This Keeps 99% Of People SINGLE! - Fix This To Find LOVE... | Jay Shetty & Lewis Howes

One of the biggest lies that we've been told about love is that you'll find it when you're least expecting it. You'll find it when you're not looking. And I don't know anything that you find in the world when you're not looking in that direction.

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

What do you think are the biggest lies that hold people back from finding love and keeping them safe? what do you think that is?

That's such a good question and there's so many but one of the ones that stands out to me is one of the biggest lies that we've been told about love is that you'll find it when you're least expecting it. You'll find it when you're not looking. And I don't know anything that you find in the world when you're not looking in that direction. You can't find your keys if you're not looking for them. you can't find your phone if you're not looking for it, you can't find your passport, like all the things we lose on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, you don't just find it when you least expect it. And I think we apply that to love because there's a romanticism to it. It's kind of like, oh, I want that mystery of like, we just bumped into each other and I wasn't ready and I wasn't prepared and it happened. And by the way, if that happened to you, that's beautiful. Like that's awesome. I love that for you. And I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think that lie keeps people single because it stops people from making effort. Effort working on themselves, effort working on finding the right person, effort on creating love. And I think the reason why that lie keeps people single the most, and I was talking about this with a friend just yesterday, we were talking about the idea of how you don't stop loving when you move in. You don't stop loving when you get married. You don't stop loving when you've been together for 10 years and you're celebrating an anniversary. It takes constant effort. So now we're saying, oh, well, it's not going to take effort to find love, which means we're training ourselves to think it's not going to take effort to stay in love. And I think that's an unhealthy idea.

That's an interesting perspective. And give me some feedback on this. 'cause I wanna dive into that a little more. I think it's all about the context of it because when I met Martha, when I met Martha, I was like, I don't want a relationship. I was saying to myself, I'm not looking for a relationship. But it didn't mean I wasn't open.

Correct.

I was open to finding the right relationship. And I think it was like when you're ready and clear that you don't want the wrong relationships anymore, and you're working on yourself and you're finding yourself, you're developing yourself, then it's clearer the right person when you see them, when you're approaching them, when you're out in the world and taking action, you're going to attract a healthier version of the person you want to be with.

Yeah, and that's also you bumped into someone, but you built love out of it. So you didn't find love when you weren't looking for it. You found a person, but you still had to build love actively. And I think that's what I'm trying to I want to discourage the idea that it doesn't take effort, that love doesn't take action, that love doesn't need intention, that love doesn't need working on yourself. I want to discourage that idea because I think the idea that it perpetuates is love is gonna find you fully formed, fully thought about, perfect, and you don't have to do anything. And I think when you have that mindset about anything in life, whether it's love, success, happiness, joy, purpose, greatness. There's nothing else in the world that works that way. So why are we gonna... And maybe that's unpopular opinion and maybe everyone in the comment section is gonna be really mad at me. But I'm just saying that finding love takes effort, keeping love takes effort. Both of them take effort. Yeah.

And you talk about these four stages of preparing for love.

Yeah.

What are the stages? 'Cause I think a lot of the people, romanticize about you're gonna meet someone, you're gonna fall in love, and you're just gonna know right away.

Yeah.

And it's gonna be perfect and you're gonna, you know, go off into the sunset. What are these four stages that we should be very mindful and conscious of to set us up for greater relationship success?

Yeah. So I want everyone to visualize that life is like a school of love. Like, imagine the world, planet Earth, has been designed in order to help you learn how to love. Approach life in that way. And when you approach life in that way, you realize that there's four different classrooms or there's four stages and phases that help you learn different lessons about how to love properly. And so the four stages are preparing for love, practicing love, protecting love, and perfecting love. And what I like about this is we usually like to jump from liking someone to loving someone But these four stages give you the most important middle part, which is learning to love someone. And so I like to break things down into steps and stages because it stops it from being this big abstract idea and this fluffy, woo-woo, kooky feeling to actually being like, well, where am I on this journey? What step am I at? What am I gonna have to learn at this stage? And I think when you approach it that way, It just gives you more confidence and self-assurance. And the stages were mapped out based on the Vedas. So the Vedas break down these four stages and they talk about how we have to learn different lessons at each classroom.

Preparing for love, practicing love, protecting it, and perfecting it.

Correct.

I'm curious, do you think it's harder to learn how to love someone else or how to learn how to love yourself?

Ah, great question. So I believe that if you've gone through and first of all, I want to say these four stages are not like you finish one and then you start the other. They're always integrated. Integrated. Like you're always going to be in a couple of places. I find that if you're doing the work to learn to love yourself, that process and that skill helps you learn to love someone else. Let me give an example. Like, if I'm learning to love myself, it means I have to get to know my dark side. It means I have to get to know my flaws. It means I have to get to know parts of myself that make me feel uncomfortable. Now, if I recognize that I have all of that in me, now when I meet someone else, I'm not surprised when they have it in them because I've already seen it in myself. And I think often if we think, oh, like I'm gonna meet someone and they're not gonna have any issues or they're not gonna have any challenges, it's partly because we haven't necessarily worked through our own. And so I think if your trauma is more visible to you, if your pain and your stress of the past is more visible to you, you're actually better at being compassionate to someone else's because you can see it's something that connects us. So it's when we're afraid of our.

Darkness or our traumas or pains or, you know, sides of us that we don't enjoy what happens when we're afraid of it within us or we're afraid of it in others.

When we're afraid of it in us, we're surprised when we see it in someone else because we haven't sat with compassion with ourselves because If we're constantly judging ourselves and berating ourselves and hating ourselves for some of the challenges or traumas that we have, maybe some things we did that we're ashamed of or we feel guilt and embarrassment around, now if you haven't worked through that, you're gonna make that person feel guilty and embarrassed for what they've done. Because you haven't learned the skill of building space of dealing with yourself with empathy, with understanding, with compassion. A really great example is this, that if you've taught yourself how to play a sport, you can now watch someone else play sport and help them become better at it and understand the challenges they have. Whereas if you've never taught yourself how to play that sport, you'd just be looking at someone else going like, why are you holding the racket like that? Or why don't you know that? It's kind of like the guys that saw us. Playing pickleball. Yes. So if anyone who doesn't know what pickleball is, yeah, me and Lewis were, just to give a very relatable example, Me and Lewis were playing pickleball last year quite regularly until I had an injury. And whenever we'd play, we'd play pickleball like tennis. So we'd be even doing the scores like tennis or ping pong. And we'd be like, just literally smacking the ball here and there.

And then this father and son came up to us.

Like semi-pro pickleball players. And they said, we overheard how you were counting and you were wrong. Like, that's not how it works. And they taught us how, but they were so compassionate. They were so understanding. They were so like, I was like, I was really impressed. They were so slow with us. They weren't frustrated by us. I think we often get frustrated by other people's flaws because we haven't looked at our own.

Okay, this is a question that's a deeper question. I don't know if you talk about this stuff. Whenever Jay's on the show, I like to ask him personal stuff. So when was the last time you felt intense shame about something you had done in your past? And maybe it was, four monk life or whatever, but when was the last time you felt intense shame? And what was the process in having compassion for yourself to overcome that so you didn't live in that darkness?

Yeah, I think my biggest thing that I probably feel shame around is I feel that I often, in my teens, did nice things for women because I wanted them to validate me. So I did nice dates and organized amazing experiences, not necessarily because of how I felt about them, but because they would say, Jay, you're awesome, you're amazing, like you're incredible. And in my teens, I was so self-conscious and I wanted to hear that so badly. And by the way, that links to me being bullied at school for being overweight and being Indian at 10 years old. and 11 years old all the way up until 14 when my life transformed externally. And so I could see that I was carrying that trauma because when I was 10 or 11 years old, I was bullied so hard all the way up until 14 for how I looked and my weight and the color of my skin that I was almost trying to feel better about it. But the only way to make myself feel better about it was, well, women rejected me when I was younger. Now, if women validate me, then that will make it all better. And I feel shame around that because I think that I feel bad when you mislead someone or when you show a feeling towards someone, but the feeling is not real or true or accurate. I would never do that now. I wouldn't even do that in friendship or at work or in any way. And so I look back on that and I have intense shame around it because I think why was I so insecure that my insecurity made other people feel insecure? Right? When you show someone love and then you take it back, you leave them much worse. And okay, we were in our teens and I can justify it, but I still feel guilt and shame around that.

So how does someone like yourself and others learn to realize the season of life and the things that you did you're not proud of, but also not live in shame to where it affects you today? and hurts you internally.

Yeah, well, I think one of the first things is recognizing that you didn't ever get taught. Like, no one ever gave me this lesson. Like, no one sat me down in my teens and said, Look, because you were insecure when you were younger, now this is what's gonna happen and you have gotta avoid this. Like, we never went to a class about that. We never got coaching on that. I never had therapy when I was 14 years old to understand that. So I think you have to give yourself grace and space to say, I didn't know better, right? I think accepting, I didn't know any better. When I know better, I can do better. And that's a great way to give yourself grace because you're not just giving yourself an excuse. You're saying, when I learn, when I grow, when I know better, I'll live up to that standard. But when I didn't know and I wasn't even aware that that's how trauma and insecurity worked, how could I possibly have controlled that? I was a good person. I was a nice person. I didn't hurt anyone. And that's the second side. I go, it wasn't intentional and I was able to apologize to those individuals either during that time or afterwards. I was able to express my feeling of feeling sorry and feeling bad about what I'd done. And I think that's an important part. And sometimes you can't say sorry to the person and look them in the face because they may not even want it. You may not have a relationship anymore. And in those circumstances, I really feel like offering a apology internally, energetically, a spiritual apology is so powerful because it also makes you go through that and process that. And then at the same time, I think, you know, there's that famous quote that we hear all the time and share all the time, and it's the best apologies changed behavior. And I love that because to me, that's the only way that you forgive yourself. The only way you forgive yourself is if you actually change your behavior. And if you don't see yourself change your behavior, you can't forgive yourself. You constantly make yourself feel shameful and guilty because you know you haven't really done the work.

Right. So you'll keep living in that shame or guilt.

Yeah.

And probably masking it or doing things to try to feel good, even though you're in shame about it.

Well, it's almost like if guilt's on one side, the bridge is forgiveness and on the other side is growth. Yeah. Self-forgiveness and so you've got these two points of guilt and growth and self-forgiveness is in the middle. But self-forgiveness requires change of behavior. And that gets you from guilt to growth.

What's on the other side of growth?

More growth. Yeah. More growth.

What's available?

Yeah.

Once you've gone from guilt. to self-forgiveness, to growth, what is available in your life on the other side?

So, when you do the work on yourself, when you meet other people, they don't walk away with insecurities. You're now not causing other people pain because of your pain. You're now not causing other people to feel insecure because of your insecurities. And I find that when we're not doing the work, when we're not growing, Everyone around us feels like they may be the problem, that they have an issue, that there's something wrong with them. I think when you're in a place of growth, people can see themselves for who they are and they can see you for who you are. I think I feel this way around you as a friend. Like, you know, because you're doing so much self-work all the time, and that's why we said what's followed by growth is growth. But when you're doing self-work all the time, now when I'm with you, I reflect more on myself. I reflect on growth I need to do. And at the same time, I'm not guessing whether Lewis likes me or not or whether Lewis has an issue with me or not because you're doing the work. So your pain is not over spilling onto me, right? Your insecurities are not being projected onto me. So I think you actually create a really safe space for the people you love to flourish and grow and blossom around you when you're doing work.

Sure. What's the space that is available for you on the other side of growth? Like what's the place you're growing into right now, whether it be relationship or career or health? Where do you see yourself or internally, where do you see yourself growing to the next level?

I think that when I started this journey in my life of trying to make wisdom go viral and to share ideas and help people train their mind for peace and purpose every day, there was a certain speed and pace that allowed me to figure out what I needed to do every 12 months. And now I feel like I'm moving away from thinking about the next 12 months to thinking about the next 12 years and thinking about the next 20 years and thinking about the next 30 years. And so I feel like I'm at an evolution and growth in my own life where a change of pace will be what I'm looking for because I found that up until now, I felt like I had to do lots of little things all the time to be able to establish what I'm doing today. And now I realize it's actually going to take fewer, bigger things that you can only get to if you've done this step before. But now I realize that that's what it's going to take. And so.

And what about the, you know, you've been studying this for the last few years and teaching deeper insights on love. practicing it, writing about it, speaking about it on stage, in podcasts, things like that. Where do you see yourself growing in love with friends, family, your marriage and with yourself moving forward after this work?

Yeah. So what I found was as I was doing this work, I realized that often the blocks to love are not because you don't have the deep intention to love people. But it's that you are putting yourself under so much stress and pressure that you're too agitated and irritated to be present and actually share love. So I saw this study that talked about how you think you don't wake up early the next morning even though you wanted to because you're bad at waking up early. But the truth is it's because you're actually experiencing stress and when you're experiencing stress you can't implement a new habit. And so reducing stress allows you to be the person you want to be. If you think about when you say something you don't want to say, it's because you're irritated. Reactive. Yeah, when you do something you don't want to do, it's because you're stressed. When you react to someone in a way that you don't think is yourself, it's because you're agitated. So we act in unloving ways because we are putting ourselves under stress irritation, agitation or pressure. And so, for me, what I've realized that if I want to be my best loving self and be present with each and every person and be conscious of that energy, I have to learn to not put myself under so much stress that I can't be present.

-Right.

So, that's been a big lesson of love that you can't love while you're putting yourself under stress or pressure in any way.

-And it goes back to your kind of Yeah. Theme about peace and purpose every day. I don't think you can fully give your authentic heart without being peace.

Yes.

Without being in a state of peace. And I understand life happens and stresses happen, but creating a baseline going back to peace so you can be present.

Yeah.

When we're not in peace, when we're stressed, you're in scarcity mode. You're in fight or flight. You're not present with your friends or family, your loved ones, or just acquaintances. You're reactive.

Totally.

And people don't feel loved when you're not present.

Yes, exactly.

When you're not looking them in the eyes or just listening to them and being in a good state of being when you're around them.

Yeah. The other one that came to mind when you said that as you were speaking is Russell Barkley said that the people who need the most love ask for it in the most unloving ways. And So true. The commitment I've made to myself is I no longer want to ask for love in unloving ways. I no longer want to be snappy to feel loved. I no longer want to be demanding to experience love. I no longer want to make someone else feel a passive aggressive comment to feel love. I want to communicate about the type of love I need in an open and honest way. rather than trying to hope that someone else is going to figure it out because I'm sending subliminal messages or I'm being distant or I'm avoiding them. And so that was something deeply that I learned was that we just constantly keep asking even the people that love us the most, we keep requesting and demanding love in the most unloving ways.

Yes.

And if we can free ourselves of that, you can actually make a relationship. really special and beautiful. And so we have to let go of that. Yeah.

I'm curious. I've been asking a lot of different people on this show over the last year a specific question. I don't know if I've asked you this one yet, but people who've come on, who have done great things and done it over a short period of time or gotten notoriety or gotten, you know, well known or different things or had a big exit when they didn't have money, essentially five years ago, you weren't You weren't on the map. You didn't have a big audience. You didn't have a lot of money. You didn't have the New York Times best sellers. You didn't have all these things. I'm curious, before all that started, on a scale of 1 to 10, the peace and self-love scale, let's call it, 10 being you had total peace and love for yourself and love for the people around you and you were present all the time, one being you hated yourself. Where were you before we met? And then where are you today after success?

Yeah, that's a great question. I'd have to say that I was probably at a seven or eight before, to be honest, because even though my work's been noticed, publicly in the last five years or six years, there was a whole 10 to 11 years before that where I literally did this for whoever showed up.

Five people.

Literally, so like when I was 18 and of course in my first book I tell the story of how I met monks, I would have, I had a society at university called Think Out Loud. And what it was was a community where I would put out flyers and posters myself and whoever wanted to come from my university would attend. And it was called Think Out Loud. I would dissect a movie based on philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. So I would take a movie like Inception and I would break it down. I'd take a movie like Notebook and break it down. I'd take a movie like the Butterfly Effect, Good Will Hunting. Like I'd take these incredible movies and I would do these sessions. They'd be absolutely free. And I did it for the first year and five to ten people came. Second year, maybe 25 people came. Third year, there were sometimes 100 people who were in the room. And I was just doing it because I loved it. Then I became a monk. When I came back, I did the same thing in the corporate world. I had an event in London called Conscious Living. It was on a Friday night. Literally five to ten people would show up once a month, but it would make me so happy to spend hours with them afterwards. I would literally do a session I'd serve everyone food because we'd always sit down to break bread. And then we'd sit down for two, three hours and I would just answer people's questions and sit with them. And I didn't have any followers, I didn't have any platforms, I didn't have any audience, but I loved it. And so I was already living the dream, in my opinion, because I was getting to do what I love on top of having a day job. And to me that felt realistic. When I look at my happiness and.

Joy now, Scale of 1 to 10. And like the, yeah.

I'd say, to be honest, there's days when it's a nine and there's days when it's a five.

Really? Yeah.

It oscillates and it's because- why is that? Well, I think it's because I've taken on so much more now to think about, to be in charge of, to lead. You have other people that you're responsible for. You have teams of all of these people that rely on you to do what you do best and take care of them and connect. And they're trying to help you out and build with you. And so the responsibility scale level is so much higher now. And so it's not that I don't feel peaceful in my purpose, but it's that you do deal with daily stress, daily challenges, daily pressure in a way that I didn't before because it was just about me.

It's just so fascinating because pretty much everyone asks says something similar.

No way.

Where this Like they were peaceful. They loved them. They had more confidence before it's not saying, you know, more confidence, but on the scale of like inner peace and self love and fulfillment, it was like almost less on every scale because of the weight, the pressure, the man, just so much more going on and needing to navigate. Yeah. A lot more going on in life as opposed to more of a simple peaceful life.

But one thing I've understood though, with that point is that the reason why that that translate is that discomfort is where you grow. -That's it. And that's what I realized. -You can't stay comfortable. -You can't. And so, I find that a lot of my life today, I often say to people, I think 75% of my working week is in my discomfort zone. And so, I really crave comfort in my relationships. I crave comfort on my weekends. -I love to relax. -Exactly. Yeah, great relationships with you, of course. And we have a good group of friends and I have good relation with my wife. So, I rely on my personal relationships to have some comfort and some stability as I take on discomfort in my service and purpose. And so, I think that makes sense. And so, I think you also just get better at understanding what growth looks like and what you need. I think if I just sat and lived that life forever, I don't think it would have stabilized. I don't think I would have stayed at a seven or an eight. That would have probably come down as well, but for different reasons. And so the reason that now it comes down are actually positive healthy reasons or can be managed in a healthy way. Yes.

Before the interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called the Greatness Mindset and I think you're gonna love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies and step-by-step guidance, the Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video. Is there ever a time now where you don't, where you feel like you don't love yourself, where you have moments of like self-hatred or beat up or lack of self-love?

I think loving is, I believe that self-love is something that should always stay, but self-inquiry or questioning should remain. And I think that's that healthy balance of saying, I will always love myself because beyond this body, beyond this mind, I'm consciousness, I'm eternal, I'm full of bliss, and I'm full of knowledge at a consciousness level. And that is worthy of love. And so I'm always gonna love that. I'm gonna love what I've been calling my first self. I've got so many selves today. I play so many roles and personalities, but my first self is eternally lovable. And I have to accept that because if I don't, what ends up happening is that I think I'm unlovable at the core, and then you start acting out in very unhealthy ways, right? So, I believe I'm always lovable but I believe I'm not free of self-inquiry and self-questioning. So, are there days when I doubt myself? Yes, because I think doubt can be healthy. Are there days when I question my intention and motivation? Yes, but to me that's healthy. If I didn't question my intention and motivation, I think that would be unhealthy because I'd basically be saying I'm perfect and everything's okay. And so I'm saying all of us, this is not just about me, everyone is lovable at the core, but then we have to question. So I question my intention, I question where my attention is, I question the actions I take, I question my decisions, I question whether I truly love or whether I'm just being thoughtful. Like what is the difference? I think I am intrigued and constantly curious about Am I living my philosophy accurately? And also, is my philosophy even accurate? Right? Both of those questions. And I think that's uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable to live there because our identity is made up of these pillars. And I actually feel like recently I've kind of shaken myself sometimes because I'm ready to question my deepest core beliefs. Yeah.

Which one have you questioned or been close to questioning? the most.

So I think I have, and I talked about this on the first time I was on your show, and it's still the number one purpose, I think, in the world, which is to serve others. I consider service to be the highest truth. But my question is always, am I really serving most effectively? Am I really serving genuinely, sincerely? And I think I have to do that excavation because then only can you truly love. And so I would sit down and check that. I'm like, okay, if I really wanna serve people, what is the best thing I can do with my time? If I really wanna make an impact on these people, what do they really need? What do they truly need? And so constantly trying to think about, almost like a company has to think about their customer first, to me, when you're trying to serve, you have to think about humanity first. And that's a challenge because you've also got limited skills, limited resources, limited abilities, And so then you're trying to find that balance. So I think that's, I really question how I want to serve, who I want to serve, and what service really means. And I hope I continue doing that for the rest of my life because I think if I don't, I could end up in a very different direction that I won't be happy with. Yeah.

When we go back to something you said about believing you're lovable, why do you think a lot of people in the world get to a point or they don't believe they're lovable. And what happens to them if they enter a relationship and at the core they don't believe they're lovable? What happens to that relationship?

The reason we don't believe that we're lovable is because we think if people don't love us, then we're not lovable. So we base the feeling of being loved by someone else as more important than being loved by ourselves.

Interesting.

And so we're waiting. We're saying, if Lewis loves me, then I will allow myself to feel unlovable.

And if they leave me, then I'm not lovable.

Exactly. Exactly. And so all of our decision on being lovable is based on other people, which as we both know is highly risky because people are going to change their mind, people are going to come and go, People are going to feel differently on a daily, monthly, weekly, yearly basis. You can't base your decision to be lovable on how much love you receive. And so I think that you have to decide that you're lovable by knowing all that you have to offer, not all of that being noted by other people. So you're not lovable because a hundred people love you or a thousand people love you, you're lovable because you know what you bring to the table. You're lovable because you know what you're willing to offer and share with someone. You're literally gonna share a part of your life with someone. That's what makes you lovable. So you're lovable because of your abilities, your qualities, your skills, your generosity, your kindness, your empathy or compassion. And I think we don't think of those things as assets in relationships. If you think about how people date, most people's dating profile will say, I'm looking for someone who's kind, good sense of humor, driven, and ambitious, right? Or something like that. Or someone else may say, yeah, I'm looking for someone who likes to go traveling, who likes long walks, who likes being at the beach or whatever, something like that. But those are not our assets in a relationship. Like, no one ever says, like, I'm looking for someone who's generous, kind, magnanimous, thoughtful, emotive, understanding. Like, you know what I'm saying? But that's what we're really looking for. And so I think we devalue the parts of ourselves that are the most lovable because we value the things society tells us to value.

Why do you think we focus so much on Connecting with people based on likes and interests, shared likes and interests in the world versus emotional stability and healthy inner qualities. Why don't, you know, because that at the end of the day will determine whether a relationship is going to work or not in a lot of ways.

Yeah.

How you energetically can communicate and react and respond to each other. How you explode or don't explode. It's these ability to communicate effectively with peace and harmony. And the likes and interests, yes, you're gonna wanna have shared experiences, you're both enjoying these activities. But why is it like, I like hiking and travel and dogs versus I like inner peace and conscious conversations and mutual respect. You know what I mean?

I love relationships. Yeah, I love relationships. But it's true because it's a great place.

Well, she likes to hike and he likes to swim. And so we do all these cool activities. But when there's a disturbance or expectations that aren't met and there's not a mutual conscious agreement, then he's avoidant. She's reactive. We're explosive. We can't communicate and fight, like you talk about in the book, how to fight in a healthy way. And instead we should be coming to the table with, hey, this is how I like to communicate. This is my love language. You know, who cares about hiking if we can't communicate?

Totally, totally. I'm so glad you like doubled down on that point that's coming up. But I think that takes so much maturity to realize. It takes so many years.

When we're 16, we're not doing that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, even in your 20s, right? You just don't think like that. You just think, oh, that's for, you don't even ever consider it. I think you just think if we like the same stuff, It means we'll be able to do things together. And we think that basically about love, that, oh, if we like the same movies, we like the same travel, we like the same workouts, then we're gonna agree on everything. And I think that's what they mean.

We're like sushi.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly the same food. And I think that's what it is. We think that if we agree on our likes and dislikes, we're gonna agree on the bigger issues.

On money, sex, kids, family, all these things.

That's all the bigger stuff. which actually, what we've realized through our own relationships, it's very rare that you're gonna fully agree on your exact viewpoints towards something, but you can agree on how you communicate and deal with things. And that's the value that we have to have the same. The value you have to have the same is not, I want it to be sunny or I wanna live in the cold or I love sushi or I love Italian food. Those are not the things that make or break a relationship, but that is what we market ourselves as and that's the ads we look at of other people. And so we're marketing saying, I like these seven things. We're looking at everyone's ads saying, I like these seven things. And to me, what I discovered was just, when I look at me and Radhi, we're very different people when it comes to likes and dislikes.

And even your love languages are a little bit different.

Our love languages are completely different.

Right?

Radhi's love language is quality time and words of affirmation. And my love languages are words of affirmation and gifts. Like those are mine. So we have one in similar. But at the same time, the other likes and dislikes are Radhi loves working out. I only work out if it's sports. I love sports. I can play sports all day. Radhi is far more like connected to nature and like an outdoors person, which I can be as well. But I'd rather be reading books for 12 hours.

On the couch.

If I had the choice on the couch. And so we have so many differences in who we are. We also have some similarities. We have the same taste in furniture and interior design and that kind of stuff. So we have some similarities. But what I find is that the parts that make our relationship good are the fact that we both have this memory where when we wake up in the morning, we erase what happened yesterday and it's a new day and our relationship starts again.

You don't hold on to it.

We don't hold on to it. Now we both have that.

That's pretty good.

And it's so helpful and useful in a relationship.

It's kind of like Men in Black every day.

Literally, that's exactly what it feels like. And she has that too. But that impacts our relationship way more than the fact that we have the same taste in interior design.

Exactly.

Like that doesn't make the difference.

Man, what is this thing that you would go back before you got engaged to Rati? If you could talk about a few things differently.

Oh, that's a great question.

That you would do that would again, you have an amazing marriage and relationship. I see you guys all the time, but that you think, oh, this could have helped us have more peace and harmony and just having the courage to talk about these things and really get clear and not just assume that it's going to be a certain way. But if I just would have said these few things and gotten an agreement, then it would have been a lot easier.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think some of the things we did upfront was we had a lot of big discussions about the big things in life.

Money.

Money, kids, where we want to live, what kind of lives we want, how we're going to use our time, what our energy is going to be like during the week. We talked about things like me saying I'm committed to my purpose and Radhi saying I'm committed to my family. We talked about all of the big stuff. So that was very good. But one thing we didn't do as well till later on, and I see you doing it now, which is Genius is the agreements and the principles that help you make decisions on a daily, weekly basis. So it took us a lot longer to start forming agreements with things like, okay, well, if you're gonna go out this week, make sure you let me know so I can plan something else for myself.

I'm not around waiting for you.

So I'm not around waiting for you or expecting to spend time with you. Things like, okay, well, if we're going to be on our phones, let's set a rule about which parts of the home and which times we should do that versus when we'd like to be fully present with each other. So these took a lot longer to come. And I think if they were made earlier, it would have saved us time and energy because now you don't have to go through these uncomfortable conversations later on.

Yeah, or like minor resentments for a day or whatever.

Totally.

Even though you guys forget every morning, but you still repeat the pattern.

Yeah, yeah, you repeat the pattern. Exactly. And so, you let go of it.

But you repeat the pattern.

Exactly. And so I think I think that coming up with those agreements and principles, which I know are so important in your relationship, we literally sat at dinner the other day and we were going back and forth with what are our agreements and things. And I think that being done earlier, I think people, I don't think we talk about the big stuff, all the small stuff in relationships, we just talk about our feelings. So we say, I like you, you like me, great, we're doing well. Rather than saying, well, these are the big things, do we align? And let's talk about the small things.

I wanna talk about the, you talk about on page 166 of the book, about every couple fights.

Yes.

Or should, and whatever you or your partner fight about, you're probably not alone. According to a couple of counselors, there are top three areas of conflict are money, sex, and how you raise children. I wanna talk about this for a second. Before I talk about that, We talked about agreements, which I think are key when it comes to intimate love and also friendship and, you know, working environments, things like that. Agreements create alignment, creates clarity, creates peace is what we all want. Peace. And I think agreements create that. There's obviously a famous book called the Four Agreements. But I'm curious, if you had to call, create a book called the Four Agreements of Love. What are four agreements that we should all have in an intimate loving partner?

Oh, I said, okay, so I'm gonna go practice this.

This is off the cuff.

I like it. I'm gonna go practical and philosophical. Obviously, I have the eight rules, which.

Are, which some of them could be agreements.

Yeah, yeah. If you're like, we're gonna create agreements going into marriage. The first one I would say is we sleep at the same time. I think that's a huge one. If you're living together, we go to sleep at the same time. So many studies show that when partners are in rhythm with each other, in sync with each other, our heartbeat sync, our breathing syncs. And if you have a healthy relationship, that can be really supportive to your connection. And couples who sleep together get to have important conversations. They get to connect. They get to not feel or wonder, well, where's my partner? What are they up to? What are they doing? Now, of course, this has the caviar of there's at least twice a week or when I'm traveling, when me and Radhi don't sleep at the same time. And that's okay. I may be at an event. She may be getting an early night. but it's kind of like, what's your rhythm, right? So that would be the first agreement. Make sure you sleep together. And I'd add to that one, make sure you sleep at the same time and make sure you eat one meal together every day. Have one meal that's shared. The second agreement I'm going to make is when our partner wants our attention, we are completely available and undistracted. That we put our phones away, that we stop doing what you're doing when your partner requests. that they need your undivided attention.

Hey, can you be present for me for a moment?

Correct. And it has to be both ways. There has to be a request and then there has to be the response. I think the challenge today is that there's no request. We just want our partner to react in that way. And then when our partner doesn't, we say, well, couldn't you tell? I really wanted to talk to you. And it's like, well, I couldn't tell because I was looking at my phone. And me and Rati talked about this a lot, which was this idea of, hey, I'm on my phone a lot for work. I'm on my phone a lot. with everything that we're doing. And I want to be present with you, but I need to know you need 100% of my presence. Clearly tell me.

Clearly tell me.

It's 100%, 50%, or 5%? Because sometimes you just want to say, Are you taking your lunch with you? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'll take it with me. That's a 5% presence. But then sometimes it's like, I had a tough day.

I want to talk to you about it.

That's 100% presence. Yeah, that's good. So use that. That would be-- I like that.

And use that as defining how much presence you want from your partner.

Okay, that's number two. Number three, Talk more about your issues with your partner or with a therapist than with other random people.

That's so good.

So I think that most people talk more about their partner to their friends than they do to their partner or a therapist who's qualified to help. And so most of our conversations revolve around talking to the seven friends who are-- who love us, who care about us.

I'm gonna back you up and say, yeah, Simon is wrong. And yeah, he was an idiot.

Literally.

Leave them.

Literally. Yeah, exactly. And you're not actually talking to the person that you have a relationship with. And I find that interesting that some couples can go weeks without talking to each other, but they're talking to their friends about each other every day.

And resenting each other, ruminating over.

Complaining about each other, criticizing, comparing, all of that that takes over.

So and so's husband does it this way, and he did this for his.

Exactly. Yeah. Did you see what they did for For their anniversary, did you see how he proposed? Did you see how, and you're hearing that and then that doesn't help you 'cause you don't talk to your partner.

I like that one. So that's number three, number four. I like the four agreements of love.

I'm gonna have to write the book now. Now I'm gonna have to write another book.

Another one, the follow-up.

The fourth one.

So let me recap the first three. You sleep at the same time and do your best to have a meal a day together. When your partner wants our full attention be present and make sure it's communicating on both sides.

Yeah, and the main part there, the practical thing is the percentage. Do you want 100% of your partner's attention or 5%? Right. Say it.

Third one, talk more about your issues with your actual partner over your friends or people that are unqualified. Your partner or your therapist. And the fourth agreement of love.

Expect people to change. and for you to evolve. And so keep getting to know them again and again and again. Don't live in this world that my partner is never going to change. We're going to stay the same. Everything's going to be the same. I think this addiction to the same stops us from the most beautiful thing in love, which can be change. And if you know, if you expect that your partner is going to grow, you keep getting to know them. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is we think we know our partners. And so we stop asking them questions. We think we understand them fully, so we're no longer curious. We assume that we can read their mind, and so we never check. And that's when you end up in a surprise, when 10 years from now you both go, I didn't marry you. I didn't want to be with you. You're a totally different person. And the person's thinking, yeah, of course I'm a different person, but we never got to know each other again. So get to know each other again and again and again and again and again. Don't leave it to think, oh yeah, I know exactly everything about them. I remember I was coaching someone once.

And.

I was coaching them as a couple. And one of the partners would always say to me, they'd say, well, you don't really understand her. And you don't really know her. I know her. I know what she's like. Now that was true. They did know their partner better than me because they'd spent more years together. But the challenge that they were making at that point is they thought their partner was stuck to being that person and their partner was feeling like they don't feel understood anymore. So you've got one person saying, Jay, you don't understand them as the coach. I understand them deeply. I'm like, I know you do. But their partner's problem with them is I don't feel understood anymore.

Right, but they're telling me something different.

Exactly, exactly. And so I feel like getting to know your partner every week, every month, like, almost look at your partner through the lens of if I don't see them in new scenarios, I won't learn new things about them.

What's a question you could ask your partner every month? It could be the same question that would support you in getting to know them in a new way every time you do it.

Yeah, so I have four questions, one for every day, one for every week, one for every quarter, and one for every year that you can ask your partner.

Every day.

So the question every day is, what did you do for yourself today? Your partner probably spends a lot of their time thinking about you, thinking about the kids, thinking about work. If you remind them to love themselves, that's potentially the best reminder you could give them. What did you do for yourself today? The question that you want to ask every week is, what did you learn this week? What was something that you gained? What was something that you picked up this week that you're gonna take into next week? Every quarter, ask your partner, is this relation, this is the most uncomfortable one. Is this relationship going in the direction we want. If it is, what should we keep doing? If it isn't, what are we willing to do to get it there? That to me is the most powerful, most important question in a relationship.

Yeah, say it one more time.

Is this relationship going in the direction we want? So, this is that making sure you stay on course. You think about people who only set new as resolutions. you went off course in month one, but you only sat back with your New Year's resolution 11 months later. You don't have to wait for 11 months to do that, but that's what we do because you only set New Year's resolution. So don't do that with your part. And the fourth question every year is, what's your goal? What are you pursuing this year? And how can I help?

Right.

And that how can I help is something that also goes with that weekly question of you know, what did you learn this week and how can I help? I think our partners rarely hear us say, how can I help? We're usually asking them for help. When you go up to your partner, you say, I'm really struggling with this. Can you help me? You really go up to them and say, I see you're struggling with this. Can I help you? And I found that to be one of the most beautiful questions that I ask RAdhi, where I often check in with them and say, look, I can see you're struggling with this, so I know this has been on your mind. How can I help you with that? And most often her answer is, Nothing, I'm fine, but the fact that you checked in with me just made me feel better. It's not even like they're gonna turn around and be like, Here's a laundry list of things I want you to do for me. It doesn't even work that way. It's just she'll say, Thank you for noticing that. Most of the time, it's not that our partners feel misunderstood. It's that they feel unnoticed and unseen and unheard. Misunderstood means you tried to understand, but you made a mistake.

It's so good you're saying that because I like, I feel like I've started to learn this better over the last few years. So I haven't always been this way, but with Martha, whenever we have a conversation about anything that might be trying to get it to a resolution about something, an agreement or whatever, when we're done, I like to say, I don't do it all the time, but I like to say, do you feel heard and seen? most of the time she's like, yes, thank you for hearing me and for seeing me. And I think, again, like you said, most of us want to feel heard and seen. And even if you just say like that, do you feel like I was able to hear you clearly and see you for what you're going through? Gives people peace and ease and safety in that moment and in the relationship. Especially, again, if people, this is not Martha, but if people are working to feel lovable themselves or at sometimes they don't feel lovable. They may need to feel heard and seen more to actually feel loved.

Yes.

You know what I mean? So that's interesting. I wanted to go back to the, I love those four questions. And I think you could add any one of those, you know, what did you learn this week? And is there anything I can support you with next week? What did you learn? do for yourself today? And is there anything I can help you with tomorrow?

Exactly.

You can add that probably to anything and vice versa. I wanted to go into one of the four agreements of love that you came up with, which I think are great. We sleep at the same time plus eat a meal together. One of the agreements, I think me and Martha do that actually a lot. We sleep around the same time. And we create an agreement early on because I was like, I actually don't want to talk in bed for that long.

I remember that came up at the dinner table. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, I just want to go into like what we're grateful for. So we share what we're grateful for. And when I put my head on the pillow, I want to get ready to sleep. We can maybe dream a little bit together, but let's do that before we get in the bed. And there shouldn't be anything heavy talk for me because my brain is already shutting down. I'm already like starting to relax. And if I have to wind it back up and be focused and under potentially uncomfortable conversations, it just doesn't work for me. So that would be the caveat for my personal relationship that I would add to an agreement. Go to sleep together and then don't have hard conversations at midnight.

I would agree. I would agree. When I say sleep at the same time, it's more about the rhythm and the ritual of it. Like you're both brushing your teeth, you're getting into bed. I agree. I think having deep, heavy discussions in the bed is not ideal. It's not for that. That's not the right space. And like you're saying that, If you truly want to be present and of right mind for a tough conversation, chances are when you're getting into bed, you're at your lowest form of tolerance and kindness and everything. -You're exhausted, yeah.

-Okay, I think I have two final questions. Before I get to them, I want people to get the book, Eight Rules of Love, How to Find It, How to Keep It, How to Let It Go. Make sure you get a copy, get a copy for your friend, your partner, your, your family who's struggling in relationships or people that want to just keep them growing by being more curious. We'll have it all linked up in the show notes on YouTube, on audio. So again, make sure you guys get this. Follow Jay's podcast and subscribe there. We do a lot of fun stuff together over there, so make sure to check that out as well. Your first book as well is amazing. So make sure you guys get think like a monk. His book is sold, I think, what, two million copies now?

Yeah, two and a half million copies.

Make sure to get that again on purpose, one of the top podcasts in the world. And, if you want a great speaker at your event, make sure to hire Jay. He's one of the best speakers out there. So again, get the book, subscribe, do all those things. Two final questions. I've asked you questions about your three truths before, so I'm not going to ask that. I've asked you about your definition of greatness and people can go back and listen to those episodes if they want to. This is a question, because you have a prompt in here about writing a love letter to yourself. So if you had to give a love letter or a love audio note to your younger self, the part of yourself, the time when you felt the most shame, you don't have to say what was happening, but the time you felt the most shame, what would that audio note be to younger Jay of that season of life? A love letter to him.

Don't try to fall in love like they do in the movies. Don't try and fall in love like they do in the songs. Don't try to fall in love in some big romantic Hollywood idyllic way. Ask yourself, do you know who you are? Do you know who they are? Every time you ask yourself, do they like me? Ask yourself, do I really like them? Every time you ask yourself, do they think I'm attractive? Ask yourself, am I working on myself? Every time you think, do they want me? Will they take care of me? Ask yourself, how can I better take care of myself? And so, everything you want from someone else, give it to yourself first. That's what I'd say.

Yeah, that's a good love letter. It's a good love note. Okay, final question. So imagine, this goes back to our Massey McConaughey scenario.

Oh yeah.

Imagine your 90 year old self.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Giving a love letter or love note to your current self. What would your 90 year old self say to current Jay to support you for the next season of love? After 10 years of being in a relationship and I think seven years of marriage, what would you say for the next 10, 20, 30 years?

After it's all said and done, the love you have for humanity and the love you have to serve and to use your purpose in helping other people, that's the only thing that will stand the test of time. And that your life will be measured not by awards or trophies or or numbers, but by how deeply you helped people love themselves. And I think that's a really interesting nuance that we're often focused on how much we love people, but if you really love someone, you can make them fall in love with themselves. And so I would measure myself not by how much I loved, but by how much I was able to help people love themselves. Because that would be proof that I really loved them.

Eight Rules of Love, Jay Shetty. Love you, brother. Appreciate it, man.

Best interview, man.

If you got value from that, then go ahead and stick around for more coming up right now. How does someone who is living in a sense of Scarcity, because there are people living in scarcity where they're unable to pay their bills, they're unable to provide food for their kids, they're single moms, they're stressed, they're stressed, they're overwhelmed. It's hard to get into a sense of abundance when you're in scarcity and stress. So how does someone find purpose in chaos when they can't even get out of the thinking because they're just trying to survive?

Survive. Yeah. So beautiful question. My biggest answer is, first of all, I empathize with anyone who's been in that situation having. I can't ever say I've been in that situation in the same way, but I've experienced similar things.

You've seen a feeling in your life.

Yeah. In my own way. And I've seen my mom go through stuff like that. I know that my mom worked really hard to raise me and my sister while working, you know, while running around. And I've. I've seen my mom be that incredible Powerhouse of a person. And the main thing I would say is what you can do right now is find meaning in what you do. Make what you do meaningful, passionate and purposeful. You don't need to suddenly look to become an entrepreneur or start a side hustle or find some more time. Find meaning. And the way you find meaning as you genuinely stop, press pause for a second and go, what am I living for? Like what am I living for right now? And if you're living for your child and if you're living to provide and put food on the table, that is a beautiful thing that we should celebrate more. And sometimes it takes us a moment to stop and celebrate that. And so I would say find meaning. Cuz you can't always find happiness. You can't always find positivity, but you can always find meaning in that position. So I'll give an example. Like I lost someone really important to me, a mentor a few days back. I can't be positive about that. You can't be happy about that.

Yeah, it's hurtful.

You feel sad, you. You feel lost. But guess what? I can find meaning in it because I can make a list of every lesson he taught me and make a plan to try and live every one of those lessons. Wow, that's beautiful. And so if you're in a really tough situation right now, don't look for positivity. Don't look for happiness.

Look for meaning. That's a good one. Not trying to, and not trying to get yourself out of pain too quickly or discomfort or frustration, which I've been in a guilt to be like, I'll just be positive or whatever to people. But I think it's like, you know, have your experience.

Yes.

Live your experience and find meaning as quickly as possible.

Yeah.

And create a commitment to how you want to use that meaning moving forward. Okay. I may not be great tomorrow, maybe not next week, next month, but I'm going to use this meaning to serve other people, to continue to do what I love, continue to be great to my friends, my family in the best way possible.

And when you start doing those small things with love and kindness, so much more opens up. It's like when you can be trusted with the small things and the small moments, you get trusted with more and more and more. And so like it helps to just in that moment, and it's in those painful moments that you realize how powerful you are. We all know that, like you really recognize it. And what you said was beautiful about not rushing through the pain because, and you know, this example has probably been shared before, but if you have a wound and you've cut yourself, it's like, You can't rush the healing. You can't rush it. If you broke your arm, I mean, and you've been through so many bodily injuries, you can't rush the process.

It's gonna take six weeks minimum to heal a broken arm.

Yeah, minimum. And you've gotta sit through that. It's pain. There's no injections you can take. There's no videos you can watch. There's nothing you can listen to. But our challenge is we try and rush through the pain rather than reflect through the pain. We try to rush the healing process. Try to rush the healing and you can't rush healing. Healing is meant to be slow because it buys you time, it buys you reflection, it gives you so much space. To slow down. To slow down. And that's what your body is calling out for. And this is our emergency. Like how many times have you heard it where you slow down, you slow down and that's when you fall ill. Because guess what, your body has been trying to tell you to slow down. When you feel pain, so I write about it and think like a monk, pain makes you pay attention. That's what pain is for.

Pain's noticed this, noticice this look at.

Me Se me, look at me c' like crying baby, craying for attention. When a baby's crying, you justt just go I crying. You just go, Oh, yeah, well just put it in another room and forget about it right let you go to and you find its needs which without pain, when something's pain, we're just like, Oh, yeah,'ll just forget about it, I'll escape from, I'll do something else.

You have to go into that, I'll.

Unnumb the Unumb the pain. That's it all or whatever.

Yeah, a hundred per cent, That's that's usually our response is.

What can I do to numb day work have sex more, drink more, whatever it is. Rather than let me actually become alert and guess what? The pain just gets higher and higher and higher and higher because unfortunately, until it really hurts, we don't stop.

Or you need more and more to numb it with.

So true.

And so you go on to the extremes of life, right?

So true.

Now, what's been the most painful thing you've had to experience since... Because I know leaving the monkhood was painful for you because this was a mission of yours that you wanted to have for your whole life and I think you were there for three and a half years. So what's been the most painful thing, I guess, in the last six or seven years since that time that you've had to reflect back on, take notice of, pay attention to and reevaluate?

That's a great question. I think for me it was in 2016 I moved out to New York. So just let me paint a picture of 2016. I moved three jobs. I got married, I moved country, and I just started a whole new life. Like my life just transformed. So we went through all of that with my wife in one year, and by the way, all of that was surprises. The job change was surprises, the country change was a surprise, the marriage was not a surprise, we planned that. But apart from everything else, everything was a surprise. Now I said I like surprises, so I can roll with it, but my point is, It's a lot of transition in a year.

So much transition.

And I felt the burden of being in a new city where we had no family, we had no friends, and my wife who loves being around her family and no one understands just how close she is to them, I felt this burden on me that I had taken away her time with her family and now she was alone. So I was going out to work and she'd be crying at home. and I was thinking, she's got no friends, she's got no support. And I know you can relate to this with moving and relationships and so much going on. And so it's like, I'm dealing with that. And guess what? Six months later, I have to leave and move on and work on a new career to build everything myself. And then I'm four months away from being broke. And so on top of all of this, I've now got four months away from being broke. I've got enough money, money saved for four months to pay for rent and groceries in New York City. And that's it. And guess what, even on top of that, I've got 30 days before my visa runs out and I'm kicked out of the country. So I can't even live here anymore. So not only have I just got married, moved job three times, changed career again, had to move into a four months of being broke and I might get kicked out in 30 days and my renewal for my visa cost $15,000. So that's gonna eat into those four months. I have probably never been under that much emotional, physical and mental pressure in my life. Like genuinely, I felt it and I felt my body change. My breath was more stressed. I would be breathing faster, shorter breaths, not deep breaths, heart beating faster, not working out, you get into lazy habits.

You start craving junk food.

Sugar, you have energy. I'm living in a 500 square foot apartment with my wife, which is tiny, like everything's in that space and guess what, we both work from home. So I'm now sitting at a desk, hunched over, trying to figure stuff out, she's trying to cook in the same room, like I'm trying to, Just trying to figure out what to do. And I remember the next morning sending like 100 emails to people and just being like, this is who I am, this is what I can do, how can we serve? And that was the same year that I ended up meeting you later in that year. And the beginning three months of that journey was so stressful. Like they were so stressful because I was like, what if I have to move back to London? What am I gonna say to her parents? I mean, I just took their daughter away.

You just got married.

I've lived in New York City for six months and my life's falling apart. Like, you know, so much. And I've got all these views, but.

There'S nothing happening in. -You also, I mean, at this time, you're also growing so much. How are you able to create and reach this impact with your videos as that's growing while you're under so much stress and uncertainty?

-And I stopped a bit of that time. Like, things slowed down. -Things slowed down. I remember that. I wasn't creating as much as I was because I don't enjoy creating from stress or pressure. And I don't think you can really create something from stress and pressure. So we really slowed down at that time. And when I was creating, I was creating from a place of recognizing that I could share what I had learned and what I had grown in so far. So anything I was sharing was like, this is what I've learned so far. So that was the biggest pain that I've been through in the last seven years for sure. And all I can say is, that I remember coming home to my wife knowing that this was going to be the truth. And I came home and I said to her, I said to her, I guarantee you this is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us. What? The pain? The pain. I said that to the night I came home and then she gave up to that. I literally came home, I looked in her eyes and go, this is the scenario. And I just want you to know that I guarantee to you this is the best thing that's ever going to happen to us. And I said to her, and this is a monk's statement that we used to repeat. I said to her, I'm just not going to judge the moment. Don't judge the moment because what we do is we try to label moments as good or bad. And when you label a moment as bad, it now does not have the opportunity to become good. I'll give an example. If I go, I don't like this book, this book's bad, right? And I don't, and I love this book. But if I say that, guess what? I will never pick it up and recognize the value that's inside of it because you've labeled it. Yes. And we label stuff like we label, oh, that restaurant's bad. But when you label a moment, that person's bad. That person's bad, now you can't learn from that person. Oh, great one, that's a really good one. As soon as you start labeling people or anything as good or bad, you limit it. You stop it from being something else. And here's the truth, every moment can evolve into being anything if you give it the opportunity to.

Right.

But as soon as you say it's got no value anymore, you lose it. And so for me, I had to say to myself, Don't judge the moment. And I'd keep repeating that to myself. Don't judge where you're at. Don't judge what's happening. Yeah, don't judge it as negative. Don't just start saying it's negative. Because guess what?

We've all been in positions where a gift turned into a curse and a.

Curse turned into a gift.

That's true.

Right?

We've all seen that.

Where our dreams came true and it ended up not being what we wanted. Exactly. It fell apart and it led us into our dreams. Totally. Why is it that so many people that win the lottery go broke? gifts can turn into curses too, but because we label them as the best moment in our life or the worst moment in our life. Whereas when you approach things to neutrality and just what you have on the.

Table, you can be like, okay, what am I gonna do next? Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day. That's why the greatest quarterbacks are neutral energy. They'll get a little excited. They'll get a little fist pump in there every now and then, but they're not hyped every play and they're not negative every play. They have this calm, they see the field, they're you drop a pass and it's like a little bit let's go, but it's very neutral. Even when you score a touchdown, unless it's maybe the Super Bowl or a big championship at the end of a game, in the middle of the game, you want to keep it pretty like even keel paced so you can prepare.

For the best or the worst.

That's great. Yeah. But they're always up and down. It's like your energy levels will go up and down and you'll be exhausted. You need to have energy in life.

Totally.

And if everything is tied around a story of this is bad, this is wrong, I'm in a bad place, I'm messing up, I'm going broke. That energy is going to pull you away from service. Exactly. Or creation or creativity of how do I get out of this place?

So, I think it's really important. I love that. And I used to have a coach and I think a lot of coaches use this or at least he used to say to us, he would be like, if you lose, cry for a day. And if you celebrate, if you win, celebrate for a day. Yeah. And then move on the next day. Get back to training. Don't.

Don't let it.

Don't live in the past. Don't live in the past. And what we do is when we lose, we cry for a month, and when we win, we just move on. Yeah. Which means that our negative experiences hold us back and weigh us down more.

Than our positive experiences.

So we're actually allowing, because we don't immerse ourselves in winning. and growth. We only submerge ourselves in negative experiences. Yeah, we need to celebrate also.

We try to celebrate. I've been, you know, that's been part of my life as well, as like moving on too quick. And now we try to like, let's enjoy, let's go to lunch or dinner and really like appreciate this moment and celebrate this moment. Even have a dinner with some friends and family.

Otherwise, what are we working so hard for? 100. And we almost feel like we can't, we can't do that because that makes us complacent. Right. But that's my point. Never good enough. Exactly. But if you win, celebrate for a day. If you lose, cry for a day.

Move on. Simple. And you've learned so many lessons over your years as a monk. You learned a ton of lessons moving to, you know, getting married, moving into a new country, building companies, launching products and books. And you've had ups and downs. What's been the biggest lesson in the last 12 months for you? Because you've learned you've created so much in the last 12 months, you've done so many things. What's been the biggest lesson for you in your life?

Oh, that's a big question. I think I'd have to say that it's a, and I was saying it to a friend on the phone this morning when I was on the way to you. And I was just, I was just sharing it with him because he was having a moment in recognizing this. There's a wonderful verse in the Manusmriti, which I talk about in Think Like a Monk. It's a monk book. And in the verse, it It says, when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. Now, I want to unpack that. What I mean by that is your purpose is like a rare jewel and a rare gemstone. And imagine you were walking around with the most expensive diamond or jewel in the world. How would you protect it?

You want to just like- you- want to just wait out yeah.

Yeah, you wouldn't just wear it on your chest like this. Like a baby.

Holding it. Yeah. Putting a pillow around a blanket.

You'd be like, yeah, protect it. You'd protect it. And so your purpose is like that.

And guess what?

People are going to tell you every day that that jewel is not worth anything. They're going to tell you that that jewel is actually valueless. It doesn't have any impact on your life. They're going to try and take away that value. They're going to tell you that there's another jewel out there that you need. to have more value. And what ends up happening is you don't, I love the word, look at the wording, protect your purpose. You have to protect it. So what happens is your success grows, you get more opportunities, more ideas, more things coming your way. Temptations. Distractions. But they can all take you away from your purpose.

Distractions, yeah.

Distractions. And to me, I'm repeating this for myself because I'm like, I just want to stick to what I was born to do. And I'm so grateful that I get to do it. I'm so happy I get to do it and I want to keep protecting it. I don't want to get lost in the waves. You know, you don't want to just get chucked in the waves of the ocean and just get lost and just not know where you're going.

So for me, when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. That's been your biggest lesson.

That's my biggest lesson. Why do you feel like your purpose has been maybe distracted in some ways?

I don't think it has, but I'm saying it so it doesn't.

Like, you're reminding yourself. Yeah, I'm reminding myself. Like, I'm preaching to myself right now.

Especially being in Hollywood and the temptation of all these opportunities out here.

Totally, and I think for me it's a bigger lesson also because it gives me more faith. So I always encourage, and this is actually why it's my biggest lesson, I encourage so many people that I coach, so many people that I mentor, obviously everyone in my community and audience and everything, to go and follow that, go and live that purpose. And I see time and time again that when I see people trying to live their purpose, they are protected. That things work. When you're playing in your dharma and your purpose, things work. Things move. You feel momentum.

They happen.

They happen. And I'm not saying they happen without effort, but they happen, they move. Whereas when you're not, you just constantly feel like you're grinding up against, you know, a wall.

I know. Challenges.

Just constant.

So what is your purpose and when did you discover it?

Good question. My purpose is simple. It's always has been since not since the beginning because I discovered it afterwards. My purpose is making wisdom go viral. And I've stuck with that and I've kept it that way because to me and there's more to it. Making wisdom go viral through entertainment, I would say, is my purpose because I believe that that is something that is uniquely my goal, impact and service. And the beautiful thing is I'm not limited to a platform so that can be books. it can be podcasts, it can be TV shows, it can be movies. It's not limited. And this I learned by reading. I was reading after, and this was after my video started to get seen. This wasn't before I did it. It wasn't like I sat down and I wrote this fancy tagline. I was reading Salim Ismail's book called Exponential Organizations. And in this book, he talks about something called an MTP, a massive transformational purpose. And he says that Every major person organization in the world has an MTP. So an MTP has to be aspirational, it has to be massive, and it has to be service and purpose based. So Google's is organizing the world's information. Notice it doesn't say we're an SEO company. Notice it doesn't say we do Google ads. They're organizing the world's information. That's how big they're dreaming. And when you're organizing the world's information, you can do driverless cars, You can do Google Glass, you can sell Google Ads, whatever it is. And so TED's is ideas worth spreading. That's what they are, that's what they're about.

So Jay Shetty is making wisdom go viral. That's what I'm dedicated to.

So when did you discover it? Because it wasn't when you were 10. It wasn't when you were 21 and kind of...

I say I was 30, probably two, three years ago. I'm 32 now. So I'd say like two, three years.

Ago is when I discovered it. So 30 years old is when you discovered your purpose. Correct. So what was your purpose before?

Before that?

My purpose before that was finding my purpose. It's like that process of just like, my purpose before that was 14 years. So I've been online for four years. I've spent 10 years offline talking about the same stuff, sharing the same messages in talks, in universities, in small seminars, in coaching and mentoring. Like, I've been doing the same thing for 14 years, but I didn't realize it was my purpose until very recently. recently, but I just did what I enjoyed and naturally tried to get better at it.

So if we don't know what our purpose is and we're working towards finding our purpose, it's okay.

That's actually where you're gonna spend most of your life.

Discovering what your purpose is.

Totally.

And that's the best bit. Because I think a lot of people are like, well, I don't know what my purpose is.

Totally. So I just pressure find it. The pressure of finding your purpose will stop you from finding your purpose. Literally. And the pressure so heavy. And that's why it's not about finding that. It's just starting with the basics. What am I good at? And I talk about it, and I break down Dharma in here, and I talk about, what are your passion? What is your expertise? What is your compassion? Because that's really important. What is your compassion for the world? Like, what problem do you want to solve? I often, people will say, there's so many things I could do. There's so many things. I'm like, my question is not what causes you the greatest Joy. Sometimes my question is, what is What causes you the greatest pain?

Make that your purpose.

Make that your purpose. If you don't know what your joy is, you definitely know what your pain is.

What do you not like in the world?

What do you not like? And so for me. Go serve that thing. 100%. So for me, the greatest pain I see in the world is people not reaching their potential. That is, that causes me more pain because I believe that there is someone out there who is stacking shelves who has the cure to cancer. There is someone out there who is talented. He's a talented singer. There is someone out there who's not living to their potential and I think we're better people, we're better partners and we're better parents when we live to our potential. So that's what I'm trying to solve. And I'm not saying that's the biggest thing.

Sure. I'm saying it's my thing. Whenever I work with people, I'm always telling them to find your purpose, focus on what you're most passionate about or what you have the most pain around. There you go. It's the same thing. It's like do the thing you love the most. Totally. Keep doing it until you either discover that's it. Or maybe I don't love that anymore. Like, I played so many sports growing up. I used to love baseball, used to love soccer. And then I got bored with it. I got burnt out by it. It wasn't a love of mine anymore. It wasn't a passion. And then I switched to football, and it was like, oh, this is a passion. And I'm actually more gifted physically for this sport than I would be for soccer. I was too big for soccer. I couldn't run seven miles a day right now on the field. But I think you need to try lots of things and you might think it's a passion, but you might get burnt out and discover, eh, I don't love it anymore. What else is there? And keep trying new things. Like you said, eight new things a month. Yeah. Till you discover. Till you discover.

You might take you to take a 30, 40, 50. Right. It doesn't. And that doesn't matter. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, it. The fun is in the growth and the journey and the, like, for me, the last 10 years before this happened and my life changes, like, Those were fun. I was happy. I wasn't unhappy because of that, because.

I didn't have to know the exact process.

Correct. Yeah, exactly. And now I'm very clear on it and I'm happy for it to evolve too. Like, I don't think it has to stay the same. I may sit with you in two years time and tell you something completely different. And I'm okay with that. But I can only work with what I have now. And I think we start trying to postpone our purpose or find a date by which you have to... You put a deadline on your purpose? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I'd say one of the first questions that always comes to my mind is, how can I be of service today? How can I be an, and this is extended from that first question, how can I be an instrument of love, compassion and kindness? And that's what I count as service in my definition. And so what I would say to anyone listening is define the words yourself. because what service means to you may be different to you. And so it's important. But for me, it's like, how can I be of service today? And the reason why I love that is we've talked about this before. When you're wired for service, you're set up, right? We talked about in the last podcast, like service sets you up to feel satisfaction, to build bonds and create connections and does so much. So being of service is one of the first questions I would ask. The second question I was asked myself is, what do I love about myself? Right? What do I actually love about myself?

That is probably the most powerful question anyone could ask, because most people never.

Learn to love themselves. Totally. And we always find the things that.

We don't love about ourselves and we fixate on those things. And that's one of the repeating thoughts in our head that keeps us playing small every day.

All the time. All the time. And we talk a lot about today self-love and self-care. But I think, you know, a lot of that starts with self-awareness, which we know about self-knowledge. But self-knowledge creates self-trust. And a lot of it's like learning to trust ourselves. And it's like, if I don't know what I love about myself, how am I ever going to trust myself? How am I going to trust that I have my best interest at heart? And so asking yourself, what do you love? And then the third and final question I think I would ask myself is, who do I want to be? Who is the person that I need to be that I can love, that I want to love, that I want to give more love to? What parts of growth are there still available. And there's one thing I want to add, which isn't a question, but it has been a really reaffirming or deepening affirmation for me that I keep reminding myself, and I think it's helped a lot of people that I've shared it with is literally some days I'll just put my hand on my heart and I'll just repeat to myself, I'm exactly where I need to be.

You talk a lot about practicing meditation and also prayer, and you say something that was interesting that you said about using silence to hear in between the lines. So can you share what that means, to hear in between the lines through prayer, meditation, mindfulness, and kind of what this all means? How can we understand this? There's a lot of noise about it, but what does it really mean?

Yeah, let's talk about the term and let's talk about that specific answer. So when I hear the word mindfulness, To me, what it really means is intentionality. What I mean by that is are you crafting, designing and intentionally creating your life or are you just coasting in the passenger seat of your life which is just dragging you and driving you wherever it's taking you? And so it's the difference between being the driver or being in the passenger seat. and so to me, living intentionally is what allows you to live a life of by design. And so I'll give you an example of what mindfulness can look like. There's something in the book that I talk about called the three S's, which are sights, scents, and sounds. Now, if you think about that, we're exposed to sights, scents, and sounds every single day.

Yeah.

Every single day. But how many of us have crafted those to sight, sense and sounds that we want in our life. So this is what I realized when we were monks, one of the most important things was what was the first thing you saw, the sight, when you woke up?

And right now, most people are probably seeing their screen.

Yeah, I think 80% of people look at their screens first thing in the morning and the last thing at the night. So you're seeing your screen first thing in the morning, but what are you really seeing? You're seeing everyone else's priorities, you're seeing everyone else's issues and challenges, you're seeing everyone else's messages to you. you, which means you're already starting your day off reactively. But what if you started your morning looking at a painting that inspired you or a picture of a loved one that brought joy in your heart or your favorite quote by Lewis or by anyone else that when you read that in the morning, you were like, oh, yeah, I feel in charge today to. To make a difference in the world. So imagine the first thing you saw in the morning was something inspiring. How much would your day change? That's mindfulness. Mindfulness is being intentional. and mindful about what you are exposing yourself to. Let's talk about sounds next. So sounds were something that I started to study actually much later from a modern life perspective. But when we were monks we would wake up to birds, we would wake up to water, we'd wake up to gongs or cymbals, chants, exactly, which are all beautiful sounds. Now the crazy thing is all of us wake up to something called an alarm. Now, I don't know why anyone would want to wake up to an alarm. Why would you want to wake up alarmed? It means now your system is alarming. Like, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to wake up in shock in a state of, like, a jolt? I don't think that's a positive way to wake up. So changing the sound that you wake up to. Now, I'm not saying that everyone can wake up to Nature sounds. Maybe you're one of those people who just hit the snooze. and again. But what if you woke up to a sound or a song that brought you joy? Now, when I lived in New York for two years between 2016 and 2018, I started to feel quite exhausted by the end of the day and I was really looking into like, why is it that I feel tired? And I started to realize I came across this term called cognitive load. And what it means is that a lot of the sounds that you hear in New York City are sounds that are inaudible significant for your mind to process. Drilling, construction work, taxis honking, driving, cars.

Screeching, scratching, people yelling at each other.

People yelling at each other on the streets. All of that sound is called cognitive load, where your brain is now trying to make sense of meaningless sound.

It's also just like, should I be afraid? This is a loud sound. Is my brain going to fight or flight? Like, I need to protect myself. so you're always being alarmed.

Yeah, exactly. And you hear sirens, the amount of sirens that I remember hearing on the streets. Now, when you hear sirens, sirens have an emotional trigger and they have an emotional response to them. So think about your day. Think about when you come home from work, or now you're working from home. What sound do you want to hear when you're working? What sound do you want to hear at the end of the day? When you sound design your life, that's called mindfulness. That's being intentional. And then finally, scent. Scent is such a powerful sense that we're not even aware. How many of you, when you smell your favorite food, can't already wait to eat it? Like you can almost taste it. You can stimulate your saliva. You can taste it already without just through scent. Why is it that every time you walk into... Yeah, I think pizza has one of the best scents.

Well, your wife, Ronnie's got some amazing food. That's amazing. So when I walked in the kitchen.

Last week, I was like, mmm, this is amazing. That was for you. That was special. That was for you. That was a good meal. That was a really good meal. She really appreciated that you love to eat too.

She was happy. Her heart was full. Exactly. Bring a former jock into your house.

And you'll clear all the food out. She was like, I've never seen someone eat that much. I was like, you know, big American dude. She was like, you know, he can eat. So, no, it was great. She was so happy that you appreciated it so much. She really appreciated that.

But the scent is important in your life.

When you walk into a massage spa, it's the scent, the eucalyptus, the lavender, the sandalwood, it puts you in a peaceful state. Dude, scent puts you in zen without trying. And so mindfulness is intentionally creating a life that makes you feel what you want to feel. without having to just create the feeling from inside. You may say, Jay, you know, I really struggle trying to be positive. I struggle trying to deal with anxiety. I struggle trying to be focused. Your sight, sense and sounds can help you do that. Yeah. And you start creating an environment where you naturally feel that. Like today, when I walked into your studio, I saw your books. I saw these motivational quotes. I saw a boxing glove. And it's like all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, I'm in a uplifting environment, right? So you already get triggered.

Exactly. Yeah, I think a friend of mine mentioned one time on the podcast, Chris Lee said, you, want to create an environment like a rainforest where things can thrive and grow as opposed to having an environment like a desert where things go to die.

That's beautiful.

And if you have sights, scents, and sounds that are like a desert for your life or your heart, it's going to be hard to grow those things from your heart. But if you create an environment of a rainforest where things can grow, water, nature, cool air, things like that, then you can really start to cultivate that growth. You mentioned about creating and designing your life. How much of the world do you think we receive by being here? And how much of the world do we create ourselves?

Yeah, that's a beautiful question. It's a complete dynamic dance between what the Vedic tradition would call fate and free will. So fate is what is already created for you. And a good example would be the place you were born, the type of family you grew up in, the socioeconomic background you had. It was already there when you walked in to the world. But within that, you had choices where your free will came about. You had the choice. to either do what everyone in your neighborhood did or to do something different. You had the choice to have a relationship with a particular person or not. So what happens is that we're constantly creating new spaces from which we have another choice.

Right.

And so you kind of see as this Dynamic dance between, okay, now I'm in this situation, and now what is my choice in this situation? So I would say, I wouldn't. I'm not saying equal. I'm saying it's a dynamic balance and a switching process where you're constantly creating a new level and then now in that level you have a next choice.

Because we didn't have the choice to be created here. We were here and that wasn't our choice. Now everything after that is our choice, right?

Yeah. And there are some, obviously there are some traditions and I'm a big diver into like reincarnation and past lives. So according to the beliefs of reincarnation of past lives, you have at some point made a choice to be here. But taking it more simplistically, the truth is that when you're brought into a situation, it's the best analogy that I've heard, and it's been told for years, is of a father is an alcoholic. One of the sons that he has decides to become an alcoholic because his father's an alcoholic. The other son decides to never drink alcohol because his father's an alcoholic. So they were exposed to the same situation and same scenario.

Same environment.

Same environment. But they both made different choices based on their experience. And that's the choice element. That's the element that we should be trying to empower in our lives because we can constantly say, I'm limited by my environment or I've been restricted by my environment. And hey, it's true. There are so many of us that have been limited and restricted. But by now, repeating that, you are going to repeat that restriction in your life.

How much of a positive environment supports us in our growth or holds us back? There are some people who have the perfect family situation, resources, beautiful backyards and nature who are lazy. And there are others who have, you know, divorced parents, abusive parents, abuse of friends, an environment of a desert. Yeah. And they figure out a way to thrive.

Totally.

How much importance does our environment play in our overall success?

If you look at the examples that you just shared and you really analyze life, you'd see very little because you see people craft their own life. So a good example for me is that when I came back from living in the ashram and there were other people who may have been monks who'd also left the path. And I came back to a not financially successful or supportive family. So my family doesn't have abundant wealth and couldn't necessarily have taken care of me or paid for me forever. And I had to figure out my own life. And that, to me, was a great sense of impetus and incentive to go and figure it out and learn new skills and network and meet people. And I saw other friends dude parents had, like, a property portfolio with, like, 10 properties ready to hand them over. They had a BMW the second that they came out, whatever, you know, from their own life. Yeah. Or I even have friends that had all of that and didn't become monks and didn't even find careers. So I've also got friends that I went to school with that today don't even have careers, even though their parents were really well established, right? Which has all of these examples have continued me to believe that we truly have influence in our more than our environment. Our environment affects us for sure. It plants seeds and weeds into our life, but there is still a choice. And I think even if you feel there isn't a choice, simply by accepting that there is, it means you have a chance to get out of there. And I think that's what- Because if.

You don't accept that there is, then you're just gonna stay stuck.

Correct. Like there've been so many times in and there's a beautiful quote from Edison. I don't think I said this last time, but if I did, it's worth repeating. He said that when you believe you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't. And the reason why I love that is your mind continuously feels stuck when it's tried the obvious. And that's why a lot of creativity and focus studies say that the first 10 ideas that come to your mind are never the most interesting. It's when you get into the 11th idea that you start breaking the pattern. And so if someone asks you, oh, what's your best business idea? Your first 10 ideas are probably not that innovative. And so the mind constantly gets stuck on that train. And you've got to keep reminding yourself that there is another door. There could be another pathway. I was thinking about a piece of advice that, so one of my closest spiritual mentors who was in London, I knew him since I was probably like 12 and probably since I was 18. he passed away this year from stage four brain cancer. And he'd had brain cancer for about, I think, like three, three, four years now. And so I hadn't really had a real interaction with him for the past few years because every time I saw him, he wasn't fully functioning in his short-term memory. His long-term memory was there, but his short-term memory wasn't. And I remember speaking to him probably about seven, eight years ago and asking him the question I said, You know, I've got so many ideas. There's so many things I could do. Where do I start? And he said this beautiful thing to me. He said, you, know what? Your role should be to open up every door possible. And he said, Let the world close the doors you're not meant to walk through. Ooh. And walk through the ones that remain open. Ooh. And what I realize is most of us are just not opening up enough doors because we think we only have the option of two doors. We look at life as binary. Zero and one, zero and one, right?

It's just this or that.

A or B, this or that. And I mean, I think you'd say this too about you and every guest you ever had on, I don't think life is ever this or that. It's like this, that and that, and maybe that and that. And there's always a gap.

Of course. The challenge that people have that I've sensed a lot is the fear of criticism when you go after something that you weren't supposed to do or that people don't think you're supposed to do. why do so many people fear criticism from peers, family, friends, the media? Why is that such a big fear? And how do we overcome criticism from others?

Psychologically, we feel a sense of safety and security when we think people agree with us. That is just psychologically true that we would rather avoid conflict and sit in a space where we agree and therefore we have something called confirmation bias and the echo chamber where we keep surrounding ourselves with thoughts and ideas that are similar and reaffirm our beliefs. Now, I think that you can have that and at the same time entertain ideas that you're not sure about yet. And so one of my favorite examples was MIT did this study where they asked people which person was more creative and innovative. and they showed two charts. One chart was employee A and the other chart was employee B. The chart for employee A, all of the people they knew, knew each other and knew them back. So it was almost like a closed loop. And employee B, they knew lots of people who didn't know each other. And they found that people who have more people in their network who don't know each other are more likely to be creative and productive.

Really? Why is that?

Because they expose you to opposing ideas and they may counteract how you think. So one of my favorite examples of this is a conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and one of his mentors. So Mark Zuckerberg told this story at the Facebook headquarters a few years back. I wasn't there. I've seen it on video. I'm sure it's available. And he talks about how when he was struggling with the direction of Facebook in 2009, 2009, he approached his mentor and his mentor happened to be Steve Jobs. Wow. Pretty cool. Wow. Pretty cool.

I wish.

It's really cool. It's so cool, man. And so anyway, so Mark Zuckerberg goes to Steve Jobs and he says, I'm.

Struggling with the direction of Facebook.

Remember at that time Facebook was five years old. There was no fan pages. I don't think. I don't think it was, there was no creators. I don't think there were fan pages. It was very much used by university students at that stage. Like, I think it was mainly like Ivy League, College kids, College kids. And I don't even think it was international in a massive way, very early days, and now we can't even think of that. But 2009, I mean, you know, you just about had the iPhone and just about had Instagram and YouTube. So he went up to Steve Jobs and he said, you know, I'm struggling with the direction of Facebook. What do I do? Now, Steve Jobs at that time, obviously, was already the founder of one of the biggest brands on the planet, and obviously the brand still is. He had access to investors, he had access to business coaches, I'm sure he had access to life coaches, he had access to health experts, he had access to anything. He had access to anything. Like I don't think there was anyone- Scientists, whatever. Scientists, PhDs, I don't think there's anyone in the world who Steve Jobs couldn't have called up at the time. And Steve Jobs said something amazing. He said, you, know what, Mark? I think you should go and live in an ashram in India. He did not. He did. Oh, wait. He goes, anyway, when you go to live in the ashram, In India, that's where if you spend some time there, that's where you'll find your answer. Shut up. And Mark did it. No way. Went to the ashram. It's a true story. Not a lot. I believe he was there for, I've seen two online, I've seen two versions of the exact time he was there. I've seen some people said it was a couple of days or a week or some people said it's a month. So I think it's hazy how much time he actually spent there. But he went. And he says that based on that experience, that's where he found the direction of Facebook, to be connecting people. people. Now, the reason why I love that story is because it's the unobvious, alternative, random connection. And when Harvard did a study of 3, 000 Executives, they looked at and asked them, what's the number one skill for being a good leader? And a lot of people would say communication. A lot of people would say Vision, Vision, strategy, humility. And the number one answer that they from 3,000 executives was the one word which is called associating. And what that means is the ability to spot patterns where everyone else doesn't see them. And that's the connect that real leaders can spot patterns and connections in anomalies. So most people will be like, what is an Ashram got to do with a tech platform? Right. But that is where you expand your mind to find answers that you never expected.

How important is creating alone time.

With.

Noises, people, busy work to allow your mind to expand? Is that the only time in that silence? I think you mentioned it. Silence to hear in between the lines.

Yeah.

Is that where we start to hear what we're supposed to be creating, where we're supposed to be heading, our mission?

That's. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that back. I wanted to get back to that. So. When we talk about, there's a beautiful statement by David Lynch, who's a movie producer and a deep meditator, and he says that prayer is how you talk to God and meditation is how God talks to you. And whether you believe in God or the universe or spirit or divine, whatever it means, the point is that there is a dialogue in a conversation.

Prayer is like you're speaking. You're saying, Here's what I want.

I feel.

Help me.

Help me, yeah.

And meditation is more receiving.

Receiving, yeah. And so I love that statement because I think it makes it very clear that we have to have a dialogue with the universe. We have to have a dialogue with people in our lives. We have to have a dialogue and there's both giving and receiving. So when I talk about hearing in between the lines, the best example I can give you, Louis, is let's take a look at you and your relationship and mine and my wife's relationship. one of us is always traveling. Yeah. So you travel, your partner travels. I travel, my wife travels. Sometimes we're missing each other. Imagine you've got really busy and hectic. Do you think, and anyone listening or watching, you can ask the same question. If you were really busy and hectic and stressed out, do you think your partner feels comfortable to tell you how they feel and get your attention?

If if I'm busy, stressed out, overwhelmed, will my partner tell me how I.

Feel about themselves or about- yeah, do you think they would feel confident to be like, Louis, I need to tell.

You something really important?

I don't think they would. They wouldn't.

They really wouldn't because- They don't want to stress you out more.

They don't want to stress you out more. You're not present, all these things. Exactly, exactly that. And so what happens is, when you're still, your mind and body actually get to speak to you and give you signals of how they and so when you're still, that's when you notice that ache in your foot that you haven't noticed for a month. Sometimes when you slow down, that's when you get sick because your body wasn't allowing itself to be sick because you were pushing it to get through stuff. And so just like your partners can't communicate with you until you slow down, your body and mind can't communicate with you until you still. And so there's a beautiful Buddhist teaching that says what movement does for the body, stillness does for the mind. And so when we find that space, stillness and solitude, you really are able to hear your deepest desires and challenges, your physical pains and areas of growth. It's one of the reasons why when people meditate, they feel sleepy afterwards and they think they're doing it wrong, but actually they're doing it right. Meditation just told you you needed more sleep.

You need to rest.

Yeah, meditation was just a signal. So sometimes when I meditate with people that I'm coaching, they're like, pass out. Some of them will be like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, Jay. I'm just feeling so tired. And I'm like, no, no, then sleep. Yeah, that's what your body's telling you because you finally listened. And some people are like, oh, Jay, I feel so energized. And I'm like, yeah, because you allowed yourself to be in line with your.

Body and now your body's saying that you feel energized. And that's great. You've got that energy. Go work out.

Go build something.

Or you've cleared out those negative thoughts or you've let go of those distractions or whatever resentment and so you're not feeling this weight so you feel lighter.

Correct. And so that stillness and silence is one of my favorite ways for you to actually build that relationship with hearing your inner voice.

Is there too much silence? Like if you say okay five hours a day, is there a tipping point when you're like okay I think you do two hours hours every morning, but a lot of people say, well, I've only got 20 minutes maybe. Is five hours too much? Is an hour, you know, what is the maximum or minimum or sweet spot you think for people to be silent every day?

Yeah.

To live a great life?

I think 20 minutes is a great starting point.

Yeah.

Because 20 minutes is significant enough time for your mind to switch off. So we hear that studies showed that we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. And a lot of them are negative. 80% are negative. And I'm guessing a lot of them are repeating. And so if you're only gonna say, I'm gonna do five minutes, it just takes five minutes to switch off. Like, it takes five minutes to just overcome that noise. And so I'd say that 20 minutes is a good amount of time. And, hey, you're not trying. And I think this is the challenge with meditation mindfulness. You're not trying to empty your mind. You're just trying to be present with it. When people get into narcissistic relationships or antagonistic. toxic relationships. They don't know what they're dealing with or they're replicating cycles from earlier in their life, right? Or both. And so what happens is, is that if you pivot too quickly, you don't get a chance to sort of.