How To TRAIN YOUR BRAIN To Turn Your Pain Into Purpose | Jay Shetty

The only way we solve our issues in life is going to the root. The time you take to understand yourself allows people to better understand you and for you to understand them.

Most of us, you know, understand how to train our bodies, right? We know how to get fit and how to eat well. We may not do it, but it's pretty evident to us that we can actually, you know, get strong and fit and healthy by changing our diet and exercise routine. But most of us don't understand that we can train our minds. You take all these lessons that you learn and you transform them into these simple exercises that you talk about in the book to help you reduce stress, to help you focus better, to have better relationships, to uncover abilities that you didn't know you had, and to increase your ability to do the things you want to do and have discipline and to uncover the gifts that we have to give the world. So how can this Monk Wisdom help us do this? I mean, these are the benefits we're going to get, but how does it practically take us from the lessons that you learned in the monastery to applying them in the real world in our lives?

Yeah, the crazy thing is that we have all gone to school to learn geography, to learn history, to learn English, to learn math, to learn science. And the crazy thing is, is that somewhere there was no class called mind school. Like there was no class called the mind class. There was, and yes there was psychology and and there was sociology and anthropology, but it was almost always looking outside. It was always looking at the world and observing the world. And there was no class for observing yourself. There was no classroom for understanding the mind, which is crazy because the only thing we use every day is our mind. You know, it's we use it every single day, like our body. Like we use our bodies every day. That's why what you do is so powerful and so useful and helpful. and we talked about how it's complementary to the mind. But the other thing we use every day is our mind. Yet we don't know how it works, we don't know how to make it work for us, and we don't know how to control it or train it, as I say, training it to actually be on our side. And I think this is why so many people experience where they may say, you know what, I'm going to try and not eat sugar for a week. And the moment you make that commitment, it's almost like the mind the next day presents you with the most sugary treat that you have to break that commitment with, right? And then after giving you what you thought you wanted, it then makes you feel guilty. And so you're just like, well, what do you want me to do? First, the mind told me to give up sugar. Then the mind told me to eat sugar. And now the mind's making me feel guilty for eating sugar. Or you can say to yourself, you know what? I'm going to wake up early tomorrow, every single day, so I can go to the gym and I can exercise. And so you set that intention, you're like, okay, my mind is set. You wake up in the morning, the alarm goes off, the mind goes, oh, let's snooze away. You press the snooze button. Now you're snoozing for 30 minutes. You wake up thinking you're going to be rested and excited to work out. But now you're feeling even more tired than you were before. So why is it that we have not learned how to communicate with the mind? why have we learned how not to? So that is what the hypothesis, I guess, is of Monk School, is trying to learn how the mind works and training it so that you actually know what's going on. Now, one of the first things- Like brain training. Brain training, I think for a lot of us- Brain training, yes. And for a lot of us, I think this is really important right now, where for the first time in our lives, a lot of people have experienced even more loneliness. in their life during the pandemic and lockdown. And the interesting thing about this is they did a study on men and women and asked them to either be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or if they couldn't give themselves an electric shock if they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. And the study is crazy because it shows that 30% of men chose an electric shock and 60% of women chose an electric shock. because they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts. And so we have found multiple ways to numb and distract ourselves from our own thoughts because we're scared of sitting with them. Now, I empathize with anyone and everyone who is scared of sitting with their thoughts. I get that. I felt that way too. There are still thoughts that scare me and it's more comfortable to just forget they exist. But we all know that when you try and bury something like this, or when you try and hide something like this, it just builds and builds and builds. It's almost like how there's so many food and rubbish piles across the planet that are just hidden away. And we try and hide them in a corner of the world where hopefully no one will notice them. These food piles and food mountains and plastic mountains, but that is polluting the environment on a daily basis. And so similarly, our internal environment is being polluted by not addressing these thoughts. So one of the first things of the monk mind is to really learn that there is a difference between loneliness and solitude. And there's a brilliant statement that more recently was spoken about Paul Tillich, where he talks about how, you know, that loneliness is the fear of being alone and the weakness that we see But actually solitude is the strength of being alone. The way I think about this is since we were young, Mark, we've always been told that being alone is a weakness. So if you were the kid at school that was alone in the playground, you would be considered unpopular. If you were the kid who only had three friends show up to their birthday party, you were considered the weird person or the dork or the unpopular and, you know, the the unsuccessful person, or if you didn't talk a lot and you didn't, and you kept to yourself, you were considered to be antisocial, or that you didn't understand. And now it's funny because when you actually look back at all of that, most of us would be happy if we had three friends at our 30th birthday party that we love, or our 40th. Most of us realize the value of understanding ourselves. And so the first step in the monk mind is respecting the need for time alone. Now, I'm not saying you need to go off and spend every day alone. And you're saying, Jay, I've already spent so much time alone in the pandemic. But I'm guessing that for a lot of people who have, they probably learned more about themselves in the last five months or six months than they have in their whole lifetime. And so there is so much to be gained from letting go and experiencing stillness and experiencing silence where you can really hear yourself. So that's step one. Yeah.

And you talk about this sort of distraction that we're all suffering from and then the images and things that pull us out of ourselves and. and that it's really hard to sit and actually be with yourself in that way that actually gives you kind of terror. You're not used to doing it. The fact that people will shock themselves rather than be alone with their thoughts, you know, speaks to something very important in our society was that we've lost connection with who we are and what we are and what matters and what gives us joy and connection and meaning and purpose. And the role of the monk isn't to sort of go be a monk, it's to sort of create a way for us to actually create a life that is monk-like in a sense in our mind, not necessarily in the outward manifestation. So what you're talking about is how do you change your mind and your thinking and your awareness in such a way that helps lead you away from the culture we have, it's all about dissatisfaction and looking at everybody else has and fame and money and glamour and sex and all these things that really don't satisfy us and leads to this terrible cycle of dissatisfaction and unhappiness and exhaustion and frustration. How do people break that? Because, you know, none of us will ever be able to spend eight hours a day meditating in a monastery like you did, which actually taught you how to do this, right?

Yes, yes. And perfectly said, like, you don't have to live like a monk to think like a monk. And that's my proposal to everyone, is that we can learn to think like a monk. So rather than looking at, loneliness and being alone is a weakness, turn it into solitude and see how you can actually use that as a way of understanding yourself. In terms of how do you break through that, one of my favorite ways of recommending and encouraging people to do that is to really sit down and even just look at your current list of goals or the things you're pursuing. Like literally make a list of the three things that you're pursuing right now. And for each thing, ask yourself, Where does this come from? Does it come from something inside of me or is it coming from society? Or is it coming from school? Where is it coming from? Because what you can find, and I think a lot of people experience this, is that by the age of 35 you realize you've actually been pursuing a life that wasn't yours. And thinking like a monk is stripping away any of the expectations, the opinions and obligations of society and living a life that's true to yourselves. At the core, that's what a monk is doing. A monk is not neglecting, but not also being distracted and dissuaded by the directions of society, but actually saying, this is what is most important. And I want people to feel that, and I'm sure you want to feel that when you get to age 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 or 100 or however long you're going to live, that you do and have lived your life doing and being who you wanted to be and not what someone expected of you. And so the way you start by doing is first write down what you're pursuing, then ask yourself, is this coming from me or is it coming from society? If it's coming from society, ask yourself, do you want it? Do you really want it? Is it still something that you want to pursue or actually now are you able to let go of it? And if it's coming from you, ask yourself, are you giving it the amount of time and energy that it needs to truly make it a reality? and I think we're scared of doing that because it may mean we need to change the way we live. That's the thing. Like we're scared of doing that because that may tell us that we may need to make a career change, we may need to make a health change, we may need to make a relationship or marriage change. But here's the thing, Mark, we both know this, that if you don't choose to change it now, you're going to live with the remainder of that pain for the rest of your life. And numbing yourself from it is a temporary short-term fix.

Yeah, I know this reminds me of a quote when I was 15 or so, I read a book called Walden or on Walden Pond by Henry Thoreau, who was kind of a weird guy who went and lived in a little cabin on the side of a lake and on a pond, Walden Pond, and wrote about his experiences. And he wrote that he wanted to live deliberately and not find that when he came to die that he hadn't fully lived.

Yes.

And I think that's what you're inviting us to do, Jay. You're inviting us to live deliberately, not according to outside forces or demands or expectations, but to sort of stop and go, wait, who am I? What do I want? How do I actually, because health isn't just about physical health. It's about your spiritual health and your mental health and your emotional health. And how do you cultivate a life that acknowledges that? Right? Because I think most of us are, are caught up in this cycle. And, you know, I, you know, I was Last night in my area, there was a hurricane and electricity went out, cell service went out, Wi-Fi went out. And there was this incredible stillness in the house. And we had candles and we had friends over for dinner. And it was this moment of like, wow, we are constantly in this cycle. And there was a young boy there who was about 20 years old and he lost connection and he lost service and he lost. And it was such a stressful moment for him. to be out of touch. And actually, it turns out it seems like when we're in touch with all those devices, we're actually out of touch with ourselves. And so I think, you know, it's such an invitation that you're giving people to stop for a minute to take hold of their life in a different way. And this book, Think Like a Monk, is such a radical notion that hasn't really been talked about before. How do you live in the world fully, and yet have the joy and happiness, satisfaction, purpose, meaning, and inner success that a monk would have. And how do you train your mind for being peaceful and being on your purpose every single day? It's such a beautiful gift to the world, this book. And it's very practical. It's not just a airy-fairy philosophical book and sit and look at your navel for eight hours a day. It's a very practical book that gives people a pathway to discover these principles for themselves.

Yeah, thank you for saying that. I deeply appreciate that. Yeah, no, absolutely. My whole goal with any of my work is always to give people the stories, the studies and the strategies to make change in their life. And I really believe that those are the three things that we need. You need the stories that inspire you and give you hope and motivate you and help you realize that this can happen for you. The science and I talk about a lot of science in the book. I mean, the studies that have been done on monk's brain show that monks have the happiest, calmest brains on the planet. You know, when you're looking inside a monk's brain and seeing that they have a high set of response for seeing physical pain, but their brain will not measure any emotional pain to that physical pain. So a lot of us are in pain twice. We feel a piece of pain on our fingers, But then our mind goes, oh, no, I might lose my finger. And now you're having pain in two places. Whereas inside a monk's mind that is meditated for a significant amount of time, you'll find that they only see the physical pain, but they don't have a mental pain or emotion attached to that. Now, just think about that for a moment. If you are able to create space between events you went through in your life that were painful and emotionally painful, but you are able to separate pain from that situation. So you can actually navigate it almost like as if you were helping a friend. And when you start thinking about that, when you can approach your own life, just like you would approach a friend, you become much more objective, you become much more thoughtful, you become much more kind. It's incredible what happens when you become an observer of the changes that are needed on your own life. If you think about it, Mark, like it's always easy to create change in someone else than it is in yourself. And so sometimes you have to see your mind as a separate part. And so in the book, I talk about the difference between the monkey mind and the monk mind. The monkey mind is the mind we all experience, jumping from thought to thought to thought, like branch to branch to branch. It's comparing, complaining and criticizing. The monkey mind is always looking just for its next banana. Like, if you gave a monkey a diamond or you gave it a stock certificate in a big company, a monkey wouldn't care. The monkey wouldn't understand the value of it. It would just want that next banana. Right, the monkey is just looking for that instant gratification. So that's the mind that we all very much are aware of. We experienced on a day-to-day basis. The monk mind, which is the antidote, is the mind that comes at it from a different position. So if the monkey mind is swooping from branch to branch, the monk mind is going to the root of the issue. And I know when you came on my podcast, we talked about this, that the only way we solve our issues in life is going to the root. and one of the biggest roots of our challenges and issues is that we have not allowed ourselves to learn about our talents, our skills, our gifts. And in chapter six in Think Like a Monk, I speak about how we can discover our natural inclinations and propensities and our natural gifts. And one of my favorite thoughts which I believe is attributed to Albert Einstein, is where he says that, you know, everyone's a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it's stupid. That is such a real experience for so many of us. And when I was studying these ancient literatures and the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita, I was exposed to this concept and this truth of dharma. So dharma is the ancient Indian word for purpose. It can also mean eternal beauty, it can also mean real beauty, but it can also be equated to purpose and eternal purpose. And what it's suggesting is that inside of all of us, we are born with a natural set of gifts, talents and instincts, but it's being buried under everything we think we need to know. So excavating that truth is what allows us. And in the book, I give a full 33 question personality test that I'd love for people to take, which allows them to discover their dharma type. But the more interesting thing about dharma is that the Manu Smriti, which is the book that talks about dharma, talks about how if you protect your dharma, if you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. And what I love about that is that your purpose is something you have to protect because everything in the world will constantly try and take you away from your purpose, whether it's money or fame or success or whatever it may be, there will be something in your life that is taking away. We have to protect our purpose like a rare jewel because it's constantly being trying to be stolen from us.

So this is a beautiful gift you're giving us to think about actually what is our purpose? What is our dharma? What is our work in the world? What is our or natural gift that we can bring out. And most of us never get asked that question. We never think about it. Nobody talks to us about it. And it's such a powerful thing. And in your life, you clearly found that. You found your dharma, which is being in service of wisdom and helping others connect to that in very accessible ways that are not esoteric or weird or strange, but they're in plain language. that translate these very ancient techniques and philosophies and wise teachings into stuff that actually helps us feel better now. And it's really a powerful thing. So let's get right into it. Your book, Think Like a Monk, is because you were a monk and you want to teach people the things you learned and help you create a life of success and happiness and well-being. And you know, you were Probably not encouraged to be a monk as a child. You are coming from an Indian family and I come from a Jewish family and in order to be an ethnic success, you have to be a doctor, a lawyer. And monk is definitely not on that list. You say you could have been three things, a doctor, a lawyer or a failure. And so you chose a path that your family wasn't so excited about, but you followed your heart and you tell a beautiful story at the beginning of Think Like a Monk of how you were the average sort of questing young soul. And you were invited to go see this guy speak who was a monk, and you were pretty skeptical and dubious. And you were like, why is my friend inviting me to this thing? It's kind of goofy. And I'd just rather go do some other stuff. And you had this moment of aha. And I'd love you to share that because it's what inspired you then to become a monk in India to go meditating for four to eight hours a day. and really devote your life to helping others. So what happened in that moment? Take us back to that lecture by this incredible monk that you found.

Yeah, absolutely. I'd recommend that everyone who's listening or watching goes back to reminding themselves of what they felt like when they were 18 and what they were chasing and pursuing in life. I was chasing and pursuing all the very normal and similar things. There was nothing special or different about me at all. I was genuinely thinking, I'm going to go off and get a great job. I'm going to go to a great college, get a great degree, find that job, find that partner, buy the house, maybe play golf, I don't know, whatever's next. And to me, that was- I don't.

See you playing golf, Jay.

No, I don't play golf. I just always saw it in the movies, so I thought it had to be the next step. But I thought that that was the path that was laid out for each and every person. and as you rightly said, I was invited to go and see this monk. Now, I was going to hear speakers, and I was fascinated by Rags to Riches stories in my teams. So anyone who went from nothing to something, whether it was David Beckham, whether it was Dwayne the Rock Johnson, who was a big fan of these were all people that I would read their biographies and their autobiographies. And I'd also read the biographies of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. And I was fascinated by people who'd also made a change in the world, but people who'd really made an impact. And in that, I was invited to go and hear a monk speak. And I said to my friend, I said, I'd only go if we could go to a bar afterwards, because that literally showed the level of my interest. And. And the reason was because I was like, well, what can I learn from a monk? Like, they've gone from nothing to nothing. Like, there can't be anything that's useful.

From riches to rags.

Yeah, exactly. From riches to rags. And I was thinking to myself, like this, what am I gonna gain from this? And this is the beauty of life that the joke's on you, right? It's almost like the person I didn't want to go and listen to and learn from is the person that becomes one of the greatest inspirations for me. And what happened was that I went there, and he was speaking about compassion and service. And he said that the greatest gift or the greatest purpose of humanity is to use our skills in the service of others. And that day that really connected with my heart, that really hit me like at the deepest part of my soul. And I wasn't expecting it at all. And you know, by the time I was 18, I'd met people that were rich, I'd met people that were famous, I'd met people that were powerful and beautiful and attractive, but I don't think I'd ever met anyone who was truly happy. And even if you do a little audit in your mind of how many people in your life that you feel you've met that were content and happy and joyful, you may find that actually it's only you can count them on one hand. And for me, he was one of the first people I'd met in my life who I really believed had a aura of joy and contentment. And I was like, I want that. Like, I need to understand where that comes from. And then I found out that he'd given up jobs at huge firms. He went to IIT, which is the Indian Institute of Technology, and that he was this really capable individual. And so all of a sudden, I wanted to understand more about him. So what happened in that moment, the aha, was the reflection that I'd met someone who had something that no one else that I'd met had. Yeah.

And what was that?

Well, that was that feeling of contentment and a aura of genuine happiness. And I wouldn't even say I energetically at that time even knew what that was. But I would say that we have all felt calmer or more peaceful in the presence of certain people. And when I was listening to him speak, what he said and how he conducted himself really had a profound impact on me.

And that led you going to India in the summer to explore those teachers. Yeah, so I went to college and instead of going to get an internship at some big firm, you went to go sit in a temple in India and meditate.

Yeah, well I did both. So I did my first ever A/B test or whatever else it's called, where I spent my summer holidays and my vacations at Christmas half of them living in India with him and the monks, and the other half interning at these huge financial companies and institutions because that's what I thought I was going to go off and do. And so here I am literally going from bars, steakhouses, and wearing suits to sleeping on the floor, wearing robes, and waking up at 4:00 a.m. every day. And to me, that experiment, I didn't see it as an experiment at the time, but now I look back and I go, That experiment is what made my path so clear. And so when people say to me, like, wasn't it a really big decision? Wasn't it a really hard decision to become a monk a few years later? I'm always like, well, it wasn't hard to make the decision because for three to four years while I was at university, I was experimenting with both lives and it became really apparent to me which one aligned with who I was. Yeah.

And so that led you instead of taking a big job in a firm to decide for your post college career. to go and become a monk. And it seems to me that the way you describe it is that you were kind of going on a one-way ticket. It wasn't a plan for you to go there as an experiment, but you literally were going, okay, this is where happiness is. It's not an achievement. It's not in material things. It's not in all the things that we think will make us happy. It's in something really different. And yet, when you were there, you had a lot of experiences that taught you about yourself and the world. So tell us about what that taught you and then we'll talk about how you got out of there.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so after completing my degree, I turned down my corporate job offers. I didn't go to my graduation ceremony and I graduated but didn't go to the actual celebration event and went off to India to go and live as a monk. And that was one of the most meaningful decisions I made. And it was tough because I had family around me saying, well, what's gonna happen if you ever do decide to come back? And I had friends saying to me, like, have you gone mad or been brainwashed? Like, what's wrong with you?

You're in a cult.

All right.

You're in a cult.

Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, what are you deciding to do? And. And I was so convinced that. You say the one way ticket because I just thought to myself, I would love to dedicate my life to understanding myself and to serve others. And the monk path that I was drawn to was half self, half service, where half the day was spent in self awareness, reflection, meditation, the things that you expect of monks. And the other half was spent in doing service, whether that was distributing food to children in schools or the homeless or whether it was trying to build a sustainable village to help villages create an economy for themselves. There was so much philanthropic work going on that I was drawn to. And I thought, what better thing to do with my life than live in this way of learning about myself, overcoming my challenges and then giving. And having worked all those years in companies, I just didn't feel satisfied feeling like we had just made a company a bit more money every night at the end of every day. And not that there's anything wrong with that, I personally just didn't feel aligned that that was what I was meant to be doing.

Yeah, it's beautiful in the book how you talk about how you would work in these companies and you'd feel sort of empty at the end of it all. And you come back from being in the monastery and you'd feel full and alive and connected.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was that time where I feel like we rarely get time to work on ourselves or even know who we are. Like, if you think about it, you're literally on a conveyor belt from the moment you're born, from school to high school to college, if you go to college, or go into the workplace, and you're just in this system. And almost disrupting that system allowed me to rebel in a monk way, which is strange to think about that monk life is a rebellion, but almost it is because it disrupts the status quo of the way life moves. And it's that exploration of alternative ideas that gives our mind the opportunity to engage in different ideas.

So the thing that happened, it seems to me, is that you sort of went there with this feeling that this was where the money was, right? So to speak. This is where happiness was, was in service, was in awareness, was in and healing the things that we all suffer from, which is, you know, stress and anxiety and depression and, you know, relationship troubles. And yet, you know, you were deep into this and you were in there for three years and you were sleeping on a dirt floor and you didn't even have your own bed. You just had like, you didn't have your own spot on the floor. You're like, you slept wherever. It could be a different spot every night, a bunch of months. But one of your teachers said, look, Jay, you need to go out back in the world and need to share what you've learned with other people. So tell us what that was like for you and then what happened when you went back to London and you talked to your parents and then how did you go from like the monk to Jay Shetty who's had 5 billion downloads and views of their videos, right? It's just a whole different framework of thinking.

Yeah, absolutely. I remember when I was there, I didn't know who won the World Cup. I'm a huge soccer and football fan and I didn't know who it was. I didn't really know of that many events. I didn't have any social media accounts. I wasn't in touch. People were like, oh, do you have video from that time? It's like, well, we didn't have video cameras and phones and we weren't documenting our life. That wasn't the goal of being there. The goal of being there was to truly find stillness and solitude and connection. And so for me, When I'd spent three years there, the interesting thing about self-awareness and self-acceptance is that you can get to a point where you realize you're not meant to be a monk. And it's almost like when you get to the, you know, when you really get into it and you really explore yourself and you become honest with who you are and you discover who you are and then you go, oh, now that I've discovered who I am, I now need to accept who I am. and now in hindsight, I didn't realize this then, but in hindsight, I was coming to the conclusion that my role in life was to be more independent and my role in life was wanting to share this and thankfully my teachers foresaw what I couldn't see and this is the power of mentors and coaches and guides who can see what you don't see and they were able to open that up to me. Now at that time it felt like a blow, like it genuinely felt like because I'd given up jobs, I'd given up relationships, I'd given up friends, I'd given up normality to make this big jump and leap in my life. And all of a sudden, I'm going and moving back in with my parents, 25 going on 26 years old with $25,000 worth of debt, with no experience on my resume or CV for three years, with now all my family saying to me, we told you so. and all my friends saying to me like, what? You failed at being a monk? Like, what happened? Like an extremely humbled... You got an.

Effort being a monk. How do you do that?

Literally, like they told you to leave the monastery. Like, were you that bad at sitting still? And, you know, it's such an interesting thing because what I've realized about being humbled or the ego is that even though there were, I probably only knew like 25 people in total or 100 people or whatever it was, that feels like your whole world crumbling when 25 people don't know what you're doing, or when 100 people don't know what you're doing, or when a million or a billion people don't know what you're doing. Any of those feels like your whole world is crumbling. And so I really felt at my lowest point, it's the closest I felt to feeling depression and feeling like I didn't know what I was doing. I remember coming back and I would say that it was on and off for about a week to a month, like that, like a period of time where I really felt lost and I almost forgot all the incredible skills and abilities that I'd learned as a monk. Yeah. And, and I almost lost my good habits that I'd gained. I, I kind of, I, the first thing I did when I came back was eat a bar of Cadbury's chocolate. Like it was. So it was. I didn't eat chocolate for three years. And so I was really, really excited to just, like, eat chocolate again, and it's almost like. That month back was like full of all my bad habits from the past. And then almost as the dust settled, I was like, wait a minute, I've learned every skill to overcome this challenge and I'm ignoring it. And that was the moment where I realized that those three years were like going to school and the exam started now. And when I came back and I can genuinely say, and the reason why I wrote Think Like a Monk, is because I'm sharing every rule I followed to try to pass the last seven years of my life since I left. And I've seen that every study, every principle, every lesson I learned as a monk has served me so well in the material world, in the real world that we're back in right now, none of it has let me down. And so that's why I'm trying to share and pass it along.

And so what came to me as you were talking is in your life, I imagine, you know, even after you did the monk thing, you got out, that you faced obstacles and challenges and difficulties. And maybe you can share a little bit about what some of those were and how this monk mind that you developed, this brain training, this mind training that you did helped you navigate it in a different way than you might have before.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so the first thing that happened when I left the monastery is I realized that I had to make money to survive in the world. and my parents are not well off, so I couldn't live off of them for too long. And I started applying to corporate companies because that's where I thought I would have worked and I had to pay the bills. And I was rejected by 40 companies before. And those 40 companies that I applied for were tailored job specs and surprise, surprise, no one wanted to hire a monk. Like, you know, what are your, a former monk, what are your transferable skills? Sitting quiet and You know, meditating for eight hours, like how's that going to help a company? And so I could see that there were companies that weren't giving me an opportunity. And the way when Monk Training came into that was recognizing that the reason I was being rejected from a lot of these companies is actually because I was trying to apply for a role that wasn't aligned with my purpose or my passion. I was trying to apply for a role that I was materially qualified to do based on my qualifications, but not necessarily that I was that passionate or excited about. And so often we get rejected for two reasons. We get rejected either because we're not aligned and if someone is telling you you're not aligned, they're probably right. Because if they're seeing that you're out of alignment for this opportunity, there is some truth in that. The second thing that's being said is you need to develop a different expertise and you need to develop a different skill set to be ready for this. And actually, if you can face rejection time and time after again and adapt and try again, it's proof that there is passion and purpose in that. If you give up after the first two times, you're basically accepting that this is not really something that I'm that passionate about. And so it's a great indicator, it's a great signal For how you feel about something. So I started to realize that I wasn't really looking, I was looking to pay the bills. I wasn't really looking for my passion and my purpose. The other time that I've really experienced, great failure and rejection, which the monk training really helped me in was when I first realized that I wanted to start making content to spread messages. And before even ever making a video, I approached three media companies. And I applied to 10 media companies in London. And they all rejected me before interview because they said, you don't have a communication background, you don't have a media background, and you don't have a presenting background. So then I went and networked with three executives in London who are well known as execs that are behind media companies. And so I would network with them, I'd find a way to meet them at an event. And I was like, look, I will work for you for free. I just want to help create a shift in the world through media. Please give me an opportunity. Almost begging them.

Yeah.

I got three responses. You're too old to be in media. It's safer where you are, just stay there. And you're too underqualified to be in media. And those are the three responses that go, you,'re too old. You're in a safer place. You're too old.

You're too old at 26 or seven. 28.

I was 28 at the time and I was too old. I was told I was too old to be in media. And you know what the amazing thing is, Mark, and this is where my monk training really helped. I gratefully received and accepted each of those statements. And now in hindsight, I'm even more grateful to them because if they didn't say no, I would be working as a trainee video journalist in a media company in London. And I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today. And so, we look at rejection as a bitterness or to prove people wrong or to have revenge. And the monk training says, no, actually be really grateful for those people who may have diverted your path or redirected your path because they're actually redirecting you closer towards you finding your own self-worth and your own self-confidence. And so for me, I kept going, and finally I ended up at a ethnic minority TV training day run by the BBC. So I walk into this room, there are six people in the room and everyone's brown or black and we're in this room and we're being trained in being TV presenters by the BBC. And I went there to just test, I was like, maybe I don't have the skills, let me find out. They were like, no, Jay, you've got the ability, this is great. And I was like, amazing, give me a job. And they said, well, there aren't any jobs in media at the moment. And I was like, you brought me here to train me to tell me that there are no jobs in media. That's great. And then they said to me, well, why don't you start a YouTube channel? And this is in 2016, end of 2015, end of 2015, beginning of 2016. And so they said, why don't you start a YouTube channel? And I was like, that works for like one in a billion people. I was like, that works for Justin Bieber. Like that does not work for Jay Shetty. And that is a very genuine limiting belief I had. Yeah. A very honest limiting belief. And I was like, this does not work for people like me. and I remembered a quote that I'd read from Edison at the time where he said that when you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't. And I think that maybe that's partly a monk mindset, more an Edison mindset. I'll give Edison the full credit for that. But that mindset really helped me at that time where I realized that until you had really tried to seek, and that comes from the monk mindset, unless you had really tried to seek the good in everything, until you had really tried to seek the opportunity in something, that you would never really, you could never truly say that you tried everything. And so I started a YouTube channel and, you know, three months in, my global HR leader at Accenture saw the videos. So Accenture is a 500,000 person organization. I worked inside, I was one of the top social media people at Accenture globally. And our global HR leader sees this video and her name is Ellen Shook and she shows it to Arianna Huffington.

Oh.

At Davos. And Arianna Huffington really appreciates the video and then long story short, that becomes a tipping point in my career in London. Yeah.

And it was just because you, you trusted your heart and you trusted what was being pointed to you, which wasn't really necessarily the thing you thought was good for you at the moment. You were hearing things that were rejection and hurt and pain. And it's almost like you said, the example of hurting your finger, cutting your finger, is the physical experience, right? And then there's your perception and the layering that you put on that experience with your mind and the meaning you put on it. And you can take rejection as a bad thing or potentially a good thing. And I think it's very hard for us to do. And I found in my own life that the more I've been able to look at the bad things that happened, the quote bad things as gifts, and trust that there is a bigger story unfolding that I can't always understand that's guiding me to what actually I should be doing. I can kind of relax a little bit and not have to feel that emotional pain which is connected to the meaning that I put on the experiences which are just fabrications of my mind, right?

Exactly. We all become fiction writers in our mind and you almost, you know, you become like you start writing a TV show. We've all watched too many movies and read too many fiction books and we start finishing the Chapter in our minds before we've even experienced it in our lives. And that is such a challenging way to live where you are writing what you're not yet living. And what we don't realize is when you start completing the chapter in your mind, that is the reality you start living in your life. And so allowing life to move at the pace that you're living it rather than to write ahead is so important. and one of the biggest challenges that arises is our training as a monk. One of the things we would repeat is called don't judge the moment.

Yeah.

That we were trained to repeat what you just said now, that if you judge a moment, if you label a moment as good or bad, then it will only ever be what you label it. It's like if you label a jar in your in your pantry or in your cupboard as sugar, you will only ever find sugar in it because not only have you labeled it, now you will put sugar back into that jar. But if you don't label life in the moment, you allow it to evolve into what it can truly become. And we've all experienced how a curse can turn into a gift, and how a gift can turn into a curse. There's a beautiful story that I repeat in the book. It's a well-known story told through time and a Zen story. around how there's a young boy and his teacher, and the young boy is sent out to fetch water every single day. And so every single day he goes down with two buckets that are held on a bamboo rod, and he goes and picks up water and he brings it back up to the home that's at the top of the hill. And one day the boy recognizes that there's a big crack or a crack inside one of the buckets. And he tells the teacher, he says, look, there's a bucket, there's a crack in this bucket, We're going to lose water this whole time. And the teacher says, Look, you know what? I just want you to continue what you've been doing. I just want you to continue what you've been doing. And the boy says, okay, let's continue what I'm doing. He continues to go down, continues to get water, comes back up every day. A month later, he sees on the path upwards from the water to the mountain where the home is, that on one side, the side where the bucket's been broken, there's a beautiful row of flowers and plants and all this beautiful vegetation. And he realizes and he goes to the teacher and he says, Wow, I'm seeing all this. How did that happen? And the teacher's like, well, when you told me this bucket was broken, I went and planted some seeds. And I did it to show you that even something that seems broken can still be used for to create beauty.

Yeah.

And I think sometimes we start thinking we have to fix ourselves and we have to start like we have to make ourselves whole again and we can't be broken or have blemishes or we can't have wounds and we can't heal. And the truth is that when we engage even our pain in helping others, that's where we truly heal it. And that's your story. I mean, you went through pain, you went through a personal challenge, and you used that not only to heal yourself, but heal others. You've turned something that was broken into beauty. Yeah. And when you look at it, when you just change your way, you just go, oh, I don't need to throw away parts of me that are broken. I just need to engage them. I just need to use them and heal them. I don't need to suddenly think that I need to throw away this experience.

Yeah, it's so beautiful. And I think we get so stuck in the patterns of our mind that creates suffering through putting all this meaning on things and you never know, right? And this blessing curse thing, it reminds me of a different version of that story, which there was a young man who went out and found this beautiful black stallion and brought it back into his land and the father's like, how great that is. You've got this wonderful horse. He says, well, it seems like a blessing could be a curse. It seems like a curse could be a blessing. And then he rides the horse and he falls off the horse and he breaks his leg and everybody's like, oh, you broke your leg. How terrible. He said, oh, it seems like a blessing could be a curse. And when somebody says, a curse could be a blessing. the war starts and they recruit all the young men to go fight and they all die and he can't go because he's got a broken leg. And it's just the story goes on, but it's really the same thing that, you know, we suffer mostly because of our minds, not because of what's happening in our lives. And there is for sure real suffering and there is lack and there is poverty and there is, but most of the stuff that most of us are suffering with today, especially in America, is really driven by what's happening in our minds.

Yeah, well, you know, and of course I completely agree with you that you know that suffering, there is real suffering in the world. Of course, this isn't a thing saying that there is no suffering. But what I'm blown away by is not my journey or my story, but I was recently exposed to this journey. So I had a call from, this was last year probably now, but I had a call from one of the COOs at Facebook. and Instagram. And they called me up and they said that they'd just heard this story of someone that they wanted to share with me. And I was like, okay, let me tell me. And they said that they had brought in a Sudani, I believe a Sudani refugee, to speak inside Instagram and Facebook.

Wow.

Because in the refugee camp, he, this gentleman, young man in his 20s, had not only in the refugee camp, he asked his mom to find a laptop. It took his mother two to three years to save up for a laptop. She probably got him one of the most average laptops around, but through that, he taught himself how to code. And after learning how to code, he coded a game that would encourage other young people in the refugee camp to not be violent because he was seeing violence in the refugee camp. And then he created a Facebook account and he was using Facebook to share this game to other refugees in the refugee camp. And so they brought him in to speak. And the reason why we got connected is they called me and they said they asked him what kept him going. And he said that he used to watch Jay Shetty videos and on Facebook. And so that's why it was being shared with me. And I was just like, to me, I called him up straight away so I know him now. And I just said to him, I was like, I am blown away by your story because I have no idea what it feels like to be in a refugee camp where there's violence and when there's very little opportunity to see that as a blessing. But you found a way to serve people even in the pain by creating this game that would help people not be violent. I was like, you're my inspiration. Like that is literally the most amazing thing you could potentially ever do, like to find. And I think, you know, those are the stories of, People who find service in pain are the ones who can relieve the suffering of others. And you see that studies show that even when we experience depression, if we try to help someone else, we start to see an improvement even in our own mental health. And so I feel we can, it's not that we have to extend ourselves and be misused or overabused or overused for giving to others, but there is something in the psychology of trying to serve others even in tough times.

That's true. And you know, in your book, you talk about service as the ultimate hack. What does that mean?

I say that because I feel that, I feel service is a really, so I remember giving a talk at a company about three years ago and I was talking about how when I was 18 and I heard this monk speak and he spoke about service, it really just hit me right there. And then I experienced in the summer, and I experienced how helping people was not only the most fulfilling thing, but also the thing that gave me the most perspective and gratitude in life. See, service, the reason why it's the ultimate hack is because service gives you so much more. So when you serve others, you gain gratitude for what you have. You gain perspective for what others don't have. You get empathy and compassion for people's pain and suffering. Service is like the best school in the world. if you just served, you would learn every virtue and quality that you possibly could simply by that act. And so there's this great study that I share in the book of how people who've, I think it's by Michael Norton at Cambridge University, and he talks about how they gave students $5 or $20, and they could either spend £5 or £20 or $5 and $20, and they gave it to students and they asked them to either spend that money on themselves or spend that money on other people. And they said the top three things people bought for themselves or others was Starbucks, makeup and Starbucks. I think those were like the top three things that people spent money on. And they found that no matter whether you spent money on yourself or money on other people, no matter how much you spent on either, people were happier when they spent the money on other people. not on themselves. No matter whether it's five pounds or 20 pounds, they then upped the ante and made it into like 100 pounds or 100 dollars. They found the same thing to be true. And then they tested it for time and so many other things. And they found the same thing to be true. If you spent your time helping someone else, you were happier than if you did it for yourself. Now, I'm not saying that as a substitute for self-love I'm saying that as an extension of self-love. True self-love is the desire to serve. And so when I was giving that talk two, three years ago, a corporate exec came up to me and he said, When did you realize that life was about service? And I said, I understood it at 18 and I probably started to realize it in my 20s when I became a monk. And he said, I realized it when I was 36 and I had my first child. That's when it really hit me. that service was the greatest joy because I was serving my baby girl and my daughter and it just filled my heart. And so for so many of us, I feel service comes so late in life, you know, and you don't have to serve your child, you can serve anyone around you. And I think the pandemic has brought about so many beautiful stories of service where I've seen people teach their friends who are doctors, teach their children subjects and homeschool them. I've seen people deliver meals to each other, I've seen people teach workout classes on rooftops. The service element is what has touched people's heart in the pandemic.

You know, Jay, this is really important what you're talking about. And because it seems like, well, if you wanna be happy, isn't it about yourself? But it turns out that we're not wired that way, that there's an evolutionary purpose in serving others, which is that we cannot survive alone. Now, in America we can, because we can live in our little apartment and get our delivery food and not have to worry about anybody else, but we actually do depend on everybody. We depend on people who grow our food. We depend on the community to provide the services that are providing for us. And we've always evolved these tribal environments where our survival depended on helping each other. And EO Wilson wrote a book about this called the Social Conquest of the Earth. And it's true for almost all species. and yet we've sort of lost that. And what's interesting is when you look at the biology of service, what happens in your brain is the same thing that happens when you take heroin or cocaine or sugar. It actually stimulates the pleasure center. And it's a very powerful, potent stimulator of pleasure in the body and in the mind. And I think that's why you're seeing these studies coming out that show that service actually creates happiness. And it has to be balanced. Just like when you're a monk, you meditated and you went for service, right? So it was a balance.

Exactly. And you know, that's the interesting thing when we talk about, you know, psychology talks about two types of loneliness. One type of loneliness is not being physically around people, which humans don't love, as we can see. But the second type of loneliness, which is really fascinating to me, is being around people who don't understand you. And that's the part that I think the majority of the world struggles with even more, is that we're surrounded by people that we don't feel understood by. And that's why the time you take to understand yourself allows people to better understand you and for you to understand them. See, one of the things that really helped me when we talk about relationships as monks you know, as a monk, you have a relationship with every other monk in the ashram. And, you know, it's hard to live with sometimes a hundred other people.

Yeah, you took my spot on the floor. That was my spot last night.

Yeah, there are so many opportunities for your tolerance to be tested. So anyone who thinks that, you know, the first lesson we learned at monk school from our teacher was the first thing he said to us is, I am as much a patient as I am a doctor. And he said, you will see some doctors acting like patients. And there will be times when you patients will sometimes become doctors. But as long as you remember that you are always a doctor and a patient, you'll be fine. And it was almost like welcome to the hospital. It was like the point that you're not in heaven now. This isn't about being in a calm environment. you're actually tested in chaos. So I remember being on a 72-hour, 48 to 72-hour train journey from North India to South India. And the trains in India, we're traveling on like the lowest class train of a long-distance train. We're monks, we don't, you know, you're not traveling first class, you're not traveling in comfort or a plane or anything like that. We're on this train. And, you know, there's not even a space to sit on the train because so many villagers come on board and no one cares about seats and it's like mucky. And so basically I decided I wasn't going to eat for two to three days because I didn't want to use.

The bathroom because that's how disgusting it is. Yeah, it's pretty gross. You haven't been to India or China.

And those trains and it's not fun. It was not fun at all. And, you know, I come from London where, you know, cleanliness- Flush toilets. So anyways, I'm like, I'm not using any of this stuff. And it's really funny because I remember saying to my teacher, I was like, you know what? So every so often, because it's a long distance train journey, it stops at different stops for about 20 minutes sometimes as it's going through the whole country. And so it stopped for like 10-20 minutes and I said, you know what, when the train stops, I'll get off and do my meditation because it will be calmer then. and I said to him, yeah, when it stops and it gets calmer, that's when I'll go on meditate. And he said to me, he said, he said, do you think that life is calm? And I said, no. And he goes, well, if you can't meditate in the chaos of the train, how are you going to meditate in the chaos of life? And it was like this awakening of like, you learn to become calm. I believe there's this beautiful quote by A gentleman named Timmer Hawkeye who has a big affinity to Buddhism. And he said that, you know, don't try to calm the storm. Calm your mind and the storm will pass. Yeah. And I think that's the thing that when we become the thing we think we need, that is the most amazing experience in the world where we stop wanting people to become who we want them to be, We stop wanting situations to become who we, what we think they should be. And we just be that exact experience and feeling. You feel so content and satisfied in that.

That's so beautiful. It's such a, such a beautifully different way of thinking about going through life rather than being buffeted about by all the things that happen to us on the outside. And actually, you create this oasis inside, then life will throw at you all kinds of stuff. But how do you stay connected to yourself and to what your dharma is, your purpose and meaning all throughout all of it?

Well, you did that last night. I mean, you had the hurricane, right? Hurricane? Is that right?

It was a hurricane. It wasn't actually, I was like big winds and trees were down and all the services went out. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, that's a perfect example of you can't calm the storm. Like, who, you know, what are you gonna do about it? Like, you're not gonna go outside and Suddenly turn into Dr. Strange and, you know, know how to manipulate material energy like, but you could light a candle inside. Yeah, you could have a beautiful conversation inside. You could make sure you were safe, of course. And of course, there are situations, of course, none of this is getting away from the fact that there are horrific things that happen in the world where you can't find calm in the externality of what we see as calm. But to me, calm is not the absence of stress or pain. It is knowing how to navigate it or creating a pathway to navigate it. And if you can always, it's like you may be in the worst situation of all time, but if in that situation you're able to just look forward and look for a way, that's what I'm talking about with calm. I'm not saying about being calm with.

Something really terrible Yeah, so we've talked a lot about relationship to self, but how does a monk teach you about being in relationships to others or in love relationships? Talking about attraction and connection, compatibility and real chemistry. I mean, these are beautiful things you talk about in the book. What does a monk have to teach us about relationships?

Yeah, well, as we know, the relationships with others is our relationship with ourselves. One of my favorite things to explain is that you can't articulate what you want to someone until you really understand what you want from someone and with someone. And so one of my favorite examples to talk about, which I mentioned in the book, is around how a lot of people in their relationships will say stuff like, I want more of your time. And I think this is common in pretty much every couple on the planet where one of the people in the partnership has said to each other, I just want more of your time. Now, time is a very big word and time can also be misconstrued. I know people that have spent the whole weekend with their partner and the partner will still say to them after that saying, we haven't spent any time together this week. And the person will be like, what do you mean? Are you mad? We just spent the whole weekend together. But actually, it's a complete lack of communication. So, as a monk, you begin to understand your emotions so clearly that you can clearly articulate to someone without an ego. Now, the reason why people are scared to actually ask for what they want is they're scared to look weak in front of their partner. They might be scared of showing that they need something from their partner. And so we actually have that fear. Whereas as a monk, you, you're moving the ego aside and communicating clearly. So I find that for a lot of people, what they're actually asking for is to energy. They're not asking for time. They're asking for energy. They're like, I want to feel your presence. And so a good example is like, Mark, you've kindly invited me onto your podcast today. I could give you the time to be on your podcast, and we could be doing this the whole time. And you could be doing the same thing. And that's us giving each other our time. That's what I'm giving you. I'm giving you my time. I'm with you in time. But really, what you're looking for and what I'm looking for is an energy exchange. What I'm looking for is presence and these are monk qualities. The concept of giving your presence to someone is a monk mindset where you realize that someone is not wanting my time, what they're really wanting is my presence and they're wanting my energy. So not only in giving it, but also knowing how to articulate it. So Harvard has this incredible emotional vocabulary table. You can just Google it, Harvard emotional vocabulary table. And what it shows you is we literally, when someone asks us, how are you? We have five things we say. Good, bad, okay, fine, right? Like those are the five things we say to everything. How are you doing? Good. How's your week been? Bad. How are you feeling?

Fine.

Like we literally say the same thing. So our emotional vocabulary has become so limited. And I remember when I became a monk, my emotional vocabulary expanded. because I was asked to intimately understand my emotions, fears and challenges. So now the Harvard table shows us beautifully, when you say you're happy, are you joyful? Are you ecstatic? Are you excited? Are you positive? Are you energized? Like there are so many words to describe happiness or let's take the opposite, a negative word, when you say you're sad. But are you angry? Are you offended? Are you irritated? Are you upset? Are you confused? If you can't articulate clearly what you're feeling, then neither can your partner. And we expect our partners to be mind readers and understand every emotion that we're experiencing before we even say it. But that's where the monk mindset comes so helpful when it comes to relationships. That's one part of it.

That's so beautiful. I think it's, you know, it's in the knowing of yourself that you can actually know how to show up for somebody else and know what that is. That's just so beautiful. If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here.

If you follow a formula, you will actually start pruning circuitry. You'll start the conditioning, stop the conditioning process and move the body out of the past and it starts liberating energy. And that's energy to heal with. That's energy to create a new life.