Jay Shetty - Think Like A Monk: How To Reach Your Full Potential In Life By Mastering Your Mind

Full transcript: Jay Shetty on London Real

2:06 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Jay Shetty, the British motivational speaker, viral content creator, author and former monk, born and raised in London.

2:25 You moved to India at age 22 to live as a monk and for three years meditated for up to eight hours a day, learning the ancient practices of breathwork and mind control. Today you share your learnings with audiences around the world with the mission make wisdom go viral. You were named in the Forbes 30 under 30 for being a pioneer in the world of digital media, and have spoken to companies like Google, Nasdaq and HSBC. Your videos have accumulated over seven and a half billion views, and your number one podcast, On Purpose, has hosted Deepak Chopra, Kobe Bryant and Tim Ferriss.

2:57 Your upcoming book, Think Like a Monk, distills the timeless wisdom you learned in India into practical steps anyone can follow to live a more meaningful life. Jay, welcome to London Real. Right, I’m really grateful and happy to be with you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Hey, mate, it’s great to have you here, and most people probably don’t know that you’ve actually been to the studio before.

3:19 You were here with, I guess, your mentor. It was Radhanath Swami, the kind of I call him like the OG monk, the OG gangster monk. I mean, he’s been there and done that when you learn about this guy. He hitchhiked from London to the Himalayas. He used to, I think, chant with Prabhupada in Tompkins Square Park in New York City.

3:40 He actually built the Hare Krishna temple that was in my movie Iron Mind. We knew a bunch of people and he came here with you and really it was an amazing episode. That guy’s got incredible energy. But one of the things I got to say about you, Jay, is that you came in with him and you didn’t. You didn’t.

3:56 I didn’t even know it was you, you know, because I think you’re so respectful to him and you were respectful to his time, that you let him kind of have his moment here, and it took me 30 minutes to realize it was you. So that showed me a lot about your character, the fact that you kind of let him do his thing. So I appreciate that. And tell me what does that man mean to you? Well, that’s very kind of you, and I’m so glad that I did get to see your beautiful studio and your amazing team, and it’s incredible to see what you’re creating out there.

4:23 Truly, it’s so so powerful. And yeah, I really believe that when you are in a certain person’s presence, when they’re your mentors, when they’re your guides, when they’re your teachers, it’s beautiful to just be a sponge that absorbs and doesn’t try to take that energy or attention away. And so the way I would describe it from an analogy in the Vedas would be the firefly doesn’t try and compete with the sun, and in the darkness the firefly tries to take the attention, and it thinks that it’s glowing up the whole world, but really it’s just this bright, and in the light when the sun comes out, it’s like you can just bask in that greatness.

5:05 So for me, you know, when I’m around people like yourself, people like Radhanath Swami, other mentors that I have in my life, I’m just a sponge wanting to learn and absorb. And I’m grateful that I’ve been trained in that way and exposed to that way of thinking, because I feel that when you’re in that position as a consistent learner and a student, you’re always in a safe place. You have very little room for your ego to take over. There’s very little space for illusion and Maya to have its hold, and you actually get some breathing space to just be and live and be human, and it’s liberating.

5:42 So yeah, that’s kind of how it felt that day. Well, I was impressed, and when I had heard that you trained under Radhanath Swami because I had heard you have been a monk before, but I didn’t know the details, and when I heard you trained under him, I was like, okay, Jay’s the real deal, because that man, I mean, if you look at his CV and then also just being in his presence, I must say, like, I’ve been around a lot of people, but there’s something special about him, and he connected with me in a weird spiritual energy level that’s kind of hard to describe. And I know you might expect me to say that or feel that about a monk, but really there’s something special about him, and he’s one of the, he’s the guy actually that said, “Jay, maybe you shouldn’t be a monk anymore.”

6:20 And it’s it’s one of the, the things that you’ve spoken about before. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about that moment and even the time you spent with him in India, because that’s a big part of your story and it’s why you’re here today. And I think it was also kind of a weird, humbling moment too. Absolutely. Yeah, that conversation there were, there were two parts to it.

6:38 Parts of it happened in India, parts of it actually happened in London, and the one that I want to share with you today is the one that happened in London. And I was driving his holiness, Radhanath Swami, to the airport, and we were in a car together. And I was sharing with him my almost self-reflection and awareness, and where it had got me. Now, this is the interesting thing about monk life, is that it creates such an extreme level of self-acceptance and awareness that I got to the point, in hindsight, now, that I realized I wasn’t meant to be a monk.

7:12 And so I’m sharing this with the person that has given me their guidance and steer, and I’ve been involved in his life and learnings, and it’s so hard to admit to someone that you respect that you might feel like this isn’t right for you anymore. And it was one of those moments where you got to pluck the courage from within to just be like, you know, I don’t think this is who I am or who I meant to be. And having his affirmation and having his blessing to say that, actually, you know, and there’s a particular example that he gave me on that journey, which, like you said, it sounds really simple, but it had such a profound impact on my internal confidence.

7:58 So he said to me, he said, some, he goes, “People go to university, and he said, some people become professors inside the university, and some people go out and become entrepreneurs.” He goes, “Which ones are better?” And I said, “Neither. Like, you know, each to their own. It just depends on who you are and what you want to do with your life.”

8:19 And he goes, “Well, that’s exactly the scenario you’re in right now.” He said, “Some monks come to the school and they become professors in the school and they stay in the school forever and continue to teach, and some monks come for their training and then they go out, and then they still try and represent and share all those teachings in the world.” And he said, “That’s your choice. Neither is better or worse.” And that for me was like, it took the pressure away that I was placing on myself that I had failed or that I was going to make a mistake by leaving, because I didn’t understand what was coming next.

8:53 So that was, that was that conversation. Wow, do you think he knew? Do you think he knew this was coming from you? In his humility he’d say he didn’t even know, and I definitely didn’t know. And I think that’s the beauty of what I love about being a witness or an observer in your own life, is that you kind of get to get surprised, excited, delighted.

9:19 And for me, you know, I look at my life today and consider it to be a real blessing and responsibility. And I, I can honestly say, hand on my heart, that I never imagined even one percent of what currently has happened in my life to ever happen. Well, it’s a pretty incredible story. I mean, for people that don’t know, you know, you’re here in London. You grew up in London.

9:41 You know, when you’re 16, you kind of became, you had some hard times. You lost a couple friends to death, I think, a car accident and some gang violence, and sounded like you were turning into a bit of a punk yourself. You know, how did you get from there to becoming a monk? Maybe bring people up to speed. Because not many young men do that.

9:59 Is that a fair assumption? Yeah, I think so. I don’t know, maybe like 0.001 of people, maybe. And again, I was in that same 0.01 You know, I grew up as a, what I would consider, a good obedient son until the age of 14. I followed the rules.

10:18 I checked the boxes. I did my best at school. I was respectful at home and I got to a point where it wasn’t satisfying to just be good for the sake of being good. Now, in hindsight, I realized I felt like I needed a purpose and meaning in my life to apply that goodness to. So being good for being good’s sake was not good enough and at the same time, at that time, because I was young and 14, I didn’t know what meaning and purpose was, so I saw it as seeking a thrill.

10:52 And I was looking for a thrill in life, and thrill came through adventure sports. It came through getting involved in punk-like activities. As you said, thrill comes from doing all the wrong things or the bad things when you’re growing up because they’re forbidden, and I think there’s something about that forbidden fruit that makes you feel like you’re discovering something. And so now in hindsight, I realized what I was really looking for was discovery and meaning and purpose, but at the time it took the form of thrill and, you know, irrelevant activities and the wrong actions.

11:27 And so seeing that path and getting a glimpse of it, I also being realized that being bad for being bad’s sake didn’t work out either. So on one extreme, being good for being good’s sake didn’t work, and on the other side, being bad for being bad’s sake didn’t work either, and I was consistently seeking that deeper fulfillment and to me the opening is what you do so wonderfully with your show. And what I believe so many creators today are trying to do is we have to allow ourselves to be exposed to people with counterintuitive ideas or alternative ways of life that we’ve never been exposed to.

12:08 So if you think about any generation today, they’re exposed to athletes, actors, singers, musicians, business people. Nothing wrong with that at all, but if you never really get to the depths of the people behind the people, or if you never get exposed to any other ideas, you start thinking that life is about a finite number of options and a finite number of paths. And so while I was on that path of thinking, like when I was growing up, the most celebrated thing to be in the world of business was an investment banker.

12:39 Like, if you were a hedge fund manager or an investment banker, you had made it. And I had no interest in investment banking or hedge fund management, but because that’s what I saw in society, I was thinking that that’s what I’ll probably graduate and do. So while I was at university, I was always fascinated to go and hear speakers, whether it was entrepreneurs, CEOs, celebrities. And that was a time, I guess, when I was at university. It was 2007 to 2010.

13:10 There wasn’t a ton of content on these topics readily available like there is today, and so you’d actually have to turn up in person. And I was fascinated by people who went from nothing to something. I’ve always been fascinated by rags to riches stories, and I remember the first books I ever read were David Beckham’s autobiography and Dwayne The Rock Johnson’s autobiography, and I just loved how much pain and struggle they’d been through, and I loved learning about how they navigated their challenges.

13:39 I loved learning about how David Beckham used to, every weekend when his friends were out partying and out doing their thing, he would be in the park practicing how to take free kicks. And I valued that. I valued the level of sacrifice that it took. And so I was already into that, and then I was invited to hear a monk speak, and I was thinking, what is a monk achieved? Like, you know, what am I going to learn from a monk?

14:05 And I genuinely had that limiting punk-like belief that what can I learn from a monk? And my friends who were getting more involved in spirituality and meditation, they were the ones who encouraged me to come along, and I said, “Well, I’ll only go if we go to a bar afterwards.” And the reason why I shared that is I want people to realize the state of my consciousness at the time. I did not grow up spiritual or religious. I didn’t grow up as a monk.

14:31 I didn’t grow up like an angel. Like, you know, I was just a normal guy growing up in London. And that was what I said to my friends. They agreed because they’re good friends, and they knew what would happen, I guess. And I turn up having very low expectations of hearing this monk speak.

14:50 And it’s the irony of life that you go there expecting nothing and you find everything. And when I say that, what I mean is there was a slightly captivating energy. And I’ve heard people say this about other monks and teachers that they’ve met as well. Like, I think I read somewhere that Julia Roberts said it when she first saw a picture of Neem Karoli Baba, who was involved, you know, people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and other others have been involved in his teachings and his traditions.

15:22 And there was that captivating element, and you’re wondering what it is, because here in front of me was standing an Indian man from India in robes. Wasn’t externally, like, attracting me as I would be attracted to the opposite sex, but I was having the same sort of draw and pull towards what he was saying, and what he was saying was like opening out and penetrating my heart. And he was saying that our gifts and skills are wasted if they’re not used in the service of others.

15:54 And that was the first time I’d ever heard about service and compassion and love, and I was just like, not only does that start to resonate. He also just has this captivating presence, and I start going, I want that. Like, I want to be around that. And so I remember now that, you know, when I was 18 in my life, I’d met people who were rich, I’d met people who were famous. I’d met people who were beautiful.

16:24 I’d met people who were strong and powerful, but I don’t know if I’d met anyone who is truly happy and content. And that day I felt that he, who I still have a relationship with now, I really felt that he was happy and content, and I started to feel that maybe I was looking for that deep meaning and purpose in life. Maybe actually the path that I haven’t yet trodden. So that’s kind of how that whole journey began. Wow, I mean, you must have been pretty mature for your age, because it took me 40 years to figure out the message that service was the way, and I want to get into it because you talk about it in your book, but like it took me a while, because you know, in my teens and 20s and even in my 30s, it was about me, me, me.

17:09 You know, I was basically the hedge fund manager guy. So I’m kind of amazed that you could be open-minded to that, because I’m sure a lot of your peers were thinking the same kind of thing, right? Yeah, I, I really owe that to the teachers. And that’s what I mean, Brian, with what, what I was saying about your show and what you’re doing, and what I’m trying to do, is that if you don’t experience compassion, you won’t really believe it exists. And the only way you experience compassion is if you sit in the presence of someone who has unlimited compassion.

17:47 And so I feel like when you’re growing up, you’re surrounded by people who have an addiction to wealth, or you have you’re surrounded by people who have an addiction to laziness, or you’re surrounded by people who have an obsession or an absorption with status and power, and so all you’re experiencing is that experience. And all of a sudden, when you throw a, and again it doesn’t have to be a monk, it could be anyone who shows you this, right? It doesn’t have, it’s not specifically to do with being a monk, but when I, when you meet a monk who’s embodying love and compassion and mastery of the mind, you all of a sudden start experiencing and you go, oh, it’s possible, it exists.

18:28 It, like, you feel it. And I think that’s what you know there’s a beautiful statement by, I believe it’s from Saint Francis, and he says that you should, you should preach all day. You should preach all day, and sometimes you should open your mouth. And it’s that belief that the energy is contained in someone’s presence and the way they live their life, even without opening their mouth or ever saying yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true.

18:58 And it’s funny, I’m thinking about my own life as I’m listening to you. I mean, I never had anybody when I grew up. I told you I was from San Diego. 18 years there. I never had a chance to be around someone like that.

19:09 You know, I mean, the closest thing is I saw, you know, Hare Krishna was walking down the street in Pacific Beach, but again, I didn’t know their vibe. I’d heard people that had gone there, but I never let myself do that. Then when I went to MIT, I’m around a bunch of overachievers who, let’s be honest, we were about our grades and our future, and then went to Wall Street at 22. I mean, I’m around a bunch of overachievers that about themselves. So I guess I never really was around those people until the last nine years.

19:35 I’ve been doing this show. I’m around vibes and of people that, you know, they always, I’m telling you, Jay, that the guys that the original gangsters at the end of the show. There’s probably a hundred of them I’ve had on the show they all say the same message at the end, which is kind of, we are all one. And I’ve, I’ve had it told to me by monks. I’ve had it told to me by bodybuilders, by everybody, but I always get this uniting message at the end.

20:00 So that’s definitely something I feel. So yeah, I kind of know what you mean that you were around that presence before. So yeah, so what was it like being the monk? I mean, just to kind of finish that chapter off before we get into a bunch of the other current events. I mean, when you look back I think it was three years that you spent there.

20:17 I’m sure you’re always reprocessing it, but what was it like? It was, it was like being at a school for the mind, and it was like being at school. And I remember the first day, one of the first things one of the teachers told us is, do not think that you have come to heaven. You’ve just been admitted into a hospital. And he said, in this hospital, sometimes the doctors will act like patients, and that is part of the lesson, as much as sometimes you as patients will be able to help the doctors.

20:51 And so don’t feel that anyone here is free of the disease. We’ve all come here to become purified. And so that was kind of like day one setup of don’t expect everyone around here to be perfect. Actually, expect that there will be imperfection, but it is through that that you will be tested and learned. And so it was just for me, it was like a beautiful way to not just let these concepts like compassion and ego just be words and themes and ideas.

21:21 They became real, where you are now seeing them in every interaction and monitoring them in your own mind and heart and knowing how to navigate the pulls and the distractions and all of that. So in terms of a daily practice, we’d wake up every day at 4am. So that was the set rule. You had to wake up at 4am. That was hard.

21:40 That was seriously hard for me in the beginning. I’ve never been a late waker up, but I I’m never waking up that early, and I really love sleep. So I used to wake up at 4am, 4.30 am would be collective prayers and meditation that would run till 5.15 5.15 to 7.15 would be independent meditation, and then 7.15 there’d be some more collective prayers, and then 8 to 9am would be a class given on the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedas, and that would be a class from a senior monk, and she’d be listening for an hour, and then 9am was breakfast.

22:13 So just adapting to that new morning was hard, because I’m used to waking up having breakfast first thing in the morning, you know, filling my stomach up and feeling satisfied, maybe working out a little bit, and we would do yoga there as well, but re-shifting would literally feel like not only did I shower my body, but that morning practice and routine literally feel like I’d bathe my mind in the morning. Like, imagine your mind feeling like fresh and awake. And that’s really what I feel that morning did.

22:46 So that’s what we would do, and then the rest of the day would be different. It would be a mixture of more meditation and study. It would be what I described as, like, the monk experience I had. The morning was about the self, and the rest of the day was about service, and that’s why I chose the path, because I really believe that we need both areas in our life. We need time to focus on ourselves, but then we need to go out there and make a difference.

23:10 And so we were distributing food to the homeless or children of India. We were taking part in building this sustainable village. We were involved in philanthropic activities which really felt so purposeful to me and made me feel like I was doing the right thing in my 20s, because I was thinking, you know, for four years while I was at college, I was half of it interning at finance companies in London, and the other half spending in India just experimenting and living with the monks.

23:38 And that was like my first A/B test. And I would go from bars, as you know very well, you know better than I do. I’d be going from bars, steakhouses, and wearing suits in the summer to sleeping on the floor, waking up at 4am and meditating for four hours a day. And when I compared them, in those summers I became confident that the monk life was more purposeful and meaningful to me at that time in my life. Wow, okay.

24:07 Difficult process over those three years, where there were challenging parts. And I guess towards the end of it, did you start to wonder if this was a long-term thing for you? Yeah, I think the difficult moments initially were the adapting to the morning, because that, that in and of itself is such a big extreme habit shift. You know, you’re waking before a.m. You’re having cold showers, and you don’t have a legitimate place to sleep.

24:33 So everyone sleeps on a different mat in a different place every different day, because you’re training your mind for adaptability and detachment. So that’s a lot. I mean, I’m a kid from London who has a bedroom, and even though it’s not big, my parents are not well off. I still have my bedroom, and it’s my space, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s very clearly my space, and all of a sudden you’re now living on the other end of the extreme. But I, I just started to find very quickly.

24:58 I’d say after the first one to three months, I started to find such an affinity for the lifestyle, because I understood why we were doing it. And I, and I think that’s the difference in all of struggle. When you look at what you’re doing in the struggle, it will never make sense, and as soon as you understand why you’re going through the struggle, it all makes sense. And I started to realize my mind was becoming more adaptable and flexible. What happened after three years is after learning and growing and absorbing and reflecting, I came to the reflection that I had this desire to want to share what I was learning in a really practical, accessible, and relevant way.

25:36 I had that because I would, you know, I would read something in scripture and I could connect it to a movie that I’d seen, or I would read a verse of this 5,000 year old literature and be able to connect it to a science study or a marketing exercise that I did at college, and I was just like, this is so exciting to me. Like, I’m getting my passion from seeing connections between this timeless wisdom and the modern world. And I really want to bring those two together, and I started to realize that that desire was not the desire of wanting to live like a monk forever.

26:10 And that was the hardest pill to swallow, because I would have loved to have done it from there, but I had to allow myself to accept the sacredness of what monk life is. And that’s why it’s so hard, because you almost realize that this is sacred, and my desire may be outside of what that is, and I’ve got to learn to accept that, because I’m going to feel unfulfilled if I don’t do that. So that’s what I kind of came to after those three years of reflection and awareness and acceptance, and coming back.

26:41 And I traveled. I spent time in London as a monk and in Europe, but when I actually came back and I moved back from my parents, that was possibly the lowest moment of my life, because I came back to the noise that I had left, which was, if you become a monk, you’re never going to make money again. If you become a monk, you’re wasting all of this effort you put into your education. If you become a monk, then who’s ever going to hire you? You know, that’s the noise that I had left, and to now come back and almost prove it all right.

27:11 It was, all of a sudden, like my ego was going through a massive humbling, because now my parents and extended family members and everyone around me was wondering, wait, did you fail at becoming a monk? Like, are you, are you back? Like, what? You know, they couldn’t understand it. And did you end up processing that at some point, and finally I mean, I guess you did, and then you started to express yourself, right?

27:34 Yeah, for a month, I’d say I, I kind of fell back into my default habit, so I started waking up late. I, the first thing I did was buy some Cadbury’s chocolate and enjoy it and devour it, because I hadn’t eaten chocolate for a while. I, I remember just kind of falling into I started listening to Drake again. I remember very vividly and it was almost like I kind of flipped back really quickly into the me before this journey. And then a month in, I started to realize that everything I’d learned as a monk was setting me up for this journey in my life, and that being a monk was like being at school, and that now I was in the exam, and I had to test whether what I learned at school actually helped me pass the exam of life.

28:26 And I had great faith and confidence that this wisdom was applicable, but it was almost like when I left, I was forced to put it all into practice. And that’s why now what I’m sharing, and especially with writing this book, it’s like I’m only sharing everything that I’ve tested and experimented with over the last seven years. So these are truths that have been around for thousands of years, and I’ve just taken them, broken them down into habits and strategies and tools, and I’ve put them into practice, and I can genuinely hand on my heart say that I have seen them all proven to be true through my personal life experience of Trying to implement the wisdom in reality.

29:05 Were you ever close to not making it? Like, were you ever close to just going back to the hedge fund, or worse, just staying at home and not figuring it out? Or were you confident you would have got here sooner or later? Yeah, good question. I, if I’m completely honest, I’d say I was in a complete state of uncertainty and confusion when I got back.

29:27 And so I would go to the library every day. I’d get dressed up like I was going to work. I’d go to the library every day. I’d read business books, personal development books, to kind of get my mind back in that space, and I would read spiritual books, and I started applying to companies, because my parents are not well off, and I needed to pay the bills. So I started applying to jobs that I would have worked at, so banks and consulting firms and finance companies, and I got rejected from 40 companies before interview, because, guess what, I had monk on my resume for three years, and no one wants to hire a monk.

29:58 Surprise, surprise. Like, what’s your, what’s your transferable skill? Silence and stillness? Like, I mean, no one wants that in their company. So, you know, people couldn’t understand if there were any transferable useful skills, and so I was getting rejected before interview at companies that would have gladly given me a job three years before.

30:16 I’m a first class honors degree student. I went to Cass Business School. I’ve had top grades pretty much consistently across my life, and I, I couldn’t get a job anyway. And so at that time I was like, what am I gonna do? I have no idea what I’m gonna do to pay the bills or survive.

30:33 And I just started trying to share what I’d learned in private meetings, in groups, and everywhere. And what I started to realize was that a lot of my friends who’d now been working for a number of years were experiencing stress and burnout and the challenges that come with leading a fast-paced corporate lifestyle, and so they started inviting me into their companies to share my journey and why I’d taken another path. And so it was almost organic. This is 2013, where companies were just getting introduced to mindfulness and meditation, and that kind of buzz in Silicon Valley was just starting out.

31:13 And so almost I was, I was someone who’d had some authentic experience, and so people wanted to hear from me. And so I started building frameworks and models from what I’d learned for companies, and then I ended up getting a job at Accenture, where not only did I go on and learn so many great skills from a business and media and digital strategy perspective, but I actually went on to teach mindfulness and meditation inside the company while being an employee. And so I really got to see the value of these tools inside a company.

31:45 Well, you were clearly, you’re clearly made for this, Jay, and you clearly put in the work to understand it, and you’re obviously, I mean, it oozes out of you, the excitement and how you like piecing this stuff together. And obviously the world feels it. You can feel it through digital media really quick. People sense authenticity through video in about 10 seconds. That’s why I love the medium.

32:05 So I’m just glad that you found your way there, and sometimes it’s nice to hit those real lows, you know. It helps you later get the highs. I think, yeah, it also, it also just helps me to really truly believe it when I say to people that, you know, I used to feel that way too. Like, I get it. I, I really, really get it when you’re confused and you’re lost and you’re stuck and you feel like there’s no way out, and you can’t see the future, and you can’t even envision it.

32:36 And the whole, you know, believe in yourself first. I didn’t believe in myself, you know. I just had to act. I just had to do. I just had to take this step.

32:45 And I’m not discounting needing belief in yourself, but I can say I didn’t believe that anything was going to happen. I just took the steps and learned and grew and consistently tried to push myself to evolve. And so yeah, I think for me it’s given me a great sense of empathy when I see someone’s block, instead of judging that block and being like, how can you have that block? Come on, just get on with it. It’s like in my head I’m like, no, no, no, I get it.

33:11 I had that block too. I could empathize and be compassionate towards that block, because I had it very strongly. Yeah, and so important actions are so crucial these days just to move forward. Look, I want to get into the book, and the book is excellent, by the way. There’s so much really good stuff there.

33:27 But first we should probably talk about what’s been going on in the world the last four or five months, because it’s been a crazy time. And you know, maybe we start with fear, because it’s all really based around fear, everything that’s happened. A lot of different things have happened, but there’s something that you say. I’m going to quote something you’ve said before, and you said, quote, during my time as a monk I learned to lose my fear of fear, so that instead of allowing it to motivate me in negative ways, such as avoiding punishment, humiliation, or failure, I’m now able to recognize the opportunities that fear signals.

33:57 I’m curious about how you got that relationship with fear, and how you can process it, because you know we live in a brand new world now with fear. Yes, absolutely. And first of all, I just want to say, and I mean this, that what the world has experienced in the last five to six months is such an extreme test of tolerance and our ability to be resilient and ability to overcome fear. If anyone feels that they have not held it together, they shouldn’t judge themselves, because it’s almost like you can’t take the hardest test of all time and expect to come out passing with flying colors without any preparation beforehand.

34:42 And so, if anything, what should happen for us, instead of feeling guilty and sad about not responding in a perfect way, whatever that is, we should actually feel encouraged that now is the time to go into it. That now is the time to build up those skills, that we should become prepared when we least expect it, because who knows what is out there. And so the preparation, my favorite example from the Bhagavad Gita is of Arjun, who’s a warrior and a fighter.

35:14 It’s almost like the fighter doesn’t go on the battlefield and hope that they have the skills. They train every single day so that when the battle appears, they’re ready. What’s happened in all of our lives is we’ve had zero training in zero preparation, and all of a sudden you’re thrown into this battlefield, and of course none of us can completely hold it together. So for me, I see it as more of a wake-up call and a cry to all of us to say, please use your time to feel prepared, to feel ready, to grow and invest in yourself, so that next time, no matter what it is that comes our way, that you’re prepared and you have the quality to stay still.

35:56 That’s the first thing I’d start with. But how you started with fear, when you start that training, is that the first thing that fear does is it should hopefully connect you to wanting to build up the skills to deal with that fear. But actually, a lot of our responses, as we know through psychology, and I talk about them in the book, a lot of our responses are, we freeze, we get stuck. Yeah, right. We go, okay, I’m stuck, or we run away.

36:22 We run away and we try and avoid these issues, or we bury ourselves and we try and forget about them, and so our responses to fear, what we don’t realize, create more fear. Because you only become more fearful about something the less you know about it, because the less you know about it means there’s more unknown. Why do we fear the darkness? Because it’s unknown. Why do we fear what’s beyond our solar system?

36:51 Because we don’t know it. It’s when we don’t know that we’re in fear. If you are playing a team in another sport and you don’t know their strengths, you’ll feel fearful. If you’re about to walk into a tourist destination and you don’t know the ins and outs of it, you’ll feel fear, because it’s an unknown place. So it’s crazy to me that we remain in a state of unknowingness in our own lives and emotions, because we feel scared of actually getting intimate with our fear.

37:25 We get scared of being present and close to our fear, and that’s why we try and put fear to the back of our minds. We try and run away from it. So the first thing to do is, when you feel that there’s something that you’re scared of or upset about, a common example is how we all avoid conflict. No one likes tough conversation, and what I started to do was, rather than try and run away from tough conversations and try and find excuses and answers, I would try and find the easiest option, in the beginning for me, to just come out and share the truth or where I was at with it.

38:03 A good example, funnily enough, is today’s podcast. So I was late for today’s podcast for a legitimate reason, because I’m working with someone and they needed my time, and my fear response was, oh god, Brian’s gonna be so upset, his team’s like, waited late in London, we could just make up an excuse to make them all feel better, and just patch it all up. And I was like, no, I’m not going to take that option. I’m going to call up James and I’m going to tell him exactly what happened, be really honest about it.

38:36 I’m going to face it, because that’s the best I can do. And actually that relieves all of us of any pressure and stress, and whether you take it the right way or the wrong way, that’s not my, I’m, it’s not my responsibility, or it’s not my, a decision for how you respond, because that is your own mind and that is your own decision. But I need to get close to my fear. So the first thing I’d say is, when you have a fear response, instead of running away from it or trying to figure out how to get away from it or avoid it, ask yourself what am I truly fearful of?

39:14 Where is this fear coming from? And continue to ask yourself when you come up with a fear. I call it the Y ladder in the book. Yeah, when you come up with a fear. So I give the example in the book, and let’s take a more common example.

39:29 So you may say, I am fearful of COVID, and that’s a very normal fear to have. Nothing wrong with it. And I think that’s the other problem, we think our fears are wrong, so then we don’t want to get intimate with them, right? But I would say, okay, well, why are you afraid of COVID? And you may say, I’m afraid because I might lose my job.

39:47 And you say, okay, why are you afraid of losing your job? Because I need to pay the bills and I need to take care of my family. Why do you think that paying the bills is what’s going to take care of your family? And, and you know, everything else, because I need to put food on the table. Why do you need to put food on the table?

40:05 Because I want my family to feel loved and cared for and nourished. Why do you want your family to feel loved and cared for and nourished? Because I love them. And then you realize, wait a minute, what they’re really looking for is love, and if I can, even in this pain, choose to give them love, then I’m actually giving them what they need. And now I’ll find all the ways to make the money, figure out my business, get food on the table, and do that.

40:33 But if I really realize that what I’m scared of is that COVID is going to stop me from giving love to my family, and that’s actually not true. You can give love to your family, and then hopefully in that stress-free, of, like, letting go of that, you actually give yourself the energy to go and figure out the other stuff. And so I’m not saying that, losing your job means you can just do this activity and you’ll be free of fear. What I’m saying is that it’s your fear that’s blocking you from finding the focus to solve the situation, and doing this while direct ladder exercise actually helps you realize what you think you’re being blocked from, but usually that’s right within your control.

41:16 Nothing is blocking you from that. Yeah, our fears tell us so much, but like you said, we want to run away from the fight or the flight mechanism, but I mean, even to take that deeper, why, why are you afraid of COVID? Because I’m gonna die. Okay, this is a little bit touchier. Why are you afraid to die?

41:32 Go a few more downs, and it’s like, because I’ve never done what I want to do with my life. I’ve never done anything important. Okay, maybe it’s time to do something important now. You know, you can really start getting deep, you know, and you know, it’s great to have these conversations. Well, I’m fearful of this secret getting out.

41:49 Okay, well, why are you afraid of that? Well, because then no one will love me. It’s like, well, no, actually, the people that never loved you won’t love you, but the people that will, they will. So maybe it’s time you tell them the secret. I mean, you go down a bunch of ladders, and I love the Y ladder a lot in the book, because, you know, I’ve had this conversation a lot with myself recently, and then over the years when I’ve, like, talked about my past and things have come out.

42:11 And you know, most of your fears not only are usually unfounded, but they’re usually ways to unlock all of this love and potential when you actually go there. And I’m, but again it’s a process, you know, like you said. So understanding when you see a fear that you can kind of process it the way you teach. That’s really powerful, super powerful. Yeah, and thank you for that example that you’ve just given.

42:35 I think that’s the beauty of the Y ladder, that if you just keep asking yourself that question, you get to the root of the issue. And the world we live in is always trying to distract us into the leaves and the branches, and all of that kind of stuff. And it’s like imagine you were growing a plant and you kept watering the leaf and you kept, like, trimming the leaf and making the leaf perfect. Tomorrow the wind’s going to come across blow that leaf off, and because you forgot to watch the root, even the tree or the plant could fall over.

43:09 But if you focus on watering the root of the tree every day, each leaf is going to have the exact nutrients that it needs. And so our mind and our lives are like that, because we keep trying to solve the next drama. We keep trying to solve the next issue. We keep trying to solve the next problem, so that we’re distracted from the root of the issue, and the Y ladder forces you to go to the root of the issue and deal with that, like you said, like really. I’m scared of dying because I haven’t really done what I want to do, and yes, that’s hard to face, but if you never face it, it continues to haunt you in the background.

43:46 Yeah, my, one of my guests recently who’s been very controversial and has made us kind of world famous, his name is David Icke, and at the end of his shows he said, Brian, we are an expression of infinite consciousness having a brief experience called life. And he says that over and over again, and when you put it that way, you know, you realize that you’re trying to hold on to this thing that seems like the big deal, but it’s actually this tiny little slice of, if you really can connect to the rest of the universe and realize you’re part of this whole consciousness, then even your life isn’t as important as you thought it used to be, and maybe you can change your whole relationship with the world and the people you love. And so, you know, this is maybe even a beautiful way of getting in touch with your own mortality, you know, COVID to a certain extent, if you can look at it that way.

44:31 Otherwise it can be one of the most challenging, debilitating experiences out there, and we’ve seen a lot of stress and anxiety in America. In the book you say that, you know, research has shown that the stress has gone up like 30 in one of the most economically developed places in the world. I mean, what’s the solution for America? You live there now and versus the place where you used to sleep in India, where there was like nothing, you see where you’re in LA, where there’s like everything.

44:57 And everyone’s more stressed out. Yeah, it’s, you know, it is definitely a challenge. The more we have to hold on to, the more we feel we are fearful of. Right? If you have, if you have nothing, then you have nothing to fear, right?

45:15 We’ve heard that before, but at the same time, when you feel like you own and have and are trying to create, I think the challenge comes because we are trained to look for stability and security when actually everything in the world is consistently changing. Like, there is no such thing as stability really in anything, and there is sustenance and there is continuity, but looking for complete exactness and sameness. So we’re so addicted to wanting the same experience again and again and again and again and again that we block ourselves from a new experience, and that’s why we all live in this nostalgia of, oh, life used to be amazing back in the day, or, you know, those were the good old years.

46:06 And that comes from a fantasized view of the past, and we kind of repeat that situation rather than saying, actually, why don’t I allow myself to create the best new alternative? And so the more we can allow ourselves to realize that our last experience wasn’t the best or the worst. It was just a experience. And why don’t I cone create a unique and different experience, not a better or a worse one? We always compare things as better or worse, but really everything is different or unique.

46:38 Is a flower better than another flower? Is a tree better than another tree? They’re not. They’re just unique and different, you know, and I think we see that in nature. Like you don’t go and go, that bird and that bird, I don’t like that bird, I don’t like that feather.

46:53 You just appreciate the uniqueness and the diversity and the difference, and even in experiences in our life we have to focus on creating unique, different, diverse experiences as opposed to wanting better or worse things to happen. Yeah, no, that’s a powerful statement. Look, in addition with the whole lockdown and the COVID fear, we’ve also seen a lot of anger, you know, and a lot of divisiveness, and a lot of hate and criticism thrown at each, at people.

47:24 I mean, we see it now. Things are boiling up in America. It’s the left to the right. It’s the election year. It’s, and it’s crazy.

47:32 I mean, most people would even admit it. It’s almost these toxic levels, and you talk a little bit about, you know, when we lash out at people, sometimes it, we might feel better, but it actually introduces a whole level of toxicity. And we have this cancel culture thing. I mean, yeah, I try not to watch the stuff, but the other day I was like Ellen DeGeneres is being canceled, for God’s sakes. Like, I nev, I’ve never seen someone who seems to be the embodiment of like niceness and openness, and you know, and you just see all these random people getting canceled, you know you had people hating on you even months ago, and I’m just like, what are you doing?

48:04 These people are trying to create content that tries to make our lives better. What do you see going on here? What do we need to be aware of before we just go after someone? And are we gonna get through this? That’s my question.

48:16 Yeah, I, I’ve been talking to a friend recently about this a lot, and you know, he was saying something really beautiful that you know, what we have in the world right now. And the Vedas talk about this at this time, that what we experience is a lot of a quarrel and divisiveness, and the only real antidote, the age of Kali. Right? The age of Kali is in the Vedas. Yeah, exactly.

48:44 The Age of Kali Yuga is what it’s, the name. Yuga means age, and Kali Yuga is the age of quarrel. And so in the age of quarrel, the antidote is compassion and understanding, which comes through patience and presence. And I think the biggest thing we have to realize, and I’m going to quote something very different right now, but I want to quote a 50 Cent lyric from the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ album. Such a great album, such a great idea.

49:17 On repeat when I was 16 years old. I used to be a newspaper boy in London at 14, and I would go around and deliver newspapers in my area, and I’d listen to 50 Cent, so he, he said, he said a lyric that he said, you know, you shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house. And he goes on to rhyme it with something that I won’t repeat, but what I, what I loved about that statement, and I know it’s, it’s, it’s a familiar thought, that it really makes sense: if we want everyone to get it right and perfect the first time around or the second time around, we now are inflicting that judgment on ourselves internally as well.

50:00 And if we’re not willing to give people space and room to grow and improve and learn, then what we don’t realize is we’re also going to take away that permission from ourselves. And often what we’re judging in others can sometimes be a judgment we see in ourselves. There’s a beautiful story that I, I love to repeat in the book. It’s in the third chapter, called The Evil King Goes Hungry, and it’s a story that’s told from a long time ago. I believe it’s an old Indian ancient tale, and in this story, a evil king comes to have dinner at the good king’s home.

50:41 So they both come before each other. The evil king sits down. The good king offers him a nice seat. They both sit down. The evil king is constantly looking around at all the guards, looking around the whole palace, just trying to scope things out.

50:55 The good king is in his home and he’s happily there. They bring dinner out, and the dinner plate is placed in front of both of them. They’re about to take their first bite, and the bad king swaps the plates, and the good king goes, why did you swap the plates? Like, what is this some sort of ritual? Like, what is this?

51:14 And he said, well, you might have poisoned my food. How do I know? Because now I know that I have got your plate, which you are just about to eat, so I know that I’m safe now. The good king just starts to laugh. He’s just like bursting out laughing, thinking, like, how does this guy even think that I’m thinking of poisoning the food?

51:31 And then the, the, the evil king gets confused again, and he’s like, oh, is this a double bluff? So he switches the plates again, and the story goes that that night the evil king didn’t eat because he just couldn’t tell, and the good king ate his plate and continued. And so the lesson from that is so often that the darkness that we see in others actually comes from something inside of ourselves that’s unfulfilled. That’s one message we can take. The second message we can take is, even if someone is wrong, even if someone has acted in a way that is not appropriate, let’s give them the time and the opportunity to grow.

52:11 Let’s give people a second chance. Let’s, let’s let people evolve and grow, because otherwise we’re also blocking our own ability to evolve and grow. So to me, and by the way, no one, no one grows under immense criticism. People hide away because of that. Right, like, if you, if you’re trying to do something and you get, and you get something wrong, or you make a mistake, and you just get criticized and put into a corner of it.

52:39 Like, imagine anyone’s listening or watching right now. Imagine that happens to you. How many of us go in that situation? This is exactly the encouragement I need to change my ways or improve what I’m doing or recognize my mistakes. No one does.

52:51 We change when we feel loved, when we feel compassion, and we feel we’re given an opportunity. You see that with alcoholics. You see that with, and by the way, none of this is about not taking accountability. I think taking accountability is different, but taking accountability is shown through the change of our actions, more than anything else. Yeah, that’s a powerful point.

53:14 You, you became famous because of digital media. I mean, that’s the thing that really launched your career. And if you had, you know, been born 10 years, you know, earlier, you could argue it wouldn’t have happened. And the same with me. If I had started my podcast ten years earlier, well, there were no podcasts.

53:32 I hid it right at the right time. But also, Jay, it’s like it feels to me this digital media allows us to kind of de-personalize our criticism of other people. And I have a hard to believe that if everybody on Twitter had to share a room, or share an elevator that just broke, with the person they’re criticizing, you know, for an hour every day, that ver this stuff wouldn’t continue, because they would actually have to look at their face and feel their energy and be like, wow, I’m really saying something mean, and this person actually doesn’t seem that bad, even though they like guns and I don’t, or they’re a Muslim and I’m Catholic, or they’re left and I’m right.

54:06 They’re actually, you know, they’re actually human. How much of that digital, you know, the digital platform makes it to where it’s, it’s hard to find compassion? Yeah, it’s true. It’s, it’s, the digital platform gives us access to people’s lives and minds without actually knowing them. So we think we know people, right?

54:31 We think we know. Before, if someone didn’t have a social media profile, you just didn’t know who they were. A lot of actors are notorious for being quite mysterious, and that’s why the paparazzi would have to, like, hang outside that spot and wait for them to come out and get the perfect picture, and all that kind of stuff. Whereas now, when you have people sharing their own personal lives, there’s less mystery, but the lack of mystery makes us feel like we deeply understand someone.

54:58 And one of the activities I love doing with people, that I recommend that we did a lot as monks, is to go on a walk wherever you like and find an object that you want to just pick up. Find any object and pick it up. Now, the interesting thing here is when you pick it up, you may have some perceptions and assumptions of what it’s going to feel like, hold, like, and look like, and notice how actually when you pick it up, it may actually surprise you. And so you may pick it up, and you may look at it, and you go, oh, that looked hard and sturdy, but when I pick it up, it was soft and it almost withered away.

55:37 At the same time, look at all sides of it. Look at the colors. Look at the, the accents of colors. Look at the roughness or the smoothness of different textures of it. Look at the shape and how it changes when you look at it from angles.

55:53 Hold it up to your ear and rub it and hear what it sounds like. Put it into your nose and smell it. Don’t eat it, obviously. I don’t know what it is, but just become really intimately observant of it, and when you do that, you realize this item that I’m holding is completely different to my initial assumption of it. And this is the antidote to the fast, quick, impatient life that digital life creates, to the slow, experienced, and intimate life that real life and observation creates.

56:29 And because we are able to instantly respond, and I see this all the time. I mean, you see people apologizing and changing stuff. I saw the other day that someone had criticized someone because they hadn’t read the full story, and then they came out and they were like, I’m really sorry, I read the full story and realized that my, you know, my tweet was too quick, and, and I really appreciate that. But that’s what happens. We’re so, we’re, we’re trained, and the mind does this to help us to make an instant judgment.

56:54 The mind’s actually trying to help you, but the digital world is so fast that that instant judgment actually creates more pain in the long term. So I would honestly say that making no judgment on someone you’ve never met as a whole is probably safer than making an instant judgment of one thing you’ve heard about someone. And that is just a training that we have to do, of like asking ourselves, and this is the question I always ask myself: if I was judged instantly, would I be happy with that?

57:27 And if everyone on this, if you can, anyone watching or listening right now, hand on their heart, said that they’d be okay with that. Great. I don’t think I’d be okay with that. I don’t think anyone genuinely is okay with saying, hey, if someone judged me in 30 seconds of meeting me and made that judgment and stuck with it for the rest of their life, and I’d be happy with that? I don’t think I’d be happy with that.

57:48 And I think that when you, when you live that way, you start realizing that who are we? And that’s the deeper thing. Who are we to judge? You know, what, what do we gain out of judgment? Our ego gets a temporary superiority boost.

58:02 We feel better for the day, and then we go back to our lives of dissatisfaction and lack of contentment. So true. You know, I’m in the media business, and yet I catch myself, Jay, with a media bias. You know, it’s true, because I prepare for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of guests, and sometimes I’ll all walk in with a preconceived notion. Then I’ll dig deeper and find out more, and I’ll say, oh, I didn’t know that, and then I’ll sit him in the leather chair, and at the end I’m like, wow, I really like this person.

58:30 And yeah, I should know better. So imagine if you don’t have a show, imagine with the world you’re in, of just like you said, this constant judgment. It’s no wonder we’re at where we’re at. Yeah, is it going to get worse before it gets better? I believe that nothing’s getting worse, it’s just getting amplified.

58:50 Okay, and amplification is positive, because it encourages more people to look for alternative paths. So I found that when the lockdown started, I started these free meditation sessions on Instagram and Facebook, because I find my certainty through service. I only find in my home at a time like, even, I felt like, you know, I’m not near my parents. My parents are getting older, and they’re in London, and I’m worrying about their safety. My mentors are much older than me, and I’m worried about their safety.

59:25 There’s so many things going through my mind, and at the same time I’m anxious, because I want to help, and I’m thinking, how can I help? I can’t solve COVID, and I can’t, you know, I can’t create a vaccine. I’m not a medically minded person. But what can I do? And I think, well, all I can offer is hope that I can give people 30 minutes a day where they can find stillness, silence and clarity, so that they’ll know what to do.

59:50 They’re smarter than me about their lives, but if I can give them that slowdown of space and speed and stillness, then maybe they’ll feel empowered. So I started doing these. I did 20 days of meditation, and they did so well that we did 40 days, and across 40 days we had 20 million people take part in the meditations. And I was just thinking, this is crazy. And so in the last 10 days I started bringing people on to the live and talking to them at the end, which is such a wonderful thing to do.

1:00:20 By the way, if you’ve never done it, please do it, anyone who’s watching, because it’s so amazing to have that human connection. And 90 of the people were saying, Jay, I’ve been meditating with you for 40 days, and I’ve never meditated in my life before. And that to me was the biggest point of joy and source of joy, because I was thinking, you know, this is helping people turn towards habits that not only will help them right now, but will help them heal in the future.

1:00:47 And sometimes it takes that pain to force us into growth and evolution, and unfortunately or fortunately, that’s how humans are wired. And that’s why I’m always trying to encourage people that when things are hard, work hard, but when things are good, work harder. So I find myself, when everything’s going my way, that’s when I work harder, and I get more deeper, and I get more diligent, because I realize that that’s when you can really grow and learn much better than when it’s hard.

1:01:17 Then there’s so much stuff going on. Wow, so you say the amplification can actually be positive in the long run, because we’ll see it, we’ll feel it, we’ll notice it, and hopefully we’ll change it. It’s a great way of looking at it. I would expect nothing less from a monk. Jay, tell me about criticism.

1:01:34 I mean, we got a lot of criticism in the last five months. I mean, we were putting stuff out there. We nearly, but we were banned and censored in a lot of places, and we raised a bunch of money for a digital platform that we stream on. I got criticized from that, and I’ve never had as much criticism or attention. You know, I’d wait.

1:01:51 I’ve been waiting for Vice to write an article about us for nine years, and then they wrote a nasty one. I’ve been waiting for the BBC to write an article about us for nine years, and then they wrote a nasty one. And, I, I got I kind of got through it, but some of my family members were watching it, and I had to, like, tell him to stop. My approach with all forms of criticism was, there was a really, I was really lucky that one of the first people I interviewed, potentially, from the first person I ever interviewed, I believe you’ve interviewed him too, was Simon Sinek.

1:02:19 Yeah, and I think he’s great. I’ve loved his work, and I interviewed him. This was 2016. I’d moved to New York. I was at the HuffPost.

1:02:28 I’m interviewing Simon, and I’m like, you know, smiling from ear to ear, because he’s someone that I love. His books, and I asked him this same question, and he gave me such a brilliant answer that I think really set me up. He said when he first started his career, he was getting so many people that were criticizing him, and also people that were saying good things about him, of course. And he said that what he, him and his team were doing in the beginning is that they would contact every person that was criticizing him, and they would get them in a room, and they would try and speak to them and convince them over why what he was trying to do was actually helpful, and trying to help them understand and see what they saw.

1:03:11 And he literally said that we would reach out to them, get them into a meeting, and sit down with them. And then he told me that he started to realize that they were draining so much energy in this approach. Not only were people not being convinced, but they were just getting drained sitting in so many meetings trying to convince people who didn’t really agree with what he was saying, or whatever it was at the time. And he started to take a new approach where he now started, he’s realized that he hadn’t responded to all the love.

1:03:40 So every time there was a negative comment, he’d respond, but every time there was a comment of like, this is amazing, he would never respond. So he shifted, and he started to just respond to the love, and that kind of started to capitalize and accelerate the love. Now, that doesn’t mean that you don’t take feedback, and that doesn’t mean that you don’t respond to parts that you know you can improve. And I think my belief system has always been that I want to extremely respond to the positive and the love, because that’s really important, and I want to respond to feedback by my actions, and also recognizing that I really am always trying to be really clear on my intention.

1:04:27 And if I can genuinely wake up every day and say, I’m trying my best, I’m really working hard to serve. I make mistakes. I’m not perfect, but I’m making my amends and I’m trying to grow, but my intention from day one has only been to serve and make a difference and celebrate incredible leaders and thinkers and people. And I think that’s what I go to bed with in the night, feeling like it’s okay, because that’s all I really have. I’ll never be able to, and no one will ever be able to explain the details and the ins and outs of every scenario to every person on the planet.

1:05:09 Right? You just can’t. And so I find satisfaction and contentment in being able to say I’m trying my best. I’m always trying to improve and grow, and that I, I welcome and learn from feedback, and grow in every way, but I’m not going to stop doing what I’m doing. Because I really believe it’s what’s needed for my purpose and for others.

1:05:38 And so with you, and you’re talking about your family, I think that’s always the toughest, and you may have experienced this when things are going well. You don’t hear from anyone, and when things go badly, all of a sudden all your friends and family message you, and they, they almost, and again, it’s the human mind that navigates, oh, sorry, gravitates towards and amplifies negativity. So that’s why when you’re being celebrated and succeeding, people will talk for a bit, but when you’re struggling and being criticized, everyone will talk about it more, and I just realized that’s human nature.

1:06:12 So I found myself distancing myself at that time from anyone who just keeps raising negativity. And the other beautiful thing about those times, Brian, and I don’t know if you felt this, is it really shows you who’s there for you. It’s a great test of who really believes in you, and I can say that in my life, whenever I’ve experienced any sort of humbling or criticism, it’s been a really good light onto who my real friends are and everything. And I can hand on my heart say that I’m really grateful that 99.9 of the people that I believed would stay by me have always stayed by me.

1:06:52 Because they know me. I think that’s a really important part, is that having a group of people that are not yes people. Having a group of people around you that deeply know you, and you deeply know them, and they can be the people that help you construct your self-esteem. And what that means is the only way to live. You can’t live in the world of like, everyone’s opinion matters, but you also can’t live in the falsehood of no one’s opinion matters.

1:07:21 Both of those are untrue, right? No one can say, I don’t care about what anyone thinks, and no one should live with the belief that I care what everyone thinks. And so the only way to live is having your counsel, creating a group of mentors and guides around you that can be honest with you and open with you, but also know your heart and know why you do what you do, and they at that time can help you say, this is something you need to improve, but hey, I know this is your intention, and please continue doing this.

1:07:50 And that’s the kind of guidance that I think we all need. And in those times especially, I hope that helps. I I’m really excited to go there, but I hope that helps. No, I appreciate there’s like five big learning points that you put in there. And it’s funny, I had the same experience.

1:08:05 I actually ended up finding that I had some massive support from people I had never met before. I got some hate from some people that I didn’t really know about, but I would always have traded the support for the hate. So that was interesting. We got a wave of love before the hate, but I’ve been doing this for nine years, and so when the love came, I was like, you know what, I appreciate it, but I’m not gonna allow myself to be defined by it. So when it kind of went away, that was all right.

1:08:34 And like you said, you know, it’s digital. A lot of this hate is digital. First of all, like you said, 20 of the comments are positive, one is negative, and why am I ignoring the positive comments? Like, that’s ridiculous. And then once I noticed on the streets, I would meet people on the streets that had amazing things to say, super positive energy.

1:08:53 You know, thank you so much, on the streets, and those were the people that were really giving me that that boost of energy. Yeah, and versus the person that was digital, for all I know, was a 10-year-old in the basement in Dallas, you know, putting this stuff up in there. But when you read the digital comment, in your mind you project them almost as someone that would be a friend that you trust, you know, and so you almost give that the same weight, and you have to, just like you said, it’s a human process, and we’re not built to deal with the digital age.

1:09:20 Right? For 100,000 years, when you got criticism, it was in your face, probably someone in your clan who was potentially gonna take away your food, your reproduction rights, your safety. So it was on, right? And now we got to deal with this digital thing where maybe someone’s having a moment. And so I think you really broke that down, that down.

1:09:37 Well, I ended up telling my family, look, first of all, I told you not to read the comments, so stop reading the comments. Second of all, don’t bring them up at dinner when I don’t need to process it, and then third of all, I said, I’ve been on this mission for nine years, I’m gonna be on it for another nine years, so whatever people say now doesn’t matter. And I think these are tests. I think these are tests to say, like, are you really the guy that you think you are?

1:09:58 Are you really on a mission of service, or has this been about your ego the whole time? Because if it’s about your ego, you quit or change. If it’s really about service, you’re like, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, because I know I’m coming from the right space. So yeah, and that doesn’t mean you don’t take accountability or don’t change or don’t switch. Of course.

1:10:15 But that, but real, real changes is changing our, you know, our actions, and continuing. And, you know, there’s something that I’ve been saying which really resonates with me. You know, that we remember the bad times more than the good times, because when we lose, we cry for a month, and when we win, we celebrate for a day. And there’s a real lesson in that, because I started to realize that when things are going wrong, someone will complain about it every day, but when something goes right, you talk about it for one day and then you forget it.

1:10:56 Now, I’m not saying you need to have a 365 day a year party. I don’t believe in even extending the ego in that way. That’s not the point of what I’m saying. But when you get a positive comment, like even if you have like 10 followers and you get nine positive comments and one negative, like honoring the fact that someone even cares about what you have to say. I feel deeply grateful every day that I even have a community that cares about what I say, because you just can’t take that for granted.

1:11:25 And so I think there’s such a lesson in that, of learning to honor positive comments and celebrate those people, and the fact that people care, because that’s also going to help your mind and not amplify. Like, if you go out now and you’re always dressed impeccably well, but if you went out and someone’s like, Brian, you know, that’s a nice, like, 99 people say, Brian, you look amazing today, you know, you’re looking younger and healthier and more exuberant than ever, and then one person says to you, you know what, Brian, you look a bit tired, or, you know what, Brian, that tie doesn’t really go with whatever shoes you’ve got on. And then imagine you go home and you just obsess over what that one person said, and that’s what our minds do when we go to a party.

1:12:09 That’s what we do. And the funny thing is, you start letting the opinion of one person define everything about you, and that’s why I don’t believe it’s about letting a hundred people define a one, but choosing a group of people that can help you grow. And you go deep in the book on gratitude, and there’s some really powerful sections in there, and I think that’s an important thing to do. Let’s talk about a life of service, because you know it’s something that took me 40 years to figure out.

1:12:35 You know, you have a famous quote, which is one of your best, that says we’re wired for generosity but we’re educated for greed. We were just talking about 50 Cent, and both of you, both you and I listened to that album on repeat. I think it was in 2003, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. I could probably quote every lyric, but look, that album is really coming it’s the essence of Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It’s not really about generosity, and yet we’re attracted to it as young men, or the American dream, or the West, or whatever.

1:13:05 But the truth is that being of service, you’ve even said it’s the ultimate hack. Can you talk about this concept, because you learned it early? I learned it really late, but man, I’ve learned it in such a big way. And I’m an engineer by training, Jay. And after the first year doing London Real, everyone thought I was crazy, so did I.

1:13:23 Again, this was never a business. There wasn’t any revenue for three, four, or five years. And then the second year, I was like, you know, am I gonna, what am I doing? I’m just some dude doing shows in a, in my kitchen. But I would look at myself and say, I have better friends.

1:13:36 I feel better about myself. Something’s, something’s working here, whereas when I was a banker, I was making millions and I was drinking myself to death, depressed and alone. Now I had a family, I was having kids, I had friends I never had before. So I, I realized it was a hack, and I just kept doing it. But the service aspect has been a game changer for me, but for people that this isn’t making sense to, maybe my old banker buddies are watching this right now and think I’ve lost my rocker again.

1:14:04 How can you get, how can you explain that to people? The life of service. Yeah, I’m so glad you did what you did, Brian. Thank you, thank you for doing it. Me too, man.

1:14:13 I mean, it’s all so selfish, because it makes me feel amazing, but you articulate really well in your book, but you know, again, how do people start that or understand that, because it’s not taught to us. If you turn on MTV, there’s no service there. It’s all about the bling and the accomplishments. In me, you know, so it’s not really taught in the West. Well, one of the things, yeah, it’s definitely not, and the amazing thing is, like you said, that statement I remember saying on stage once and then repeating it around, you know, we’re wired for generosity but educated for greed, and it’s because if you look at a young child, if you look at a young person, you’ll see the desire to feel compassion for other people’s suffering.

1:14:59 Like, generally, unless you’re the parent, sometimes children can definitely be childish and not childlike. But when you look at the childlikeness. If a child sees someone else crying, their heart will go out. I remember walking in LA with my nephew, who would see the homelessness and be like, why does that, why is that person on the streets? My nephew was like three and a half years old or something, but it’s like he was curious about it.

1:15:24 He didn’t understand it, and there was a compassionate questioning there. The example that I Give is of, there was a video that went viral two years ago where this little child crawled up to her parents’ television, because there’s a cartoon character that’s crying, and she gets a tissue from the tissue box in her living room and she goes and tries to wipe the tear off the television. And so there are so many examples of us as children showing this natural inclination to feel compassion.

1:15:53 And then you have the statements from Mandela and others, like, no one is born hating another person. Right? We learn to hate, so we can be taught to love, as Mandela and Martin Luther King and so many have told us about this. And so you look at the lives of how we were as children, and then education made it all about yourself. Education made it all about where were you going to get to now.

1:16:17 What I love about talking about service first, of all, for anyone who’s unaware, is the studies done on service. So Michael Norton at Cambridge University. He has a brilliant TED talk, and I go into depth about his study in the book, but he really talks about how students were given five to twenty dollars, either to spend on themselves or spend on other people. And so they could spend the five dollars. So half of them were asked to spend five dollars on themselves and twenty dollars on themselves.

1:16:44 Half of them were asked to spend five dollars on someone else or twenty dollars, and somewhere else. After they did the study, they found that most people bought three things, either for themselves or for others: Starbucks, makeup, and Starbucks. Those are the top three purchases, he says. And so he found that whether you spent five or twenty dollars on yourself or others, when people spent it on themselves, their happiness didn’t go up or down. It stayed the same.

1:17:14 But when people spent five or twenty dollars on someone else, their happiness went up. I believe he says by at least 10 percent. And so the only increase in happiness was when we’re giving it to others. They changed the amount. They changed the countries.

1:17:26 They even tested this with giving time, and they found every time, where there is time, money, energy or resources, humans were happier and more joyful when they gave to others. So scientifically it’s there. People who had depression, if they were helping other people with depression, their depression decreased. It’s, it’s incredible that in every area of life, giving and being of service creates joy. Why?

1:17:53 So let’s talk about why. The reason is because when you serve, you get so many more gifts. The first gift you get when you serve is gratitude. When you serve someone, you get gratitude, because you realize how much you have, and you get to realize how grateful that person is for what they get. When we used to go as monks and give food to these children in schools in India so that they could get a warm meal per day, these kids, we would give them one bowl of rice pudding, sweet rice, or kheer in India, and literally you’ll be this tiny little cup, and their face would just light up with this tiny little cup.

1:18:36 I was just at the ashram again in January. I go back every year, and when I was there in January, I was looking at kids playing with a stick and a little fruit, like a ball, because that’s all they had, and they were laughing and they were running around and so happy. And so first of all, it gives you gratitude. Second thing, when you serve people, the second gift you get is you gain perspective. You start to realize that what you grew up around isn’t the only reality in the world.

1:19:02 There are so many different experiences of humanity, so it gives you a sense of perspective. And the third gift that service gives you, which is probably the greatest, is it gives you human connection. If you serve someone, they’ll probably never forget it, and if you serve someone, you’ll never forget it. And as we know, from the 75-year Harvard study on human happiness, human connection is the deepest form or indicator of human satisfaction. And so on all these accounts, service wins as the greatest thing that we can all do.

1:19:36 And I think the mistake we make is that we think we have to serve in a big way. We think service means millions of downloads or billions of views or millions of followers. And I can honestly say that I was trying to serve since 14 years ago, 15 years ago, when I met the monk for the first time. I’m still trying to serve today, and I believed I was serving the best of what I had then, and I’m serving the best of what I had today. So the way I recommend to people to find their service is simply add compassion to your passion.

1:20:09 When you add an element of, how do I take my passion and what I am drawn towards and use that in the service of others? That is when I will feel this full, whole life. And that’s why you find that the wealthiest people in the world, the most successful people in the world, ultimately have to turn towards philanthropy, or they have to turn towards pledging to give away their wealth over their lifetime, because even after accumulating everything on the planet, you realize that the only joy is in wanting to give it away.

1:20:42 And so whether you have money or time or energy to give, it doesn’t matter. It is about the sincerity of intent. And so I know people who’ve signed checks for millions of dollars. One does it for PR, and one does it for their heart. And the one who gives it for PR is not happy.

1:21:06 They’re not happy, because they didn’t give it for anything else apart from that article in the media, to show that they’re a good person. The other person who gave it, because their heart was there, even if they got no PR for it, they’re completely satisfied. And so giving is not about how much money you have, how much time you have, or how much energy or resources you have. It’s about giving with the sincerity of intent to alleviate someone’s suffering.

1:21:30 And when you live that way and just test it a tiny bit, you don’t have to go and serve a charity for 10 days or any of that. Just do one tiny thing, and then do one more thing, and then do one more thing, and keep adding to it. I think COVID has shown us the level of service. I’ve seen people teach their next-door neighbor’s kids a subject because their parents are busy working. I’ve seen people donate to charities.

1:21:55 I’ve seen people deliver groceries for elderly people in their towns. Like, we’ve seen this all on the media and the news and social media, and it makes me realize that the most beautiful thing that’s come out of all of this is people serving others, whether it’s teaching fitness classes off of rooftops or back gardens and social distancing. Those are the things that bring joy to our heart at this time. You know, just because someone gave a lot of money, that doesn’t enjoy.

1:22:20 What brings joy is seeing someone use their talents to serve others. And we know this in our heart. It’s just sometimes our brain gets hijacked and we don’t do it, or we don’t think about it, but we all know this. It’s probably why we’re here as humans, because we have served each other in the past. It’s why we survived, and like you said, it’s what gives us the connection.

1:22:41 Some really good stuff in there with passion and compassion. You know, I teach podcasting in our academy, and I always tell my students it’s the fountain of life, and they don’t know what I’m talking about, and I never knew what I’m talking about, but I think it’s because when you have a podcast, you invite someone on the show. It’s a compassionate act. You’re like, I’m gonna tell your story. And when my students start off, they’re like, Brian, I’ve got five people listening.

1:23:03 I’m like, it doesn’t matter. And the buzz they have in week five and six, ’cause we do eight episodes in eight weeks. In week five and six they have their first few, and they’re all lit up. They’re like, wow, it was amazing conversation. I spoke to my grandpa.

1:23:16 I spoke to my next-door neighbor. I spoke to this person. And it’s because they’ve, they’re feeling, I think, that service, for maybe the first time in a long time. And it’s, it’s intoxicating when they get it. Yeah, so I love that stuff.

1:23:29 Look, we’re not trying to go through the whole book, by the way. Pre-order this book on Amazon now. Think Like a Monk. A couple points I want to make before we got to go this looking glass self is deep. I’ve never heard it before.

1:23:39 I’d love to touch on that, and maybe a little bit on relationships. You, you quote this guy Charles Horton Cooley, who says this, and this is deep, so I’m gonna say it slow for everybody. He says, “I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Can you break us down what that means?

1:24:00 Sure. It’s my favorite, favorite quote in the world. It was written in I think it was the 1800s. I think it’s like 1890 or something. And Charles Horton Cooley, I don’t, I don’t know how famous he was or how popular he was from my research, but this statement, which blows my mind every time I hear it and say it, and almost gives me like this goosebumps and shivers, is that we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves.

1:24:29 So if I think Brian thinks I’m smart, I feel smart. But if I think Brian thinks that I’m weak, then I feel weak. And when you live in a perception of a perception of yourself, you’re setting yourself up for failure, because you’re forgetting the most important thing is how you perceive yourself. And so we’re letting what we think someone thinks of us define how we feel about ourselves. So why not start by first asking myself the simple question, like we’re always asking other people, like, you know, describe yourself?

1:25:05 In three words, like, tell me about yourself. How many times have you ever asked yourself that question? Tell me about yourself. Tell me about what you like, tell me about what you don’t like. These are all normal questions, so whatever question you would ask in a date, a first date, an interview, whatever, a first business meeting, or an introduction interview yourself, and give yourself the most honest answer that isn’t tied to what your family told you, what your parents expected, what your friends expect.

1:25:40 And so the only way to do this, I give an activity in the book, is write down everything that you’re currently chasing in life, everything that you’re pursuing. Let’s say one of the things is a top podcast. You want to have a top podcast. I’m making this up. And then ask yourself where does that come from?

1:25:57 Does it come from you internally because you have a desire to serve in that way, or does it come from parents, following someone else’s podcast, wanting to compete with someone’s podcast, because you think it will make you famous? Which one does it come from? And based on that, ask yourself, do I want to continue pursuing this journey? Because really, if you get into something with the desire to just be famous or be rich, you may get fame or wealth, but you get nothing else.

1:26:28 And that’s what I’m really clear about. I don’t care if anyone wants to be rich and successful. You can go after those things and be them. I want to be successful too, but don’t expect success to give you anything else but success in the material form of it. It will not give you joy and happiness and love and satisfaction.

1:26:47 Those are independent pursuits of success. And so I believe that happiness and success are two independent pursuits. One is external and one is internal, and one does not cause the other. Just because you’re internally happy doesn’t make you externally successful, and just because you’re externally successful does not make you internally happy. They are, they are separate pursuits that you have to take in that way so that you don’t limit yourself.

1:27:13 And all of it begins with how you perceive yourself. And you’ll only perceive yourself, or know how you perceive yourself, if you ask yourself and interview yourself, and most of us have never been asked to do that. It seems crazy and psychotic, but actually it’s the only way to get to know yourself by actually getting to know yourself and stop knowing yourself as the reflection of other people. I’m already thinking about it now. I now have something to do for the weekend.

1:27:42 And you, you live in Hollywood, where people are massively successful. People travel from all over the world to get success usually, probably because they think it’ll make them happy, and we know how that ends up a lot of times. Yeah, I, you know, it’s, I came here specifically for me because I really felt that you know, for me this felt like the capital of the world of content and spreading a message. And so I, I really found that here, and I found that, you know, even you’re in London, which is such a, you know, fast-paced place and a buzzing environment, obviously, where I grew up.

1:28:20 And it’s being in these places where you learn the most from others and you learn the most about yourself. I find and everyone, as we talked about this right in the beginning, everyone has a power place. And it’s about finding your power place, not because that place is powerful for someone else, again living in the reflection of a reflection of ourselves, like if someone says if you want to be successful, you have to live in New York. That’s not true, but because someone planted that thought in our head when we were younger, or when we were at school, you now think unless you’re in New York, you can’t be successful.

1:28:56 Or if someone says, oh, if you don’t live in the countryside, you can’t be peaceful. Not true. That’s not true at all. Like, these are all, these, assumptions that we’ve created as truths in our life. And the truth is that everyone has a powerful place for them.

1:29:12 Everyone is unique, and you can create what you want in any place if you’re intentional enough. And so I remember, you know, like someone was asking me, like, you know, Jay, you were meditating, you’re a monk, and now you do media, like, how does it feel? And I was like, I feel like I’m in the same place, because I’m in the same place here. And so yes, my lifestyle, I’m married now. I have homes.

1:29:36 I have businesses. I have work. But the intention has stayed the same throughout all of it, and so yes, my hairstyles change. Yes, I’m married to the love of my life. Yes, I’m, you know, I have to think about certain things to make sure that I have a livelihood in a business.

1:29:53 But really, the truth is I’m doing it for the same reasons as I was being a monk. And that’s what it means to think like a monk and not live like one. You don’t have to live like one to think like one. And you go deep in the book on that. The last thing I want to ask you about the book is relationships.

1:30:07 I mean, you got married fairly recently, and you kind of break it down in the book. You talk about physical attraction, material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I mean, just quickly, what are some of the things you talk about? What did you learn about relationships? You know, there’s nothing easy about getting married.

1:30:22 You know, what’s it been like? Yeah, so I’ve been with my wife for seven years, and we’ve been married for four, and she’s been in and around my space for 11 years in total, in terms of when I first met her. So we’ve got to know each other really, really well, and yeah, it’s not easy. Marriage is hard, and it requires a lot of work. But some of the things that I talk about in the book that I love, is one of the things that I really want to talk about.

1:30:51 I feel that there’s a great institute called the, sorry, the Gottman Institute, which is run by John and Julie Gottman. They’re this amazing couple that are researchers, and it resets everything about love and marriage and compatibility that you’d ever want to know. And when I read their studies early on, this was probably before, I think it was before I became a monk, or around that time, and I came across these studies that showed that the number one skill needed to make a relationship last.

1:31:22 It wasn’t date nights. It wasn’t walks on the beach. It wasn’t grand gestures. It was learning how to fight. That what makes a relationship last is learning how to navigate conflict, because conflict will always arise.

1:31:39 And so again, just like fear, if you run away from it, you go, we never fight, I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to do this. You actually end up potentially ruining your relationship, because there’s always going to be something that comes up, whether it’s big or small. And so when I heard that, I started to really look into the psychology of conflict and fighting, because I was trying to realize and understand that, and one of the things I realized about that was that we really communicate the same, because we all have such different experiences.

1:32:12 So when you say a word, Brian, and I say a word, just like in a marriage, we both could be saying two totally different things. So when someone says in a relationship, I want more of your time, that could mean so many things. That could mean, I want more time on the weekend. It could mean, I want time every day. It means, I want time where you listen to me.

1:32:33 You could say, I want time where we play a game together. I want time when we go on dates. Time is such a broad word that means so many different things to different people. And actually, what I realized, working with couples and people too, was that people weren’t asking for time. They were asking for energy, presence, and intimacy.

1:32:55 Those were actually what people wanted. So for example, me and you have just spent a ton of time together, which I’m grateful for, and we could have been like this the whole time, and that would have been spending time. I gave you my time. Like, Brian, you asked for time, and I gave you time, but you’d be like, no, but Jay, what I wanted was your energy and your presence. And same with me.

1:33:13 If you’re on your laptop coming up with answers, questions for other guests, we’ve spent time, and so so many couples will spend a whole weekend together, and then one of them goes, feeling, yeah, gave my wife a lot of time this weekend, and the partner’s thinking, I need to spend more time with you, because they wanted energy and presence. So for me, communicating what you truly want in a relationship is so clear. And the reason why we struggle with this is we can’t even diagnose our own emotions.

1:33:44 So Harvard has this incredible table that I refer to in the book. You can google it and type in Harvard emotional vocabulary, and what it does is it breaks down the synonyms or the depths of an emotion to give us a deeper understanding of what we’re feeling. So I’ll give an example. We literally use five words. Our vocabulary is pretty much limited to five words that we repeat, which are: good, bad, okay, fine.

1:34:13 Right? So someone goes, hey Brian, how’s your day going? Good. Brian, how’s your week been? Bad.

1:34:18 How’s everything going, Brian? Fine. Like, those are literally where our emotional vocabulary stops, when actually there’s so much more to each word. So the Harvard table, which you can google, shows how when you’re saying you’re sad, but are you actually offended? Are you irritated?

1:34:37 Are you upset? Are you confused? Are you distraught? So we use the word sad as this umbrella term, for millions of emotions, and then we expect our partner to understand, dissect and solve all of that. And so to me the biggest thing I’ve learned, both through monk life and starting to use these studies, is the ability to diagnose how you truly feel, and then articulating that clearly as a diagnosis is what allows someone to engage with you well.

1:35:09 And if you again can’t diagnose how you feel, then there is no chance that someone else is going to diagnose how you feel. And so we have to do the work to learn to listen to ourselves, to understand our minds, to articulate that so that someone else has the opportunity to respond positively. That’s super powerful. And I know right now everyone’s sending this clip to their boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands, wives, saying, yeah, do that. When the truth is you need to do that.

1:35:36 Yeah, yeah, we all do. Yeah. We all do. I, and you know, it’s an ego thing sometimes, where you actually don’t want to tell your wife what you need, because you feel like it’s some sort of weakness. Like, oh my god, if I admit to her that I really need her to tell me that I’m good at what I do, and we kind of feel like, oh no, but that’s like not being humble.

1:35:54 And you just commute. Like, if you need something, be honest about it, and in the onset, asking yourself, you’d actually be like, oh, maybe that’s not what I really want. What I really want is this. I’ve been asking for the wrong thing the whole time. Yeah, that’s super powerful stuff.

1:36:08 And again, I’ll be getting this book for my misses as well. Think Like a Monk. Definitely, it’s got, it’s packed with IP. I didn’t realize this was your first book. Is that right?

1:36:17 It’s my first ever book, Brian, and that’s why I am excited and nervous and feeling everything about it. And my honest pledge and proposal to everyone is that you know, if people have liked my videos, if people have listened to my podcast and appreciated it, then the book is just full of new stories, studies, and strategies that will help people actually live and implement. And that’s really what I focus the book on. Not on knowing. I think we know a lot of this stuff, but there’s a big difference between knowing and doing and living in action.

1:36:54 And that’s where the book came in for me. I needed to give people the frameworks and the tools and the methodologies to actually make these things real, and it does do that. What took you so long to write this? Well, I mean, I’ve only been online for four years, and three years properly. I was offered a book deal after my first video went viral in 2016.

1:37:19 And I remember not feeling ready, because I just wanted to learn and engage and continue to just understand what was the need. And I also just didn’t want to write without truly having reflected on you know, what I was going to share. And also, in the last three years, a lot of the content that’s in the book has been experimented on. In the last three years, so I could only share it once the experiment had somewhat been completed. And so to me, this is like the book that currently has all my experiments and ideas in it.

1:37:57 And I think, I’m just patient with stuff. I think you have to really love learning wisdom, and then, like, playing around with it and trying it out, and, like, looking at it from different angles, and then being able to write about it, rather than just writing about it because it theoretically makes sense. Right, that totally makes sense. Couple final questions. What’s Jay Shetty doing in 2025?

1:38:17 What does your world look like? You know, do you have a television show? Are you a movie star? I just see you as, like, a James Bond or something. You know, what’s happening in your life?

1:38:27 I mean, being the first Indian James Bond would be pretty cool. I’m not going to say no. Thanks. Stranger things have happened. Yeah, I’m not going to say no to, if, if you’re putting it out there in the universe, I’m going to receive that gracefully.

1:38:40 Yeah, you know what, I I have absolutely loved this. What I’ve really focused on is this, this journey of trying to make wisdom go viral through entertainment and education, and I see myself wanting to not just tell and create for me, but to tell the stories of so many other amazing people across the world that are just unheard of. And so my desire is really to make documentaries to make feature films, to break into that space, because I really believe that, imagine every movie people watched had a message, that every movie people watched spoke to their heart.

1:39:21 And it could be comedy, it could be tragedy, it could be drama, it could be real life. Like, it doesn’t matter what genre it is, but I really envision a world where content is made from a place of service. And I would love to be doing more and more of that, but at the same time, what I’m passionate about is I want to help build the journey for people to go all the way. So what’s really important to me is that billions of people will watch content and videos and movies and everything.

1:39:49 Hundreds of millions will do courses and buy books. Tens of millions will come to events, maybe hundreds of thousands will come with me to India. You know, my goal is to really facilitate the journey for anyone’s evolution, and I need to build every part of that journey, so that someone wants to watch a video and be happy. That’s great, but if someone wants to go all the way and travel and have the experience and go deeper within themselves, I want to be able to facilitate that.

1:40:15 So for me, I’m patiently building each step of the journey, so that whether someone wants to listen to a podcast or read a book or if someone actually wants to go and experience it for themselves, then I’m facilitating that. Okay, like a whole ecosystem type of thing. Jay, what scares you? Huh. I think what scares me is, we talked about earlier, what scares me is not being able to deeply look everyone in the eye who’s connected with what I do and able to explain to them how I feel and why I’m doing what I’m doing.

1:40:47 You know, I think we, like you said, I wish I could just look everyone in the eye and be like, trust me, this is my intention, this is why I live, this is what I’m doing. And I wish that everyone could experience that. That scares me, that you can’t say anything anymore without people misinterpreting it or finding some part of it that they may disagree with. I, I, I am scared of that, because I, I, I just, I always, we want people to feel like we’re understood, and I’ve had to let go of that fear, or I’m trying to let go of that fear, because I, I do theoretically understand that I can never be understood by everyone.

1:41:30 Yeah, and that is the acceptance of that. That is what allows you to let go of that. And I only understand that theoretically. I’m working on it. I’m reminding myself daily of that.

1:41:40 I’m not there yet at all, but that’s what I fear. I fear that I can’t see everyone, and deeply explain my heart, even if you make a video, and everyone sees you as many people see it. It doesn’t do it justice in the same way as what we’re doing right now. Yeah, my wife and daughter said the same thing to me. They said, why don’t you just, put out a video or address what these people are saying?

1:42:01 And I’m like, it’s just not gonna work, because the ones that feel that way aren’t gonna listen, or they’re gonna take something else I said and take it to another thing. It’s just, I wish they could see inside and see what I’m about, but I realize they can’t. So all I can do is move forward. You know, forgive them, and think maybe in nine years they’ll get it, and maybe they won’t, and just keep doing the thing. But I know what you feel like, and you’re right.

1:42:26 You can’t, you can’t, and be really grateful, be really grateful to everyone for being an experience in your life, which helped you learn so much more. Like, to me, all those challenging situations, if we’re grateful for them, they give us the gift of knowing who’s really there for us. They give us the gift of having to grow through another personal evolution and crushing of ego. They give us the gift. They give us so many gifts.

1:42:52 And so my gratitude goes out to those, you know, who create moments in my life of transition, but, but yeah, ultimately coming to a point of acceptance of, I, you know, not everyone will ever understand me, and I won’t understand everyone. But I can try. What would we be surprised to learn about Jay Shetty? Something you do that’s very unmonk-like? I love soccer.

1:43:20 Like, I love football. I don’t know how many people know that, but I love, like, football is my first love in life. I’m a big Manchester United supporter. I would absolutely love to interview Cristiano Ronaldo, who’s been such an inspiration in my life from afar. I don’t know him in so many ways.

1:43:39 Yeah, I absolutely love soccer. Like, I, I watch highlights. I, love following my team. I know every transfer rumor that’s out there and what’s going on. I’m, I love it.

1:43:50 I’m a big, big soccer fan. I don’t, I always, I go back to Old Trafford to watch games when I’m in England, so thankfully Manchester United have always been very kind, and I always get invited to watch games and stuff, so I’ve been back to the stadium many times. And, yeah, big, big, big soccer fan. I don’t know how many people know that, so I think That was the first thing that came to my mind. I’m happy to give another one.

1:44:10 No, that was good. I could I could see your eyes light up. I’ve been to Old Trafford back in the day. I went there in like 98 for a match, and it was old school, but, yeah, respect, that’s for sure. Good news, you went there at the good time.

1:44:23 Those were great years. Yeah, those were, like, that. It felt hectic to be there, and I could see the energy of why people go. Yeah, for sure. Jay, what keeps you awake at night?

1:44:34 I sleep really well, so that’s a tough question. I think what keeps me up at night is probably feeling like I’m, you know, I don’t want to ever, I don’t, I really feel like the life I live is a blessing and a responsibility, and I never want to devalue that. And I think the only thing that would devalue that is if I stop giving it the diligence and the hard work that I have up till now. And so I think that that can keep me up. I, I sleep, but in terms of the concept of the question, that always is like front of mind for me.

1:45:07 Like, don’t get complacent. Don’t ever take this for granted. Don’t ever think that this is easy or free or cheap. This is like, you, you’re living a really blessed and fortunate life, and therefore it comes with responsibility, and don’t ever let that slip. Yeah, that’s a great place to be.

1:45:23 Final question. Jay, if you could pick up a phone and call up the 20-year-old Jay Shetty. I guess you’re still at uni, but in a couple years you’re going to be heading over to India. What would you tell them? Advice.

1:45:34 I mean, man, you’ve lived a few lives to get to now. What would you tell the younger version who is probably still what interning in the city at this point, maybe? I don’t know. Yeah, exactly. Right.

1:45:45 College, interning, city. I would say, the first thing I’d say is, Powerful advice, and the stillness is really good. I don’t think many people know this, but meditation is the reason I left my job in the city, which ultimately started London Real. I mean, I literally took a Transcendental Meditation course. I paid like more money than I should have for it, but I always say, if I hadn’t paid the money, I probably wouldn’t have shown up for the six weeks, because it was weird.

1:46:36 And I started meditating literally 30 days later. I said, why is Brian doing something that makes him unhappy every for the last nine years? Like, I saw this guy. I was like, what are you doing? This is the stupidest thing.

1:46:50 And I resigned like 30 days later. So that stillness is super powerful, and I know you’re a big proponent of meditation. So, Jay Shetty, you’re the real deal, brother. I really appreciate you. You know, seriously, a lot of people see you and think you’re a pretty charismatic face, but you’re obviously not, and it goes deep, and you know your passion comes out like this, and your craft is there as well.

1:47:12 And I just really appreciate you for everything you’ve done and the way you keep putting it out there and just continuing to serve. Man, I know how hard that is. I also know how fulfilling it is, and this book is amazing. So I just want to thank you a lot, and I appreciate, your feeling is, mutual. Brian, I’m really glad we got to meet, even though briefly, in London, and, rather than Australia, only had wonderful things to say about you.

1:47:35 He was really touched by that conversation, and really, and he’s the same, you know, he’s, he feels energy and space, and he, he felt that presence with you too, so I was so happy To not only meet you that day, but to spend this time with you. I’m excited to interview you too. and hopefully we can do that soon. But I also want to thank you for doing what you’re doing, and I want you to remember that, you know, that’s, that’s what service is. We’re not doing it for the, the praise or the love always, and we’re doing it because it’s the right thing.

1:48:10 And you want to die knowing you did the right thing, whether anyone, you know, you think about some of the most amazing people in the world have been, criticized for trying to do the right thing. And that’s fine, because, you know, we just continue to do it because it’s right. But thank you for being you. Thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for doing it for all these years.

1:48:31 You paved the way for so many other shows and podcasters and creators to have an impact in the world. I’m excited to, I’m excited to see more of your productions and everything that your studio is creating. So I’m excited, man, and I’m excited to get to know you better too, and next time I’m in London, let’s spend some quality time together. Yeah, done, done, and done. Let’s get in the studio and let’s hang out as well.

1:48:55 Let’s think like a monk. What’s the best way for people to get a hold of this thing? What’s the best way for them to follow you and get your podcast as well, which is incredible? Yeah, so, think like a monk, book dot com. Says the title of the book, Think Like a Monk, book dot com.

1:49:06 You can pre-order right now, and, and then on social, I’m at Jay Shetty, and the podcast is On Purpose, across iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else podcasts are. But yeah, thank you, thank you so much, Brian. Dude, mate, it’s been amazing. Just send you all the best. I would wish you luck with the book, but I know it’s going to crush.

1:49:24 And I love it, man. I’m going to get a, hopefully an Audible copy. You’re going to, you’re going to voice it as well. You have it, it’s already available. You can pre-order the audiobook too.

1:49:31 Oh, sweet. I’ve done it all. Yeah, yeah. It’s done. It’s done.

1:49:34 And we, and the book’s coming out in 40 languages, so if you want to read it in your life, like in your language of where you’re from, then you can get that one too. So just search on Amazon. It’s there. Love it. There you go.

1:49:46 All right, there he is, folks. Jay Shetty, the man. Wishing you all the best, brother. Thank you so much. All right, thank you so much, man.

1:49:52 Lots of love. Thank you, all right, mate, appreciate you. Thank you all for watching. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Take care.