4 Steps to Be More Productive Tomorrow & How to Stop Letting Pressure From Others Control You (With Special Guest Ed Mylett)

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What advice or counsel, just in general, would you give somebody who wants to live a better life?

The mistake we make is that we either act without thinking or we think without acting. If you're feeling stuck or you're like, I'm not sure what I'm doing right now, you're either doing too much thinking or. Or you're doing too much acting. All you have to do is ask yourself, does this bring me alive? Why does it bring me alive? Really important to know why it works and do I want to do it again.

Welcome back to Max out, everybody. I am so excited to have this gentleman to my left here today. I've been chasing him for a long time, and he probably doesn't need an introduction if you're watching this on YouTube, because I know so many of you know him. But if you don't know who he is, let me just give you some background on this man. Number one, this person's had 7 billion views on their YouTube channel. 7 billion views. He's had 34 million people following him on social media, which is just absolutely remarkable. And 300, he had one video on Facebook that had 360 million views. Number one viewed video on all of Facebook in 2018. And I'm so excited to share with you that he's written this new book called Think Like a Train youn Mind for Peace and Purpose every day. I read this book in two days. So of all the accolades that this man has, the most impressive thing isn't even what I just shared with you. It's that my mom has a massive crush on you. No, I'm not kidding. So, Mom, I've embarrassed you to millions of people, but my mom's crush is here today. Jay Shetty.

Oh, Ed, thank you so much, man. I'm so grateful for this. Honestly, like, just walking into your home today and experiencing your energy firsthand. Thank you. Like, you feel the power of your energy on social media. I feel it when I'm following you, but I feel the presence right now. So I just want to say thank you, honestly.

Thank you, brother.

I just feel like a big hug.

This morning that means the world to me. And I've told you, I was just literally telling you before we went on that there's nobody on social media who grabs me like you do.

Thank you, man. I really appreciate that.

And I told you why and I should tell them. It's the convergence of, I think your visual, your auditory, your look and your voice. But mainly just the depth of your message is so special. This is not a person who posts content that you're going to scroll through. This is somebody, when he posts something, it affects you. His videos move you. And this book moved me.

Thank you.

And I usually, if a guest is on, I'm very excited about their book. But in this case, I'm highlighting everywhere. And I think let's start somewhere. There's 11 sort of points in the book that you go through. But I think in this time, in this day and age, with all the kind of current events that are happening in the world, one of the things you talked about in there is ways to find calm in the chaos. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think we're just living in uncertain times. We're living in chaos as you just said it. We're living in times where we're Constantly surprised by what's going to happen next. And it's not a good surprise. Like it's not like a birthday surprise. It's. It's a negative surprise sometimes. And I think what's happened is that we've started to recognize and I really trust the people listening and watching right now. We've started to realize that the answer is not going to come from outside of us. We can't just keep waiting for suddenly the stock market to be perfectly aligned. We can't keep waiting for the political climate or the environment to be perfectly aligned. What we need to do is find, and more importantly, not just find, but create that peace and that come within us. And that's why I talk about thinking like a monk. Because when you look at the brains of monks across the world, they have the calmest, happiest brains on planet Earth. And I want to give people access to how to have that. Because when you start getting access to that now, you don't need the weather to be perfect now. You don't need to wait for everyone to give you love every single day. Now you're not dependent on, on anything outside of you, but you recognize that you can create calm. You're not going to look for calm. And so that's the perspective that I want people to. And I am so excited to be talking to you today. I can't believe it. My new book, eight Rules of Love is out and I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 8rules of love.com. it's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep or let go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour, Love rules. Go to jshetetour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to see you this year.

It's beautiful. I was reading in the book where you're talking about these monks, they actually measure their gamma waves even at sleep. And they are higher than everybody else. Right?

Than everybody else.

And so you tapped into this. Ironically, you graduate from college, they just need to know the background on this, as I understand it anyway, and kind of in your family you say it's sort of like you're a doctor, a lawyer, or A failure.

Right? Those are my three options.

And you end up graduating, but before, even at graduation, you go away and go live with the monks. Right? You literally. How did you make this decision? And what overall would you say was the impact that happened to you while you did that?

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, a bit of background. I grew up a teacher's pet until the age of 14. So I was an obedient kid, probably had the perfect son, worked really hard at school. And then at 14, I went the opposite way. I started rebelling. I started experimenting with everything under the sun. And at 18, I was at this interesting point, I think everyone is. If you think back to being 18 and everyone who's listening and watching, think about being 18 years old again and how impressionable you were and what kind of decisions you were making. I used to go and listen to CEOs, entrepreneurs, experts, celebrities speak. And once I was invited to hear a monk speak. And I thought to myself, what am I going to learn from a monk? Like, there's nothing to learn from a monk. Like, what's he going to teach me? How to be silent? Like, who cares? And I said to my friends, I would only go if we went to a bar afterwards. Like, that was my. Like. I was like, I want it in writing.

I was like, that describes where you really were.

Literally, that describes where I was genuinely at. I'm not making this up. And I end up going. And this is what I love about that moment. The best moments in your life are sometimes the most humbling ones.

True.

I was humbled because I went into that environment expecting to get nothing and having my life transformed. So what ended up happening is I felt. And you've probably felt this when you. When you meet people. When I was 18, I'd met people who are beautiful, I'd met people who are powerful. I'd met people who were rich, I'd met people who are famous, I'd met people who are successful. But I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly happy. And even now, if I asked you to count on your hand how many people you know that are truly content, satisfied and happy, I think we'd struggle, absolutely. And I felt that from him at 18. And the great thing is, I know him now. I've known him for the last 14 years. This. This particular monk, his name is Gauranga Das. I talk about him in the book. He's still the same. And so he's maintained that. And so I started getting fascinated with him. So I spent every summer vacation with him from age 18 to age 22. Every summer vacation, I would spend half of it interning at big finance companies, steakhouses, bars, fancy suits. And I'd spend the other half living as a monk in India.

That's remarkable.

Robes, sleeping on the floor and meditating. And then when I graduated, I decided that the monk path was more fulfilling than the banking path, and so I chose it.

What a remarkable young life it was.

It was my first, like, experiment. You know, it's like, you're literally testing and. And I never judged myself. And that's what I love about being able to live life in that way. Like, I didn't judge myself. When I was at the monastery, I wasn't like, oh, no, I was just drinking last week. I can't do this. And then when I was out there with the guys, I wasn't like, oh, no, I should be meditating. I was just like, let me really experience each life to its fullest, and then I can decide which one really fills me with joy.

It's amazing that you're talking about this, because just this week I was on a show. They said, what topic would you like to cover above? Anyway, they left it open to me, and I said, I think I should be happ because it's so rare for most people in the world. People have asked me on the show, when I started the show, I was fascinated because Your shows had 54 million downloads the first year. Right. And people said, what do the people that you interview have in common? They're some of my best friends. Some of your best friends are on your show. And I thought, well, I wonder, when I do it, is it going to be their drive, their ingenuity, their charisma, their work ethic, their brilliance? And many of them have all of those qualities. But I think you would agree with me that even top performers that we work with, some of them have a touch of not so happy going on in their life. Even the people that you think have their whole world together, they, too seek happiness. And I'll be honest with you, because I'm such a fan of yours, I thought, well, almost like what you thought, what do I have to learn from you about happiness from the monk perspective? I didn't think the same. And as I started to read the book, first, there were many revelations for me. Secondly, there were some things in the book that I think I do practice pretty well. But the way you phrase it and position it is beautiful, as is your norm. So one of the things you say early in the book, you Talk about selfless sacrifice. And there's this great quote that I'll mess up in there that one of the monks had shared with you about that in the shade that you don't want to sit in. Plant a tree, right?

Yeah, yeah. The statement, this was the statement that when I'm sitting in that room as an 18 year old thinking about going to a bar, this was that statement that penetrated my heart. And I was like, oh. Because. So he was making the point that if you have any gifts and if you have any talents in the world, if you're not using them in the service of others, then worth nothing. And that's a very bold point. And the way he put it, and he was quoting another writer and he wrote that plant trees under whose shade you do not plan to sit. And, and what that means is most of us plant trees or we do things for people because we're expecting that one day they're going to reciprocate and do something back for us. And he was like, real service is when you do things for people that can't do anything back for you at that time and you're not expecting anything. And for me, for my 18 year old mind, I was like, oh, I thought my skills were just to impress women and make money and, you know, just do what everyone else does. And when he was talking about selfless sacrifice and service, I was like, I want to test that because either this man is a genius or he's completely crazy. But if he's given up and he went to iit, so he went to the Indian Institute of Technology, one of the best universities in the world. He was like a number one student and he gave that all up to be a monk. So I was like, there's something there because you don't just give that up. Especially in India, the pressure to perform and to be a top grade student is so high that to walk away from that like his family and everyone would have just completely. So I was like, I want to follow that path.

Wow, bro, I'm fascinated by you because I as now that I'm in your presence, everyone should know that. Jay and I have communicated for a very long time. We have tons of mutual friends, but we have rare on the show that I'm in the presence of somebody and I feel your energy when you speak about this. I think I had this impression that someone who's sort of monk related is just sort of just there's this feeling I get that's just, it's strong peace, but it's Strong, too. There's an energy about you. And one of the things that I think that you eventually overcame that you talk about beautifully in the book. And I see every day, people ask me often, there's all these memes out there. We all hear, hey, you know what? Everyone's opinion about you is none of your business. But people really struggle with finding a pathway to happiness because they are borderline obsessed with the thoughts and opinions of other people. And you discuss that a little bit, too. How would you tell someone who's struggling with this, which is 99% of the people who are listening to this, how they might deal with that or overcome it?

Yeah. I give this analogy in the book about how we're all like, method actors. So I'm a big movie fan. Like, I'm a big movie fan. And so for me, some of my favorite actors are like Heath Ledger, who played the Joker in the Dark Knight. You've got Daniel Day Lewis, who's an incredible method actor. Now I talk about in the book how Daniel Day Lewis, at some points, he was wearing the clothes for Gangs of New York in his normal life, to the point that he even got pneumonia in his normal life because he's wearing these old raggedy clothes. And he goes. At one point, he almost went crazy pretending to be someone that he wasn't. Now when I heard that and I read that, I thought, wow, isn't that all of us? Like, you wear a certain role to work, you wear a certain role at home, you wear a certain role with your friends. And in playing all those roles, you end up method acting and forgetting who you are.

Oh, my goodness, that is beautiful.

And for me, that's what I'm just seeing across and in and of myself.

Me, too.

And I see myself do that. You become who you think other people want you to be. And so for me, the first step in that is writing down everything you're chasing right now. Like, this is a great strategy and a tool. And if anyone's listening or watching, get a pen and paper. If you're not, take a screenshot of this time code right now and come back to this. Because I want you to sit down and I want you to write down everything you're chasing right now, whatever it is. Make that list. Second question. Where did that idea come from? Did that idea come from your mom, your dad, your friend, your brother? Did the idea come from me or Ed? Did the idea come from, I don't know, some book that you read? Like, did the idea come from your heart and your mind? Or was it born because it was influenced by your friend who just got promoted, your friend who just got proposed to, your friend who just sold their company for $100 million? Like, was that the reason? Because then that may not be your dream. And then the third question you have to ask yourself is, is this my dream? Or this is the question. Is your dream really your dream? And when you go through that exercise, you want to keep the stuff that's yours and you want to distance yourself from the stuff that's not.

What incredible advice. You know, I'm a little bro, I got to tell you, there's such wisdom for such a young man. I'm a little bit further down the.

Road, age wise and wisdom wise and wisdom wise. I'm excited to learn from you a lot, man.

Certainly not. But I appreciate you saying that.

I mean it.

But I can. I can validate what you've just said. I think dream catching in your life can become something that gains momentum as you vibrate a little bit higher frequency. You can begin to attract things. And I'm a big believer in that. And I have many times achieved a dream or two that when I got there, was completely empty. And every time that I got to those dreams and they were empty, they were not my dreams. They were something that I thought someone else wanted me to do or something that I saw someone else have that I thought I wanted to place. A destination, a home, something. And you're 100% right. But the times when I've got clear on things that I really wanted, that really mattered to me, and when they were good enough that they materialized in my life, what great joy they've brought me. And they're usually extremely simple things, as you illustrate as well.

I love hearing you say that, and it's nice to get validated on that because I think you've achieved so much in your life, and it's incredible to see what you've achieved. And I think that's what people forget is that the things that bring you joy because you achieved what you wanted to achieve.

Let's talk about that for a minute. You talk about Dharma a little bit. How do you figure that part out in your life?

Yeah. So Dharma is a fascinating concept. I absolutely love it. And the loose language terminology for it is purpose or calling or your mission and vision in life. Like, what are you meant to do? It's kind of like what you're meant to do. And the thing about Dharma is Dharma talks about how we think we have to learn lots of stuff when Actually, Dharma is unlearning and bringing out what you already have. So one of the things I mentioned in the book is that you can't be anything. There's two lies we've been told growing up. The first lie is, you're nothing. You're stupid. You're worthless. You're not going to make it. And I'm sure many people listening and watching have heard that from teachers, parents, aunts, uncles, whoever it is. And then the other lie that we're actually told, and I don't think it's a lie, I think it's positive. But sometimes it's misconstrued is you can be anything. And we all know that's not true, too. And it's unfair, because sometimes people get misled.

You're exactly right.

And the Dharma point of view is you can't be anything you want, but you can be everything you are. And what I mean by that is you have a genius, a potential, a power inside of you that you don't know yet. Why? Because you're inexperienced. It's not that you're unqualified. It's your inexperience. So people are saying, I'm stuck. I don't know where my life's going. I don't know what my purpose is. So you're perceiving yourself to be unqualified or under qualified. Actually, you're just inexperienced. You just haven't done enough things to let the magnet of your life tell you what it's attracted to. So for me, that's what Dharma is encouraging people to do. And this beautiful verse from this Vedic text, a monk text, called the Manusmriti, and it says that when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. And what I love about that, and you will appreciate this because I know you're someone that I feel is living this. A purpose is like a rare gem, and you have to protect it. People will tell you that gem is worthless. They'll tell you that that gem is not going to make it. They'll tell you that that gem, that jewel, has no value. And that's why you have to protect your own purpose. And because the world is going to constantly try and pull you away from it. So Dharma is a real. It's not a belief system. It's a fact that you've got skills, genius potential sitting inside of you. And you have not seen it yet. And I've seen this across the board. I literally just got a call from the. I got a call from the CEO of Instagram, probably about three to six months ago. It's been a while now. And she called me up and she said, jay, we just had. I don't think I've told this story anyway, so you've sparked it out of me. But she goes, we've just had this call. Sorry. We've just had this talk from this speaker that we brought in. And this speaker spent years in a refugee camp. And in this refugee camp, not only did he figure out how to survive, he actually got his mother to save up for a computer, and he coded a game. He taught himself how to code, and he coded a game that helps people understand how not to be violent in a refugee camp. And then he used Facebook to promote it. And they said, we were so inspired by him that we brought him in to speak to Instagram and Facebook. And then we asked him the question. We asked him, what has had the impact on you? Like, what kept you inspired? And this guy goes. He goes, oh, I used to watch this guy called Jay Shetty on Facebook. And literally, when she told me that and she said literally, the whole audience was in tears at his story. And I said to. I said, I need to talk to him right away because I need to tell him. I'm like, dude, you've just inspired me. Like, my. Like, I'm like, dude, your life is way harder than mine's ever been. And if you can realize that you have the potential in a refugee camp to teach yourself how to code and to help people not be violent, I mean, you're inspiring more lives. His name is Luau Mahan. I'm like, dude, you're inspiring so many more lives than I ever like. It's just beautiful. And to me, that story. I'm not sharing it to show my role in his life. I'm sharing it because I'm like, if he can find a way to find his dharma, then we haven't got any excuses, brother.

That's. It's funny. Right before you told the story about him.

Yeah.

I was going to tell you that it's so obvious to me that you're in your home, and that's perfect evidence of it. It's so obvious to me as I sit next to you and the book. Guys, I want you to get this book. It has my full endorsement. And the reason it does, first off, is because this man that you're hearing these incredible words from wrote it. But it's a unique book because it talks about these principles that are eternally true. But there's also, like, what I would call fundamental Strategy. I was gonna say basic, but it's not basic. It's fundamental strategies. I was surprised in a book that talks so much about happiness that you get as granular as a morning routine, which I'm a huge believer of and I think sometimes. But you do it differently.

Right.

And so I only go through a few things because we wanted to read the book.

Yeah, right.

But like, just so you know, guys, we're at 1% less than 1% of the book so far.

You're very kind, but it's true.

But so talk a little bit just tactically for a second about importance of it and the way that you perceive a morning routine.

Yeah. Hey, friends, quick question. How do your nights feel? Hatch believes the way you wind down at night shapes how you show up the next day. Self care isn't about doing more. It starts with resting better. That's why Hatch created their Hatch Restore a smart sleep clock that helps you reclaim your evenings, think calming sounds, gentle audio, and even a surprise wake up to start your day right. Check it out at Hatch co. Because better nights lead to better days. Hey everyone, Jay here. And as much as you listen to me, you ought to listen to your body. Little things like headaches, hair loss can be your body's way of telling you, hey, something's up. Do you hear me? I will not be ignored. Luckily, Amazon One Medical has 247 virtual care. So they're always there to listen to your body. Thanks to Amazon One Medical, healthcare just got less painful. Beautiful thing about Monk life is half the day is self and half the day is service. That's how you're taught to live. So the morning hours are for you to fill yourself. It's almost like putting on mental, emotional and physical armor. Like that's what a morning routine is. Our days are tiring. Our days are busy. Our days are draining. Well, guess what? If you didn't put your armor on in the morning and you're going out to battle, how many knives are going to cut you? How many swords are going to pierce you? How many wounds are you going to come home with? How many of you come back home feeling wounded? I come back home feeling wounded sometimes. But guess what? If you put your armor on in the morning, a warrior would never go out onto a battlefield. And life can be a battlefield. Work can be full of conflict. Sometimes your relationships can be damaging. Sometimes your friendships can be toxic. Sometimes. So we are warriors in one sense. And so without wearing that. So for me, a morning routine is putting on emotional armor, which is meant to protect you for the rest of the day. And that way, even if you do get pierced or you do get popped, or you do get cut, you're protected. And I know that when my morning routine is at its best, I feel protected. Whereas when my morning routine is weakened, I feel weak. And so for me, the morning routine, as I get strategic about it, there's two principles you have to know. Location has energy and time has memory. If you do something in the same place every day, that place now holds that energy. And this is huge. Like, it's just so big. And I'm grateful for that reaction because people don't realize how powerful this is. Like when I meditated in temples that were 5,000 years old in South India, it was easier to meditate because people have been meditating there for thousands of years. And so when you find a space in your home and even if you've got like, I lived in a 500 square foot apartment in New York four years ago and I just had a tiny corner which I dedicated to my sacred practices. So if you, you don't have to have a big home to do this, you don't have to be wealthy to do this. You can find just a corner in your home that you dedicate as your meditation space or your reflection space. So first thing, location has energy. Second thing, time has memory. And this is something that people underestimate. When you do something at the same time every day, you remember it and time remembers it. That's why we struggle to work out at different times every day. It's why we struggle. Like, why do we feel hungry at the same time every day? Generally, we feel hungry at the same time. Most people, if you've got regulated diet, you will feel hungry, you will feel tired at the same time every day, you will look towards that Coke can or that sugar or that chocolate bar at the same time every day. And so when you're meditating at the same time, if you're exercising at the same time. So what I recommend to people is your morning routine needs four aspects and it's simple. And I call it time. It's about making time in the day. So time stands for T, I M E, T stands for thankfulness. There needs to be, even if it's five minutes, five minutes of thankfulness, of gratitude every single morning. And that has to be gratitude. That's specific. It can't be gratitude. That's generic. So generic gratitude is something that anyone could be grateful for. Oh, I'm grateful for the sky, I'm grateful for air. I'm grateful for water. That's cool, but it's generic gratitude specific. Gratitude is. I'm grateful for the fact that I have someone calling me this morning. I'm grateful for the fact that I can still call my parents. I'm grateful for the fact that I have this person in my business who is having such an impact. I'm grateful. You know, it's specificity. Yes. Thankfulness. Second one is insight. I think this is one thing that a lot of people are missing, which I recommend people listening to you. It's like podcast books and make it easier for yourself. If you get this book, leave it open on your bedside table, leave it open on your kitchen table, leave it open on your dining table. I guarantee you, you will read more and what you read will speak to you. And I think people underestimate that. That literally, like when you have it open and you'll just flick to a chapter randomly and you'll pick up one line, it will impact you and it will speak to you. So insight. You need insight every day. M is meditation. And I believe meditation is different for different people. As monks, we did walking meditations, we did beach meditations, we did visualizations, we did breath work. Find your meditation practice. I give a ton in the book. And fourth, obviously, exercise, which you can speak to even more than I can. I exercise to keep fit. You look amazing, too. But it's an exercise everyone needs to find. Five minutes a day, 15 minutes a day of exercise that can just get them moving. And guess what? If you like sport, play sport with a friend. If you want to shoot hoops, go and shoot hoops. You don't have to sit on a treadmill. No one's telling you to do that. Make it fun and playful.

Brother. I've been, you know, I've been in personal development and business entrepreneur space for a long time. Those are two gigantic revelations that I've never heard before. I'm telling you that for me in the book, right? I'm reading it and I literally stopped the book. I brought both my kids in and we talked about this idea of that space having an energy to it. And I want to validate it because I just think you're incredible. I just. Everybody is why I want you to get the book. And it's why if you're not, you must be following Jay on these different platforms. Not just one, either. You need to be on his YouTube, you need to be on his Instagram, his Facebook. But I was shared this with you because I'm sure he's hero of yours. When I was very young. Well, when I was younger, actually, about your age, ironically, I'm running on the beach in Hawaii, and it's early in the morning, so I did my morning run. Speaking about exercise and passing me by on the beach was this man. I saw him from a distance. Anyway, he gets by me and he starts to go the other way. And it was Wayne Dyer.

Oh, wow.

A lot of people listening this probably don't know.

Oh, Wayne Dyer. You should check. I mean, you can't. He's not alive. You should check out Wayne Dyer's work. His books are unbelievable.

He's one of the godfathers of. I mean, he was somebody that truly made an impact. I end up getting a chance, long story short, sitting on the beach with him for about an hour as the sun comes up, talking about life. You talk about just the two of us. Right. However, one of the principles he taught me that day. And you articulate it, quite frankly, more beautifully and more specifically than even he did. But I want to validate it again, because these are things that you're not getting on any other podcast is what Jay and I are talking about right now. And he asked me, he said, are you going to write a book? And do you prepare speeches? I said, I do. And he says, one of the things I do is I have lots of. Lots of the greatest books in the world surround me when I write, because these books have that time and energy in them. And he believed that it gave him the great wisdom of all of these people when he just surrounded himself in that familiar space. So for you to now put this in your book about a morning routine is remarkable because that was just a passing thought that's really written nowhere. So thank God for you.

Appreciate that, man. And you just sparked, actually, Phil Knight, Shoe Dog, Nike. It's like he talks about how he actually has a room where he keeps his books, like a library, but he takes his shoes off when he enters that room because of the wisdom and the weight and the energy and the gravitas he believes books hold. And so even as monks, we would never wear shoes around books, because it was considered. Shoes are dirty, and you wear them outdoors, and books are so pure that you don't want to take dirt into that space. And supposedly, Phil Knight, he does the same thing. And I was like, phil Knight's thinking like a monk. Yeah, he's thinking like a monk. But it's just so interesting what you're saying about books holding energy. We believe that books are sacred. You don't kick books. You don't keep books on the floor because they have knowledge and they're meant to raise you up.

Wow. Wow, wow.

Yeah.

There's so much in there. I want to go through a couple more things. I'm gonna have the book, but I'm so fascinated by you. I got a couple personal things I want to do. But one of the things you say in the book, I've said this before and again, I just like the way you approach it with more depth than I've covered it before. I just said this this week to somebody looked at me like I was crazy and I talked about, I said some of your low self esteem and your lack of confidence is actually an ego issue that you have. And the person stared back at me like, how in the world is someone with no comp or low confidence or low self esteem struggling from an ego issue? And I don't know that I articulated it well enough, although it's in one of the podcasts that I've released, one of my solo podcasts. But you articulated. Right on. So talk about that for a second.

Yeah, so it's an interesting concept. And it's talked about in the Bhagavad Gita, another monk text. And in the book it talks about how, like, ego is demonstrated in two ways. So ego is either I am the best in the world and I think I'm better than everyone, or ego says, you're the worst in the world, you're the worst than everyone, you're much worse than everyone. Or you say, my life is the best and the greatest. My life is the worst. Right. My life is far worse than anyone else. So the ego likes to push you to the extreme. It doesn't like to give you balance and honesty and reality. It likes to. It wants to make you feel like you've got the worst life in the world and no one else understands it. No one gets there. Only you get in. You get the worst or you're the best and no one else gets you. You're untouchable. And people miss that. They're like, how does that make sense? Exactly like you said. But it does make sense because the ego wants to be the top or the bottom, but the top of the bottom, it doesn't just want to be.

At the bottom of the bottom.

Yeah, it's got to be the bottom or the bottom or the bottom, but the top of the bottom.

Very well said.

Yeah. And so we get lost in that and we don't think of it as ego. And that's why the only antidote to either ego is self honesty is being honest. And honesty is I'm good at these things, I'm great at these things, and I suck at these things. Right. That's honestly like. And we could all sit down, me and you could sit down with a list of our skills and map out what we were great at, what we were average at, and what we knew we were terrible at.

Yes.

And that's honestly, that keeps you so away from either ego.

Do you think part of it too is that when you're suffering from my life is the worst, that you're focusing on you and you're centering on you and there's an ego connection to that too. And that this pathway you talked about earlier about getting into this service of other people.

Yeah.

Removes you from you, which begins to remove the ego.

Absolutely. I mean, that's a huge point you just made right there. Like you just dropped some serious, like a. You know, please don't underestimate that point. Everyone is listening. Like, the challenge with all self centeredness is that all you then indulge yourself in is your own pain. Well, right. You just indulge. You just submerge and like immerse yourself in pain because it's all about you.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think Gandhi said it best is that you find yourself when you lose yourself in the service of others. And what I love about that statement is that what he means by that is. And empaths get this mixed up sometimes. So I want to clarify because a lot of people who are empaths who are listening are like, Jay, I'm always trying to help people, but then I get screwed over. So here's the answer. You're not helping people so that they can thank you. You're not helping people so that they can be grateful to you. You're helping people because you know it's the right thing to do. But more importantly, you're helping people because you get to understand and experiment and experience different parts of yourself. When I helped kids growing up in India that were. That didn't have food and we were giving them free food, I learned so much about myself when I was able to go and give talks that help people or now I make videos or podcasts. You learn more about yourself when you help people. You don't learn anything about yourself when you're just sitting there filling out a quiz going, who am I? What am I? Like, you don't figure, but you learn about yourself when you help people. And this is what we don't realize. I can't remember who said it recently. It was someone saying about Jeff Bezos, but they were saying that, you know, the scale at which you succeed is the depth of the problem you solve. And so even if you look at someone like Jeff Bezos, who's extremely successful, he's successful because he solved a problem that many people have. Bill Gates is successful because he solved a problem. So even if you look at monetary success, even if you look at financial success, it comes from service. Any success comes from service. A musician is famous because they're serving. They're serving you by understanding your feelings, making music. You now feel comforted, so you follow them. They have served you. So don't think of service as just charity and giving money, which are beautiful things, which we all should do. But don't just limit your life to thinking, I serve on the weekends or I serve once a year. You can serve every month. This podcast is a service, no question. Right now it's your service because you're serving people by giving them an alternative to just watching some trash show. But they're actually here learning from you and learning from the people that you bring on the show.

I've watched you to that point. This is a personal thing because I'm such a believer that you move the needle in the world, that you can help change consciousness. I'm in my little way, because in my small way, I would love to think I'm like in that ocean that you see out there, like a drop of water, and altering the consciousness of the world just a skosh. Not me, but who I can share with people and my own messages. And I believe you're one of those people. And so I will tell you, as I've watched this meteoric rise of yours, actually, privately, a few times, not every day, but a few times, I've actually prayed for you, that you. That you would keep this level of humility. And so this is an interesting thing I wanted to ask you, but it'll serve everybody else. There is this balance, isn't there, of wanting this book to do well, right? You don't want to sell two copies. You want it to do very well. When you put a video out, there's probably. There's got to be a little part of you that's like, how well did it do? And I think that line right there, I'm not even sure if you or I know the answer entirely, but do you struggle with that balance of, I'm doing this in the service of people, yet I'm Sensitive to the response of what I'm doing. Because I think someone listening this right now who's going to have a sales presentation tomorrow, they want to be in the service of that person. But there's this part of them that isn't that balance we've talked about earlier about what's the response going to be? How am I going to be received? I want people to like me, I want them. How do you navigate that?

That's a great question, man. That's huge. And the answer, let's take that salesperson. The more time that person spends in empathy, their customers pain and what the customer is really looking for, the better they're going to be received. So that service mindset always helps because if you're thinking about and this is what it comes and I said this to my team when we were writing the book and everything I was working on, I said if I sit here right now and all I'm thinking about while I'm writing the book is being a best selling book, then guess what? I'm now not writing the book. I'm now living in the future and I'm not living in the present. And so the only way to make this a best selling book is to do the process properly. And I don't think. And this is what I do and this is the only thing that's helping me. And again, I go through it all the time. After my first video went viral three, four years ago, I stopped creating because of the pressure that I wouldn't be able to live up to it.

Wow.

So I actually got scared because I was like, oh well, what if the next video doesn't do as well? Everyone's gonna think I'm tanking. Like you get into that self doubt and that self. And I got into that space where I was just.

Thank you for being honest about that.

Yeah, no, really, like genuinely, I didn't want to make a video again because I was like, this video just got 40 million views. Like, how am I ever gonna beat that? Right? And you get some scared. I was, I'm not putting anything out, I'm just going to stop. And then I started to realize, I was like, well, now I'm not living in service anymore. I'm living out of ego and I'm living for feeling a certain way. And guess what, I'm not feeling better by not putting anything out. And actually if I just serve more, I learn more. So the way I've made sense of it and there's a verse in the Gita that explains it too, is that you have full control over the preparation, the process, the practice, but you have no control over the potential result. But all of those three things are the result in and of themselves. And so if you get addicted to the process of writing, the practice of connecting with the right people who can help share your work. And like you said, I am focused on the process of making sure that the most people in the world have the opportunity to buy this book, but then if they choose not to buy it, I can't control that. But I can control making sure that it's in front of everyone and that I believe in the context. And that to me is not attachment. That to me is not ego. That to me is trying to live your best life. I mean, like, you know, if you didn't just try, if you're like, I wrote this book, but who cares?

Yes.

I mean, that's not service either. Because the way I explain it, and I'm not, I'm not claiming that this is it and I'm not trying to say I'm. It's. I'm trying to say that I think we all feel this way. If you or me see an amazing movie, we want to tell everyone about it. If you read an amazing book, you want to tell everyone about it. If you found the cure to cancer, you tell everyone about it. For me, I got to live an incredible life thanks to these amazing teachers I met. I just want to tell everyone about it. Like, that's all I'm doing. But I want to tell everyone because of how powerful it was.

Brother, that's the best description I've ever heard of. There's this line I've always tried to teach of, you want to have outcomes, but yet you need to separate from them.

Yeah.

And that's a difficult thing when people are trying to achieve different things. That was perfectly stated. Absolutely. Being addicted to the process of it, but actually separating from what you can't control. I absolutely, absolutely love it. I'm just curious. I got a couple more questions. Tell us something about being a monk and living with them. That would surprise us.

Okay, good.

Something about that.

So we had. That's a good question. So we had snoring and non snoring room. So they try and be compassionate. Right. So we would. So I'm a non snorer. I don't snore when I sleep. And my wife agrees now too.

She validates that.

Yeah. So I'm in the non snorer room. But the snoring room, we would always joke around with the snorers. Because we'd always joke about how they all sound like different motorcycles. So we'd be like, oh, that guy's like a Harley Davidson at night. Like, that guy's like, say this. Yeah, yeah. Monks say this because you're human and we're playful. And, you know, it's almost like monk life kind of makes you more childlike. Not childish, but childlike, because you start seeing things for what they truly are and you don't get caught up in stuff. So you can laugh at each other. You can mess around. Another thing is we had these sacred sweets or sacred items that are prepared and offered and everyone gets to share them. And you don't eat a lot of sugar as monks and you don't eat sweet stuff. But these. These kind of natural sweetened items came out like, once a week. And some monks would wrestle over them like, you know, like, physically, like, grapple over who's gonna get there. So these are the behind the scenes.

I love that. It humanizes the entire concept.

Monks are normal people. And let's be honest, like, most people haven't been monks their whole lives. So it's not like.

Yeah, great point.

Yeah. It's like, I became a monk when I was 22 and I'm not now. My friends, some of them became monks at 22, some of them became monks at 30. Like, it's not like there are monks that become monks at five. That does exist, but the majority of people now are not doing that.

They may even have more time in their life. Not one than they were one.

Exactly, exactly. And so for me, yeah, I'm glad you asked me that question because, yeah, like, monks are humorous. They're funny. My teachers are hilarious. If I'm with them, I'll just laugh the whole time.

Really?

Yeah. Because they just see that. And I'd love to introduce you to one of my teachers who travels here a lot.

I would love that.

I'd love to introduce you to my teacher. He's around 70 years old now. He's been a monk for 40 years, and he grew up in Chicago, so he's an American man, but he lives in India. He's been a monk for 40 years. Unbelievable. But he is hilarious.

Oh, my goodness.

And anytime I'm with him, I don't stop laughing.

Well, present people are more joyous in and of itself, right?

100%. Yeah, exactly.

You are.

You're not dealing. Yeah. And you're not dealing with that. You're not dealing with the baggage of the past or the anxiety of the future. So when you are present, you can just laugh. You can. And be joyous and be entertained and.

Enjoy the bliss of the moment. Yeah, dude, I want to keep going, so I just want to. One more thing. Let's give him one more gift. Because you're a treasure, bro. And I, I wanna, I, I want you to know that I, I want you and I to spend some more time together.

I would love. I gen. After meeting you today, I knew already, but after meeting you today, you have your energy in, in person surpasses all expectations, which is very like, I mean that like I, the people.

Listening is going, boy, can these guys call.

I know.

Stop the bromance.

I just saw his wife popped out earlier. I'm married too. He's married too.

He's married too. So, okay, so someone would pay a lot of money to do this, but I'm gonna let them do it for free for a second.

Sure.

Someone says, I'm watching this and I really have this energy about me after listening to this or watching this. And I want to change my life. And maybe I don't have super high self esteem right now and potentially I lack a little bit of direction or maybe I know what I want to do, but I don't know that I have the confidence to get there. If you just want to turn my life around, I want to have some of these emotions that it seems as if you experience on a pretty regular basis. What advice or counsel, just in general, would you give somebody who wants to live a better life?

Yeah. So one of my biggest things, first of all, would be that we do this wrong because we do either or, or we do them in the wrong order. So in life there are two aspects that impact everything. Our thinking and our actions. And I read a quote the other day that was saying that the mistake we make is that we either act without thinking or we think without acting. And I think that's where most people are. If you're feeling stuck or you're like, I'm not sure what I'm doing right now, you're either doing too much thinking or you're doing too much acting. So you're just doing a lot of stuff, but you don't know why you're doing it, or you're just sitting there procrastinating every day and you're doing it. So I'd say it's both. So the first thing I would say to you is take a moment and speak to three different people. Speak to a family member, a friend, and a colleague. And Ask them this one question. What strengths do I have? What do you think is my superpower? What skills do you think I bring? Emotional, strong, soft, hard, Whatever it is, do that first. Get that sense. Check. Second thing. For the next month, take off every weekend, eight days, because there's eight Saturdays and Sundays altogether in a month. And book a different course, Workshop, seminar, online, offline, go to an event, shadow a friend, go and spend time with an aunt, uncle who's doing the career you want. Go and have eight new experiences. And after each of them, sit with yourself and ask yourself, did I like that? Yes or no? Whether you like to or not, ask yourself, why did I like it? Or why did I not like it? And then ask yourself, would I like to do it again? And if the answer is yes, yes, yes, guess what? Go do it again. And if the answer is no, no, no, don't do it again, leave it out. But if you've had eight, and this is the problem, we do that over a year. We do that over eight years. And that's why life feels slow and boring and lethargic and stuck. But it just. In the next eight days in a weekend, just test eight new things and you'll have just a great experiment. And the worst thing that will happen is you'll find eight things that you don't like. But I guarantee you that even if you have a sense of that reflection in the beginning. And what I don't get why we don't do this enough is we do it with food and movies all the time. Like you just. Ed is such a kind man. Like, I got here slightly late because of traffic, and then he let me eat my lunch because I wanted to be full of energy. I need to find out where that place is because it's local to here. My team got it ordered for me. It was amazing.

Good.

And it's like, you know when you eat something, whether you like it or not? You know when you watch a movie, whether you like it or not? You know when you read a book, whether you like it or not? But why don't we ask ourselves after meeting people, completing projects or going to places, most of us keep meeting people that take our energy, most of us keep going to places that drain us of our energy. And most of us keep working on projects that just disturb our energy. All you have to do is ask yourself, does this bring me alive? Why does it bring me alive? Really important to know why it works and do I want to do it again?

Deep insight there, brother. What he described right there Everyone is like the ultimate pattern interrupt. What he's saying is, you're going to do this over eight years or 10 years. If you can just do this in the next eight weekends or the next four weekends, eight days. What a massive pattern interrupt. Okay, listen. Every single person who's watching this or listening to this wants more of you. If they aren't already. Where do they find you? Number one.

Yeah, absolutely. Come and find me on Instagram. A Shetty. Come and find me on the podcast on purpose. But if you've heard my videos, if you've listened to my podcast and they've had any impact at all, like, genuinely, I mean that if it's even had, like, a tiny bit of impact on you, My genuine proposal is read the book. Because it's the next level. I get to break it down and I get to go into the stories, the studies and the strategies that really make all of this livable and practical.

And they can get it everywhere.

And you can get it everywhere all across the world. We've got 36 languages coming out on this year.

I'm so proud of you. I'm so grateful for you and so happy for you.

Thank you, man. I'm genuinely. This is so much fun. I can't wait for lots more offline conversation.

It flew by, didn't it?

If. I mean, like, I don't. I don't even know how long we've been talking for, so this is great.

I wish we could go another hour, but. Brian.

But I want to thank you, Ed. Thank you so much.

I'm just. I'm grateful.

No, I'm very grateful to have you here.

Okay, everybody. I told you it'd be great. You all told me it would be. And it exceeded my expectations. So please go get the book and follow Jay on his social media, YouTube, everywhere, and keep doing it with me as well.

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Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Holter to unpack shame, anxiety and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts for wherever you get your favorite shows.

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