This KEEPS 99% of People Single! Fix This To Find Love w/ Jay Shetty EP 1386

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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.

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What do you think are the biggest lies that that hold people back from finding love and keeping them single. 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 gonna take effort to find love, which means we're training ourselves to think it's not gonna 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, 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 wanna 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 wanna 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, 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.

Yep.

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. Yeah, so for anyone who doesn't know- 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. They were so compassionate, they were so understanding, they were so 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 like 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 got to 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. 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 apology is 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. 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 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 wanna 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 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, you're 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're speaking is Russell Barkley said that the people who need the most love ask for it in the most unloving ways.

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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 gonna 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 one 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'd do these sessions. They'll 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 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 a 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.

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 relationship my wife. And like, 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. Is there ever a time now where you feel like you don't love yourself, where you have moments of 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 my, 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.

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 want to serve people, what is the best thing I can do with my time? If I really want to 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.

I wanted to 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 where 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 gonna change their mind, people are gonna come and go, people are gonna 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 going to share a part of your life with someone. Right. That's what makes you lovable. So, you're lovable because of your abilities, your qualities, your skills, your generosity, your kindness, your empathy, your 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? Because that at the end of the day will determine whether a relationship is going to work or not in a lot of ways. How you energetically can communicate and react and respond to each other. How you explode or don't explode, like it's these ability to communicate effectively with peace and harmony. You know, and the likes and interests, yes, you're going to want to 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.

Yeah. You know what I mean?

I love this.

Yeah, I love this.

But it's true because.

It's a great point.

Okay, 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.

Yeah.

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. Who cares about hiking if we can't communicate?

Totally, totally. I'm so glad you 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.

Or even in your 20s, right? You just don't, You 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 it is. We like sushi, we like 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.

On 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 is the same. It's not this, I want it to be sunny or I want to 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.

Sports, yeah.

I love sports. I can play sports all day. Rati 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. That's exactly... And she has that, too. And so... But that 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?

Yeah.

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 gonna be a certain way. But if I 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 wanna live, what kind of lives we want, how we're gonna use our time. what our energy is gonna 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 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 whatever 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.

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

Yes.

Or should, and whatever you or your partner fight about, you're probably not alone. According to a couple of counselors, their top three areas of conflict are money, sex, and how you raise children. I want to 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 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 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 see. Okay, so I'm gonna go practical.

This is off the cuff.

I like it.

I'm gonna go practical and philosophical. And 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 the 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 ingredient. 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 'cause 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 wanna be present with you, but I need to know you need... Tell me.

100% of my presence.

Clearly tell me. Clearly tell me. Is it 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 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.

They back you up and say, yeah, she was wrong, and yeah, he was an idiot. Literally. Leave him.

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 anniversary.

Did you see what they did for their anniversary? Like, did you see how he proposed? Did you see And you're hearing that, and then that doesn't help you because 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. We 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 communicated 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. 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 gonna change. We're gonna stay the same. Everything's gonna be the same. 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. Like, I remember I was, 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. Like, 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 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 Year's 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 partner. 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 Rati, 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 will 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, you know, 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? And 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, Mm-. They may need to feel heard and seen more to actually feel loved.

Yes. Yes.

You know what I mean? Mm-. Um, so that's, 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?

Yes.

Next week?

Yeah.

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 created 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 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 into 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 present under potentially uncomfortable conversation, 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 family who's struggling in relationships or people that want to just keep them growing by being more curious. Um, 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. Um, your first book as well is amazing. So make sure you guys get think like a monk. His book is sold, I think, what, 2 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 when 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.

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.

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