Shanaka Jayakody

Full transcript: Shanaka Jayakody on London Real

1:23 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Shanaka Jayakody, recent graduate of our Life Accelerator. Welcome. Thanks, Brian, absolute pleasure to be here. I’m really excited for this. Me too, man. Tell us about you. Where are you from, what do you do? Yeah, so I’m from Melbourne, and basically my story is I’m a medical student turned dropout. I dropped out of med school five years ago.

1:39 And really the reason I think my story is really important is because I went through a journey that I think every student these days is going through and every adult has been through. Because what happened was, about eight years ago I’m finishing high school, and I’m thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life, the career I want to go into, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I had these boxes I wanted to tick off.

2:02 I wanted to do something that was meaningful, successful, something that had a sense of fulfilment. I really wanted to do something that gave me that feeling, and I had no idea what it was, right? All I thought was, if I’m successful, I’ll go into a career in science, engineering, commerce, law, something like that, and I ended up choosing medicine. So I started this degree in medicine and I’m studying and I’m working so hard, but none of those boxes have been ticked off.

2:28 I’m not fulfilled, I don’t find it meaningful, and this isn’t to say medicine isn’t, but for me I didn’t find that, and I was so depressed and down, and yeah, I was really struggling, to be honest. But for me, what happened, and this is I think what’s so important, is I had a very chance encounter with a complete stranger. I had a coffee with a complete stranger at the time, and it completely blew my mind. It opened my eyes, because I didn’t even know the word entrepreneur until that day.

3:00 And the world of entrepreneurship opened up. It was like I’d seen the world in colour for the first time, the possibilities, like solving problems and providing solutions that really impacted people. That blew my mind. So that was the journey I went on. But the reason I think this is so important is I was the outlier. I was one of the few people, and even for me it took years before I was able to find what I believe in and what I want to do within my life.

3:24 But I was truly the outlier, because I was lucky. I was studying for three years unhappy, and a complete chance coffee with a stranger changed my life. And I just wonder, like, how many students go into these avenues just because they can, not because they want to, not because it’s empowering to them, but they got the marks, they did well, so why not try law, why not try engineering or commerce?

3:49 And like, yes, what I really found out through this experience with you, Brian, and also through some of the other things that I’ve had, is what I want to do now is change that, change that whole culture and mindset that these students have. Okay. And that’s what I live for, so that’s what I do. My company, it’s a media company. We have 500,000 Australian students that we reach on a daily basis through really active and engaged Facebook groups, and at the moment we connect them to brands, but the long-term vision is to do that, is to change that mindset.

4:14 Wow, and that’s super exciting. And what was going on with you internally and externally to come join us on the Life Accelerator? I think internally I lacked a true sense of purpose. You know, Simon Sinek says… like, I knew what I was doing at the time. I was an entrepreneur, I knew what I was doing, I was running businesses. I knew how I was doing it, I thought I was quite good at it, but I didn’t know why. I had no real true sense of purpose, and that really meant I felt unhappy. I felt like I could be doing more with my life.

4:48 And externally, to be honest, it was a real sense of unaccountability. I felt like, as an entrepreneur, and I’m sure you may have experienced this at times, there’s no deadlines. Like, someone’s not there knocking on your back saying, you’ve got to do this now, you’ve got to do this today. I didn’t have that. So to me, that intrinsic and extrinsic desires combined, I saw there was a real genuine opportunity through London Real.

5:13 I’m a massive fan of the channel. I watch two channels on YouTube only, London Real and Impact Theory. Both have changed my life in ways that I can’t explain through words. So externally and internally, those are the two drivers. Wow. And why London Real? Like, what is it about our content, or what is it? I mean, Simon Sinek is great stuff for sure, but just why trust us with this investment of time and money? You know, it’s a big deal.

5:36 Yeah, of course. I mean, to be honest, I’ll be very frank with you, it was a very easy decision, and it’s just because I am very selective with the people that I look up to. There’s not many, but when I choose that person, it’s all in. And the difference in this channel, I think, is you go deeper, right? Like, I’ll give you a really good example: Jocko Willink. I’ve seen plenty of his stuff, but when I watched his stuff on your channel, it was so much more impactful. You went so much deeper with the questions that you asked.

6:01 Same thing when Tom came onto the channel, Tom Bilyeu. I’ve watched plenty of interviews that he’s done and plenty of times that he’s been interviewed. His interview on your channel was the best I’ve seen. So it’s just seeing that depth that you go into, which gave me a sense of trust and belief in the models that you use, and then the way you’re able to delve into that. That was the main reason. I was also always a huge fan, watched almost all your content, and I’ve already used some of the things that I’ve learned from that.

6:34 So I just thought, like, if that’s what I’m seeing externally, who knows what goes on in the inside, right? Well, thank you for saying that, I appreciate that, man. Yeah, that’s what we love doing here, going deep and putting out this long-form content that over time will make big changes, so that’s good. So you pull the trigger, you jump in, you’re with all these people from around the world, I’m throwing modules at you, live calls, accountability doc, you’re uploading videos. What’s that first two weeks like?

6:58 To be honest, the first two weeks set up the whole thing, because for me, I’ve done a lot of these things before, I’ve been part of masterminds and courses, but the difference is the accountability and that physical presence of being in that group, uploading those videos, and like, holding yourself accountable changes everything. And yeah, like, having that first week of meditation, reflection, low media and gratitude, I think it really sets everything up for the next like five weeks. So I think the first two weeks, big shock to the system, but it set up everything after that.

7:29 What did you struggle with, what was the hardest thing on the course? Ah, the hardest thing for me, I think, wasn’t the diet or the physical exercise. I think it was the last couple of weeks, where we had to go back, revisit some painful things. Last year was like a really painful experience for me. There’s a few things that happened: I lost my brother, had a very painful breakup. So revisiting that and forcing myself to go deep, that was tough. But that’s what you sign up for. That’s where the benefit comes from, when you go deep like that.

8:00 Yeah, the relationship module, module five, is, for the people that go all in, it’s the hardest module. Now, as you know, you can go around that module a little bit and just say, I’ve got no one to forgive and no one has forgiveness, my life is great. But when people are honest and go a little deeper, they realise there’s things in the closet that’s affecting their behaviour.

8:23 Yeah, I completely agree. I just think everyone’s been through pain, everyone’s experienced that. It’s the decision that they make when they think about that pain. They can either choose to feel self-pity, they can choose to say, look, this happened to me, woe is me, everyone should feel sorry for me. Or they can choose to say, it happened, it is what it is, I’m going to harness the way that makes me feel, the pain that I’ve experienced, and use that to fuel me.

8:46 And I hadn’t actually made that conscious decision until I went through this program, but now I truly believe nothing will hurt me the way last year did, and there’s a sense of, like, invincibility you feel through that. And, like, being able to realise that, it’s life-changing. Yeah, no, that is powerful. And I mean, funny enough, with Iron Mind and the Ironman race, I’ve come out with a lot of my darkness from 2001.

9:12 But funny enough, when I got through that, I was just like, are you kidding me? Nothing can ever stop me, because I got through things that most people couldn’t. So it’s a really great way to reframe what could be the victim mentality, and again, it’s just how you look at things, so that’s super powerful. What are the people like in the course, and did you form relationships with these people, and how can you connect with people online, and what’s it like seeing them here in person?

9:35 Yeah, so I think what aided me in this was, one, I didn’t sign up alone. I signed up with my co-founder, Charlie. We’re both part of the program, and I think that made us get a lot more out of this course, because we work together every single day, we’re as close as friends can be, and going through this, sharing our experiences, reflecting on it, like, we had some amazing revelations, which I might talk about later.

9:59 But that enabled us to go quite deep in the course. Like, we communicated really well with our team members. Yeah, I just think it was really good. I didn’t think that was possible through online chats and videos and groups, but yeah, it surprised me. Yeah, it actually is, that’s the crazy thing, and being in person with these people this weekend will make a big difference. Definitely.

10:14 Tell me about this with your co-founder, because we haven’t had much of that. I had a husband and wife in one of my courses, which was actually really powerful, once you separate them. It becomes really powerful because it’s weird, they both see themselves changing and they’re both surprising themselves and they’re both stepping up. And because, let’s be honest, co-founders are a bit like husband and wife. What was that like?

10:38 Yeah, I actually think it really brought us closer together. Look, we were really close before this course started. We do everything in our business together, and like, when you start a company with someone else, you go through that experience with them, and going through this, like, we were forced to be vulnerable at a level we hadn’t been with each other.

10:55 I’m not someone who tends to talk a lot about myself, so I close myself off when it comes to those personal experiences, like the pain, the losses that I’ve had, and I actually had never talked about it to him before. Wow. But like, he had to see it, right? I had to upload videos about it, I had to talk about it, and I was initially quite uncomfortable knowing that there was someone who knew me personally in that group, but I’m really glad I did that. I think it brings you together in a way that you can’t do until you have that vulnerability.

11:26 Yeah, most definitely. What are your plans for the next 12 months? Because part of module six is really planning the future. We don’t want to kind of drop you off. It’s, I guess, now that I think about it, it’s kind of an integration process, isn’t it? Yeah, definitely. This is where life begins. For me, I think I had a huge revelation in about the second or third week with my co-founder.

11:43 We have these intellectual mastermind discussions after work sometimes, every week, and we were sitting down, and this was, you know, we’d been doing the meditation every day now, we’d been practising gratitude, we’d been cutting out media, and what it does is it frees your mind, right? You’re able to process and think about things at a level that you don’t otherwise get to.

11:59 So we’re sitting down one time and we’re just kind of thinking to ourselves, like, what separates people in society, like the people who have true happiness, true fulfilment and true impact? Like, what separates people? Because there’s a difference, right? Like, you have these people who are doing so much with their lives, and then you have people who aren’t. So what, like, what is it that does that? And we’re thinking, is it age, is it location, is it the experiences they have? Like, what is it that does that?

12:23 And we realised it’s actually none of those things. It’s mindset. It’s the one thing that separates everyone. And once we had that, like, we sat down, we started exploring this, and we actually plotted out hundreds of people and the mindset that they might have in terms of open-mindedness, like how willing they are to take in external experiences, like we talked about earlier, but also a growth mindset, right?

12:40 So Tom talks about this really well: just understanding that the person you are today, that’s not who you are, that’s not who you’ll be in a year’s time or two years’ time. You have to have that growth mentality. So we plotted people on a scale of negative 10, like the most negative, toxic mindset someone can have, and positive 10, right, like the best possible mindset. We plotted this out with hundreds of people that we knew. We spent hours doing this.

13:06 And like, this is where the revelation was, because we realised, unfortunately, most of society, we think, is in a negative state of mind, right? Fixed mindset, not very open-minded, there’s no growth mentality there. But the largest demographic of people who are shifted more towards a positive than anyone else, it’ll surprise you, it’s actually students.

13:29 And the reason is, they haven’t had those experiences. They haven’t gone into work, these careers that might box them in. They haven’t been able to box themselves into these aspects of their lives, right? They’re still so open-minded, right? You take someone who’s 15, 16, 17 years old and you ask them what they want to do with their life, they’ll give you amazing answers. And this is where we really shifted the direction of our company.

13:53 Because what our media company does is, we have 500,000 students in Australia, the biggest media company for students in Australia, and we realised, like, we have an obligation now, because these students will go in certain directions, and they’re either going to do that based on what schools teach them, based on what their parents teach them. But like, we’re in a position where we can influence these students. So for me, the next 12 months, we’re really going to pursue that.

14:16 Because I believe, like I said before, I was an outlier. I was lucky to have the chance I did, and I just think, like, this hurts me, because so many people don’t get that chance, and I have an obligation to do that. Like, 500,000 students, if you just imagine, even if you impact 10 percent or 1 percent of that number to go on to do something meaningful that’s fulfilling to them, like, just think about the change that’s going to have in the world.

14:40 And it’s very difficult to do once people progress through life and then go through these experiences that shift them and actually negatively down that mindset curve. But when people are still here at zero, like, the world’s their oyster, and they know that. So just being able to provide that right platform, that’s what we’re working on now, really trying to work that out, being able to provide that right platform. That’s where we want to take our media company, and it’s an obligation that we have.

15:04 Nice. You can take this knowledge, use this empowerment of you and be a force multiplier to people that are in the most change in their life, so you’re in a powerful position now. Yeah. With everything you have, how are you different? If we walked down to the Old Street roundabout and bumped into the Shanaka who didn’t take this course, what’s that guy like compared to you?

15:21 Look, I honestly think the last six weeks have been the most powerful six weeks of my life, because I’ve been an entrepreneur for five years now, and I founded six companies, two of which have been successful. But again, like I said, it was purpose that I was lacking, right? I knew what I was doing, I knew how I was doing it, I didn’t know why, and I found that through this. I found, like, the mindset curve and the reason why we’re building this company now. I found it through that.

15:46 So if I hadn’t done this, I’d just be following that trajectory of no purpose, going down a path, going through the motions, because I want to do something successful for the sake of being successful, right? That’s what I thought I wanted. But finding, like, true, genuine purpose, like something that actually drives you, that changes everything.

16:08 So look, it’s a combination of everything. Being able to free my mind through aspects of meditation and gratitude, and that’s something I do every day now. I share that with my partner, we go through those expressions of gratitude every single day, and it changes so much in your relationships. But also freeing yourself of all the distractions in your life, it allows you to learn so much about yourself.

16:32 And had I not had that understanding, I think, to be honest, my life would be so different. The level of fulfilment I think I have right now, and the level of fulfilment I’m going to have in the future, it’s incomparable. Yeah, well, it’s palpable. I can feel your energy right now, and so it’s a little scary how unstoppable you seem right now. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do for the next 12 months, and we’ve got the calls and the accountabilities, so this is exciting, man. It’s exciting, and like I said, it’s kind of infectious. Yeah.

16:57 To someone who’s watching this, who’s sitting on the fence, and he’s thinking, I don’t know, London Real Academy, I don’t know, online course, I don’t know that’s going to help me, what would you tell them? Okay, this is what I’d say. You’ve got to ask yourself, anyone’s got to ask yourself, what’s the value, right? And there’s several ways of doing this, but when you put a monetary value on something, it’s so easy to overcome that, because if you truly change your life, you can’t put a price on that, right?

17:21 Like, this is worth millions to me. It’s not, it’s actually not worth monetary value, like, it’s a life-changing experience. So for me, like I described before, had I not done this, the path I would have gone on lacks meaning, it lacks fulfilment, it lacks purpose. You can’t quantify that change. So look, there’s so many features to the course, there’s accountability, there’s live calls, there’s keeping yourself accountable to other members of the program.

17:44 All of those contribute to that one singular benefit that I received, and that was purpose, finding genuine, true meaning in your life, and that’s priceless. Yeah. So if anyone’s wondering, like, what’s that worth to you, you can’t put a price on that.

18:09 Yeah. Shanaka, welcome to the family, you’re now part of London Real. I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do, and yeah, looking forward to you really moving the needle on the world. You know, you’re in the position, and again, like Simon Sinek says, with the right why you can pretty much do anything, and without the right why you really can’t do anything. You can make the moves, and I’ve done that in the past, being successful for being successful, but it’s hollow, and ultimately your customers feel that you’re not into it, and so does everybody around you.

18:31 So I love this energy, man. Let’s keep it up, let’s push through the next 12 months, and let’s do some big things, shall we? Yeah. All right, brother, thanks so much. Thank you so much.