"STOP TRYING TO GET RICH & FOCUS ON THIS INSTEAD!" | Jay Shetty & Lewis Howes

The reason why people think you either have to be spiritual or financially successful is because they think, well, if you're going down the spiritual path, money can be a distraction. Or if you're going down money, then spirituality will distract you. And that is true.

But I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really?

Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. Neither of us are therapists, but Jay has this incredible background from being a monk and really being a meditator for a long time in your life and having the mindset of this monk mindset where I have more of the athlete mindset playing sports my whole life at a high level. And we said, what if we could bring our real world experience from these different perspectives come together and answer kind of challenging questions that we get a lot from our different audiences. And so we're creating, this is part one of Awkward Therapy.

Yeah.

And we've been trying to make this happen for a year now. We're finally here. So what's the first question that we are gonna answer? The first topic that you think we should really dive into?

I was gonna start off, Lewis, though, by saying that the thing I love about this is we have these conversations anyway.

All the time.

All the time.

All the time.

And so for those of you that don't know, me and Lewis always make sure that we see each other at least once a month to have dinner together, go on a hike, hang out. And that will inevitably turn into this...

It's a four hour conversation.

It's a four hour conversation about life.

Yes.

And we just thought, how cool would it be to have those conversations that are uncomfortable, that are pressing on taboo topics, that are a bit thought provoking, pushing on the side of like, oh, that feels really awkward and uncomfortable. Because I think that people are thinking this, but they don't have a place to say it.

Yeah, and we say to each other, and I'm like, I don't know if we could say this outside of this private conversation, or if we're gonna we're gonna get a lot of backlash or, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that, Jay. These conversations that it's just like, how can we create a safe environment to have open conversations? I love what Emmanuel Acho has done with his conversations with a black man, right? It's like these kind of uncomfortable conversations. How can we just put these things out there and be open-minded to it, not be so judgmental or critical? There's no right or wrong, but we're gonna come together have conversations to try to figure out some solutions to some of these bigger questions that a lot of people have.

Yes.

And obviously you've done a lot of work on your own and you've interviewed and are friends with a lot of top elite individuals in different walks of life, myself as well. And so we wanted to bring it together and see what we can come up with. I love it.

I'm excited.

I'm very excited. We've been trying to make this happen for a year. So this is Awkward Therapy Part 1. And the first topic of discussion is what?

Yeah, so the first question that we were going to address today is, can you be aspiring to be wealthy or make money and be spiritual at the same time?

Yes.

That's the first question.

And I think a lot of people growing up, I think both of us probably growing up had these limits around people who had money and thinking, are they good or bad people? Are they controlling? Are they mean to people? If you have money, can you be a good person or have some spiritualness to you? Or is it only one or the other? You can either be Mother Teresa and serve, you can only be Jesus and watch people's feet and be humble or you're this money hungry individual, right?

Yeah, yeah. And I think that when I was growing up at least, I grew up in an environment where the people around me believed that if someone was wealthy or someone was rich, that they must have done something dodgy or bad to get there.

Like illegal or sketchy or... Yeah, it.

Must be sketchy or illegal activities or they must have stabbed someone in the back or they must have hurt someone or they must be taking advantage of someone or manipulating someone.

Using, abusing.

Using and abusing. That's the only way they could have got there.

Really?

And generally, the idea that we all know of that money is the root of all evil, I think that was something that I was exposed to a lot as a child, where a lot of people around me believed that, and we weren't wealthy. So we weren't in a position of financial strength, and often my extended family and others would look to people with wealth, and if we would admire that or see something, they would be quick to dampen that and be like, no, no, no, no, no. They just do all this kind of stuff. And so I think there was always that negative view towards people who are rich.

How do we get to a place of, should we admire people that are wealthy? Should we look to that and say, it's really cool what they've built. Should we admire the accomplishment of amassing a ton of wealth? Or is that not something to admire?

You always ask the best questions, man.

This is like, you know what I mean?

It's like, that's such a great question.

Do you admire the results or do you admire the person they've become on the journey of accomplishing the results and how they, the actions they had in order to get there?

So this is not an interview, Louis, so I'm going to make you answer that question first. I want to hear your answer. I know what I want to say.

Well, I think this is interesting because I was going to ask you about... No, I was going to have a conversation about how you first, because I remember having this conversation years ago with you, where you never thought that.

Making.

Money was for you. You were just like struggling in New York City trying to make it and kind of live like month by month in a sense. And you told me you kind of had this limit around, can I be spiritual and make a lot of money? Can I serve the world, make wisdom go viral and also Is it okay to receive money? Is it okay to like charge what I'm worth or charge more for my services? So I remember having this conversation with you and I was like, I vaguely remember what I said. I said, you, know, I think you're doing a disservice to yourself by not generating more to be able to then hire more people to scale this message beyond. So you're not putting all the weight on your shoulders. To be able to invest in more nutrition and food and comfortable sleeping space for yourself, all that stuff. so you can serve at a greater level. And so I think I'm answering the question where I was like, I think if you're doing your life and you're being in service and being the best you can be as kind as possible to people on that journey, then I think it's both admirable and it's cool to see what you could create financially as well with the impact you're creating in the world. But it's all about how you show up on the day to day, how you treat people, in the journey of amassing the wealth. I think that-- that's a good-- but if you've generated a lot of money, but you've been a jerk or you haven't been in service except for to yourself only, then that's not something to admire as a whole man perspective, I think.

Yeah.

That's my thought.

I think that's beautiful. I love that. And I remember that conversation as well. And I want to go back to that question you asked though, because it's such a powerful question that should we admire people who are wealthy. And I think we have to be careful about what we admire, because what you admire will be what your actions aspire towards.

So you'll start taking on those actions.

Correct. You'll start taking actions and behaviors and decisions towards what you admire. And so I would say that I've always admired people who had a purpose. that's what I admire deeply. When I meet someone, I tell there's two things that I admire, purpose and humility. Like if I meet someone who has purpose, they're willing to sacrifice, they're willing to do whatever it takes. They are mission driven. They want to serve the world. It's why I was always a fan of yours from before we even met. And we knew each other because I was like, oh, here's a person who really wants to do good in the world. Here's a person who really wants to give. And so I think that's the first thing I look for. And then the second thing I deeply admire is someone who has humility, someone who I feel that they were really doing it from the goodness of their heart. So I think for me, my admiration has always been for those two things. And I don't think I can tell someone whether what they admire is right or wrong, but I would say that if you admire something, your actions are gonna start dictating your journey in that direction. And so you have to be careful what you admire.

Mm.

Because that's what you're gonna chase.

Right.

And so I would say that I like admiring purpose and humility because I think they are worthy of a pursuit.

Sure. Who are some people that we could think about, you know, who have amassed a lot of money, but also we feel like are purpose driven and in service to whatever their gift is? Who are some people that we can think about?

Yeah.

I wasn't thinking about this beforehand, but I'm just curious about, who is living that lifestyle right now?

Yeah, that's a tough question. And I think, I mean, I'd say we know a few people in our own world. I think people that I've always admired and looked up to are anyone from, like I'd say, that's a hard question. There are people that are coming to my mind right now, but I'd probably say that I think Oprah's work's been phenomenal. The conversation she's had, that have shifted culture or shifted humanity on her TV show.

Because she's brought in an entertainment, you know, TV show, but brought in the elements of healing, of prayer, of meditation, of spirituality, of, you know, creating consciousness in the planet, which I think is powerful. So she's bringing purpose to entertainment.

Yeah.

And she's built a massive Empire financially, been rewarded. for that service.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's a great thing. I think that's the reason why I find this question so interesting. Because if we're saying that spiritual people can't be rich, that means that spiritual people have to be poor. That means all the people that are rich are not spiritual.

Right.

Is that the world we want to live in? Do we want to live in a world where the wealthiest people or the most externally people who have the most resources are people who do not have spiritual intention. I do not know if that is the world I want my kids to grow up in or the world that I want to live in. I would rather grow up in a world where the most influential people had a deep spiritual intention.

Yes. And with that spiritual intention, they were, I guess, were rewarded financially for their level of impact and service. the challenge, the interesting thing is if you have that much humility and you have that much spiritual intention towards your life and service, does the money matter?

Yeah.

Does it matter as much like the more you earn and does it really impact the individual's life if they have a million dollars or a hundred million dollars? That's the interesting thing also.

Yeah, I mean, I'm interested in hearing your point because the perspective you gave to me a few years ago when you brought up that point, I remember having like hundreds of millions of views and no money. And four months away from being broke.

I remember this man. It's crazy to me to think that.

Yeah, and it was really true. Like I would sit in meetings and people would be like, how many views have you had now? And I would share that and I was getting all this incredible feedback and then I didn't have any money and I was literally gonna be broke in four months. And what I realized was that that was negatively impacting the amount of impact I could have sustainably long term. And it's what you said to me that what if you're making money, but then you're investing that in your team? What if you're expanding and creating more opportunity? Like today, where we have teams across the world, you have your team here, I have my teams who are also living their purpose.

Yes.

And we can only employ them because there's growth in this regard. and then they're getting to have a deeper impact. So to me, it depends on what scale of impact you want to have.

Yeah, and I think also spirituality for me is harmony. It's having peace and inner peace. And if you're financially stuck or you're financially struggling or you feel trapped in financial debt and confusion of financial aspect of your life, then I feel like that's holding you back from your spiritual progress. So it's figuring out how to have harmony and balance in these areas of your life, in your relationships, and your health, and your finances. For me, it's so key and going deeper spiritually in all of those, so they're all abundant. If one is not abundant, then are you maximizing your spiritual capacities of this lifetime?

That's beautiful. That's well put.

And so I think it's, and I think so many of us grew up thinking that money was the root of all evil or people with money were bad or this and this, whatever we, we thought of. But I think it's time to start changing the Narrative and saying, okay, I'm gonna use money for good. And how can I make a commitment to myself to use some of my money to be in service of other people, not just all for myself or needing the flashy cars or things. We both like nice things. You like fashion and and experiences. I love travel and adventure and healthy foods and investing in that. You know, we take care of our health. We have trainers, nutritionists, these things. I think it's important so we have more energy and capacity to be of service. So I don't think there's anything wrong personally with making a lot of money or having focus on profit and purpose.

Correct.

But I think you want to have both so you can scale both. There's a lot of people who are so well intended who have big missions but don't know how to make money to serve their mission. And they're doing a disservice to their cause because they haven't figured out the skill of copywriting or enrolling people in fundraising or sales or some skill to bring in revenue to support the cause or the mission. And I think that's where a lot of nonprofits struggle with these years is they're not thinking about all these other things they have to do to serve.

Yeah. yeah. So. And, and, and I like that because I also want to clarify that for someone who is spiritual or is conscious or is awake, whatever word you want to use or even is in focused on personal growth or self-development their goal is not profit. Their goal is their purpose, their mission, their service. But they recognize that this is something that they have to think about. and organize around in order to serve the purpose. So I think it's more about what's your top priority? Like, you don't wake up in the morning every day going, how can I make more money today? Like, that's not the mindset. You wake up in the morning going, how can we serve more people? How can we have a greater impact? How can we help more people? And you realize that creating a profitable business or income is a part of that purpose. And I think that's the clarity that we need.

Yeah, our measurement for our company is to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life.

Exactly, it's not to make X amount of money.

It's not to make $100 million a year.

Totally.

But in the, okay, how do we solve this mission equation, which is we want to reach 100 million lives weekly, what does that take? Well, most of it is through video right now. Video, through audio content, through social media, through books, through these different ways to scale a message, a different way to scale a message, which takes money, resources, and a team to execute on these different challenges in business to reach that mission. And so it's thinking, okay, we need more people to support on the team. That's going to take more money. So how do we make the money to hire people to serve the mission? And through the process of figuring out the purpose equation of how to solve that purpose, conversation, then you need to figure out money that's tied to it.

Yes. And I also want to make that point that you have to be really vigilant on this path so that you don't buy into your own hype in the sense of it. You can convince yourself of anything, and you could convince yourself that you're serving people and you're doing this and doing that, and then you're making loads of money, and then you just convince yourself that it's all okay. And so yes, you have to be more vigilant on this path. I don't think it's fair to say that, oh, it doesn't matter, it's all good. You've got to check your- what do you mean vigilant on what? So you have to remain accountable in some way to make sure that you are continuing to do good with the greater facilities and responsibilities you have.

As opposed to, oh, I just made 5 million this year, 20 million this year, and I'm getting all these accomplishments and awards and recognition. So, figuring out how to stay humble and confident.

Purpose driven.

And purpose driven at the same time.

At the same time to not get carried away by an opportunity because of that. And so, what I'm saying is that I think people often say that, you know, like the reason why people think you either have to be spiritual or financially successful is because they think, well, if you're going down the spiritual path, money can be a distraction. Or if you're going down money, then spirituality will distract you. and that is true. That is real. Like, you can get really materialistic trying to be spiritual.

Sure.

And you can become distracted from your materialism by being spiritual. That is true. But the goal of life is to live in that paradox, like in that middle point of trying to figure it out. So I often say to people, like, I don't consider that we've and I know we both feel this way. We haven't figured it out. We don't know. We don't know everything about everything. But I'm trying to toggle with that because I believe that the truth is in the middle. The truth isn't in the either or.

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I want to talk about also how we have individually stayed accountable, humble in our growth and our trajectory individually. Because there's at one point where I had no followers and one point you had no followers.