A Bit of Optimism - The Myth of the Perfect Meditator with podcaster Jay Shetty

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

We turn to ancient philosophies to help us cope with the stress of modern life. But what if ancient wisdom could use some help from the modern world?Jay Shetty has made it his life’s work to make wisdom, peace, and purpose available to everyone. After living as a monk for 3 years, he left his monastic lifestyle with the hope of spreading what he learned to as many people as possible. Today, he’s the host of the On Purpose podcast, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a life coach, and an entrepreneur who has helped millions of people find clarity in their lives.I was excited to talk with Jay about the balance between ancient practices and modern life. He shared with me the three biggest lessons he learned as a monk, what people get wrong about meditation, and how we can slow down and reflect amid the bustle of modern society.For more on Jay and his work, check out:On Purpose Live Tourjayshetty.me

How long did you do the monk thing? Three years. And why'd you quit? So many... I just quit the wrong way? Yeah, it's easy. Like why did you decide to come back? It's like asking someone why did you get divorced.

That's the kind of question it is. I apologize for the way it feels. No, no, no. It's a good question, but I'm saying like that's what... It felt like a divorce. Like that's how it felt. Everybody keeps telling me that I need to do more yoga, that I need to meditate more, that I need to embrace all these ancient philosophies to help me manage in this modern world.

Sure, that's good. And I went to a yoga class and somebody yelled at me because I took their mat. And at the end of the day, what's so wrong with the modern world? I mean, I can disconnect by zoning out in front of Netflix just fine. In fact, I find it super relaxing. What's the right balance? That's why I sat down with Jay Shetty. He's the host of the podcast on purpose and he has spent a career helping people find peace, tranquility, and purpose in our modern world. He actually did live in a temple as a monk for three years before

leaving that life to return to our magical and wonderful modern society. We really got into it. I expected to have a deeply philosophical conversation with him, but what we got was actually quite practical. This is a bit of optimism. Two questions. What's inspiring you right now? What's keeping you up right now?

Oh, that's such good questions. I love it. This is why I came here, by the way, for questions. It only goes up. Yeah. What's exciting me right now is that my monk teacher is about to come and spend a month at my house. And so I'm always looking forward to that. So he's coming in April. He stays with us for like a month. I'll get to wake up every day and meditate with him. Where's he from? Well, he's actually born and raised in Chicago. That's where all the best monks come from. Really? People don't realize. I think it's

Tibet. It's not a Chicago. He hitchhiked all the way to India at the age of like 19 years old. So he lives in India now. Okay. But he's been living there for the past few decades. So I'm really excited. And you met him back when you were doing the month thing. Yeah, exactly. I met him all those years ago now. Who are you before he comes and who are you after? Like what's the reset he gives you? Because I know I have certain practices or friends that who I am after they leave is a slightly different version of who I am before. And I'm curious who you are before him and I'm curious because you've done this now.

He comes and sees you on a regular basis. Yes. So I'm assuming obviously he's your friend and you want to see him, got that. Yes. But you're going to go through a practice with him. For sure. I'm the version of myself that I want to be

all the time when I'm with him. And before he comes, I'm 30% of that version. And what is that? So when you're with him and you're the best version of yourself, what is it that you're doing or not doing that you're only doing 30% well before? I'm doing the same exact things, but the quality and the depth is greater by His association.

For example. So if we're meditating, my attentiveness while meditating is three X if I'm with Him. If I'm reading scripture and spiritual texts, the depth of that revelation is three X when I'm with Him. If I'm reflecting on my own shortcomings and flaws and weaknesses and how I can improve that strength and 3x when I'm with Him. And so those are all the things. My practice is the same. My morning will look the same. My day will practically look the same. He's a multiplier. Absolutely. Yeah.

And now what's keeping you up? What's causing you stress? multiply absolutely. Got it. Yeah. And now what what's keeping you up? What's causing you stress? I have to sit and think about that one for a second. Probably that there's not enough hours in the day trying to fit everything in. I'm going to be on tour. My family's coming to see us at the same time because they're coming back from Japan and so I won't get to see them while I'm on tour. There's a million things that I want to do. People I want to see, friends I want to spend more time with, relationships I want to build. And there's just not enough hours in the day, even if you're waking up early and sleeping late. So what I love about time is it's the great equalizer, right?

People have unfair advantages and disadvantages across the board, but time is the great equalizer. And I'm always fascinated how people use time. And I think it's fair to say that we are, at least in America, at least in the West, we are productivity obsessed. We judge ourselves and we judge each other based on how productive you are. I think some of us got a reset during lockdown,

but we've all gone back kind of to the way we were, right? And so are you good at stopping or are you sort of a productivity machine that's constantly looking for life hacks how you can get more out of a day, more out of yourself, more out of your team, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? I'm both. So I absolutely love optimization and productivity.

I think it's one of the most intentional ways to actually live because I think there's no intention in life if we're okay with wherever it goes. So I think from an intentionality perspective, strategy is a beautiful thing. At the same time, I'm really fortunate that I've been able to train my mind to if I was taking a break for the next three days, I would lock right in and have the ability to switch off completely from that life and not think about it for the next three days.

So you're good at taking a holiday? Yes. So when you go away on a holiday, you don't check your email? No. You don't call in? Absolutely. Nothing. I can do it at the drop of a hat.

So I log out for work every Christmas around the 15th of December, and then I won't log back into the 15th of Jan. And I've done that for years now. And you're not afraid of the influx of emails in the inbox? Not at all, because everyone knows I give very short email replies, and probably will not read most of them. So partly it's my ability to not be as harsh on myself.

How do you teach your team to do the same? To switch off? To switch off? To switch off. It's such an interesting thing, right? I mean, all the studies show we don't take enough holidays. People don't take their vacation. I think the first thing is they need to see you do it. I think if a team sees you do it, they see the value in it.

There was one member of my team, actually, who never took vacations. And if she did take a vacation, she'd be constantly online. And she'd want to check in, she'd want to join the meeting, she'd want to send an update. And I kept telling her that our work is not life or death. It's really important work, but it's not life or death. And there is no need for her to have that level of urgency and availability.

And for her, and it's different for everyone, for her, I had to convince her that rest made her better at work. Because her driver, her self-worth comes from being able to work really well. That's what really moves the needle for her. And so until she understood that actually when you rest, you refresh. When you rest, you sharpen. When you rest, you get stronger. That's what worked for her.

And so I think it's figuring out what's driving people. But let's, I want to, I want to go deeper on that. Because, because what you did was make a rational argument, which is if you rest, you'll be better, which is very, very rational and all of us, including her will agree. Right. But the problem is, is when you, when your self-worth comes from your productivity,ationally, I can understand that rest is good for me and I will sharpen my ax. Until I can separate my self worth from my productivity, that's the part I wanna know.

How did you inspire to do that? Because I've had that rational conversation with many people many times, but it's not about the convincing. And I think that goes back to the example. I think what I said to her, I remember was, hey, when I take that time off every year, I come back with my best ideas.

I come back my most creative, my most curious. I get the most time to read things I never thought I was interested in. Like that gives me the space and time. And so I think the example setting, there's a beautiful statement by St. Francis that I love. And he said, wherever you go, you should preach, wherever you go, you should preach and if necessary, open your mouth. And I love that because it's that idea that simply by our example, simply by the way we live, I think people get moved by that. And especially if you're a leader,

I think that's one of the biggest challenges today is that we as leaders, it's funny, I'm sure you get this too, like I'll get parents saying to me, I really want my kids to not be so materialistic and they're holding a Louis Vuitton handbag in their hand. Or like, I really want my kids to be this way. Or like someone said to me, like I really want my kids to like wake up early and work out. I really want my kids to listen to your stuff.

And I said, hey, do you listen to it when you drive them to school every day? And they were like, no. And I was like hey, do you listen to it when you drive them to school every day? And they were like, no. Like, and I was like, well, that would make it easier, right? Like your kids are at their age where you decide what's on the radio or what goes on. And so I think a really simple way to inspire the people around us is for them to see it in us.

Yeah, what I did, I did this, I implemented many years ago, which is I simply said to the team that if you send an email while you're on holiday, I'll take you out of the bonus pool. That's so good. Wow, I can imagine them like that works out really well. Works out really well. I remember I sent one email to somebody when I was on the holiday and she wrote back to

me, what is so important that you're willing to sacrifice your bonus to talk to me? That's so good. I love that. That's really well. That works really well. Yeah. It doesn't detach their self-worth, but it definitely stops them from pressing. But it makes the discovery, right? Which is I'm aligning the incentive structure with the behaviour that I want. Yes. In this case, disincentive. Yes. And what it does is it helps them turn off and relax and they discover it. Because you know this, it takes a few days to like decompress. Yes. Oh, it does. And then then the holiday starts. Yeah, for sure. So like a day off is great.

Yeah. But it doesn't do it. Absolutely. It doesn't do it. Absolutely. So I'm very curious because how long did you do the monk thing? Three years. And why did you quit? Oh, yeah. I mean, so many. I just quit the wrong way. Yeah. Why did you decide to come back? It's like asking someone, why did you get divorced? That's the kind of question.

I apologize for the way it feels. No, no, no. It's a good question. But I'm saying, like, that's what it felt like a divorce. Like, that's how it felt. So what was the impetus to do it in the first place? Falling in love. How old were you?

I was, I became a monk after I graduated. So 21 going on 22. OK, so you're at university. Yeah. And you're like, you know what? Finance is not for me. Yes. It's the monk life I graduated, so 21 going on 22. Okay, so you're at university, and you're like, you know what? Finance is not for me, it's the monk life I was. And the reason for doing it was, as simple to demystify it was, my role models became monks.

As soon as I met the monks in my late teenage years, the role models became monks. I was so inspired by the way they lived, because they told me that they were focused on two things. One was mastering the mind and serving others. And I thought what better pursuits in the world than mastering your emotions, your envy, your jealousy, your greed, your lust, your anger, and your illusion, and the ability to use all your gifts and skills in the service of others. And I'd also met CEOs and finance directors and hedge fund managers. And just at that time, no one really spoke to me the way they did.

And so I think it was the first real male role models I had that inspired that path. And then what made me leave was the realization that I couldn't do it. Like the actual realization that monk training is meant to make you self-aware through all of that training. And when you get that much self-awareness and realize that I'm not a monk in my own self-awareness, it's probably the harshest thing. So it's almost like saying I want to love you for the rest of my life. But by loving you, I realized that's not where I'm meant to be. And that was shown to me physically and emotionally.

So physically, my health broke down. It was super tough on my body. It was really hard to live communally. You're often sleeping in rooms of 30 to 100 people. Whether it's flus, viruses, people getting up at different times. I'm a light sleeper, all of that on the body. And then emotionally and mentally I was like, I'm more of a rebel. I like the rules, but I want them to fit into my life this way.

And I like the discipline, but I'd prefer to tweak it a little. And that honesty of I'm someone who wants to make these teachings more pliable into my own life, as someone who believes I'm a modern person from London, and I'd love to help other people do that too. But what's interesting, I mean, what's impressive is you lasted three years. Yes. I'm not sure I would have lasted three months. I'm glad I lasted three years, yeah.

I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. It was a genuine desire to do it forever. And when it came crashing down three years later, I really felt like a failure. It didn't feel like a success then. Now looking back, I think three years was great. But at that time, leaving was the worst feeling. Did you go through a depression afterwards? Definitely, definitely. I'd say for like, I didn't even want to admit it. I was one of those people that actually didn't want to say the word because I was so scared that it would define me and not help me defy it. Yeah, and so I left it out of my vocabulary. But when I look back, I think there was at least a year that I was just figuring it out. And I think a lot of that came because when I came out, I just went back to all my old habits for the first 30 days.

I was eating everything again, I was watching everything again, I was listening to music that I wasn't before. I was kind of just back into my... I caught up with the whole... all of the seasons of how I met your mother that I'd missed. I ate like a slab of Cadbury's dairy milk chocolate. I was listening to Drake. It was just one of those things. And then after that month, I started looking at my life going, no, I've got the tools to figure this life out. But if I see them as two separate lives, then I would have wasted those three years.

So what are three tools you learn that every college graduate should learn without having to go to be a monk for three years? Oh, what a great question. The first one is stop looking at your reflection so much. I think right now in the world, we're overexposed to how we look more than we ever have been before. So in the monastery, there were no mirrors. You rarely saw how you look. It was only when you went outside and you looked at your reflection in a shop window or whatever it may have been that you remembered what you look. It was only when you went outside and you looked at your reflection in a shop window

or whatever it may have been that you remembered what you look like. There was this real feeling of I've forgotten my physical appearance, I've forgotten my sense of age, I've forgotten my scrutiny and analysis that we all have in the morning when we wake up and we say, I look ugly today, I look tired today, I look too many spots on my face, I've got these bags under my eyes, this constant harsh negative criticism,

in a talk, in a critic that we have. I think there's an overexposure. I don't think we were meant to record ourselves and watch ourselves back as many times as we do. I don't think we were meant to look at ourselves on mirrors, screens, reflections, and every possible object. And I think it's made us so physically conscious and physically analytical that we don't actually have time to think

about the emotional, the spiritual, the psychological, we don't have as much space and then the physical, psychological, emotional gets filled up with analyzing the physical and therefore we analyze other people more too before we didn't see as many people and so I think now we're overexposed, overthinking, overanalyzing, but not over our exes. It's so true, right? Like you're sitting on a Zoom call noticing yourself and correcting your angle. Even now I'm correcting myself. But like you weren't looking at yourself correcting yourself while you're on a Zoom, supposedly in a meeting. But if you're in a physical meeting, you don't do that.

You don't sort of correct the angle of your head to make yourself look a little bit better in a meeting. But you do in a Zoom call. That's funny. Exactly that, and that's self-correcting, that's self-editing. Not that you shouldn't be well-presented. I take care of myself.

You're talking about scale. It's just balance. It's out of balance. Exactly, so I think that's a big one. And not having mirrors in the monastery was just one of the most freeing things in the world. I can't even put it into words, it was really powerful. The second thing I'd say is location has energy and time has memory. So when you do something at the same time every day, your mind keeps a memory of it so it becomes easier. And when you do something in the same place every day, your mind keeps a memory of it so it becomes easier.

And when you do something in the same place every day, your mind makes a memory of it and that space has an energy so it becomes easier. So we would meditate in the same place every day. I was just back at the monastery in January where I go back every year to start my year. And it was so interesting because today, you know, every day away from meditating that deeply, you sense the weakness of the quality of your meditation. But even now when I close my eyes, I can be in that room that I meditate in, I can channel the energy of that space. And there's a reason why we all feel certain things when we go to certain places. You ever been to a place and you're like, this place is eerie, it's spooky, this place is historic and powerful. I remember going to the Wailing Wall and places, what in 2017 now, and it's like that place had a palpable energy, like you can't, whether you're spiritual, religious

or not, you feel it there. And so I think we all know that there are places all across the world where we felt something, why not create those places in our home? And so the construction of energy in a place is something I think we undervalue. We undervalue how sight, scent and sound can construct an energy. For example, if you had a candle that burns every day when you switch off from work, that scent will lock you into feeling like work is over. If you have a quote by your desk that you read at the beginning of your day, you'll feel that your day is starting. If you have a sound like a gong which we had in the

monastery or if you have a chime or a song that you like to wake up to or cook to, automatically it puts you in that zone. So basically, we're classically conditioning ourselves. Correct. It's good old-fashioned BF Skinner, right? Which is... Correct. Which is, I hear the sound, I smell the smell, I'm in the space, and I've done it enough times that I'm now salivating to the sound of the bell.

Correct. But today, we kind of don't use any of those things. I feel like... It's very clever to train ourselves into the right mindset for the day. Exactly. all different. Like let's say you live in an apartment. How do you make different corners of your apartment

have different sounds and sights? If that's the only space you have. I remember when me and my wife lived in New York, we had a 600 square foot apartment and one corner was a meditation corner. We're grateful today to have a meditation room, but at the time it was a meditation corner. It was a TV corner.

And I think the challenge has become that today we eat where we're meant to sleep, we sleep where we're meant to work, and we work where we're meant to eat. So the energy of our kitchen doesn't allow us to digest. The energy of our bed doesn't allow us to rest. The energy of our workspace doesn't allow us to feel alert. That's so true. I mean, sleep experts know this. Don't associate things that keep you awake with

your bed. No televisions in a bedroom. Yeah, no screens. No screens in a bedroom. And it's not just for the blue light, it's the association. And people who suffer from insomnia, if you can't sleep, you can't sleep, you're tussling and turning. You're supposed to get out of bed, ideally go to another room, or at least go sit in another part of your room. Then you can be on your phone, read a book, get tired, get back into bed and re-associate bed with tired. Yes, exactly that, exactly that. It's just, and it's simple, right? It's really simple and it's really doable. You don't have to build a new habit or learn a new skill or learn how to meditate.

Like these are things we all feel and sight, sensed and sounds are all things we feel. And you know, you can tell it's tangible. Yeah, yeah. Okay, the third one. The third one. There was a beautiful freezing of time that happened. I had no thought of how old I was, that I had to get a job, that I had to find my meaning in life, that I had to suddenly find a relationship.

You sound like a deadbeat living in your parents' attic. Yeah, exactly, that's really what it was. And there was a beauty in that, that time froze, that there wasn't this pressure that we all feel through timelines and deadlines and clocks that we all think we have ticking that I imaginary in your 20s. In your 20s you shouldn't feel like the clock is ticking. You should feel like there is no clock and that you can make choices and mistakes and fail and learn. And so

I had three years where I didn't think about what birthday it was. I didn't think about what all my friends were doing. I didn't think about whether they bought an apartment, got promoted or lost their job. It just wasn't what I was thinking about. I could think about mastering my emotions and helping other people, which felt like worthy pursuit. I like this one because I think especially now because productivity and what are you doing and getting ahead and all of these things are such the priority for so many young people. I love the concept of the gap year, which is fairly common in Europe. But in America, when I talk to young people, I'm like, why don't you take a gap year before you go to, before you get a job or go to college,

whatever your direction is. And I get the same answer every time. If I do, I'll fall behind. Fall behind what? Fall behind whom? And we're now thinking of life like a race. I have to have a title before my friends have it. I have to have a salary level before my friends have it.

And so if I take time off, I will miss out or I will lose out. Yes. And it goes back to the rationale of your teammate who wouldn't take a holiday, which is that gap year will give you a clarity and a rest and a conviction that it'll take you five or 10 years in the workforce to get if you ever get it. But a year to get a job that is outside of your, you know, norm or travel or get an internship

just completely in some ridiculous place or whatever it is, it's, I think, yeah. That's really interesting. So just to summarize then, the question was specific which is yes you you were of college age You took three years off to go what you hoped to become a monk but you change direction, but it was still super super valuable to you and so What is the reason that you picked? No mirrors. What's the reason you picked space in your home to associate with? Feelings the third one is frozen time.

Why is it that those three things are the three things that people who are graduating high school need to know about all else? The first one, because I think it goes back to what I was saying, that we're so overexposed visually. Yeah. And everything's become about how we look to other people, how we're perceived. We're living our life based on what people think of us. We overvalue people's opinions, we don't trust our inner voice, we don't have a sense of what we're thinking about apart from what people think of us. Like that's where we're locked, especially at that age. And by the way,

I'm not immune to any of this, like I still do it today and I felt it even when I was that age, it was just having that lesson, that time. By trying to eliminate it, which you won't, you're more likely to find the balance. And in so doing, you will be able to trust your gut to make better decisions, to not be seduced by the wrong things for superficial reasons, and make decisions for the rest of your life that hopefully are clearer. Yes, I like that. Yeah, that's the first one. Okay. The second one, because I think at that age, you don't really know what

your morning routine is, you don't really know how you use space and time. Unless you're an athlete or something like that. Yeah, unless you have, yeah, exactly. Unless you have a pursuit that aligns with that. You don't really know how to use your space well. And I think you can set yourself up for really bad habits, especially now, in our time, you didn't have the phone, you didn't have a laptop, or if you did, you didn't have the access to what you do today. I think you can set yourself up to have an incredible sense of discipline

earlier on, which will, by the way, that's the reason people fall behind. People don't fall behind because someone got promoted before them. They fall behind because they don't have a discipline of a morning routine, a life that creates a moment of rest and refuel for them. That's why we fall behind. We fall behind because we take five years off trying to rehabilitate ourselves because we work so hard and burn out. That's how we fall behind.

So this is really interesting, which is go ahead and look at your Instagram, but only do it on one chair in that corner. That's your Instagram chair. Yes, I literally have my, so I have my phone. This is, no, this is really good. I like what you said. I have my phone, which is kept on my vanity table, and funny we call it that, but on that table.

And I only look at my phone when I'm standing there. So I have to stand too, I don't let myself sit with my phone. Because I know as soon as I sit with my phone, that two minute check in can go forever. So I have my phone strategically in a place where I can't sit with it. And so I agree with you on that point. Like it helps so much to have one place you can lock in and don't have things that trigger you. Like for example, I have another trick that helps me. I have an open book that I like in different areas. So I have an open book next to my bed,

which is a book I like to fall asleep to. I have an open book in my living room, so that I'm more likely to pick that. We've taken out TVs of every room apart from one space where me and my wife will watch TV. The TV room. Yeah, having a space, exactly. Or the TV nook.

Yeah, the TV nook, exactly. But I think the idea of I just keep open books everywhere. And that inspires me to pick up the book even when I'm feeling tired, rather than the idea of, oh gosh, I've got to think about picking it up. I like this. You know what? That's the very intellectual version of we're always on our phones when we're eating, you know, especially if we're by ourselves. My friend was complaining about like, why can't we just sit and be present? And I was like, oh, we did this before the phone. It was called the cereal box. Like I sat every morning eating my cereal

and I read the cereal box if there were jokes or a little, and then you're done with that and you start reading the ingredients and it's just to pass the time. And so this is the hyper intellectualized version of this, which is I'm just reading whatever there is to read. Yes. Which is the cereal box.

But I love the idea of having an open book or a couple of open books on the wherever you eat and you just sit down to eat. And if you're disciplined enough not to have your phone with you, that you just sort of lean over and read whatever is in front of you. Because it's in front of you. Not because you have the discipline to read. Exactly. I really like that.

Yeah, you tricked yourself into it, right? You tricked yourself into it. I thought you were going to say it's like the over-intellectualized version of I've heard people say that, hey, I just leave my yoga mat out next to my bed so that the moment I roll out bed, I can go straight to doing yoga. I just walk over to yoga mat and that does nothing for me. Yeah, or you have your gym kit picked out the night before, but it's like, how are you tricking, how are you making sure that you trick yourself

into doing what you want to do rather than all the things that you regret after you do them? I don't ever scroll my phone for two hours and feel, wow, I'm so glad I just spent my time in the most amazing way. I almost can feel guilty and shameful and feel like I wasted time

or I should have been doing something meaningful. So why not trick myself into doing the thing that's actually going to give me the feeling that I'm looking for. Very clever. So, okay, change of tack now. Let's talk about meditation. More importantly, the perception of meditation in the Western world. The way I think about meditation, yes, there are tremendous benefits to the self for meditation. We know that science proves it, you know, you preach it. Where I get cynical is we've turned meditation into an entirely selfish pursuit, and worse, a business. Buy my thing so you can meditate. Pay money so that you can meditate. And in the West, we've sort of,

I think we've kind of lost the plot of A, what the value of these Eastern spiritual practices are. And in a very American fashion found a business model to fit it. I'd love for you to just, somebody who did it purely in, in, in India, I'd love for you to react to that. Do you get frustrated when you see basically an onslaught of businesses selling what is a spiritual practice. It's like the selling of indulgences to get into heaven. It's like I think you missed the point here. So yeah, there's two sides to it. One is that I genuinely believe that ideally if every human learned how to meditate at

school and it was part of the system, then we'd have no need for it. And that would be the solve. I would, by the way, love to be able to figure out how to do that. I think it should be something that's free, ideally, for everyone in the world. It should be a tool, but so is emotional mastery and resilience and intelligence. It's teaching the skill, right? It's teaching the skill.

So it's about accountability. If you pay money for it, you're more likely to do it. I think the challenge is now that school hasn't done that, and so school hasn't served its purpose on that level, we now live, by the way, and this applies to everything, school didn't teach us how to figure out our taxes. So now we have to figure out how to do that. School didn't teach us how to, whatever it may be.

And so we're having to compensate for the lack of training and teaching that we got. And I think that if everyone was expected to go sit on a mountain top or take time out, it's not accessible to everyone. What I got to do was, even though my parents are not necessarily well to do, I still had the opportunity to even think about doing that, where a lot of people I know wouldn't have the opportunity to do that. And so for me, there are certain platforms, and obviously I've worked with Calm for a long time,

I'm the Chief Purpose Officer, and for me, Calm found a way... Like, Calm's annual membership is $42 a year. So to me, that's the closest thing I could do to free... No, but I think that's very fair. In our Western capitalist society, and I know this from my own work, which is when I was starting out and I was doing wide discoveries for people, and whenever I gave it away for free, they implemented zero. And whenever I charged them, they implemented it. Because when they have skin in the game, they wanted to get their money's worth. And so I think I've got the wrong construction, which is it's not about paid or not paid.

It's about skin in the game. And in our society, that generally is money. Totally. But a skin in the game is like I have a family member who's struggling, or I'm struggling, and the skin in the game is repair. Yes. Then, so I, okay, that's fair. And also the idea... I think that's fair. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, it's a great conversation, by the way. I love having this

conversation because... I'm just a cynical bastard. Yeah, no, no, no. But I think these are really great questions to ask. And I remember, so during the pandemic, I did around, I think it was like 40 days of daily meditation on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Live. I wasn't selling anything promoted. It was truly because I felt like I had nothing to offer during the pandemic because I couldn't save anyone or change my day job. So that's what I did. And it was amazing.

Across 40 days, maybe 20 million people tuned in. It was insane. It was one of the best things I've ever done. It was so much fun and it was so meaningful to share that space. Those lives are still available on YouTube and everywhere else. And people do them all the time. What I found is, and that was great, and I'll do it again, and I'll do it often. But what I found is that when you can help people measure, note, get an update on what they're doing, it helps them do it better. And when something's accessible in that way,

you can't build the educational pattern that you want to build for them. Like I couldn't tell those 20 million people whether they completed one, how they could do it better, which one they should try, like all of that that comes with it. Yeah. But by the way, this is not a criticism of you at all. Oh, no, no, I didn't think it was. I didn't take it that way. I'm just curious on your commentary on Western world that we took, like, here's the example, the Toyota

Way. Yes. Right? So the Toyota Way is a philosophy of how Japanese car builders make cars. And all, you know, you hear about Kaizen and sort of these kinds of things that come out of that. And American academics, I think it was from Harvard, went to Japan, they studied the Toyota Way and they came back to bring it back to America and they called it

Lean. Right? They rebranded it Lean. I talked to one of the guys who brought it back from Harvard and I said can you give me one example of an American company that successfully implemented Lean? He says, oh there are many. I said, can you give me one example of an American company that successfully implemented lean? He says, oh, there are many. I said, I believe you tell me one. Right. And he couldn't because we screwed it up. We made something that is a philosophy about constant improvement and we turned it into efficiency.

And those are not the same thing. And we turn constant improvement into efficiency. Right. And that's, that's the analogy. Yes. That's a great analogy. That's the analogy, which is, it's not a criticism of whether something is charged or not charged. When we take something that has one kind of intention,

and because of our Western lens, we change that intention, we're accidentally ruining the product. And so it doesn't work quite as well. It works. And so I'm more curious about your commentary because you have done both and you do live in both and you've seen the value of both.

I'm just curious about your commentary about where is the balance and how do we do it? Yeah. Or is it fine because it works well enough? Yeah, no. So I think there's I love that. And thank you for that. That's so helpful.

That's where my mind is. That's the context for the question. Great exercise. That's the context for the question. I really appreciate that. And so the commentary would begin with, if we wanted people to do it as purely as I did it, most people would give up in seven days, if that,

if not one day or two days. Myself included, by the way. Because so much of it is the same thing every day with no change. And all of us today are wired for change. So it's really, really hard for someone to sit there and do the same. By the way, we were doing two, four, eight hours of the same thing every day. So do I think that's going to help people? No. Now what happened in the early days, which I think has changed now,

which I did irk me, was this idea that meditation is going to make you calm and happy and take away all your problems. And you're never ever going to think about anything wrong again. And so there was this idealized view of it was usually a picture of a woman sitting on a mountaintop, doing a yoga pose with a mat and the sun shining, and like that's the perfection of enlightenment. And I think that wasn't a healthy image. I think that's changed now where people are saying, well, when you're meditating,

you might have a negative intrusive thought, you might have a jealous thought, you might have a whatever it may be. And so I think the conversation has evolved, but in the beginning, I didn't like the way it was portrayed as this perfect, you know, perfect thing, like you meditate and your problems are gone. Yeah, yeah. And you clarified it beautifully. I think there was a time when people believed you have to think about nothing, and your mind would have nothing. And that's, that's again changed. Other parts of the commentary that I'd say now is,

I think the other thing is that people who generally get into teaching or sharing meditation, even in a commercial way, generally are still a bit more well-intentioned because it's not, there's far quicker, better faster way. And they have to make a living. Like if you're a yoga teacher or meditation teacher, you've got your own bills to pay. Like it's not the business model that bothers me. It's not business model that bothers me. Yeah. It's not the charging that bothers me. It's the distortion of the value. Correct.

You said something that I think really captures it, which is we've become so metrics obsessed, we crave novelty so much that the business model is actually less about the money and more about the novelty. Yeah. Right. And I don't necessarily mean that pejoratively. It just, we crave new all the time. And to your point, doing the same thing every day

is just something, and I know this from exercise, right? Which is, you see these, on socials, all these exercise gurus showing you all these different kinds of exercises, and this one recommends doing it on your tiptoes, and this one recommends doing it hanging from a tree, and this one recommends doing it, whatever it is, doing it, they all have their own philosophies

about how you should exercise and they're very funny way of moving and they're all giving you demos on Instagram. But if you go to the gym with them, they do curls and it just looks like old fashioned, old fashioned exercise that works all the muscles and work through the muscle groups. And they, that's how they do it.

And they have to come up with content, something new every day to keep people interested, which ultimately means hopefully they'll exercise because we don't have the discipline to just go to the gym and just do the same thing day in and day out. Absolutely. And so it's not a question of business model or money or not money. It's a question of discipline. And so what we're looking for are Western hacks to keep us disciplined,

whether it's skin in the game. Incentive. You know, incentive. Skin in the game. I want to get my money's worth. Or I get bored, so make it novel and I'll keep doing it. And so it's all these little Western hacks to try and derive the benefit from the thing that's supposed to help us.

Exactly. And I think if that's, again, and brilliantly said, and I feel like if that's the intention and that's the goal, all of these things can be, like, I love it when my app tells me I've meditated seven days straight or 14 days straight, whatever it may be. Like, I enjoy that feeling because I need to feel that win

because I'm feeling like I'm losing in every other area of my life. So if I know I have this win in the morning, that's a big deal for people. And I think that's totally fair. And I think the important thing here, I think, is for each of us to self-assess, right? Which is how do you wanna be rewarded to keep doing it?

Is it skin in the game? Is it a dopamine hit of I won something? The feeling of progress? I did three days in a day in a row, four days in a row, five days, I don't wanna break my streak, before I know it, it's done three months in a row, right? Or is it the novelty that keeps me interested? I think that, and this goes back to your advice

for young people, which is, what is it the space that you wanna create? And how can you keep yourself disciplined? Because all of these are discipline hacks. And I think where, at least for me, where I have made myself feel bad is I picked one that worked for somebody else, but it didn't work for me. Yes, that's exactly it. And so it's about finding the hack that keeps you in the moment.

Yes. It doesn't matter which one it is. And by the way, I've been in these shoes in one particular example that I can remember of that teacher where, so I'd moved to LA, this was like 2018, maybe 2018, 2019, I was jumping into an Uber and I got in, and five minutes later I realized we hadn't moved, or a couple of minutes later I realized we hadn't moved. And I looked up at the driver and I said, hey, how's it going? And he goes, oh yeah, you didn't say hello to me. Like when you came in, you didn't say anything. And I thought about that.

Like our whole life has been wired for efficiency and productivity and ease. And so I'm on my phone, I walk into the back of a new but I'm just messaging. I'm expecting the car to take me there. I'm going to go without saying bye and acknowledging a human. And some people have shared,

oh, maybe he was acting overreacting over the top, but I actually think it was brilliant because I think it was a great message to me of just being like, well, why can't you acknowledge a human? I don't need to tell my life. It's not a driverless car. It's not a driverless car. I shouldn't treat it as driverless car.

And hello seems pretty... And hello is basic. ...is an entry level. Yeah, it's not like he's pitching me his movie script or album or whatever it is. He's literally just requesting hello. And for me, that was a really big mindful moment. Oh, wait a minute, that is what mindfulness is. And so I've been in those shoes where I've missed it.

And I wish that moment was great for me because ever since that day, I've always said hello, because it's the least we can do for each other. So good. And if the goal of life is to make other people feel seen, yes. in this case, literally, right? Like you didn't know that there was a driver there for two minutes, right? That's a great... And it takes so little

So little. to acknowledge someone's existence. And we look at the divisions we have today, I think it's because we've so dehumanized each other. Don't even acknowledge that other people have to share our planet or share our country or share the air that we breathe. Yeah. It's so simple. And it's happening more and more. Like if you think about how you talk to chat GPT, one of the reasons why we love AI is because you can talk to chat GPT however you want.

So you can say, you know, do it like this, no, like this, no, no, no, do this, give me this. And so we're literally talking to someone that you'd never be able to talk to a human that way. And that's where we enjoy it because it kind of unleashes this dominance, power, control, all the things that we haven't been able to use on humans. We can use them on robots and use them on AI and use them on technology. And by the way, I'm not against AI, I use it. But my point is it doesn't wire the right habits. For example, if I had to tell Uber Eats to order me a pizza,

I'd go on Uber Eats or I can go on DoorDash or whatever it is that you use Postmates. You click on the thing you want, you press yes, and then it's there, right? Whereas if I wanted to ask my wife to say, hey, do you want pizza? Do you want to go out and get it? Like, what are you thinking about? What it's there, right? Whereas if I wanted to ask my wife to say, hey, do you want pizza? Do you want to go out and get it? Like, what are you thinking about? What do you have on today? It would be a bigger conversation that we need to have.

And I'm not saying that ease isn't important. I use all of these services, but you've got to be really careful that your communication with technology doesn't bleed into your communication with humans because otherwise we're going to keep dehumanizing each other. So our goal today is not to learn to use ChatGPT better or communicate better. It's to make sure we don't bleed the skills and the weaknesses that come from

both of these forms of communication. Yeah, yeah. You should use ChatGPT efficiently. That's good. Just don't let it bleed. So I've always believed that for Alexa or Siri to work, you have to say please. It was like, Siri, you know, Alexa, set an alarm. You know, please.

Like my parents, you know, English upbringing. You know, I got in trouble if I didn't say please or thank you. And I'm curious in five years or 10 years, we just raise a generation that doesn't know how to say please because they have a technology that they never have to say please to get what they want. But I digress. No, no, no, and I've been trying to encourage chat GPT. So if I get a really good answer, I'm like, that's amazing. I love that. Thank you to chat. Yeah, like trying to have this

just because I think it trains. I think it's, I remember I was, um, I was having this amazing conversation with Will Smith and he told me this lesson that he learned when he was training for Ali. And he said that when he was training for Ali, he had to get into the best shape of his life. He was playing Ali. It's impossible to even think about what that looks like. And he's in the boxing ring training before they even film. And he'd get so tired and exhausted that he'd fall on the mat on his back and just lie there.

And his trainer would yell, get up because you fight how you train. You fight how you train. If in training you get used to the feeling of the mat, then when you get hit in the real match, you're going to get used to it and you won't get back up at the 10 count. And so you fight how you train. And so for all of us,

you fight how you train. And the idea that if we're training our brain to be short, snappy, to the point efficient and direct, training our brain to be short, snappy, to the point efficient and direct and sometimes aggressive and assertive, that's what you're training yourself to be at home. And I think the work home-bleeding... It's all the stuff you've been talking about. It's the classic conditioning. And we're conditioning ourselves to be short, snappy, blunt, rude, all of these things. And now it's sort of like,

you look at sort of interactions today, huh, that's a good insight. That's a good insight. And also what's the cost of efficiency, right? Because there's a cost to everything we do and what's the cost of efficiency. And we talk about humanizing and dehumanizing. There's this cookie place in New York City that I went to

and the design is very stark. It's like everything's white. You know, my own opinion is like, that's not the look I want for a cookie. Cookie should be warm and inviting, but different conversation. That's a branding conversation. That's the old marketer in me.

I love aesthetics, we'll talk about that later. That's the marketer in me. But putting that aside, it's stark white hospital, you know, lighting. And you come in and you're greeted by a screen. And you type in the cookie you want, you pay with your phone or your credit card and Then there's one person

Who's working in the shop who will get a printout or a screen of what you want? They'll go get your cookie put it in a box and hand it to you you take it and I watched people I don't think anyone said thank you because they treated this one person as If they were the machine that they just typed in on. And I felt for this person, this person, you know, you go into a retail job, the warmth that comes from retail is I'm a people person. You know, I get to interact with people or I have teammates.

There was no teammate. And I was just thinking, this person will burn out and this person absolutely hates their job. It's not because it's difficult, it's because they never feel seen at any moment throughout the day and people are treating them the same way they treated the computer. But this brand, I can guarantee you, told you they're venture capitalists. We have this efficiency model, we have one employee, blah blah blah, but my question is what's the cost of efficiency? And I think in this modern day and age, we have to start

asking the question, maybe it's worth a little less efficiency and a little more humanity. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. And, and I think, I don't think it's impossible to balance both. Like, I don't think what you're saying is something we can't achieve. No, no, no.

It's not, it's not a pendulum. Correct. Yeah. I'm not saying you would lose efficiency, but maybe a little less efficiency and a little more humanity. Yes. You just weigh the cost.

I would find that, absolutely. I agree. I'd love that. That'd be a fun world. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. You are a brilliant listener, and that's what makes you such a great interviewer,

because you were kind of finding things in what I said that not only connections but just finding like one or two words or a line which I said and we could expand on that that's pretty difficult to do and so I really appreciate it. Thank you. You help me think about things. Thank you. Well you know one of my things that I hate and this is speaking very personally and this is just me this is this is me. I hate when I'm the one being interviewed that the person who's interviewing me is so overprepared that they know my work better than I do. Simon, what are the five elements of an infinite game?

Well, you clearly know the answer because you knew there were five. So why don't you just say them? That's not a fun interview and you're not learning anything from me. So there's no joy for me to tell you what you already know. Exactly. And so what's the point of having wonderful human beings

who have a point of view, a perspective that's sometimes the same, sometimes different than mine, if I can't learn? Like I'm going to sit with you for an hour. And so this is my opportunity to hang out with you and learn from you and get something from you that may or may not exist in the outside world. I don't know. That would be a waste. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's very practical. Yeah, it is. But it's I remember Ray Dalio said

it to me when he came on my show once and I felt we had that today, which I really enjoyed. But he said to me after we finished an interview once, he said, it felt like we were just playing jazz. And it was like, you know, I just play the percussion over here, and then you went off on the keys and like, just, and that's fun because it's, you're spontaneously directing a path that isn't, you know, presupposed and- Well, thank you very much. So thank you for- That's a very, very high compliment. And I really appreciate this,

especially coming from you. Thank you so, so much. All right. Couple of questions for you. To build compatible relationships, which is more important how we fight and resolve conflict or how we express love? And I have to choose Which is more important I know they're both important, but if there's an eking out Which is more important even if slightly? I'd say how we express love because how we express love if we feel it feels like real love it allows us to heal disagreements, arguments, challenges that naturally come up and so if you actually are able to express and receive love

in a way that you notice it as love, you register it as love, then when you feel that depth of love, that's what allows us to go through storms and tsunamis and earthquakes and everything else that will come in relationships. If you just know how to manage a disagreement, but then don't feel loved, it's only half the puzzle. That is such a good answer and I thought you were going to say the opposite, because it's all about the skill set of conflict,

but we don't talk about the skill set of love. And you're right, if the love is well expressed and more importantly felt, then the intention even behind not having the skills to resolve conflict, at least you know there's good intention behind it. There's another question, I had to sit and think about it. That is a very good answer. Okay, here's one for you. Purpose is a huge topic in both our work and our lives. After all the people you've had the opportunity to interview, what have you learned about finding purpose?

Well, what's really interesting is that after talking to so many people about purpose, I realized that we don't have a definition for purpose beyond what we do. And I think that's extremely limiting and unhealthy, because again, we go back to getting all of our value from what we do. So what I learned is we don't have a language and a vocabulary for purpose beyond work and I think that's probably a very recent thing with the Industrial Revolution. I don't think people before that were asking each other what do you do? You'd ask who are you or even if you heard from yeah where

are you from like tell me about your family are you? Or even if you heard me, yeah, where are you from? Like, tell me about your family. And you were a farmer and you were a healer and you were a teacher and a musician and you're all these things. And now I think we're very clearly asked, what do you do? And we say, I'm an accountant or I'm a podcaster or I'm an author. And that's become our identity. So actually after talking to everyone about purpose, I've actually learned that we don't have a vocabulary. Oh, that's great. Yeah. No, that's become our identity. So actually after talking to everyone about purpose, I've actually learned that we don't have a vocabulary beyond that. Oh, that's great. No, that's very good. Thank you very much. Hey, good luck with your tour with 40, what, 30?

No, no, no, that was the last time. How many cities are you doing this time? This is like 20 in North America, I think. 20 cities. When do you start? We start in early May. Early May. Well, good luck with the tour. Thank you so much. I wish you nothing but good fortune and thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Good times.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonscenec.com for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudershan.