Jay Shetty grew up in London seeking meaning through biographies until a monk's talk shifted his perspective on joy. He split time between finance internships and a monastery apprenticeship, eventually choosing monastic life over corporate comfort, living in a gym locker for three years.
Bulletproof radio, A state of high performance. How do you become a monk? When did you do it? Absolutely. So I was born and raised in London and I grew up like any other kid up until the age of 14. I was really obedient. I was a good kid. I studied hard, worked hard. And then I almost got to this point when I was 14 where I started hanging around with the wrong circles and started getting into trouble and experimenting with drugs and having relationships and just trying to figure out what life was all about. I was like, it doesn't make sense that I'm getting good grades. You get into a good school now it's like getting into a good college. I was like, this doesn't seem to be like, this can't be it. Like that was the question that was kind of going in my mind when I was about 16 years old. And I was really interested in learning about people and rags to riches stories, people, people who went from nothing to something in their life. So the first two books I ever properly read were David Beckham's autobiography and Dwayne the Rock Johnson's autobiography, When He Was still the Rock. And I started reading those books and I was just fascinated by how much sacrifice they had in their life and the discipline they had in their life. And I would go and hear entrepreneurs and CEOs speak at universities and local events in London. And once I was invited to hear a monk speak. Now, I'd never met a monk in my life. I'd never known what monks really did. And a part of me didn't care because I just thought, well, what am I going to learn from a monk like that? Someone who has gone from nothing to nothing, like, what do they have to teach me? And so it's really humbling and ironic when you go to something expecting nothing and it becomes one of the biggest life changing moments of your life. And I really look back at it as a really humbling moment. I realized how stupid I was that day for going there, having this cynical, judgmental view of the value I was going to get from this event. And I was just left completely floored. And the reason was when I was hearing him speak. And this is in hindsight, completely in hindsight. I realized that when I was 18, I'd met people who were successful and rich and beautiful and attractive and I'd met people who were intelligent. But I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly joyful, happy, and this monk, and not even in a spiritual aura kind of way, just in who he was and his demeanor had this real contentment about him. And I think for the first time in my life, I was pulled and curious about, well, where does that come from? What is that? And so I started spending all my vacation, summer and Christmas holidays, I'd spend half of them interning in finance companies in London because that's what I thought I was going to do to get a safe job. The other half of it I'd spend interning at the monastery in India, living with him as a monk, as a training monk. And it was almost like my first split test or ab test, where I was living these two separate lives, literally going from steakhouses, suits and bars to then going to sleeping on the floor, waking up at 4am in cold showers. And having done that for three years at age 22 when I graduated, I realized that I preferred the path of a monk. So becoming a monk then became the decision where I left behind my possessions, left behind everything I owned lived out of a gym locker for three years. All my possessions fit inside.
