 years down the line. How the hell do you like figure out, so your analogy is great. It's songs on, you don't even realize is there anymore. It becomes total white noise. You're oblivious to it. In fact, you'll only notice it if it gets turned off. Correct.

The biggest lie we tell ourselves (27:22)

So how do they identify that? Do you have a process for that? How do you hear the thing that you no longer hear so that you can shut it off? Yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest ones, and we say this all the time, but it applies mostly to this, is switching your association. Is switching. Is switching to what? The people that you hang out with. It's like changing your circle. Because if you're only hearing the same thing from that circle, the only way to turn it off without you having to do the mass amounts of reflection is changing your circle, where you start hearing. We all ultimately find the things we want to hear. We know that. The challenge is that we think things come with emotions. Feelings. We think things come with feelings and emotions. And guess what they don't? So if you chase money. Well, they might for a moment, right? Or they won't. I don't think they even do-- It's a false sense of feeling. It's such a false sense of feeling. I don't-- maybe for a moment, but it's so short-lived that it's not even worth counting almost. So it's like when you think that I'm chasing money, guess what? You will get money. Yep. And that's great. Money is really important. Money is a really important resource. But guess what? Money's not now going to fill that gap, that void, that feeling, that emotion that you're missing in your life. What are most people missing? We're missing a deep sense of love. I think the biggest need in the world, as we've heard many times before from all the ancient texts, they summarize it like this-- to love and be loved. Like that is the need of humanity, to love and be loved. And when we don't experience that, we then start looking for status. We then start looking for money. Then we then start looking for recognition. To help us give the feeling of false sense of love. Correct. And the challenge is because most of us didn't experience that from our parents-- and this is the key thing-- what we crave in life is what we did or didn't get from our parents. What our parents did give us is what we continue to crave. What they didn't give us is what we continue to crave. So you'll find that most people's loved languages that they chase are things that their parents didn't give them. So if their parents didn't give them time, they now crave everyone's time. If their parents didn't give them gifts, they crave gifts. If their parents didn't give them acts of service, they're craving those acts of service. So it's because of our childhood. And if we don't learn to process all of that experience, which most people never get the time to do, and I empathize with that because I've had to go through that, I've seen me repeating my parents' patterns. I've seen-- What was the thing you were craving? So I would crave-- a big thing for me was I would crave surprises and gifts. Because-- That's your thing. Yeah, that's my thing. Still is your thing. It's still my thing. And I-- Did your parents not do that for you? No, they did. My mom did a lot of it. That's why you still crave it. Correct. So my mom would always, every year on my birthday, she'd always surprise me with the one thing I wanted. And I wasn't spoilt growing up. I didn't have a lot growing up. But she would get that one thing, whether it was like a Power Rangers toy, or whatever it was. You know, something-- In your game. Yeah, I think it's you one as a kid, right? And she would always surprise me with that. And that became so deep-rooted. Now, I'll give you an example. When I then married my wife, you just expect people to know that? They're going to do the same thing. Totally. And should now be-- Shouldn't do that. No. Because I'm expecting my wife to be like my mom. In the sense of, I expected a surprise or show me love in the same way. Uh-huh. And she doesn't know that. She's not a mind reader. I can't explain expected to know that. So it took communication. It took time for me to explain that. So anyway, I think that's where it stems from. That desire, it doesn't come from any-- You can say it comes from society and education. Of course it does. But I think the deepest place it comes is what your parents did or didn't give. That's where it comes from. Yeah. Now, this was really cool. I think right now, there's a lot of anxiety. There's a lot of concern. There's a lot of fear in the world with coronavirus. And just people concern in general of the chaos of their life. Whether it's coronavirus or anything else is happening, people seem to live in this fear state of mind right now, a lot. You talked about the fear of fear and how you had to learn to let go of your fear of fear. What does that actually mean? Letting go of the fear of fear. Yeah.

We fear the wrong things (31:34)

So I talk about how we fear the wrong things. How do we fear? So most of us are fearful of how our friends are reacting, what's happening on social media, and what's the random bit of news that we heard. None of it is fact-based. That's one of the biggest issues that we have. It's worry-based. It's worry-based. And it's also imagination-based. So we become fiction writers. We've all watched too many movies. Now we start writing these beautiful movies in our head. We're not beautiful. Scary movies in our head of what may happen. So our imagination and Seneca said it best, we suffer twice, one in reality and one in imagination. But we suffer twice. And this is the- What actually happens to us? Totally. And then the story we continue to tell ourselves. Now there's this incredible study in the book that I have to talk about. So they took monks and they took non-monks and they said- They competed against each other. They competed against each other literally. So they put this plate where you experience heat. And so what happens is the non-monks touch this plate. Now this plate heats up gradually, softly. And then at one point it gets really hot for 10 seconds and it cools down. And so what happens is that when the non-monks touched it, the anxiety and pressure and stress in their brain just triggered straight away. Even though it wasn't that hot. It wasn't hot. It was heating, but it wasn't hot to do anything major to you. But the anxiety and stress in imagination or in anticipation went through the roof in the non-monks. Now this is what's fascinating. When the monks touched it, they showed that it didn't feel anything as it rose. But as it got to its highest, they felt physical pain. But they showed no trigger of emotional pain. Because they did not assign any emotional element to that pain. So my point with that is, you can look at the news right now and you can get scared straight away and get incomplete. Freeze mode, feeling stuck, paralyzed, whatever it is. Because what you're now doing is you're creating a story of what's going to happen. And that story... And you can cause sickness in yourself. You can cause sickness in sight. Not actually the reality. The facts of the disease hitting you or something happening physically to you. Totally. And that story again can be used positively. So your story may actually be true. But if it's going to be true, now you can prepare. And that shifts you away from being scared because now you're preparing. And so the real amount... You can be confident because you're prepared. Exactly. And so we should be shifting our fear energy into preparation energy. Because what fear does is it keeps you locked there. Right? We just feel stuck. I'll give you an example. When you were preparing for big games, when you used to play in the NFL, right? And you're playing American football against some of the biggest athletes in the world, it's like you can either sit there and be scared that you're going to play this game on the weekend, or you can prepare. And your confidence is in the preparation. So when people go, "How do I feel confident right now? Are you preparing?" "Are you putting the reps?" "Are you putting the reps? Are you building your immunity? Are you taking your vitamins? Are you drinking lots of water?" "Are you drinking lots of water? Are you taking the steps that are needed to prepare for whatever's coming?" You will feel more confident that way. Yeah. So how do we learn to let go of the fear of fear though? Like how do we say, "Okay, we're only going to allow it to hurt us when it actually hurts us and not the fear of it? Is there a process? Is there just an awareness of this that when you're in anxiety, worry, stress, fear, you just breathe and meditate then? What's the process of letting go of the fear of fear?" Yeah. So meditation is your mindfulness powerful tools, but I'd say the process, and I want to be as tactical and strategic as we can, the thing is to get really close to that fear. So what we usually do is embrace it, embrace it, get close to get intimate with it.

Confront Fear in Office (35:01)

We become the bat. We become the bat can. Literally, yeah. Totally. We run away from fear. We like to run away and go, "Oh, it's not coming with me." And all what we do is we hear one thing and we define the whole understanding of our fear based on that one thing. So it's like, and I'll give you a normal example in a normal life scenario. Someone says to you in the office, "You know that they're going to cut a few people, and you don't even check. You don't even know." It's not real. And now you just made it real, and now you're running with it, and you're trying to run away from it. So you're trying to avoid conversations with your boss. You're trying to avoid any conflict. You're trying to-- That's a great example. You're just trying to avoid it. And so actually what you need to do is go, "Okay, let me actually discover that fear. Let me go intimate with that fear. Let me ask myself, where's that fear coming from? What am I really scared of? What am I really scared of? Am I really scared of losing my job? Am I scared of not having any money? What am I really scared of? And when you get to the root, and I call it the "why ladder" in the book. So it's asking yourself, "What am I scared of?" And then go, "Why am I scared of this? Why am I scared of this? Why am I scared of this?" And when you can't ask why any longer, you've got to the answer, and that's what you have to deal with. Most of us are not dealing with what we're actually scared of. - The root. - So that's how you let go. You let go by keep asking yourself. So I'll give an example of mine. Like if I heard that or if you hear that in your office, the people are getting cut, it's like you just get scared and panicked. But the question is, why am I scared of that? Am I scared of that because I haven't been working hard for six months? Am I scared of that because I've been skipping meetings? Am I scared of that because I know my boss would probably find me first? Or am I scared because I've been performing really well? And I'm expecting a promotion. Knowing which one it is, it sets you up to build the path forward. Not knowing that just puts you in this panic frenzy. - I think also doing all the things you talked about, which is discovering with yourself, being aware of it, but then also just have the conversation. - 100%. - I want it with your manager, your boss and say, "Hey, listen, I heard some rumors "that there might be some cuts, "and I want to let you know that I'm 100% committed "to doing whatever it takes to help this company grow." - Yes, 100%. - I believe in this mission more than anything. Here's what I've been doing the last three months, and here's what I want to continue to do. Is there anything else I can do? - Totally. - Like show them the like, why you shouldn't get cut? - Exactly, and that's, you know how to approach that discussion when you know which side you're on, what your fear is. - I remember as a freshman and playing football, I was playing Division II football in Minnesota, they usually registered all the freshmen. And I went into this with a big ego, thinking like, "I'm gonna start, "or at least I wanna play, right?" So I went into it with an ego in the first place. But I also, which wasn't good, but I also went into it with some things that were good from this conversation. I tell the coach straight up, like, "I know you don't play freshmen, "but my intentions to play." What is it gonna take for me in order to get on the field? You know, do I need to get her early? Do I need to stay late? Can I sit here in the office with you after the, before practicing, go over game film? Whatever it was, and he was, he told me, "Yeah, I need you to come in the office "every single day and watch game film with me. "I need to be with your receiver coach "every single day beforehand and doing reps." And I just did it. And I eventually started to play in my freshman year.

Real Confidence Comes from Serving (38:22)

I didn't start in the beginning, but I started to start at the end. And that, for me, was powerful. It's like, I dressed it because I wanted to play and I was afraid I wasn't gonna play at all. It just wastes a year of practicing. Like, every other freshman would do there. That was my ego going in, like, I need to play. But I was also like, "I'll do whatever it takes, "and I'll practice, and I'll confront it with conversation, "and say, "This is my intention, this is my vision, "and I'm gonna do whatever it takes for you." And so I think that it's gonna work place. - That's a perfect example. - Yeah, in a workplace, you've gotta be confronting it and be proactive in your company. - Correct. And that's a perfect example of getting close to fear rather than running away from the spot on, man. - For me, my whole mission in the last year and moving forward, the next projects I'm working on are all about belief in yourself. I believe self-doubt is the killer of dreams. And I believe that, and you have this amazing graph in here, it's about ego versus self-esteem. How do we build self-belief, self-esteem, self-confidence, while also not allowing our ego to be so big and think we can just do anything? How do we balance ego and self-conference so they don't hurt each other? - Yeah, absolutely. And what we experience most of the time is extremes. So the two extremes that most of us experience are, either I have to think I'm the best, I'm the best in the world, I can crush anyone. Like I'm like gonna show everyone what I'm like, or most of us experience the other extreme, which is I'm the worst. I'm the stupidest, I'm the dumbest, I'm the most worthless, I'm the biggest loser. Notice how that's both ego. - Really? - Yes. - Why is the negative though? - So the ego wants to be the best of the best or the ego wants to be the worst of the worst. The ego want to accept being in the middle. - Really? - The ego wants to feel the deepest sense of being the lowest. And that's why victim mentality is actually a subsequent of ego. - Really? - Yeah, that's how it's explained in the bar with the Gita because the point is that you can't deal with just being bad, you have to be the worst. - My pain is the worst, I think Jada talked about this on your podcast where she was like, "I had to tell people why my hurt was more painful "than their hurt and they could never understand "how bad it was." - Exactly, exactly. - That's ego as well. - Yeah, that's ego as well. So you see these two sides of ego keeping us locked away. And so the only way to get with that and the only way to balance it and bring it all into one is genuine self honesty. Honesty is the best place to be. And the best thing about honesty is, "I'm really good at this, I'm really average of that "and I'm really bad at that." And the challenge we have with that is most of us have no idea, we just have zero self awareness about what we are good at, what we are bad at, and what we're average at. So we think, "I'm pretty average at everything, "I'm pretty good at everything." And when I hear those answers, I'm like, "Simple things, just go and talk to people that know you." - Yeah, what am I great at? - Ask them, "What's my superpower? "What do I do differently? "What do you think I do that is different "than no one else does?" And guess what? I guarantee you, if you ask a colleague, if you ask a friend, if you ask a family member, if you ask a people from-- - We'll say different things. - They'll say different things. But you get to learn about yourself. So real confidence comes from knowing your strengths and going all in on them. Your confidence does not come from just standing up the right way or just saying the right stuff to yourself. - By the way, which also-- - Yeah, and that's important. I'm a big believer in all of that, but what I'm saying is that that doesn't build real confidence. Real confidence comes from thinking, "I'm really good at this, I know I can do this, "and I love doing it." And really, this is the most important bit. Confidence comes from serving other people. When you see the impact you have on others, and this is the biggest issue, the reason why we have such a low self-esteem today in the world is because people are not serving others. So they don't see the profound impact they have on others. When you put out a video or a podcast and people tag you on Instagram and they say, "Lewis, you stop me from depression, "or you help me out of a divorce." Or people, when they watch my content, they'll be like, "That stopped me from committing suicide," or whatever it is. When you see that, you get such a deep sense of self-worth that you matter, and guess what? Everyone matters. Whether you matter to one people or one million people, everyone matters. But if you see your impact in someone's life, you will feel such a deep sense of self-worth.

Liberating Mindset & Value Assessment

Living from fear and self-doubt. (42:37)

And so whether you're serving at a, giving out free food, or whether you're serving at a local charity place, or whether you're serving through your work, serve, serve, serve, because when you take that step, you get a boost of self-esteem. But why do so many of us live in fear and desire mode as opposed to duty and love mode? Why is that? Like, why we still focus on self as opposed to service? It's conditioned. It's conditioned, right? I've said this before that we're wired for generosity, but we're educated for greed. I think I just said it to you two years ago, and I was on the podcast. And when I said that, and it was a, and so true, we're wired for generosity, but we're educated for greed, because what happens is, when we're kids, you'll see kids serve God their way, they wanna share, yeah. - It's part of my candy bar, whatever, right? - Yeah, and then as we get older, we're told that there's less, and this is what the key is. As we get older, we're told, there are finite numbers of how many kids get made onto the basketball and baseball team. - Yes. - We're told there's a finite number of college bases. We're told there's a finite number of how many tickets there are. We're told there's a finite number of people that are successful. Guess what? In the theater of happiness, there are infinite and unlimited seats, and there is a seat with your name on it. - That's okay.

Free your mind from negativity. (43:57)

- There is a seat with your name on it in the theater of dreams, in the theater of happiness. But you think that because you think that there are only 100 people allowed in, that if someone else makes it before you, that you don't get in, and guess what? Is there a cap on how many billionaires are around the world? - No. - No. - No. Is there a cap on how many millionaires are around the world? - No. - No. Is there a cap on how many happy people are around the world? No. And that's why I really am encouraging Forbes. I want Forbes, forget printing on richness, print on happiness, print on service list. - Wow. - Print on Mr. Who is serving? - We should do that. - Who is serving the most in the world? - Wow. - That'll be competition based. - Yeah, sure. - I gave more than you gave. - And that's why it should be service based on time, energy and money. Because we should start showing how much time people give, how much energy people give. Mother Teresa, I don't think she gave any money to her charities. But you get a lot of time and energy. You look at all the people who made a change in the world, Martin Luther King Gandhi, like, they may not have given a lot of money to stuff. They gave time and energy. - You don't think you have resources, but you're a resourcefulness, you're love, you're time, you're focus, you're attention, you're compassion. - Love that. - You're a resourcefulness of the heart, not of the wallet, I think is key. - Love that. - And you don't need to have a lot of money to make a big impact. - You don't.

Dissociation between "conventional" and "emotional" intelligence. (45:07)

And this is the training. See, we've been educated for greed because we've been told everything's limited. There's limited number of this, limited number of this number. And every time you play numbers, and I think it was Bob Marley who said it, but every time you play numbers, you'll always be dissatisfied. Because guess what? - Someone's always got more. - Someone's always gonna have more. I was speaking to a friend recently. And this friend was telling me that he bought a home, which is very expensive. Very, very expensive. And he went to a party at someone else's house. And he told me that when he was getting a tour of this party, he found out that this person had a painting on his wall, which cost the amount of his house cost. And so he was joking. - Wow. - He was like, that guy's painting. - Painting in the house. - He's got my house on his wall. - Wow. - And that just puts things in a perspective. And you think about that, and then you look at someone like Jeff Bezos, and you think, oh well, he's the richest man in the world. But does he have the most fame? No, he doesn't. Does he have the most beauty, subjective decision? Does he have the most strength or power? Maybe not. And so no one has the most of everything. So when you measure yourself by numbers, you'll always be second, third, fourth, fifth in something. - And I think by measuring yourself by needing to have the most of anything, is probably a recipe for unhappiness. - Oh my God. - I'm like, well, okay, I'm not gonna have the most of anything, but I'm gonna have the most money, you're still gonna be unhappy. - Totally. - Even if you have the most of something, doesn't mean you're gonna be happy. - Totally. I think it was Albert Einstein who said it best that not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. And I love that because it removes this belief that things are finite and limited. And then not. If you wanna be happy and successful, if no matter that there are 700,000 podcasts, if that is your Dharma, if that's your calling, if that's your purpose, like you can do that. There's no cap on how many successful soccer players that can exist at the same time. - Or how many books are out in the world. - There's no cap. There's no one stopping you. And that's the mindset that we're educated for that scarcity and greed. - And what's the difference between the monkey mind and the monk mind? - Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. So the monkey mind is what we experience on a day-to-day basis. The monkey mind is restless. The monkey mind is jumping from branch to branch. The monkey mind's trying to find a bigger banana. The monkey mind is constantly just like feeling flustered, dissatisfied, scarce, and overthinking everything. The monk mind is the exact opposite. The monk mind is calm and composed. The monk mind knows to be focused and aware. The monk mind knows. So everything in this book and everything that we're talking about is the transformation from the monkey mind that we experience to the monk mind. The monkey mind is almost the enemy to the monk mind. It's the opposite. - Yes. The monks start with identity and at the root of the issue because a lot of what we experience in the world today, as you know, and I know how holistic you are in the way you advise your patients when you are speaking on my podcast, I was so impressed by you and how you're able to tie in so many psychological and natural practices and relational exercises that can improve people's health and wellbeing overall. I remember you talking about encouraging your clients to see more friends as a way of changing the way they feel and I was thinking, wow, this person's got so many great ideas and the reason is because, Rangan, you also have that monk mind set or you go to the root of the issue.

The Monk mindset sees what is underneath (48:10)

It's really easy to just say, oh, well, just take two of these a day or try this or maybe you need to do this. But when you think about it from the root perspective, where do our challenges arise? And our challenges arise by how we see ourselves. And what I believe Rangan's referring to is there's this quote that I begin my book with and that I've shared in interviews for the last few years and it's from a writer named Charles Horton Cooley who wrote this in the 1900s. And what he said is that, sorry, I think it's in the 1800s, at the end of the 1800s towards the 1900s. And he said, and bear with me and you've got to really listen closely to this. So what he said that, the challenge today is, 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. Now, just let that blow your mind for a moment. I will explain it, I promise. 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, which means we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. So I'll break it down. If I think Rangan thinks I'm smart, I'll say I feel smart. But if I think Rangan thinks I'm not smart, then I'll say I'm not smart. And so the challenge is that we're basing how we feel about ourselves on what we think someone thinks of us. And the greatest challenge with that is, how do you have any idea if what you think someone thinks about you is even true and whether that's even the best place to start. So that's where our identity struggles. We start pursuing things in life because we think other people value them. It's almost like, let's think of the most playground version of this. If I remember wearing high tech shoes from BHS to the playground, right? I remember my mum, because my parents didn't buy me Nike trainers or Adidas trainers, which always wanted, we didn't come from that background. I couldn't afford them. And my parents didn't want me to have them. So I'd walk in with my high tech trainers from BHS, they're about 10 quid or whatever they were. And you know, to me, it didn't make a difference. I didn't really know at that time whether high tech was good or bad. They were just trainers that my parents bought me. Now, everyone, the cool kid at school, had the latest Nike trainers. All of a sudden, I start thinking that he's now surrounded by everyone. Everyone's talking about his trainers. Everyone's giving him adoration. Everyone's giving him respect. Everyone's talking about his trainers. So now I think that if I want to have that same experience and love from people, that I need to get that. Not realizing that I may be able to get deeper love from people by being kind and compassionate, that I may actually be able to build a real relationship with people if I'm loving and considerate and empathetic. And it's so crazy how your life can become about pursuing something. And that's why Jim Carrey puts it best. And I'm paraphrasing. He says, "Everyone in the world should achieve everything "they've ever wanted and accomplish everything "they've ever pursued just to realize "that it's not the point." Now, that doesn't mean the monk mindset is not about not pursuing your goals. It's actually about pursuing your truest goals, your truest self and your most authentic aligned goals. So it's not about not having goals. It's about making sure that your goals are actually yours. Yeah, and I get shivers when you say that, coolly quotes. Oh, me too, man. And I think I've had a flashback. I think, I can't say for sure where I was when I heard that interview, but I think I was on a train from Manchester to London, or London back to Manchester. And I think I pressed pause and I think I wrote it in my notes. I think I'm pretty sure I wrote it and I rewound it, I played it again, I thought, hold on, I've got the first bar. The second part, what was that third part? I really had to sit with it for a while and I would urge people if they need to press pause right now, listen to it and really think about it. And I think, you know, it's really interesting, you know, hearing that. And I reflect on my children who, I know you had a very breath-lovely conversation with just before we started. I might put that in at the end of the podcast, maybe. Please do it, it was beautiful. But I think about this as they go through school and, you know, they start to see what other people have got. And, you know, my wife and I were very keen to try and not put value on those things because I know I also had experiences like that. What I'd say, oh God, man, they're wearing those things. I wanna wear those, 'cause if I wear them, I'm gonna be happy. I saw maybe a year ago or so, I saw Gary Vaynerchuk video online when he was telling someone at what if his conference says, he was, you know, he was talking about a BMW and he basically said to the guy in his, you know, in his immitable way, which is wonderful, that I think you own a BMW because of what other people will think of you when you drive that BMW. And the guy literally, you know, in that clip, he just sort of sat with it and he said, yeah, I do.

Ditch the comparison trap (53:40)

I mean, it's what it symbolized is to the people around him. And again, I'm not having to go at anyone who might be doing that. You know, we all do things at times to get that validation or what we think is a validation when people around them. But I think what you're trying to get at is how do we find our own identity? How do we live our own lives? So, so Jay, how do we do that? If we spend a lifetime living someone else's life, how do we in our 30s or our 20s or our 40s or our 50s? How do we just decide, oh, I'm going to start finding out what my life is? - Yes, absolutely. And I love the tone you're sharing this in Rangan because my tone's the same. Like, you know, I'm not coming at this from a point of view of, you know, we're wasting our lives or I've got it figured out. Like, I don't want to make this about you not getting your goals or not having pursuits or not wanting to become something because I want to do all those things too. But it's about why you're doing it. And it's also about making sure they're truly motivated by your inner desire, right? Like, that's the point. It's like, if you want to drive at BMW, drive at BMW because that's the car you love. Don't drive it because you think, if you want to be a doctor, become a doctor because you think that's how you're going to serve humanity, not because you think people will be impressed. If you want to go to Harvard or Princeton or Oxford or Cambridge, go there because you really want to study how to solve the world's problems, not because you think it looks good on your resume, right? That's the point that we're going after. So thank you, Rong, and for like re-centering that tonal piece. And I appreciate it. But so where do we start? One of my favorite ways to start is looking at what we value. And values are a very intangible word. And so there's a very easy way to figure out what you value. There's two things you have to look at. You look at how you spend your money. The most painful thing you can possibly do, go through your bank statement and look at where your money is being spent. That is what you value. The other thing that we spend, just like we spend money, is how we spend our time. Those are the two most perfect ways to see what you currently value. Your value isn't what's in your head, isn't what's in your heart, it isn't what's in your mind, it's how you spend your money and how you spend your time. And so, just to give you an overview, and I share this in the book, that research was done on how we spend our time. And the research showed that we spent 33 years in bed, right? 33 years of our life in bed. And seven years of that is spent trying to sleep, not even sleeping, right? We spend one year and four months exercising across our whole lives, these are by the way. We spend more than three years on vacation. And we spend a bunch of days trying to get ready, and we spend a bunch of time, standing in lines and queues, and so much of our time just gets spent. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, where am I currently spending my time? And where do I want to spend it? Now, studies also show that everyone has to go to work, so this isn't about what you do for work. People who had more meaningful purposeful lives, and were healthier, wealthier, and wise, invested their time in education over entertainment. And rung in your audience is lucky because they get education and entertainment in one place. But that's the goal, right? Like, that's the goal, that you're creating an opportunity for people to find education. The smartest, the wealthiest, the most healthiest, the wisest people in the world, reading books, watching documentaries, taking courses, listening to podcasts, learning to better themselves. And so that's the first place to start.

Why you have to do a values audit before changes in your life! (57:56)

The second place, when we look at that value audit, is I want you to write down three things that you're currently pursuing in life. It might be a promotion, it might be a new home, whatever it is, whatever it is that you are currently pursuing. And then I want you to ask this question. Is that your desire and your dream, or is it coming from something outside of you? Is it coming from a pressure of a family member? Is it coming from an expectation because your friend just bought something? Where is that desire truly coming from? And the third and final question you want to ask yourself is, do I still want to pursue that, or do I want to change how I pursue it, or do I not want to pursue it at all? And if you go through that three-step questioning process, you'll get to the truth of what you truly want to pursue, and stop yourselves from building a sand castle, which the waves of time will eventually wash away. And so that's what we get lost doing. We get lost building castles that we don't even want to live in. - Yeah, it's so profound. And I really think that there's something unique about the times in which we live now. There really is this dissatisfaction, this lack of contentment. You put it so beautifully at the start of this conversation. I don't know if you've seen the documentary Minimalism. - I haven't, you know. - Or not, which I think you'd absolutely love it. I really, really enjoy it. I've seen it a couple of times. I've watched it with my kids again recently, but again, it's these two guys in their 30s who, they've got success by society's definition. They've got the job, they're running good money. But there's a hold inside. There's a feeling of, is this all there is to life? And so I really think you're tapping on something that is really out there at the moment. And really, if people can get their heads around this, I think it can transform their own lives, but also transform the lives of the people around them, which I think is really, really exciting. Now you caught it a value audit. And I thought that word was really interesting because I had been sort of, I had sort of nearly three weeks off social media until two days ago, like I didn't post, I went off that, I made a thing affair, and I found it a lot easier to go inward in my life. It was just one thing to switch off a bit of noise for me, that I'm not saying everyone has to do this, it's just something I personally find useful. I also like to, I think it's a nice example to set to people that you can do it if you want to. But what was really interesting is I've been doing a values exercise with myself. I've been trying to write down five core values that I want to live my life by. And it really struck me that a lot of people, and it would probably include myself in this, have got an idea of what we think our values are, but unless we actually go and audit the process of what are we spending our time and money doing, we have no idea if we really are living those values. So I really like the term audit because it's not your perception of how you think you're actually spending your money or spending your time. It's the reality of it. And I think it's something that I haven't done it. And I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to actually see. Is it aligned with what you say you stand for? Are you actually spending time like that? So is this a common thing to think for people that there is a gap between their desired values and their actual values? - I genuinely, first of all, Rong, and thank you for sharing that too. And I genuinely believe that people are well-intentioned and want to do good in the world. I believe that. I believe that people have a good heart. They're smarter than we think they are. They want to do good in the world and they want to put out good energy. But you're exactly right that that intention needs to be converted and transferred into real behavior. And this is where you'll find, you know, you'll hear a friend or someone you know say, or you know, I really value loyalty and I really don't like gossip. And then you find out that that person was gossiping about you. And how does that feel? It completely feels like someone's broken your trust. And so often the way we see ourselves or want to see ourselves is amplified compared to how we actually behave. So we'll spot something. And there's a beautiful story that I share in the book. And there's lots of these across the book, but there's these old ancient Indian and Zen stories. And there's this story of the evil king that goes to meet a good king. So the evil king goes to the castle, the quarters of the good king. And the good king being a good king invites the evil king inside for some dinner. They sit down, the servers bring out the plates. The plates are placed in front of the evil king and the good king. And they're just about to eat. And as just about as they're about to eat, the evil king switches the plates. And the good king goes, what's going on? Like, is that some ceremony in your time? Like, why are we doing this? And the evil king goes, well, I don't know. You might have poisoned my food. You might be trying to kill me. You might have poisoned it. And the good king just bursts out laughing. He's just like, really? Like, come on. I've invited you over for dinner. Like, this is my team. Like, you know, whatever it is. Like, let's start eating right now. And just about as he's about to eat, the evil king swaps it back again. And the good king goes, well, now what then? And he goes, well, I don't know. You might be double-bluffing me. And that night, the evil king doesn't eat. The good king happily eats his plate. The point is that so often we think we don't have some of the mistakes that we make, but we see them in everyone else. We see those mistakes in other people. So we'll say, oh, this person's not doing this right or I don't like the way he or she talked to that person. But if we really do an audit in ourselves, we'll realize that we have a lot of those same challenges and feelings that we may think others have. And so for me, it's sometimes a really scary and daunting task to do that values audit. But it truly, truly is a beautiful process that we all need to go through to really realign our map and get our compass right and start moving in the right direction. - I mean, is it the sort of thing that people do once or is it the sort of thing that people should revisit? And I guess, you know, if I was to ask you, when was the last time you did that exercise on yourself? - Yeah, great question. So I'd say that you have to revisit like gardening. If you look at your garden outside and I can see a bit, I can see a like little glimpse of Rangan's garden, but if you have a garden, how often do you have to garden? Maybe you mow the lawn, I don't know, once a week, once a month, I don't know, you know, whatever you-- - Yeah, I'd say once a week, probably. - Once a week. - I like a nice, you know, shortish lawn. I don't like it when it gets too long, so.

Establishing Personal Growth & Finding Meaning

Are you regularly gardening your values? (01:05:08)

- There you go, once a week. And so I'd say that you have to treat this exercise like gardening, because when you do a values audit, what you're really doing is gardening your values. And what that means is you're pulling out the weeds and you're planting new seeds. That's really the activity that's happening here. You're planting seeds in your mind, the values that are good values, that are gonna grow into fruits and trees and give shade to others and help other people. Or if you don't garden once a month, let's say Rangan leaves his, he doesn't bother for the last six months during COVID, he just lets it be there, what's gonna happen? That garden's gonna be full of weeds. It's gonna be full of stuff that he doesn't want there, right? It might attract bugs or other things that he doesn't want, and that's what happens with our values, that after a while our values start to attract dust, they start to attract being covered over by so many other desires. So I would say it's a regular habit. I'd say that I do a refining values and intention exercise on myself about three times a week. I used to do it every day, but probably about three times a week, and I'm not saying anyone has to do it that often. I do it that often because I feel I live a life that is constantly moving, constantly challenging, and I'm presented with a lot of options and opportunities that I never imagined I'd have. And so I have to really train my mind to focus on these value audits. But I also know that every year, I spend two or three weeks, and I go back to the monastery in India, and I spend time in the ashram with monks. And so I feel this is both an activity that happens weekly or monthly. I'd say once a month. I'd say the best way to treat it like your accounts in your taxes. Look at it every month, look at your bank statement every month, and then once a year when you have to do your taxes and you're going through that tax return and getting it all right, you kind of do a deep dive on it. So I'd say if everyone could spend three days a year, five days a year going really deep, and then one hour a month, a couple of hours a month, that would be a great way to build it into your practice. Yeah, now I just want to contrast it with taxes and accounts, which can often be quite tedious and, you know, tell your hair out, type exercises for people full of pressure. I would sort of say that the kind of practices that your book is jam packed for the practical tools for people, once you get into this way of thinking, once you start thinking like a monk, these practices become fun. Yeah, right? Yeah, for sure.

The growth of personal relationships (01:07:45)

You know, like a lot of, when there was a doctor, one of the things that frustrates me is that everything around health, let's say working out, for example, tends to be around, you know, punishing yourself and pushing yourself and suffering. And so we sought to associate things that are good for us as being difficult and as being punishing, but actually all the tools in your book are gonna be good for everyone. They're really gonna help people, but I would actually say that they're fun. And if I just speak to my own experience over the last seven years of really, again, since my dad died, I die the interpersonal growth, not because it was like, oh, dad's not here. Now I'm gonna do some personal growth. No, it was just in the trauma of dad's death in the sort of emptiness I felt afterwards. That's where I went. I sort of needed that pain on one level to then get me to start asking questions. But I love the process of getting to know myself better. I love doing these audits. I love trying to figure out my values. I potentially almost getting addicted to it. Like it feels good. And then you start to, I feel, you start to switch off from the noise around you and you really start to become tuned in to who you are and what makes you, what makes you tick. - Learning about ourselves is actually the most fun thing in the world. It's the most enjoyable thing in the world. When you find out about a new way that your mind works and how this value is gonna unlock this opportunity in your life, rung in spot on it. It's such an exciting thing to do. And I would encourage you to make it fun. So I'll tell you an example of some of the fun activities that I love in the book. So one of my favorite ones is I sometimes set self the challenge of not comparing, not complaining and not criticizing. And the way I like to do this test is I keep a jar of post-it notes of every time I compare, complain or criticize, I'll put it in there. And then I have another jar of every time I'm collaborative, supportive to others and grateful. And what I love doing is always doing a competition with myself because I love being competitive too. I love engaging that in a competition with myself of how can I often make sure? So what you find is the first day you realize, oh no, I complain 10 times today. The second day you're like, oh, I only did seven times to the end of third day. Like I only did four in the fourth day. You're like, oh, only once. And then on the weekend you binge complain again and it all goes up again. But the point is that you make it fun and enjoyable because what you understand is that you are not your criticism, you are not these negative thoughts. You are not these negative beliefs. They've just become conditioned and habits just as your garden is not weeds. And what happens is we start thinking that we are our pain. We start thinking that we are stress. We say things like, I am just a stressful person. I am just a negative person. And the truth is you're not. You're just going through a negative space and time. You're just adopted a negative habit or a negative thought. But you are not a negative person. It's just in the same way as you are not unhealthy. You've just adopted unhealthy habits. And I think when you start making that disconnect between you and the habits you have, you start to realize, oh, if I change the habits, I naturally change. But you are separate from that. So never get into that rhetoric with yourself of I am a negative person or I am a failure or I am a loser or whatever it may be. - Yeah, I think it's so important that Jay that our thoughts are important, our words are important. And I think many people, what should become tuned into it? When you start to identify where you're using negative self-talk, it becomes so easy to identify and everyone around you. You know, it's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about, both for myself personally, for bringing up my children. It's something we talk about a lot at the dinner table about how we're saying things because words are powerful. You know, words become the thoughts, right? And they sort of can, you know, you mentioned those things, people often do think that they are there, paying, they are there, feelings without realizing that these things are transient, they come and go and you are actually separate from that. But if you define yourself by that, it becomes very hard to change.

Breaking free from a victim mindset (01:12:23)

You know, you mentioned, you know, I guess a lot of words that people who have a victim mindset may say, right? And I want to explore this because I want to be super clear. I think one thing I love about your approach and certainly the approach that I sort of try and take is one of compassion. It's not one of judgment of other people. It's understanding if someone behaves in a certain way. There's probably conditioning or reasons that has led to that. So what I say victim mindset, I really don't mean that in a demeaning way. I mean that in a lot of people say, "Oh, this always happens to me." "Oh God, you know that." I never get that promotion, right? And so the way we think and the way we talk, how influential is our childhoods? And you know, what can we do about it if we've spent a lifetime practicing that? - Yeah, what a great way of guiding this conversation into because I think you're spot on that the words we use create all of our reality, right? We all experience that, we know that. And there's a few things that I wanna touch on here actually. One is the understanding there's a Harvard study that I refer to in my book and it's called the emotional list or list of emotions, but I call it emotional vocabulary. And what I realize is that we all have a very limited emotional vocabulary. For example, if you are someone how things are going, there's literally five words that we use more often than anything else. Okay, good, bad, fine. So someone goes, "How's your day going? "Okay, how's your week been? "Good, is everything going well?" Mm, right? It's like literally like those are our responses. And what this Harvard emotional vocabulary list does is that it shows you that inside every word that you say, there are so many more meanings. So let's take the word sad, for example. And what it does is it shows you other feelings of sadness that help you better pinpoint how you actually feel. So the question then is, do you feel sad or do you feel offended? Do you feel upset? Do you feel disappointed? Do you feel irritated? Do you feel like you've been let down? The challenge is that we don't diagnose how we feel effectively. Therefore we can't articulate and communicate to the people we love effectively about how we feel. And therefore we don't get what we expect from others. And so we almost create, and Rangan, you probably see this all the time. Imagine someone tries to diagnose their health condition without seeing a doctor. It becomes really, really challenging. And the challenging with the mind is sometimes you have to diagnose your own feelings because you can't just walk into a doctor's office and expect them to do it because it's a little more intangible. So we have to get much better at understanding and articulating ourselves and diagnosing our challenges in what we experience. But when you spoke about childhood there, I thought that was a really important point because literally there are so many studies that show that our belief in ourselves, our desire for love, our understanding of ourselves is formed in our childhood.

The psychology concept of attachment styles (01:15:31)

So recently I recorded an episode about the psychological concept of the three attachment styles. Well, there are four, but the three prominent attachment styles that people experience in relationships. And they are avoidant, secure and anxious. So all of us either have an avoidant relationship attachment style, we have a secure attachment style or we have an anxious attachment style. And I'll explain what they are. If your parents were avoidant of you, if they didn't give you attention, if they didn't give you presence and intimacy, then you often will crave that from your partner. So what you want from your partner is exactly what you did or didn't receive from your parents. So sometimes you receive something from your parents and now you demand it from your partner and sometimes you didn't receive something from your parents and you demand that from your partner. The secure attachment style is when your parents or one of your parents or a father or mother figure in your life gave you substantial amounts of love. So you feel secure. So you trust your partner naturally. And the third and final is anxious. That's when your parents were kind of there, kind of not there, kind of let you down, sometimes were there. You were confused about their love approach to you and therefore now you have this anxiousness around your partner and you're not sure whether they love you or not. Now notice how all of that comes from our conditioning at childhood. And so the first step we have to do is we have to be aware of this. Right, no one's ever been taught about this in school. I saw so many negative patterns that I'd adopted from my childhood that I was projecting into my relationship. And by the way, I don't blame my parents or anyone's parents for any of this. I think the point is no one ever knows how to be a parent and what they're doing and everyone makes mistakes. So this isn't about questioning your parents or being bitter towards them. It's about developing the emotional skills your parents didn't have. And that first of all requires awareness. Are you even aware of what patterns you've adopted from your parents that you like or don't like? Do you behave in certain irrational ways? And when you think about it, you're like, that's exactly how my dad used to talk to me. Well, that's exactly how my mom used to talk to me. I often talk about a positive thing. So I love surprises. I love surprises. For gifts and birthdays and events. And the reason is my mom always surprised me with the toy I most wanted on my birthday every year growing up. So when I met my wife without explaining this to her, I expected her to know that and she would never surprise me because it wasn't in her parent or background. So I used to feel on my birthdays when we first met that she didn't love me. And I know this sounds crazy, but it's literally true. It's like I literally felt like she didn't care about me. But that's because I never understood why I like surprises, where that came from, and I never communicated that to her. Does that make sense, Robert? - Hey, more sense than you would know for sure.

Lowering expectation and resolving definition differences (01:19:08)

I mean, you know, I can think back to my own relationship and think to all kinds of ways that actually, and I really expect to ask that Pirelle on the show and really sort of opened up about a lot of those things. And I think the thing I'm sort of, I'm hearing from you telling that story. And when I think about my own relationship, it's that we often have expectations because we're used to things a certain way. So we think that's the norm. But of course someone else has got their own idea of what is normal. And, you know, we've explored this ourselves. And I think as your communication gets better, as you learn, as you said, to have a vocabulary around these things, as you learn to be able to articulate them, something that's understanding on both sides. And a lot of that friction no longer arises because you can communicate. And I guess now your wife will go, oh, you know, Jay likes gifts. You know, even though that's not my thing, for example, it's kind of like, oh, maybe I'll get them a gift because that's how he experiences love. - My wife all has two surprise parties from in the last two years. And she got me both times. Like she organized these two incredible. And that's what it is wrong. And like, that's what it is, is that we're just, you know, in every relationship, you have the ability to set the level of joy you expect and the level of pain you'll accept. But the problem is that we never tell the other person what that expectation and what that acceptance level is. And we never communicate that and we expect them to be mind readers and expect them to know. And that's really where all of relationships go wrong with our parents, our children, our spouses, our partners, that there is no communication on what we expect and what we're willing to accept. And that creates so many issues that you then think you broke up over something big when actually you broke up over words and definitions. One of the ones I like to talk about is the definition of love. When, think about the first time you said, I love you to someone, Rangan. Like think about the first time you said it to someone and everyone is listening and watching. Think about the first time you told someone you loved them. What did you mean? Did you mean I really like you? Did you mean I hope we can spend the night together? Did you mean I wanna spend the rest of my life with you? I'm guessing that you meant different things at different times. And now think about when someone says, I love you back to you. Have you ever asked them what they meant by that? Because chances are you projected your belief onto the word love even when someone said, I love you back. So if you said, I love you and you were thinking, I wanna spend the rest of my life with you. And that person said, I love you. You projected that they were saying they wanna spend the rest of their lives with you as well. But actually what they were saying was they just wanna spend the night with you. And now all of a sudden you're in this complete misalignment of values. And we end up in those scenarios because families define words differently. People define words differently. And different words mean different things to different people at different times. And so you really have to understand how that person described even being clean and tidy and organized. Everyone has a different definition. Like, my room may seem clean to some people and my room may seem chaotic to some people because everyone has a different definition of what clean and chaotic is. What you can do right now is find meaning in what you do.

Find meaning in your position (01:22:48)

Make what you do your meaningful, passionate and purposeful. You don't need to suddenly look to become an entrepreneur or start a side hustle or find some more time. Find meaning and the way you find meaning as you genuinely stop, press pause for a second and go, what am I living for? Like, what am I living for right now? And if you're living for your child and if you're living to provide and put food on the table, that is a beautiful thing that we should celebrate more. And sometimes it takes us a moment to stop and celebrate that. And so I would say find meaning, 'cause you can't always find happiness, you can always find positivity, but you can always find meaning in that position. So I'll give an example, like I lost someone really important to me, a mentor a few days back. I can't be positive about that. You can't be happier about it. Yeah, it's hurtful. You feel sad, you feel lost, but guess what, I can find meaning in it. Because I can make a list of every lesson he taught me and make a plan to try and live every one of those lessons. Wow, that's beautiful. And so if you're in a really tough situation right now, don't look for positivity, don't look for happiness, look for meaning. That's a good one. And not trying to get yourself out of pain too quickly or discomfort or frustration, which I've been a guilt to be like, you'll just be positive or whatever to people, but I think it's like, you know, have your experience, live your experience and find meaning as quickly as possible and create a commitment to how you want to use that meaning moving forward. Okay, I may not be great tomorrow, maybe not with next week, next month, but I'm going to use this meaning to serve other people, to continue to do what I love, continue to be great to my friends, my family in the best way possible. And when you start doing those small things with love and kindness, so much more opens up. It's like when you can be trusted with the small things and the small moments, you get trusted with more and more and more. And so like, it helps to just, in that moment, and it's in those painful moments that you realize how powerful you are. We all know that, like you've nearly recognized it. And what you said was beautiful about not rushing through the pain, because, and you know, this example's probably been shared before, but if you have a wound and you've cut yourself, it's like, you can't rush the healing. You can't rush it. If you broke your arm, I mean, and you've been through so many bodily injuries, you can't rush the process. It's gonna take six weeks minimum to heal broken. Oh, yeah, minimum. And you've gotta sit through that. It's pain. There's no injections you can take. There's no videos you can watch. There's nothing you can listen to. But our challenge is we try and rush through the pain, rather than reflect through the pain. We try to rush the healing process. Try to rush the healing, and you can't rush healing, and healing is meant to be slow because it buys you time. It buys you reflection. It gives you so much space. To slow down. To slow down. And that's what your body's calling out for. And this is our emergency. Like, how many times have you heard it? Where you slow down, you slow down, and that's when you fall ill. Because guess what? Your body has been trying to tell you to slow down. - Slow down, yeah. - When you feel pain, so I write about it and think, like, pain makes you pay attention. - Yeah. - That's what pain's for. - Pain's not-- - Notice this. - Notice this. - Look at me. - Notice me. Look at me. It's like a crying baby craving for attention. When a baby's crying, you don't just go, "I was crying." You don't just go, "Oh, yeah, we'll just put it "in another room and forget about it." Right? Like, you go to it and you find its needs. Whereas with our pain, when something's painful, we're just like, "Oh yeah, I'll just forget about it. "I'll escape from it. "I'll do something else." You have to go into that pain. - I'll numb it. I'll numb the pain. - Unmumb the pain. - That's it. - With alcohol or whatever. - Yeah. 100%. That's usually our response is, what can I do to numb this? - Work more, have sex more, drink more, - Whatever. - And others more, whatever it is. - Rather than let me actually become alert. And guess what? - Things get higher and higher and higher because unfortunately, until it really hurts, we don't stop. - Or you need more and more to numb it with. - So true. - And so you go into extremes of life, right? - So true.

Dealing With Pain & Adapting To Change

The most painful thing since leaving the monkhood (01:26:36)

- Now, what's been the most painful thing you've had to experience since, 'cause I know leaving the monkhood was painful for you, 'cause this was a mission of yours that you wanted to have for your whole life and I think you're there for three and a half years. So what's been the most painful thing, I guess, in the last six or seven years since that time that you've had to reflect back on, take notice of, pay attention to, and reevaluate. - That's a great question. I think for me it was in 2016, I moved out to New York. So just, let me paint a picture of 2016. I moved three jobs, I got married, I moved country, and I just started a whole new life. Like my life just transformed. So we went to all of that with my wife in one year and by the way, all of that was surprises. The job change was surprises, the country change was a surprise, the marriage was not a surprise, we planned that. But apart from everything else, everything was a surprise. Now I said I like surprises, so I can roll with it, but my point is that's a lot of transition in the year. - So much transition. - And I felt the burden of being in a new city where we had no family, we had no friends, and my wife who loves being around her family and no one understands just how close she is to them. I felt this burden on me that I had taken away her time with her family and now she was alone. So I was going out to work and she'd be crying at home. And I was thinking she's got no friends, she's got no support, and I know you can relate to this with moving and relationships and so much going on. And so it's like I'm dealing with that and guess what, six months later, I have to leave and move on and work on a new career to build everything myself. And then I'm four months away from being broke. And so on top of all of this, I've now got four months away from being broke. I've got enough money, save for four months to pay for rent and groceries. - In New York City. - In New York City, and that's it. And guess what, even on top of that, I've got 30 days before my visa runs out and kicked out of the country. So I can't even live here anymore. So not only have I just got married, moved you up three times, changed career again, had to move into a problem. Four months of being broke and I might get kicked out in 30 days and my renewal for my visa cost $15,000. So that's gonna eat into those four months. I have probably never been under that much emotional, physical and mental pressure in my life. Like genuinely, I felt it. And I thought my body changed. My breath was more stressed. I would be breathing faster, shorter breaths, not deep breaths, heartbeat and faster. - I'm working out. - Not working out. You get into lazy habits, you start craving junk food. - Sugar, you have energy. - I'm living in a 500 square foot apartment with my wife, which is tiny, like everything's in that space and guess what, we both work from home. So I'm now sitting at a desk, hunched over, trying to figure stuff out. She's trying to cook in the same room. Like I'm trying to, just trying to figure out what to do. And I remember the next morning, sending like a hundred emails to people and just being like, this is who I am, this is what I can do, how can we serve? And that was the same year that I ended up meeting you later in that year. - Yeah, mm-hmm. - And the beginning three months of that journey was so stressful. Like they were so stressful because I was like, what if I have to move back to London?

Relocating became my biggest pain (01:29:45)

What am I gonna say to her parents? I mean, I just took their daughter away. Like, I lived in New York City for six months and my life falling apart. Like, you know, so much. And I've got all these views, but there's nothing happening in. We met. - But you also, I mean, at this time, you're also growing so much. How are you able to create and reach this impact with your videos and that's growing while you're under so much stress and uncertainty? - And I stopped a bit at that time. Like things slowed down, I remember, like things slowed down. - I remember that. - I wasn't creating as much as I was because I don't enjoy creating from stress or pressure and I don't think you can really create something from stress and pressure. So we really slowed down at that time. And when I was creating, I was creating from a place of recognizing that I could share what I had learned and what I had grown in so far. So anything I was sharing was like, this is what I've learned so far. So that was the biggest pain that I've been through in the last seven years for sure. And all I can say is that I remember coming home to my wife, knowing that this was gonna be the truth. And I came home and I said to her, I said to her, I guarantee you, this is gonna be the best thing that ever happened to us. - What? - The pain? - The pain. I said that to the night I came home and she gave up, I literally came home, I looked at her and they asked and go, this is the scenario. And I just want you to know that I guarantee you to you, this is the best thing that's ever gonna happen to us. And I said to her, and this is a monk statement that we used to repeat. I said to her, I'm just not gonna judge the moment. Don't judge the moment because what we do is we try to label moments as good or bad. And when you label a moment as bad, it now does not have the opportunity to become good. I'll give an example, if I go, I don't like this book, this book's bad, right? And I don't, and I love this book. But if I say that, guess what? I will never pick it up and recognize the value that's inside of it because you've labeled it. And we label stuff, like we label all that restaurants bad. But when you label a moment. - That person's bad. - That person's bad. Now you can't learn from that person. Oh, great one, that's a really good one. As soon as you start labeling people or anything is good or bad, you limit it, you stop it from being something else. And here's the truth, every moment can evolve into being anything if you give it the opportunity to. - Right. - But as soon as you say, it's got no value anymore, you lose it. And so for me, I had to say to myself, don't judge the moment and I'd keep repeating that. - Don't judge where you're at. - Don't judge this. - What's happening? - Yeah, don't judge it as negative.

Don't judge the moment (01:32:10)

Don't just start saying it's negative. We've discussed what we've all been in positions where a gift turned into a curse and a curse turned into a gift. - That's true. - Right? - Where our dreams came true and it ended up not being what we wanted. - Exactly. - And it fell apart and it led us into our dreams. - Totally, why is it that so many people that win the lottery, go broke? Gifts can turn into curses too. - True. - But because we labeled them as the best moment in our life or the worst moment in our life. Whereas when you approach things to neutrality and just what you have on the table, you can be like, okay, what am I gonna do next? - That's why the greatest quarterbacks are neutral energy. They'll get a little excited. They'll get a little fist pump every now and then, but they're not hyped every play and they're not negative every play. They have this calm, they see the field, they drop a pass and it's like a little bit, let's go, but it's very neutral. Even when it's scored touchdown, unless it's maybe the Super Bowl or a big championship at the end of a game, in the middle of the game, you wanna keep it pretty like even keel paced so you can prepare for the best or the worst. - That's great, yeah. - They always up and down, it's like your energy levels will go up and down and you'll be exhausted. - Totally. - You need to have energy in life. - Totally. - And if everything is tied around a story of this is bad, this is wrong, I'm in a bad place, I'm messing up, I'm going broke, that energy is gonna pull you away from service. - Exactly. - Or creation or creativity of how do I get out of this place?

Cry for one day, then move on (01:33:31)

So I think it's really powerful. - I love that. And I used to have a coach, and I think a lot of coaches use this, or at least he used to say to us, he would be like, "If you lose, cry for a day." And if you celebrate, if you win, celebrate for a day. And then move on the next day, get back to training. Don't let it run. - Don't live in the past. - Don't live in the past. And what we do is when we lose, we cry for a month, and when we win, we just move on. Which means that our negative experiences hold us back and weigh us down more than our positive experiences. So we're actually allowing, because we don't immerse ourselves in winning and growth. We only submerge ourselves in negative experiences. - Yeah, we need to celebrate also. We try to celebrate. I've been, that's been part of my life as well. I was like moving on too quick, and now we try to like, let's enjoy, let's go to lunch or dinner, and really like appreciate this moment, and celebrate this moment, and even have a dinner with some friends and family. Otherwise, why don't we work so hard for? - 100%. And we almost feel like we can't do that, because that makes us complacent. - Right. - But that's my point. - That's good enough. - Exactly, but if you win, celebrate for a day, if you lose, cry for a day, move on. Simple. - And you've learned so many lessons over your years, as a monk, you learned a ton of lessons, moving to getting married, moving into a new country, building companies, launching products and books. And you've had ups and downs, what's been the biggest lesson in the last 12 months for you? 'Cause you've learned, you've created so much in the last 12 months, you've done so many things, what's been the biggest lesson for you in your life? - Oh, that's a big question. I think I'd have to say that it's a, and I was saying it to a friend on the phone this morning when I was on the way to you, and I was just sharing it with him because he was having a moment in recognizing this. There's a wonderful verse in the monosmithie, which I talk about and think like a monk, it's a monk book.

Protect your purpose. (01:35:15)

And in the verse, it says, "When you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you." Now, I wanna unpack that. What I mean by that is, your purpose is like a rare jewel, and a rare gemstone. And imagine you were walking around with the most expensive diamond or jewel in the world. How would you protect it? - You wanna just like, - You wanna just wear it out, yeah? - Yeah, you wanna just wear it on your chest. - It's like this, holding it. - Yeah. - Putting a pillow around a blanket, you do like, yeah, protect it. - You'd protect it. And so your purpose is like that, and guess what? People are gonna tell you every day that that jewel is not worth anything. They're gonna tell you that that jewel is actually valueless. It doesn't have any impact on your life. They're gonna try and take away that value. They're gonna tell you that there's another jewel out there that you need to have more value. And what ends up happening is you don't, I love the word, look at the wording, protect your purpose. You have to protect it. So what happens is your success grows, you get more opportunities, more ideas, more things coming your way, more limitations, but they can all take you away from your purpose. - Distractions, yeah. - Distractions. And to me, I'm repeating this for myself because I'm like, I just wanna stick to what I was born to do, and I'm so grateful that I get to do it. I'm so happy I get to do it, and I wanna keep protecting it. I don't wanna get lost in the waves. You know, you don't wanna just get chucked in the waves of the ocean and just get lost and just not know where you're going. So for me, when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. - So that's been your biggest lesson? - That's my biggest lesson. - Why do you feel like your purpose has been maybe distracted in some way? - I don't think it has, but I'm saying it so it doesn't. - You're reminding yourself. - Yeah, I'm reminding myself, like I'm preaching to myself right now. - Especially being in Hollywood and the temptation of all these opportunities out here. - Totally, and I think for me, it's a bigger lesson also because it gives me more faith. So I always encourage, and this is actually, this is why it's my biggest lesson, I encourage so many people that I coach, so many people that I mentor, obviously everyone in my community and audience and everything to go and follow that, go and live that purpose. And I see time and time again, that when I see people trying to live their purpose, they are protected, that things work. When you're playing in your Dharma and your purpose, things work, things move, you feel momentum. - It happened. - They happen, and I'm not saying they happen without effort, but they happen, they move, whereas when you're not, you just constantly feel like you're grinding up against, you know, a war. - I know, challenges. - Just constant. - So what is your purpose and when did you discover it? - Good question. What is, my purpose is simple, it's always has been since, not since the beginning, because I discovered it afterwards. My purpose is making wisdom go viral. And I've stuck with that and I've kept it that way because to me, and there's more to it, making wisdom go viral through entertainment, I would say is my purpose, because I believe that that is something that is uniquely my goal, impact and service. And the beautiful thing is, I'm not limited to a platform, so that can be books, it can be podcasts, it can be TV shows, it can be movies. It's not limited. And this I learned by reading, I was reading after, and this was after my video started to get seen. This wasn't before I did it. It wasn't like, I sat down and I wrote this fancy tagline. I was reading Selie Mishmao's book called Exponential Organizations. And in this book, he talks about something called an MTP, a massive transformational purpose. And he says that every major person organization in the world has an MTP. So an MTP has to be aspirational, it has to be massive, and it has to be service and purpose-based. So, Google's is organizing the world's information. Notice it doesn't say we're an SEO company. Notice it doesn't say we do Google ads. - Right. - They're organizing the world's information. That's how big they're dreaming. And when you're organizing the world's information, you can do driverless cars, you can do Google Glass, you can sell Google ads, whatever it is. And so Ted's idea's worth spreading. That's what they are, that's what they're about. So Jay Shetty is making wisdom go viral. That's what I'm dedicated to. - So when did you discover it? 'Cause it wasn't when you were 10. - It wasn't before. - It wasn't when you were 21 in college. - I'd say I was 30, probably two, three years ago. So I'm 32 now. So I'd say like two, three years ago is when I discovered it. - 30 years old is when you discovered your purpose. - Correct. - So what was your purpose before that? - My purpose before that was finding my purpose. Like it's like that process of just like, my purpose before that was 14 years. So I've been online for four years. I've spent 10 years offline talking about the same stuff, sharing the same messages in talks, in universities, in small seminars, in coaching and mentoring. Like I've been doing the same thing for 14 years. But I didn't realize it was my purpose until very recently. But I just did what I enjoyed and naturally try to get better at it. - So if we don't know what our purpose is and we're working towards finding our purpose, it's okay. - That's actually where you're gonna spend most of your life. - Discovering what your purpose is. - Totally, and that's the best bit. - 'Cause I think a lot of people are like, "Well, I don't know what my purpose is." - Totally, that's why I just-- - How do I just-- - How do I find it? - The pressure of finding your purpose. - It was crazy. - We'll stop you from finding your purpose. - Pass me to you. - Yeah, the pressure is so heavy. And that's why it's not about finding that. It's just starting with the basics. What am I good at? And I talk about it and I break down Dharma and here and I talk about what are your passion? What is your expertise? What is your compassion? Because that's really important. What is your compassion for the world? What problem do you wanna solve? I often, people would say, "There's so many things I could do. There's so many things that I'm like, my question is not what causes you the greatest joy? Sometimes my question is, what causes you the greatest pain? - Make that your purpose. - Make that your purpose. If you don't know what your joy is, you definitely know what your pain is. - What you're not like in the world. - What you're not like, and so for me-- - Go serve that thing. - 100%.

The greatest pain in the world. (01:41:10)

So for me, the greatest pain I see in the world is people not reaching their potential. That causes me more pain because I believe that there is someone out there who is stacking shelves who has the cure to cancer. There is someone out there-- - Or is it talented singer? - Is it talented singer? There is someone out there who's not living to their potential and I think we're better people, we're better partners and we're better parents when we live to our potential. So that's what I'm trying to solve and I'm not saying that's the biggest thing. You're saying it's my thing. - Whenever I work with people, I'm always telling them to find your purpose, focus on what you're most passionate about or what you have the most pain around. - They go. - Same thing. - Do the thing you love the most, keep doing it until you either discover that's it or maybe I don't love that anymore. Like I played so many sports growing up, I used to love baseball. Used to love soccer and then I got bored with it. I got burnt out by it. It wasn't a love of mine anymore, it wasn't a passion and then I switched to football and it was like, oh this is a passion and I'm actually more gifted physically for this sport than I would be for soccer. I was too big for soccer. I kind of run seven miles a day right now on the field but I think you need to try lots of things and you might think it's a passion but you might get burnt out and discover it. I don't love it anymore. What else is there and keep trying new things like you said eight new things a month till you discover it. - Till you discover it. - And you might take you to take a 30, 40, 50, right? - It doesn't matter. Like it doesn't matter. Like the fun is in the growth and the journey and the like for me the last 10 years before this happened and my life changes like those were fun. I was happy. I wasn't unhappy because of that. - You didn't know the exact purpose of your life. - Correct, yeah exactly. And now I'm very clear on it and I'm happy for it to evolve too. Like I don't think it has to stay the same. I may sit with you in two years time and tell you something completely different. And I'm okay with that but I can only work with what I have now and I think we start trying to postpone our purpose or find a date by which you have to find. You put a deadline on your purpose. It doesn't make any sense.

Navigating Expectations & Gratitude Practice

You cant put a deadline on it. (01:43:03)

Like if you really care about it how can you put a deadline on it? You just keep working towards it. - It was this understanding that I had believed that the romance that I saw in the movies was what romance and love was about because again how many of us are beliefs are set by movies, media and music. So many of our beliefs and what we expect in a relationship are based on a false show. And if you think about it, movies always end with happily ever after where the wedding just happened. So it's almost like you see nothing after the wedding. And the funny thing is that after the wedding is exactly what life is about. Like that's where life actually starts. Like this life didn't start when you started dating but movies end with happily ever after and they don't tell the story. And so we all have this honeymoon, happily ever after version of love. And I had that too.

Check your expectations and media (01:44:04)

So my first date with my wife, I thought, oh, you know, she wanna go to a fancy restaurant. You know, she'll probably want to dress up. She'll want to do this because that's what I thought from nowhere, like she'd given me no indication of that. And so again, no checking of expectation, no checking of communication, just complete me on autopilot. And so I booked, I got this reservation at this fancy restaurant. I'll never forget the name. It's called La Candelocatelli. And it's like this really posh restaurant in London. It's like David Beckham goes there and that kind of thing. And so I'd saved up to take my wife to this restaurant. And she, it was the worst date we've ever been on. And it was our first date. And she was just like, you could have walked me down Tesco's, like the food I let Tesco's. And I would have been happier. She loves going shopping for food. So any sort of Tesco's or Whole Foods or Waitrose or whatever that she loves it. And so, and it was so interesting to me to think, I was like, well, I put all this effort in and that's what happened. You start thinking your ego goes, well, you put all this effort in. She doesn't appreciate it. And actually you realize, no, it's just, you know, me speaking to her in a language she doesn't understand. And this part's the biggest part about her media. And I've got to share this story. So, Rangan, do you remember how much, do you remember any guidance on how much you spent on your engagement ring? Because this is really like profound for me. But do you remember anything when you proposed to your wife? - Do you know what? Yeah, I, you know what? I can't remember an exact amount, but I remember thinking, oh, how much are you meant to? And I thought, really that much? That's the, like, I can't remember what happened in the end, but yeah, but I know that's out there, isn't it? There's a rule by society on what you should do. - Yeah, so I, so that was the thing. So I remember wanting to propose to my now wife and I remember speaking to a bunch of my guy mates who were proposed or were married. And they all said you spent two months' salary on your engagement ring. I was like, that sounds like a lot. I had the same reaction as you. And I was like, okay, that's what you have to spend. So I remember spending two months' salary on my engagement ring for my wife. I didn't make a ton at the time and I worked in a corporate job. And so I did that. And then when I started sharing more ideas and stuff, I really started looking into that. And this is the craziest thing. I found a De Beers commercial from 1991. And in that commercial, it's a black and white commercial. I don't know why, but it was chosen to be black and white. And in that commercial, a man proposes to a woman with a diamond engagement ring. It's a De Beers commercial. And at the end of it, it says this, catch this. This is what it says. It says the diamond engagement ring. How else could two month salary last forever? And I was sitting there going, are you kidding me? That was literally the tagline in a commercial. And so many men took it seriously. That by the time I proposed, that was 1991. I proposed in 2014. And so it's like from 1991 to 2014, it became a rule when actually it was just a tagline and an advert just showing you the power of media's ability to implant. And really that's inception at its best. If you've never seen the movie "Inception," check it out. But that is literally inception at its best. That that idea was planted in our mind in 1991. And in 2014, I'm still operating by that idea. And I don't even know where it's come from. That's the power of an idea. And that's why it's so important that we plant powerful ideas into our mind that are useful to us. - And that's the value and how powerful stories are. And narrative, even stories that we tell ourselves. So that then starts of as maybe the idea if one advertising executive in a company somewhere who gets, is getting paid to do this commercial, does it? And then it becomes a reality for millions of people around the world who are then stressed out trying to think, oh, if I'm gonna be a real man, I have to spend two months salary on this ring. And it goes back to everything you're talking about, it's about identity, it's about stories, it's about how can we start creating the stories that are gonna start to help us, gonna nourish us and feed us rather than the ones that are gonna keep us trapped and in prison. And I think there's two things I think your book really, like when I think about it, big picture, what it offers, I mean, there's so many things, but the two themes I really think about are one awareness. I think every single chapter, people are gonna start thinking, and this is just start gonna, because you've shared so many lovely stories as well in it, which I think really brings it to life, people are gonna start to see their own life in them. And I think you're gonna help bring awareness to people. And of course, without awareness, there can be no change, awareness is that first step. And often, awareness is all you need, I find sometimes. And of course, there are lots of practices you can do to help, but sometimes just being aware, means, oh, I can change that now, 'cause I know where that's coming from. But the other thing I think your book offers people is freedom, because you get true inner peace and mental freedom to live the life that you want to, not the life that other people have set out for you, or an advertising exec has sort of implanted as an idea. And then, you know, if we sort of start to go in some of these practical tools, you mentioned some exercises already.

How to craft meaning in your work (01:49:26)

You mentioned gratitude, and gratitude has come up on the show before, but what I loved about your take on it was, if I remember the chapter right there, you said, gratitude is a daily practice, that's the easy part. I want you to be grateful in every aspect of your life. And I love that, and I've been sitting with that idea for the last week or so. What if you could expand on it, Jay? - Yeah, beautiful. I'm really glad you're asking me about gratitude. Before we do that though, you sparked another thought. Do you mind if I kind of go back, if you're okay with me? - Go where you want to go, man. - You're sparking so many great thoughts in my mind. I can't ignore them. This is such a great interview. It's so much fun. I really feel like you've just, we've gone in so many directions that I didn't even plan. So thank you so much. But when you were talking about the stories we tell ourselves, I think that's so important, because there's a great study that I talk about in the book by Amy Brzeniewski from the Yale University. And what they found is that they tried to find a career that they felt people may find not sharing a positive story around. And they found that hospital cleaners or hospital workers, potentially at one of the toughest jobs, and rung and you're a doctor, and I'm sure you've seen people having to do that work, and it's a tough job. And so they asked hospital workers how they define their jobs. And the majority of them defined it as low skilled, defined it as insignificant, defined it as just a way to pay the bills, and that their job wasn't useful, their job wasn't important, and their role was basically described like the personnel manual. But then they asked another set of hospital workers, the same people who did the same jobs, different people who did the same jobs, and they said, "How do you feel about your jobs?" And these people had completely different views. They felt they were healers. They felt they were caretakers. They felt that they were able to transform the energy of the actual hospital. They felt that they were carers for the people there. And what they found is that the same people, sorry, different people who did the same job, were telling themselves a different story, and therefore they saw their role as integral to the healing of the patient. And because they saw their role as integral to the healing of the patient, they found the work that they did to be extremely meaningful. And that's crazy to think about it, that different people doing the same job could say different things about the same work. They're doing the same exact thing daily, but someone thinks it's meaningless, and the other thinks it's so meaningful. And this was a term by Yale that was called job crafting, the ability to assign meaning where you see it. And all of a sudden, your life becomes meaningful. So if you're sitting in a job right now that you hate, or if you've got a boss that you really don't like, or if you're in a relationship that you don't want to be in, if you can't leave for whatever reason right now because of COVID or lockdown, or whatever it is, financial difficulties, if you can't leave and you really want to, one of the things I recommend you do is called job crafting from the Yale School of Management. You start asking yourself, where can I find meaning in this? What can I learn? What can I adopt? What is this trying to teach me? And that's actually where gratitude can be applied to every place, because you start going, there is some value in this. I remember when I wanted to leave my corporate job and I wanted to live my passion and do what I do today. But I'm so grateful I was at my corporate job because I learned so much there that is so useful to me now. And we find it very easy to be grateful when things are going our way, but we find it very difficult to be grateful when things are not going our way. But what we have to learn to realize, which is a really hard lesson to realize, is that things are always going your way if you're moving in the right direction. Things are not gonna always look like they're going your way and they could still be going your way. We've all seen curses turn into gifts and gifts turn into curses, but the problem is, around this is the challenge, we have a projector up here of what we want life to look like. And then we have the reality of what life actually looks like. So there's this big discrepancy. And so sometimes you're actually going in the right direction, but because it doesn't look like your picture and your image of what it should look like, you work less, you become lazier, you become complacent, you try less harder, but you're like, this doesn't look like the right direction. But you'll get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagined it, if you keep going, if you keep pushing, if you keep learning, and that's what it means to be grateful in all areas of your life, is trying to even in the toughest moment, even in a challenging situation, not gratitude like, oh, I'm so thankful to you for causing me the pain. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is saying to yourself, where is their meaning in this? Where is the lesson in this? So I don't repeat this again. If I can be grateful in this challenging situation, and I can experience gratitude at all times, then I'm always going to be coming at things from a positive space and positive energy. - Yeah, so powerful, Jay.

Should people start with a gratitude daily habit? (01:54:59)

Would you recommend people start off with a particular daily practice as a way of getting good and developing the skill? Before they can start applying it, let's say to, you know, aspects of their life that maybe aren't going as well as they want to, where they have to reframe things. I mean, what has been your experience in trying to teach people about gratitude and how they should start that process? - Yeah, so you always develop your muscles in the training center and in the gym. You don't go out and develop your muscles on game day, right? Like no one gets thrown out onto the pitch and says, oh, yeah, go and play a World Cup final and you'll figure out how strong you are. You would never do that. You train in the gym, you prepare, you get ready and then you go, you don't go, I want to learn how to run. Maybe I should run in the marathon next year, right? You don't, that's not how it works. And so, Rangan's absolutely right that it starts in small bouts. So I want to get more practical because me and Rangan have spoken about a lot of concepts today. When we talk about practicing thankfulness or gratitude, and they talk about four habits in the book, one of them, one of the key daily habits or daily practices is thankfulness. Now, thankfulness isn't just about feeling. Thankfulness isn't just about thinking. It's actually about expressing. So when Rangan messaged me a few weeks back and he told me that he'd been reading my book, I sent him an early copy because he was going to interview me on the podcast and he sent me that message. I was so grateful to him like genuinely because he was expressing gratitude to me and that's the amazing thing. Instead of just feeling gratitude, let's say Rangan felt it, but he didn't say it to me. If he didn't say it to me, he would have not had the experience, A of sharing it, B of receiving my gratitude back to him and our relationship deepening based on that simple message assembly. And so gratitude becomes more powerful when you express it daily. So every day ask yourself, who's a person that you want to express gratitude to you and go and tell them? Secondly, what's a place that you're grateful for and spend more time in that place? And what's a project that you're grateful for in your life? And if you write these down every single day before you go to bed, who's a person I'm grateful for and why? What's a place that I'm grateful for and why? And right now, it may not be a place you can go to, maybe a place that you visited and you're so grateful you got to go there before COVID. And the third thing is a project in your life. And so when you express gratitude, make sure that it's specific. So I'll give you an example. Let's say Rangan throws a party with his wife this weekend at their home and their friends come over. And one of his friends, Rangan, give me two friends' names in your life and we'll pick on them for a bit. - Okay, I'll say Jeremy. - Jeremy. - I don't know, he'll be listening. - Yeah. - You know what? I'll get Gareth, my buddy who's really-- - Gareth and Jeremy. - So let's say Gareth and Jeremy, and again, I'm just gonna add a disclaimer. None of this reflects Gareth and Jeremy in real life. But let's say Gareth and Jamie come to this party that Rangan and his wife throw, and it's just a gathering to get people together. The next morning, Rangan wakes up. He doesn't look at his first thing in the morning, his phone, that's not what Rangan does. Rangan looks at his phone about three hours later after he's exercised, meditated, spent time with his kids. And then he looks at his phone and he sees these two messages from Gareth and Jeremy. Gareth, sorry about this, but here we go. So Gareth has messaged him saying, thanks mate, it was great, right? That was Gareth's message. And Jeremy's message was, Rangan, thank you so much. Like you and your wife just threw an amazing party and I loved all the games we played, your kids are adorable, and oh, by the way, you know, you know that food? How did you both make that? The food was amazing, thank you so much. Thank you for letting us have this moment together. So those are two messages. A or B, which one do you think causes Rangan more joy? Now, Rangan the grateful person, so he'll be grateful to both of them, but he's more likely, and honestly, all of us are, going to be more grateful to Jeremy in that scenario, because he's gone into more depth than being specific about what he actually liked and learned. And because of that, he is now going to attract more love and gratitude back from Rangan as well. So that's why expressing gratitude is actually the key. And if we can express gratitude to people, places and projects, we start to develop more gratitude in our life, and that's something we can do daily. And it can be an email, it can be a voice note, it can be a text, it could be a video call, but it can be as simple as just a text message. But specific gratitude is scientifically shown to be better for you and better for the other person. - Yeah, I mean, Jay, thanks so much for sharing that, because, you know, gratitude gets spoken about a lot these days, but I think that specificity piece, I think that example beautifully demonstrates, just I can feel it, the difference, you know, you can feel it viscerally as you hear it, it does something different. And I remember so clearly, I think I left you a voice, a WhatsApp voice message, because I was literally, I was thinking, ah, he's probably asleep now, but he won't have his phone on at night. You know, there's that bit of insecurity at first, and I thought, no, just express the damn gratitude, you know, you know, I think that the wrong gonna have a few years ago possibly wouldn't have done it out of insecurity, or will this be taken the right way or the wrong way? Or whatever. But that I would say the person I am today, having done a lot of the work, and having practiced a lot of these tools, you know, there is, not only did I, as you were sharing, does it feel good for you to get it? But it feels nice to share, I'm doing a lot of voice notes these days, I'm finding I'm going into WhatsApp, pressing the mic, in fact, someone told me during lockdown that you can actually press it and flip it up. My friend, Jody, thanks Jody. I didn't know you could do that, 'cause you can talk without actually holding it. - I didn't know that either, I hold it. - Thank you Jody, thank you so much. - Yeah, that's such a Jeremy's wife, so it's all coming, it's bringing it back together for those guys, but you know, I find it's really, some of the vocal kind of person I like talking, and sometimes I find it hard to express what I want to want a text message to, I'll just do a WhatsApp voice message, and yeah, I think grassroots is super powerful. One thing I'm gonna add, well I'll ask you actually, do you do your grassroots practice by yourself, or do you also do it with your wife? - So I do my gratitude practice by myself, but then the expression may lead to me expressing it to my wife if she's the person that day that I'm being grateful for, and now I'm probably grateful to my wife every day, and so I express gratitude to her every day, but I really find spending some time by myself to figure out my mind first. It's almost like if you're both trying to solve a problem together, you can help each other, but one person can sometimes take shortcuts because the other person kind of carries the weight, and it's really important to really be clear about who you're grateful for, you can do it with your partner of course, but make sure one of you are not kind of relying on the other person to come up with all the answers and do all the hard work when it really needs to be a personal feeling. So, you know, yeah, for me, it's, for me I feel gratitude is the easiest gift you can give someone and the easiest gift for someone to receive, especially when it's genuine and specific, and Rangan I would encourage you, not just with me, but with anyone, you know, it was so genuine and specific that, you know, I recommend you continue to do that, sharing of gratitude as you saw, and you said it's visceral, it is, it boosts your mood when you're grateful to someone in a specific way, and then you feel they love that. - Do you feel, or do you think, as I do, that many people have got hang-ups and insecurities, and therefore to do what I did to actually express gratitude to someone, they're fearful about doing it.

Why people are afraid to express gratitude towards someone (02:02:34)

Because insecurity is, I think we all face insecurities, right? And how would you help someone who says, "Hey Jay, look, I wanna do that." Like I'd love to tell my work colleague that, you know, she was so helpful to me yesterday and she got me out of this jam and helped me do something, but, you know, what will it come across wrong? I don't really know, you know, what will they think? I mean, what would you say someone like that? - Yeah, I think you are right. I think some of our insecurity comes from, sometimes our insecurity can come from our ego, which is blocking our gratitude. So the ego says, "Well, I don't want to recognize "that someone else is doing something good "because it makes me feel inferior." That's one of the ways that our ego can block us from gratitude. And I believe in some traditions, and in some circles I've heard ego being translated to eliminate gratitude out, right? It's like a limiter EGO. So, you know, you can kind of lose gratitude through ego, but you think, "Oh, if I tell them that they're good, "then that means I'm not good," which is not true at all. The other way the insecurity comes in gratitude is like, "Well, what if they think I'm just trying to, "I'm just trying to like get close to them, "or I'm just trying to say something nice "for the sake of it, or I'm just lying or pretending." Like, "What if they think I'm just trying to "I suck up to them, right? "Like, is that the reason?" And so sometimes we hold back how we feel. What I'd say to you is, I'd say that expressing gratitude, if genuine, if from the heart, and if well explained and thought out, should always be shared even when you feel uncomfortable. Because when it's shared from that place, you've already got the benefits of feeling grateful. And then if that person does or doesn't react in the way you expect them to, and by the way, they shouldn't be a need for them to react because you're just thanking them for what they've already done. You're not thanking them for what they're about to do. You're thanking them for what they've already done. So now if they respond in an ungrateful way, you haven't lost your gratitude 'cause you're grateful for what they did in the past, not what they did in the future. So don't then go, "Oh, well, they didn't even "deserve me to be grateful," because they did for that moment of what they did for you. So share it because it's good for you.

You're not in control of other people's thoughts (02:05:04)

Don't worry about how they respond. - Yeah, and I guess also if they do respond in that way, or if they do think that, that's their own issue, right? - Yeah, yeah, completely. - That's not your issue, that you've expressed it from your heart, how they react is kind of out of your control, right? And that's another key learning, I think, on this path to thinking like a monk, I would guess is, you're not in control of other people's thoughts, right? - Not at all, and that's the biggest lesson is that you're not in charge of the results, how people respond or what they think. You never are. So wasting your time trying to change how someone thinks of you can actually be one of the most worthless pursuits in life. But changing how you think about yourself is probably one of the most worthwhile pursuits in life, but the one we spend less time on. We're constantly trying to change how people think about us, and we think, if they think highly of us, then we'll feel better about ourselves. But that's not the case, the case is, we can change how we feel about ourselves by changing our behavior and being more in aligned with the person we want to be with our values, as Rangan said, going back full circle. So don't get lost in trying to change other people's perceptions of you because that could be a never-ending journey and a journey that you never reach the destination of because you never will truly be able to control it. - Yeah, it comes full circle back to that coolly quote, right? I mean, it is such a powerful quote because everything we talk about, you can turn just back it up straight into that. And again, it brings out the meaning of that quote so much more. But Jay, when you were just talking there about the insecurity that some people may feel when trying to express gratitude, I was struck by something I wrote down from your book and I can't remember which chapter it's in. But you say it's impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others.

Quotes & Tips For Enhancing Self-Esteem

Daisaku Ikedas quote (02:07:03)

- Yeah, so I'm quoting Daisaku Ikeda who's a Buddhist philosopher who says that statement. I believe, I can't remember which chapter, I think I start the negativity chapter with that quote. So it's Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist philosopher. And he says exactly that, that you can't build your own happiness on the unhappiness of others. And I think what that truly means is we often believe that we can only be superior if someone else is inferior. So we feel better when we say, oh, you know that person, did you know that couple's getting a divorce? Did you know their marriage only lasted like two years? And what you're really saying is, well, we've somehow managed to stay together for eight years. Like we've done pretty all right, right? And you're kind of gossiping about them. Or another way it goes is like, what did you hear about him? He's totally messed in our blood. He's getting fired next week. And all you're doing is you're making someone feel inferior to make yourself feel superior. That doesn't create happiness. It creates more uncertain ground. Because now you're constantly looking for someone else to feel inferior for you to feel superior. And guess what? God forbid someone's now outperforming you. You're now feeling inferior and you're feeling all the insecurity of what you felt about someone else. So it's never a stable ground, right? I believe it's in the Bible, but you know, you can't, I think it's that you can't build your home on shifting sands, but in the same way you can't build a stable identity of yourself on the gossip or the mistakes of others. And so you've got to be really careful about not building a ground for yourself. Imagine the ground you're standing on is built on blocks of superiority, bricks of gossip and mud and cement of criticism. That's not gonna hold. And so you don't want to create your joy because other people are struggling or suffering. You want to create your joy because you know how to deal with struggle and suffering. Yeah. So beautifully explained. And I think we often write the quotes down that really mean a lot to us. And I certainly feel for me, that was something I spent a lot of my adult life really trying to come to terms with and realizing, you know, I used to be so competitive. You know, if I want a game of snooker or table tennis or you know, it would literally elevate me. And if I lost, man, I would be down in the dumps. Like it would, and I've really explored this. And you know, given the time we've got left, I sort of probably can't go down this rabbit hole. But you know, I know one component is that as a kid, you know, how I did at school, you know, and again, I don't know if this is the same in your household. I know a lot of immigrant families have this sort of mentality. If you, you know, if you got 98%, it's like, well, why was it not 100%? Yeah, for sure. You know, you were like, oh, well, you came second in that test. Why, what happened? Who was first? You were really confused. Yes. And you know, I actually think whilst I, my mom will say, because I've spoken to her about this recently, she said, well, I knew you were capable. So I wanted you to be the best you could. And okay, and I think she was doing the best she could, I would say for me, the way I interpreted it was that I can only be loved, I can only be, feel good about myself when I'm number one. And really, I'd say the last sort of five years, that's pretty much almost gone from me now. I'm pretty okay with it now. Like I don't feel, and I think that that is, I think it's such an important quote that you've shared, because I sort of think now, and we should probably talk about social media a bit because you know, you're pretty much the king of social media in so many ways. And I think I'd love to know some of your thoughts on social media. But with respect to that quote, I think one of the negatives, and there's no doubt been a lot of positives to social media, you know, you have shared such amazing wisdom in your videos to millions of people around the world, which potentially may not have happened without social media, right? So it's not about saying it's either good or bad, but I do think for some people, it can magnify those insecurities. So if you feel that you can build your happiness on the unhappiness of others, people can get very focused on follow accounts and likes. And I certainly know in the UK medic world, there's a lot of medics feel the pressure to be building up their profiles and have contacted me saying, you know, I'm not sure what to do. And you think, wow, it's causing such discontentment. And it's just a metric that in so many levels, I'm not gonna say it's meaningless, of course it's not meaningless. But if you're trying to do it because how you'll be perceived by others going back to what we've been talking about throughout this conversation, what are you posting for? What are you hoping to achieve by posting it? Is it in service? Is it to help people? Or is it to elevate yourself? You know, I don't know, maybe you can untangle that for us because I'm sure some people listening will be thinking that. - Yeah, there's very few creators of content on social media that started out with a follower count in mind. So me included a lot of my peers in this space, a lot of people that I know that are extremely successful on different platforms. None of them started, at least the ones that I know, none of them started to get followers. They all started because they had something to share, whatever that was, whether it was comedy, whether it's wisdom, whether it was a workout plan, a fitness plan, whatever it was, like they had something that they did that they were passionate about, they wanted to share. And I can only speak to myself fully, but when I started, I thought I was gonna have a full-time corporate job and I was gonna make videos on the evenings and weekends to share a message. That's genuinely all I believe. And it, after my first month, I had about 1,000 subscribers on YouTube, about four videos I'd made on YouTube, about 1,000 people that had subscribed to my channel. And most of my friends were like, "Great, Jay, that's where it's gonna end. "Like, congrats, well done. "Like, you got 1,000 subscribers. "You kinda just crept in there in 30 days. "Like, well done, that's cool. "Like, how far is this gonna go?" And that's really the reality of what it felt like.

The Important Question to Ask Yourself If You Don't Have More Followers or Sales Now! (02:13:49)

And the interesting thing is, the question was never how do I get more followers. The question was always, how do I make more content that impacts people? Because, and that's the question with everything. It's like, if you make more content that genuinely impacts people, you get more followers. If you build a business that serves more people, you'll make more money. If you help a lot of people through your talents and gifts, you will be famous and known for it. Like, it's a by-product of doing something properly. And that's why I love the definition that Peter Diamandis gives, that we should redefine the word billionaire to be someone who impacts the lives of a billion people. Why is Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world? Because he's created a product that we all say we want, and that it solves a problem that we really need. And so, if you want to get followers, don't look at the number, ask yourself are you really creating the value that's going to help people? And they're going to naturally want to follow you. And they're going to want to love your work and share it. Because, to me, that's the worthwhile pursuit in life. Because when you do that work, that work is humbling. When you do that creativity, that's the part that makes you grateful for the success that you get, because you go, wow, people actually care about what I have to say. But if you're just obsessed about numbers and metrics, without being obsessed by the content, the creation, and the service, then you'll never be satisfied, because there'll always be someone better than you. So for me, when I said I'd write this book, so many people were like, oh, so do you want this book to be a bestseller? And I said, I want this book to be a bestseller, of course I do, but I'm not going to focus on it being a bestseller. I'm going to focus on writing the best book in the world that I can possibly write, given the skills that I have. And that's why when I talk about Dharma in the book, which is helping everyone find their purpose, Dharma is broken down. Dharma means purpose loosely, and it has many different meanings, but one of them is nature in purpose, your true nature. And the three aspects that I'll share now for the, and there's more depth in the book, the three aspects of Dharma are your passion, your skills, and your compassion. That's what it means. When you have your passion plus your skills, plus your compassion, that equals purpose. But for most of us, if we're just looking at numbers and metrics and data, I mean, you'll be dissatisfied that. And I'm saying that as someone who really values numbers, I understand the value of followers, social media. I get the value of all those things, and I'm highly strategic, but I'll be completely honest with you. I'm not focused on the number.

Boosting Your Self-Esteem & Eradicating Depression Naturally (02:16:25)

I'm focused on making content. And that's the message that if we're focused on really creating value in the world, all of the other stuff will come naturally. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.

Embracing Challenges & Seizing Opportunities

Challenge Yourself & Grab Opportunity by the Balls (02:16:35)

There's no such thing as a bad experience. There's experiences you don't like. And they hurt. And they hurt, right? But to define something as a bad experience,