How I Built This with Guy Raz - Live Episode! Wellness Coach and Podcaster: Jay Shetty

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Jay Shetty was living the life of a rebellious teen in London when a friend talked him into attending a talk by a Hindu monk. It was a life-changing event, and started Jay on a path to become a monk himself and join an ashram in India. He left monastic life after three years, but took many of its lessons with him, and decided to share them with others. His YouTube videos began to spread on social media and eventually evolved into a podcast, and the best-selling book Think Like a Monk. Today Jay runs a wellness and coaching business, and provides life guidance to millions of people around the world. This interview was recorded live as part of a virtual event in March 2021.How I Built This Summit - information and tickets at:http://summit.npr.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.ca. slash host. So today we're releasing a special live episode of the show. It's my conversation with Jay Shetty, a former monk who now writes books and hosts a podcast helping people seek out wisdom in their lives. I spoke with Jay back in March for how I built this virtual live event. And although I do miss live shows in front of an audience, this one was super fun because we had people watching from around the world.

Jay now lives in Los Angeles, but he's originally from the UK. He spent about three years training in India to become a monk. But eventually, he left the ashram and started to spread the messages he learned there, but in ways that have had mass appeal. Today, he runs a wellness and coaching business and hosts a podcast called On Purpose. Jay also produces YouTube videos and is the author of the book, Think Like a Monk. But before he became a monk and then returned to conventional life, Jay grew up in London, the child of Indian immigrants, and the oldest of two kids.

His dad worked as an accountant, and he and Jay's mom pushed him to work hard at school. I would say that I was a good student. I remember in my school, I went to a school in a rough neighborhood, and my parents were working very hard to give me a good academic upbringing. So I performed fairly well at primary school, but I think that it was truly at high school that I started to discover what I was passionate about. So I think when I was at primary school, I don't know what you call primary school here. Yeah, grammar school, elementary, yep. Yeah, when I was at primary school, I thought I liked math because I thought I had to like math.

And then when I went to secondary school, I realized that was my least favorite subject. There were far more fascinating subjects like philosophy and art and design. And I think that's where I really opened up to recognizing that there was more to the academic journey. So I think I was good. I've always been good at the basic subjects, thankfully. But that's not where my passion lies. I read that when your dad was in his, maybe in his early 40s, I think I guess he worked in the city in London, so maybe I'm thinking in the financial district. that he started to get spiritual, actually.

Like, he started to begin to learn about his background and his faith. What was going on in his life? Yeah, I was around 10 years old, and my father, by his own admittance, would say that he went through a nervous breakdown. And he went through a period in his life where everything externally seemed to stack up. He had a loving wife.

He had two kids. He had a good job that was well-paying. He was doing good for himself. He'd, you know, my father had grown up in terrible conditions in India. He took me to see his home when I was probably around nine years old. And his home was the size of the room that I'm in right now. And I know you can't see that room, but I would say that it was the size of an average bedroom was the size of his whole home with five other siblings in that home growing up,

sharing a bathroom with other people in the village area. And so when I saw that at nine years old, It really shocked me because I didn't grow up in a big home, but I grew up in a bigger home than that. And it really made me have perspective over my dad's life. So he'd left that, worked his way out, got a great education, become a chartered accountant,

working in the city, but he felt a lack of fulfillment in his life. And I saw him, me being at the age of 10, quitting his job in the city to go and pursue this crazy search, at least in my opinion at 10 years old, of the truth.

And that took him to everything from world religions to Scientology to Reiki and Healing to just, you know, every different path. He was really curious about it. And that path lasted around two years. Wow. I guess when you were in what we call high school, so, you know, sixth form or something like that in your case, you were kind of like a – and this is not uncommon for either American or British high school kids. you were like a kind of a partier. You were drinking and experimenting with drugs, which, let's be honest, a lot of teens do. Was that like a rebellious phase that you were going through?

Were your parents concerned? Or was that when you think about that, was that just sort of, you know, that phase in your life? So up until the age of 14, I think I was like the ideal son and a teacher's pet and, like, followed all the rules and did my homework on time and checked all the boxes. you know, wore my tie tight to school and everything else that you would think. And then for some reason at 14, I did start to rebel. And I think the reason for my rebellion was hanging around with a certain crowd, that association and being around kids that were far more rebellious than I was earlier on. And I think a big part of it was I was seeking a thrill. I found myself wanting to

seek this thrill in life. And that's the best word I can use to describe it. Because I started to feel like life was boring when you checked all the boxes. And I was like, well, life can't be about doing well at school and doing your homework right and then getting, you know, looking forward and going, oh, you have to go to university, then get a job. And I just started to disconnect from that idea very early on in life. And unfortunately, or fortunately, it led me the opposite way, almost towards being self-destructive. And at the beginning, it totally threw me the other way because I was just like, this doesn't work.

I'm checking all the boxes, but I'm still experiencing racism, I'm still being bullied, I'm still not feeling fulfilled. Maybe I'm doing this all wrong. And maybe doing things right isn't the right answer. And to my young mind with a father that was aloof, not a lot of mentorship from anyone in my life, I think that just gave me free reign to say I'm going to go and experiment and explore and see what happens. And how did that affect your relationship with your parents? Was it fraught when you were a teenager?

I think my parents were worried for me, but they just gave me the freedom to figure it out. Like, I remember my parents in the beginning being really worried and my mom sitting me down and having a talk. She'd always warned me of the dangers and how far things could go. But they really just let me experiment and explore. And I was the kid at 16 who got a tattoo on his neck, right? Like that was the – and I remember that night I came home, I just went and got a tattoo on my neck. And the tattoo I have on my neck is a microphone. And it happens to be the logo of the Source magazine,

which is a big hip-hop magazine from the 1990s. Wow. You got that at 16 on your own without telling your parents? Yes. And the night I got back and it was like a little bit of bleeding from where the chords meant to be of the mic. And the night I got back, my parents had friends over from India. So like traditional family friends. And I come home and they're like, what's that on your nose?

neck. And I'm really proud of it. So I'm not, you know, I'm not scared or anxious. And I'm like, oh yeah, I went and got a tattoo. I really believe in it. And I love hip hop and rap music. And that's what it is. And they were mortified, but they couldn't say anything because we had guess over. I put my parents through a lot. They were very tolerant and good parents. Yeah. It's a great tattoo. I mean, obviously everybody who knows you knows that tattoo. But I didn't realize you got it when you were 16. I mean, that must have been shocking for them, right? because especially if they had friends from India over and they're thinking, this is what happens when you leave and you go to the West,

you know, you go to the UK or the US and then everything's corrupted. Everyone's corrupted. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was just reaffirming the stereotype. But, you know, for me, it was just, I look back at that time now and I just think I'm so glad that I did try and push the boundary. For me, personally, because it's what gave me so much confidence when I

went completely the other way into my monk life, I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything because I felt like I'd done nearly everything that I possibly wanted to do by that age. And so I kind of exhausted material pleasures early. All right. So you go off to university. And so, you know, I mean, it sounds like you were still serious enough where you knew that you were going to go to university and you went to go study business at a business university. presumably you were on that track. I'm imagining that you were at a university with a lot of other business-minded kids

and maybe they go into accounting or finance or go work for a corporation. And that, I have to assume, when you're 18, that's your mindset too. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the details on the tattoo is that I got it so that I could wear a college shirt and you wouldn't be able to see it

because in the back of my mind, I knew I'd have to get a real job one day. That kind of conditioning of you will, work in an office and you have to be academic was so deep inside of me that my rule book and my teens became, as long as I get good grades, nothing else matters. And yeah, I completely saw myself going on to work for a financial institution or company or organization and just continue on in that path. And I guess you were really into reading about entrepreneurs and CEOs and sort of self-made millionaires and billionaires.

I mean, did you study them? Was that inspiring to you? Well, I didn't have your podcast to listen to, guys. So I had to find another way to do that. And I guess at that time, you had to go and read books. And this was actually the genius of my father. So I grew up thinking I didn't like reading. And so I never picked up a book and read a book front to back

if I didn't have to for school until I was. 14 and the reason is because I realized I didn't like fiction books and I didn't know that I just thought I didn't like reading and so when I turned 14 my father started giving me biographies and autobiographies whether they were of spiritual people or whether they were of CEOs or entrepreneurs or whatever it may have been and so I remember the first two autobiographies I read by my own choice where David Beckham's autobiography I was a big fan of David Beckham I'm a big Manchester United fan. And I remember reading the autobiography of Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

And that was when he was in the WWE and WWF when I used to watch it. So those were the first two autobiographies I read. And I loved them because inside of them were like these real stories of sacrifice and of discipline and of focus. And I realized that everything that school was trying to teach me, I was more inspired to do because of these two individuals sharing their story vulnerably. as opposed to the traditional way. And so it was less about the money and the success

and it was more about the fascination of, wow, this person has really given up something. I remember reading about the rock talking about his experience with depression and how he'd broken through that and how he didn't have very much when he started out. And at the same time, there were spiritual texts that my father was introducing me to,

whether it was the Bhagat Gita or whether it was a story. story of Arjun in the Bhagut Gita. And so it was almost like my dad introduced me to the book that would get me interested in reading. And I think that's the genius of that moment in my life because otherwise I grew up believing that I wasn't interested in anything. For me, those biographies, or not a biographies were doing that. And that's what I was interested in. Yeah. All right. So you are in business school. And I guess in your first year, a friend of yours kind of dragged you, were kind of reluctant. But they were like, hey,

there's this guy, he's a monk, Garanga Das is his name, he's going to come speak. Come, come along. First of all, who is Goronga Das? So, Garangadas is a monk who's based in India. He himself graduated from IIT, which is like the MIT of India. Sure. Exceptional gold medal standard, first class student, phenomenal at what he did. He left that life after he graduated to go off and be a monk.

And in his life as a monk in the Hindu tradition, he's gone on to start eco-villages, start on food distribution programs, and all this service-based philanthropy work. And today I still try and spend as much time with him as I can when I get to visit him. So yeah, that's a bit about him. And I talk a lot about him and think like a monk. So tell me about the story. A friend said, hey, this guy's coming to talk. Did you even know who he was?

No. So I had zero idea and zero interest of who he was. because at the time we were hearing from entrepreneurs that were starting amazing businesses. I was reading books about celebrities that were world famous. And I was fascinated by rags to riches stories. And when I heard that a monk was coming, I was like, well, that sounds like a rags story. A rickest to rag story. Yeah, a riches to rag story. I was blown away by people who'd gone from nothing to something, not nothing to nothing. And I really was very skeptical and had very limited views on how beneficial this would be to me. But I asked my friends, I said to them,

I'll only come if we go to a bar afterwards. And that was my state of consciousness at the time and my level of frequency. And my friend said, yes, yes, yes, we'll definitely go to a bar afterwards. That's the plan. And so I went to this event, literally expecting nothing. And I think this is the beauty of life-changing moments and the irony of life-changing moments that they humble you in hindsight. because I went there with arrogance and pride and thinking, what am I going to learn from this monk? And then you walk away, just having found a new life path that truly changes.

And what it was for me was, I'd never heard anyone at the age of 18 speak about the things he spoke about. He spoke about selfless service. He spoke about living a life for the benefit of others. He spoke about using your skills and talents in the service of others. And now when I look back, Guy,

I realized that when I was 18, I'd met people who were rich, I'd met people who were famous, I'd met people who were beautiful and stunning and powerful, but I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly happy. And he emanated happiness, like he emanated joy. And when I watched him with his charisma and his energy, and he's a brilliant storyteller too.

When I saw him, I thought, I want to spend time with this person because it wasn't about the things he had. It was about the values he had, and you could see them in his presence. And so I just started gravitating towards him as if he was the most beautiful person in the world. I mean, just like a combination of his energy and his message just struck you and what, you went up to him afterwards, and you were like, hey, can I keep in touch with you? Did you go and talk to him right then and there?

Basically, I was like, how do you keep in touch with a monk? Like, I was like, do you know, can we like, you know, have some correspondence? So yeah, I was always. eager to connect with people that I gravitated towards. And I approached him just like you said. And I said, hey, I'd love to keep in touch and want to get to know you more and know about your work more. And he was doing a lot of events in London at people's homes, at temples, at different institutions in London. And he said, well, why didn't you just come and join me at all these events? So he told me his calendar. And I literally, that week, I think I went to every single talk that he gave.

Wow. Because I was just fascinated by what he was sharing. And we became very good, almost like friends that week, because he would see me front and center row every single time listening to him, connecting with him after the events. I'm just, it's so interesting to me because 18 is still such a young age. And our brains are still developing. Like our level of sophistication will grow exponentially for the rest of our lives. 18, you're still on the precipice, like the verge between childhood and, you know, and adulthood. And it's it's striking to me that what he said to you, you know, it affected you so deeply at 18.

And it seems like, Jay, you can't even fully articulate it because you, right, you don't, maybe you don't really know why, but you just felt it. Yeah, it's, I give the credit to him because it was his power and strength that was able to penetrate. my 18 year old mind. You know, I was just a lost 18 year old kid looking for a thrill. But I think it was the first time I got exposed to the idea of living for something beyond yourself.

And for whatever reason that is, that idea kind of became contagious in my mind. And I was just like, that sounds like the goal of life. Like to help others, to serve others with your gifts,

with your talents. It just resonated. And because, because he had done that too, because he had left a materially successful life to serve, it penetrated deeper because it was his reality and truth. It came across very aligned and authentically towards me. That encounter inspired you to begin spending a series of summer vacations in India at an ashram. It's clear why you made that decision because you were inspired by him,

but how did you identify a place to go and study? Well, it was the ashram that he studied at. So it was the Rada Gopinath Ashram in Mumbai. And I asked him if I could come and spend time with him. And we'd built up such a good friendship during our time in London. He was probably there for a total of a month at that time. And he kind of took me under him as an apprentice almost. And so I would just go out there,

whether it was my Christmas holidays or my summer holidays, and I was just try and spend, whether it was two weeks, whether it was a month, whatever I could get. I would go and be with him and the other half of it I'd be interning at financial companies that I thought I'd go on to work at

so I got this I was experiencing two completely different ecosystems where I would go from sleeping on the floor to living with the monks to meditating every day to then wearing a suit heading into the city of London bars, steakhouses and corporate culture and I was living these back to back

during the summers and whenever I'd come back from living with him in the ashram, I would feel a sense of peace. I would feel a sense of purpose and meaning. And every time I'd come back from the office, I'd feel tired, a bit disengaged. I wouldn't feel enthralled with the work we were doing. And I just started to move more and more in that direction.

And so when you graduated from business school, you decided to move to India and stay at the ashram and to become a monk. Yeah, absolutely. And people always ask me, like, you know, was that difficult? And the answer is it wasn't difficult because of all the mini steps I'd taken every year from the age of 18 to 21. And so when I go off at 21 to make that decision and make that leap, I already knew the monks there. I'd lived there before.

I knew what the living situation was like. And so it almost felt like this was almost like a moment of graduation and excitement. And so I missed my graduation ceremony back in London. I graduated but never went to the actual ceremony and the giving of the certificate. My mom's still upset that she doesn't have a picture of me standing there with my hat and with my certificate. But I was so excited,

but at the same time, that decision was met with so much cynicism and so much negativity from my extended family. My parents by then had got used to me making crazy decisions and letting me go along with them. But my extended family were saying things like, you know, you're never going to make money again. This is career suicide. Like, you've been brainwashed.

Like, what have they been feeding you? What have they been telling you? I remember my friend saying to me, I remember one of my friends saying to me. He said, well, if you're going to be a monk now, how can we be friends? And I was like, we can still be friends. And he goes, no, but all we did was talk about women. And I was like, really? I was like, is that all we talked about?

Like, is that all you thought of our friendship? And it was just, I was hearing all these really random things. from people. And so it felt like a very lonely decision. It felt like a very isolated decision. Yeah, I mean, there's a photograph of you in robes. I think your head is mostly shaved. Is that right? Yeah, I only have a couple of pictures as my time as a monk. Your head was fully shaved. You're dressed in full on robes. You only get two robes. You wear one. You wash the other one. You sleep on the floor on a very thin mat with a covering. And no place is yours in the ashram. So you sleep wherever there's space every night and someone could take your space.

You live outside of a gym locker. So everything you owns literally fits inside of a gym locker. So I remember before I left, I remember giving away my football soccer jerseys to my friends and handing them out. And I remember giving away lots of my prized possessions, which I really asked for back when I came back, but no one gave them back to me. And it was a big, big move. And all I remember of it was feeling so excited. but at the same time knowing that it was met with so much criticism and negativity, and it wasn't easy.

You would end up staying for three years. Tell me what your typical day was like. Classes, meditation, what was it? So we would wake up at 4 a.m. every single day, and at 4.30 a.m., we would have the first collective prayers. Those would last till about 5.15. Then from 5.15 to 7.15 would be. personal and individual meditations,

a two hours of meditation. And then 7.15 a.m. would be another collective prayer ceremony for another half an hour. And then from 7.45 to about 8.45 would be our first class of the day. And then finally, at 8.45, you'd have some breakfast. And so that was our morning every single day.

Now, the rest of the day was different. Some of them were study days and meditation days where we'd be meditating some days for four to eight hours at a time, studying for four to eight hours at a time. Some of them were service. based. We'd be out distributing food at schools. We'd be out trying to build this sustainable village. We were doing lots of philanthropy work. And the reason why Gorongadhas's path attracted me so

much is that half the day was self and half the day was service. And I saw this as a beautiful formula for life because I realized that I didn't want a path that was fully solitude or fully isolated because that didn't feel like reality. And at the same time, I didn't want a life that was fully philanthropy, but then you weren't working on yourself. And so this path really allowed me to go deep into both those areas. At what point did you start to realize this isn't the life for me, that this is not the life that I should be pursuing the life of a monk? I'd say it was about two years in.

I'd taken a lot of my experiments very tough. So I was one of those people that was like, I want to test where the meditation really works. So I would only sleep four hours and I would barely eat And I would be like I'm gonna test where the meditation can do this for my mind We'd do crazy fasts I was just trying to push my body so much And what I didn't realize is that you can do that with a 22 year old body

But it's not sustainable And two years in I started to realize that I had a very independent Rebellious in the positive sense that I see it now nature And what I started to realize which I only now know in hindsight is that my desire for independence and my own inner calling

was stronger than my commitment to the community. And coming to that realization that what I'd left everything for was not going to be my life for the rest of my life, which is genuinely what I thought it was going to be, it was the hardest awakening because it almost felt like I was getting a divorce.

You know, I was 18 when I first met Gorongadas, for three years while I was at university, all I dreamed of was becoming a monk. Then I became a monk for three years. So that's like, you know, the formative years of my life were like, I'm going to be a monk, this is what I'm going to be, this is my identity. And then to realize that it wasn't, it was the harshest reality to come to. And I literally describe it like a divorce or a breakup from the love of your life because I was dedicated and committed to that path.

So 2013, I think you're 24, 25, you come back to London. Did you come back with the goal of just jumping back into where you left off and finding a corporate job? So we'd traveled as monks as well. We'd traveled to London. We'd been to Europe. I'd lived in London and Europe as a monk as well as India. But when I came back for good, I was just scared. I was really fearful.

I came back to all the noise again. We told you so you wouldn't make it. We knew you were brainwashed. You were never going to make it as a monk. You've dated too much in your life to make it as a monk. How are you ever going to make that happen? Oh, who's going to hire you now? Do you know the job market's even worse?

And all of that noise in my head was so scary. I was genuinely stressed, depressed, lost, confused. And I felt completely disconnected from real society. I'd forgotten how to have small talk. I didn't have a network. I didn't know what job I would get or what I would do. And so really, for the first month, I kind of like just wasted time. The first thing I did was buy lots of chocolate.

I hadn't eaten chocolate for three years. So I had a ton of chocolate, dairy milk, brilliant chocolate brand in the UK. I ate a lot of chocolate, listened to Drake, caught up with episodes of how I met your mother, which I'd never watched before. and I watched the whole season, like all 13 seasons, I think it was. I just kind of went back into like this old life of habits as a student almost. And it was about a month into being back where I realized that that was only feeding my fear. Yeah.

And that was only making me feel lazier and feel less smart and feel less able to navigate the world. And it was at that point where I realized that actually if I applied everything I learned as a monk, this was going to be the test and the exam for whether it really worked. And so I saw that 2010 to 2013 was like being at school and 2013 onwards was the exam for whether what I learned at school actually worked. And it was at that point where I decided I need to live like a monk outside in the world with the meditation, with the practices because by the way, eating junk food, listening to music and watching TV is definitely not helping me.

back in just a moment, how Jay Shetty began to find a way to bring his experience as a monk into his post-munk life. But before he could do that, he had to find a job. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2013, and after leaving his life as a monk in India, Jay has moved back in with his parents in England. He's trying to kind of pick up where he left off. He's got a business degree and he's applying for jobs, but he's not getting many responses.

People won't even give me an interview. Like they won't even get me into the room. Because surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire someone who has monk on their resume. They're like, what are your transferable skills? Like being silent and sitting still, like no one wants that. And genuinely, I was just getting, I was getting more and more depressed and stressed because I thought, you know what?

Everyone was right. They were right. I failed at life. I messed up. I failed at being a monk and now I failed at life and now I'm not going to get a job and now I'm not going to make money and I can't take care of myself and my parents are getting criticism for like, oh look, you let your son go off and look, he's ruined his life now and that noise is high and I'm feeling all of this pressure and then finally Accenture gives me a

break. So I get a job at Accenture, which is a large concern. consulting firm for anyone who doesn't know. And I get a break, but I'm now 26. So I started Accenture in the October of 2013. And I'm 26 at this time. And everyone who's got that same job is 21. Because I've joined their graduate program because they wouldn't allow me into any senior roles. And almost immediately, as I went back into that lifestyle, which was very weird now, I'm going back to wearing suits. I'm going back to networking events. I remember our first night, corporate companies always put on these networking events for your start group. And it was pizza making. And it was so

funny because I was just like, I hadn't eaten a pizza for quite a while. And I'm sitting there, like, trying to make conversation and, like, talking to people. And I realize I know nothing about what's happened. Like, I'd forgotten, I mean, obviously, by then I knew, but I didn't know who'd won the World Cup. I didn't know who the Prime Minister of the country was. I wasn't aware what the coolest, trendiest things were. Right. And so here I am just trying to to talk about meditation and mindfulness at a pizza making networking event. But I've really found that I'd fallen so in love with the practices that I kept trying to share them more and more inside the company. And the most amazing thing happened that almost in 2013, 2014, it was the same time

that mindfulness started to become a movement in the world, and meditation started to become a movement in the world. And I just feel so blessed and fortunate to have come. back at that time, you know, it's nothing to do with me. I'm just grateful that the world was in that space. And I remember my head of my group at Accenture found out that I had learned meditation and mindfulness. And she invited me in 2014 to speak to a group of a thousand consultants on stage about mindfulness. And so in 2014, I'm seriously nervous because I'm in between the CEO of the UK and Ireland company Accenture. And the other person that's speaking is Will Greenwood, who's a rugby world cup winner

with the England rugby team. And they've got me, unknown Mr. Jay Shetty analyst at the company, Newby, been there for six months in between on stage in front of all of my peers who don't know who I am and don't care. And I've been asked to teach mindfulness and meditation. And I remember the whole time I was listening to the CEO and Will Greenwood, I was sitting there going, oh my gosh, they're so funny. Oh, God, that was a really good point. Oh, God, like, what am I going to do? Like, I was stressed.

And then I remember, before I went on stage, I did my breathwork practices that I'd learned as a monk. And I remember saying to myself, look, just be you, just be you, just be you. And I went on stage and I taught a meditation. And when I got off stage and I spoke to my managing director and everyone, they said, Jay, we've never heard that group of people be that quiet for that long. ever. And the event went so well that on top of my day job as a consultant, I started traveling across the company internationally teaching mindfulness and meditation. Wow. Across the company to directors, colleagues, people, and it just was such a beautiful experience and feeling. So that really, I mean, that really sort of kicked off what would become a completely different

career. I mean, it sounds like you were on the, you know, sort of on this accountant's or consulting track, and that one kind of shift, that one nudge that got you on that stage really kind of set you off in a completely different path. Yeah, it gave me a sense of confidence and a sense of reassurance

that what I had to offer from my experience was useful to people. I think that's the point is that I found a use. But there's another nudge that a lot of people don't know about Guy, and I want to share with you is that at the same time as mindfulness and meditation sharing

was growing in my life, I was also getting involved in extracurricular activities at Accenture. At that time, Accenture was becoming extremely focused on digital and social media. Now, I didn't have a social media account until 2014.

Like, the only account I had was a LinkedIn account because of university. But I had no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, nothing until 2014. And so I joined 10 years late for Facebook and five years late for everything else. And so I start up a social media account. And I realized that there's some power in social

media, but I don't know what it is, but I love connecting with people and I love messaging. So I'm intrigued. And so Accentia has a program and they say that if anyone wants to do this as an extracurricular, they'll be trained in social media by these social media experts that they brought in. So I I kind of just felt a sense of interest in curiosity, not knowing that it would ever become my life. And I started performing really well at social media at work. I went on to be the number one social media person at Accenture globally, our 500,000 people working and training our execs and clients on how to use social media for work.

And so it was almost like these two worlds at Accenture gave me skills, confidence, strength, abilities that then finally obviously came together. And meantime, right, you are working on mindfulness, but you're also becoming more adept of social media. And it sounds, I mean, it sounds to me that, like, you know, those two ideas meld in your mind and you come to the realization that, well, maybe I can take one and use the other to amplify these messages. Yeah, absolutely.

I just, I could see that mindfulness and meditation was helping the corporate world. and by then I'd been speaking at other companies and organizations in London, but inside of me I felt slightly dissatisfied because I was like, the world needs this, beyond the boardrooms, beyond the companies, beyond the organizations, everyone needs this.

And I was thinking, how does everyone get access to this? And I thought, well, social media seems to be the only way you can reach everyone. But before I did that, I didn't feel confident enough to do social media. So I started pitching my video series idea to media companies in London.

So before I ever made a video, I had the idea for a mindfulness-based video series idea and I started pitching it to every media institution in London. And I applied for a trainee video journalist position to try and get my foot through the door. And 10 companies said, no, they said, you have no communications degree, you have no background in media, you're not getting the job.

Right. So then I networked with my network at Accenture through other people to meet execs at companies. And I asked them, I said, well, will you give me a job? And they said, well, Jay, you know, you're too old to be in media. Everyone who wants to break through is 21. I was 28 at the time. I then spoke to someone else.

And they said to me, well, Jay, you know, you're like, you're not accomplished in this space. You're not a proven presenter. Like, you should, don't worry about this. And I ended up at an ethnic minority TV training day run by the BBC at Pinewood Studios. Oh, wow. I went there to test whether I had the skills. I walked into a room. There were six brown and black people in the room.

And we were trained in presenting. At the end of the day, they said, Jay, you've got some skills. You've got some talent here. And I said, great, give me a job. And they said, there's no jobs in media. I was like, you invited six ethnic minority people to tell us there's no jobs in media. Like, this is great news for us. And they said, you should start a YouTube channel.

Wow. And my honest thought process and response was, that works for just. Justin Bieber and one in a billion people that does not work for me. Yeah. And I love Justin Bieber. I'm a believer. But I was like, that works for him. He's incredible and talented.

That's not going to work for me. And I realized, and there's a beautiful statement by Thomas Edison, when you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't. And it was at that moment in my life where I realized that social media was the only option I felt I had left. Wow. if I was to try and serve the world in this way. So you basically started your own channel.

And many people will be familiar with your videos because they're dramatizations with actors and you're in the videos. And how did you start just with like a, I mean, did you just start filming things yourself? Yeah. So one of the things that we didn't touch on was that I started a society or a club at university

called Think Out Loud. and every single week, I would give a talk on philosophy, media, and psychology. So I would take a movie like Inception and I would analyze it from a philosophical, psychological, and media point of view. And students would gather to hear me speak for free, no followers, no numbers or any of that stuff. And we went from having 10 students in my first year of university to 100 every week coming to hear me speak about philosophy, psychology, and media.

And so I'd been speaking and delivering and making content for 10 years before I ever made a video online. And so my first video I made was actually a script and made up of scripts that I'd written and shared for years before that I'd already tested out in audiences and people that heard me share those messages. And my friend was a wedding and corporate videographer. And I said to him, you've got to come out with me. And actually, he was always very encouraging of me. He always said to me like, Jay, you should make more videos and media. And so we went out, we're still, we always try and figure this out. It was either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

We went out really early in the morning. And literally London was empty. So we could shoot in some of the most phenomenal locations in London for free without a permit. So we had no permits. We had no, we had none of the, the professional things that we could have. We had a boom mic that I was using my backpack to. to make it stand up right. And he brought his camera

and he had a brilliant eye for like backgrounds and lenses because that was his profession. He did it for free for me. And we shot four videos that day in different locations. I took my t-shirts in my backpack and I would change my t-shirts.

And we put up my first video which was called three lessons I learned from the Baguagir Gita which was the book that I studied as a monk. And the video did about 5,000 views in 24 hours. Wow. wasn't bad at all. That's how we got to my first video. And it's, I mean, it's amazing. I mean, eventually, Ariana Huffington somehow cut wind of videos

that you were putting up and I guess reached out to you and said, hey, you know, do you want to work together? This is my favorite bit because anyone who's trying to break through on social media, this is the formula that I used that worked for me. I made a list of every single exec at every single media company in an Excel spreadsheet and I emailed, tweeted and mailed every exec every week when I released a new video.

I got tons of hate on Twitter. I got tons of criticism. People saying this is terrible. It's not a good video. I never heard back from lots of execs. I heard back from lots of execs that said, Jay, we like it, but we don't need content like this right now.

And then what happened is I was also sharing it on the internal social media network at Accentia, and my global HR leader at Accenture, Ellen Shook, saw the video. And she showed it to Ariana Huffington at Davos. Wow. So they were at Davos together.

She shows my video to Ariana Huffington. The next thing I know, Ariana Huffington's team gives me a call and says, Ariana loves the video, we love the video, we'd love to talk and get to know you. Wow.

Two of her team members, Danny Shea and Dan Katz, two people that I love and adore and who changed my life as well. They fly to London to meet me. I meet them at the Huff Post offices in London in Victoria. And I go there, going ready to ask for a job because now I'm like, this is my moment. So I go there and I'm like, guys, give me a job. And they're like, slow down, Jay, slow down.

They're like, we're going to share your videos on the Huff Post page and let's see how it goes. There's no money. There's no anything. Let's just see how it goes. From that day till the day my first video comes out, I send Danny Shea emails every day for 30 days saying you promised me that we were going to put my video out. Why have we not done it yet? And so I'm pestering this guy again and again and again.

Finally, after like 21 days, he responds and says, Jay, let me introduce you to one of our producers. We can get it going. We put the first video up. It does a million views in a week. Oh, my God. We put the second video up. It does a million views in 24 hours. Wow.

We put the third video up. It does the same. and those four videos I originally made did a collective 100 million views. And that's when Ariana Huffington and the team. And by the way, I'm pushing it the whole time. I'm like, okay, now I think it's about time I moved to New York.

Now I think it's about time you offer me a job. Right. And Danny comes through. He gives me a job offer. Ariana and Danny sponsor my visa. And I moved to New York in September of 2016. Basically, you begin to do the same thing but within the Huffington Post.

And just for, I mean, I know a lot of people watching and listening, know your videos, but for people who don't know, what were the messages in those videos? The messages in my videos were messages I think I was trying to live by at the time. And so there are messages about failure, messages about deep reflection,

messages about breakups and romance, messages about never facing rejection with a negative response. And my massive transformational purpose became making wisdom go viral because I really believed at that time that cat videos were going viral and dog videos were going viral

and people taking their clothes off was going viral and I was like I want to make wisdom go viral. And it seems to me like you really studied how to do that. I mean even the headlines of your videos are like if you're in a breakup and you're sad you have to watch this, right?

Like you were really, sounds like you were really studying other videos that were going viral and you were trying to use some of those techniques. Yeah, well, I realized that there was no use in making something powerful if no one was ever going to see it. Right. And that was my initial worry with social media was, well, I'm just going to be one another person making content.

And what I started to realize, and this was actually a really deep point that led to those titles, was that I realized that the only time a lot of us seek guidance in our life is in the transition. It's in transitions that we seek mentorship and guidance. advice. We don't seek advice when we're in a stable place. And so when I made a video called Before You Get Married, Watch This, it's because I believe that that is what you need before you get married. And so those titles were born from a very deep place of recognizing that people only turn to guidance when they're in a transition.

And you were taking the messages that you had learned and assimilated, studying in the Ashram and reading from these books that were filled with wisdom. Yeah, I was actually bringing together everything I'd learned, whether it was from autobiographies and biographies, whether it from the entrepreneurs that I loved growing up, it was from the ashram, it was bringing together all of my unique experiences because, you know, in my 20s, I lived three different lives. I lived the life of a monk, the life of management consulting, and then the life of media. and it's interesting because I think I'm all of them.

And I think that's the most beautiful thing that I've learned in this whole journey is that every time things have evolved for me, I feel more of myself as opposed to having to decide which one I am. And that's what I was sharing. You know, Jay, many of our listeners will know that you eventually went off, I think, in 2017 on your own, to do this on your own outside of an organization. and I'm interested in talking to you a little bit about the business side because you are the brand. And we've done shows where the person is the brand. Logic is a good example.

We just had Rick Steves on the show, The Travel Guru. He is a brand. You, Jay Shetty, are the product, right? How did you begin to kind of come to terms with this idea that your business and what you were creating was going to be? one of the things that I realized and this was rewiring my relationship with money and business so I didn't grow up to a wealthy family I wasn't around wealthy people growing up I didn't know many entrepreneurs or CEOs growing up personally and in 2017 I had a hundred million views but I was four months away from being broke wow and so I had 100 million views we had about 400,000 followers and I hadn't thought about business or I hadn't thought about money because all I was trying to do was serve and give and then I was in this awkward situation where I had four months left

to pay rent and groceries living in New York City. I got married six months before that and I had 30 days till my visa ran out in the US and that visa cost $15,000. So I was in this really difficult situation and I've never felt more stress or pressure in my life than at that moment. And what I realized in that,

moment is that I had always lived with a just enough mentality. And so growing up, I was at zero in my bank account so many times. I've experienced zero so many times. And I can see a comment popping up from my friend Alex Kushner, who's saying I remember it well because we both went our separate ways from the organization at the same time. And we were both, he'd got tickets from his friend to a Rangers hockey game in New York. And it was my first ever game that I've been to and last ever two. And we were sitting there in the stands just talking about like, what were we going to do to survive? And I realized at that point that if I truly wanted to serve and create content that I really believed in, I had to think about business. And that if I really wanted this message to last in a

sustainable way, I had to think about business. And so what we did was I started to think about businesses that I truly believed would help serve the audience that we had. One of the biggest requests that I would get from my audience was, Jay, I want you to coach me. I want you to coach me. I was a certified coach. I was a certified life coach and meditation coach. And I'd focused on purpose. And I would get, I would get thousands of messages every day on Facebook and Instagram DM saying, Jay, I want you to coach me. Right. So the first thing we decided to launch was my genius coaching community. And this program is a dedicated monthly coaching program where we have thousands of people from over 140 countries in the world now that come together every single week where I'm delivering a workshop on a theme around

physical, financial, mental, emotional or spiritual well-being. And so that community has now been running for three years. Like I said, we have thousands of members from over 140 countries, and it's a paid program. And we've seen phenomenal results. People find that their happiness increases just from 90 days of being inside the program. And we've done all this research and studies on it now. And it's been one of my favorite things to do. So you have, you have, I mean, essentially, and it sounds actually a little bit like logic or Rick Steves in that you've got videos and your videos are free content. And I have to assume that that probably isn't driving most of your revenue, right? But it's – and I might be wrong, but what I'm assuming is that the videos, the podcast, those – that's content that, you know, may be a lost leader, may not make a whole lot, but that doesn't matter because you also have the coaching and then the book, et cetera, that drive the revenue.

that enables you to have a team around you? Absolutely. So I set it up like this. I realized that I had what I call entertainment ventures that are there to entertain, serve, and are free to the audience. And then we had educational programs that helped anyone who wanted to go a step further, go further with us. So in the entertainment space, we have my videos that are obviously absolutely free.

We create three new videos a week. We had my podcast on purpose, which is obviously absolutely free, that launched in 2019. And then we have my book. And of course, the book's not free, but the book also sits in the entertainment part of being available to everyone. And on the education side,

we have my genius community, we have my courses, and last year we launched my certification school. So last year, we spent a year investing in building a fully global, accredited, certified life coaching school. And our program now,

in just the first nine months of launching, we've had a thousand people that have signed up to go off and become life coaches with us and serve humanity because I realized that I couldn't extend myself, but I could share what I've learned and my expertise with others. So it's been so fulfilling. I mean, it's so remarkable because what, six, seven years ago you were like in your parents' house kind of trying to figure it out. And seven years later, here you are with a real robust business, right? I mean, there is a pretty big difference between life as a monk in an ashram and life as an internet or social media star. And I don't

disparage that at all. I think that's an incredible achievement. But I wonder, I mean, how are you able to live your life like a monk as best you can, but also meet the demands that come with all of these things that you do? Yeah. And the answer is I get it wrong all the time. I'm not perfect and I make mistakes all the time and that's why I wrote the book called Think like a Monk, not live like a monk, because I don't live like a monk anymore. I'm married. I have businesses. I'm an entrepreneur.

I live in a home. I don't sleep on the floor anymore. And I don't believe I want to encourage anyone or in myself believe that people should live like monks. But when I encourage people to think like monks, I encourage us to think about why we do what we do and the intention behind it. And for me, I realized, as you just heard me, share that when I started the businesses and everything,

it was to realize that if we wanted to continue to make an impact in the world, we needed to be more organized. And there's a beautiful statement that I love sharing from Martin Luther King, which really underpins how I think about this question that you've shared, those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves

as well as those who love war. And to me, that's what's missing is that often spiritual teachers, guides, people who have messages, people who have ideas, have not been organized or strategic or focused in their sharing. And that means that we can't really get into people's lives in a practical, accessible, relevant way. And so to me, I've had to become everything I don't want to be, quite frankly,

in order to give it as far as I can give it. And so for me, the way I still try and think like a monk is I have my morning routine, so I still meditate for two hours a day every single morning. I wake up at six, I don't wake up at four. And that dedication in my morning practice, I'm reading the same spiritual text that I read. I'm reading for at least 30 minutes every single day

to dive deeply into them. So I've set morning routines up that are so similar to what I lived as a monk. that I still experience it. And then every year in January, this is the first year in eight years that I haven't gone because of COVID. Every year I go and live in the monastery

for two weeks to four weeks every year still to live with the monks again, to reconnect with them and to reground myself. And so like I said, I make plenty of mistakes. I'm not a monk at all anymore. But these are some of the practice that I've held on to help me continue to think like a monk. I think, and you talk about routine

in your book. And I think routine is so crucial. It is so important and so hard for so many of us. But I think that routine is essential. You know, for me, the hardest day of the week in my family is Saturday. And it's not hard for me. It's not hard for my wife. It's hard for my kids because we don't allow any screens on Saturday. We just pick Saturday as a random day. So we take our screens. We lock them up on Friday night and we only take them out on Sunday morning. And that means that my children who are nine and 12 don't get to be on their screens. And they're used to it now. It's been a year. But they really dread it and they hate it. But I tell you, Jay, and everybody listening, I think about Saturday starting on Monday, starting on Sunday. I think about that day the entire week because I cherish it so much that I have forced our family to live like a pre-internet, pre-cell phone family. And it is a gift. It's the greatest gift that I've given to myself this year.

I love that. That is, I mean, that is absolutely beautiful. And I don't have kids yet, but I'm going to, I'm going to be calling you up for all your tips and advice because I love that. And in my home, what we've done is with me and my wife is we have no technology zones and no technology times in our home. So we believe that at the dining table and in the bedroom, that's not the space for technology. and then after we had dinner and then before we've meditated and worked out in the morning, we don't look at our phones.

So we've set up that routine. So the first time I look at my phone on any given day is 8.15 a.m., which is after I've completed my meditation, even though I'm up at 6. And so drawing those boundaries have really helped me have a clear baseline as to how to have that no technology time. And similarly to you,

like that's really helped me in not being sucked in and not being plugged in all the time. Jay, we have a lot of questions, and I want to get to a few of them before we say goodnight. This is a question from Leah or Leah, and I hope one of those pronunciations is right.

Leah or Leah asks, it's been a tough year for many people, including entrepreneurs, and it's looking like it's going to be another difficult few months before normal comes back. How do you suggest people think of this time in our lives? How do you suggest that we contextualize,

this moment so as not to go into a dark place. And you've been in dark places. I've been in dark places. It can be debilitating to get out of them. How do you suggest people think about this moment in their lives to avoid going into that dark place? Absolutely. Leia, thank you for that wonderful question. And what I've realized for a long time now is that the worst thing that we can do at a tough time is judge ourselves. And so often we put the pressure on ourselves to be the perfect person, the perfect parent, the perfect partner.

And that struggle for perfection leads to no progress and we end up feeling very dissatisfied. And so the first thing is to give up that judgment of yourself because as soon as you place that judgment on yourself, it's breaking you down. The second thing I'd say is I've truly found that the times in your life that you think are the worst

always turn out to be the best if you see them that way, when I look at the toughest times in my life, the only good thing I did was to say, this is going to be where everything good comes from. And when you approach it with that mindset, rather than approaching it with the mindset of like, this is just a bad time and it's a dark time. And it's almost like saying,

oh, today's a dark, rainy day, which means it's going to be a terrible day. And you've already predicted the day based on what you've experienced. Or you could say, well, I'm going to make today amazing. We're going to play games indoors. We're going to go and go our doors and dance in the rain, whatever we're going to do. And you get the opportunity.

So I would really set that intention. And the third thing I'd say during this time is use it to learn something that you've never had time to learn before. Use it to explore and experiment with something that you've never got to do before. Because when you come out of it, that will have become a skill and a habit. And then it's going to be so useful to you. And you're going to realize you're going to look back and be so grateful that you invested this time wisely. Yeah. Thank you, Leah, for that question. I love this question also from Daniel Ferber, and I can really relate to this question. Daniel asks, what is the best way to deal with anger? Can you stay happy all of the time? And before you answer that question, I wanted to underscore this idea that we all have anger within us. Some people have different levels of it. And it's something that I struggle with. A lot of people struggle with. It's sometimes inside of us. How do you deal with anger, Jay?

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, no one's happy all the time. Everyone goes through moods and emotions, including me, no matter how many years I've meditated for. And it's part of life. It's the only way you won't feel any other emotion apart from happiness is if you do nothing. And even if you do nothing, you still can't be happy all the time. So definitely not that. Now, with anger, what I find with every emotion that we experience is that it needs to be embraced and healed. The way I think about anger is look at your anger. as experiencing your child being angry. And Daniel, if you're a parent, you'll be able to understand this. If you're not, look at someone else who's with their child. If your child came to you and they were angry, a parent who's trying to be conscious and aware

will recognize that there's something that's causing pain to that child and they don't understand it yet. They would embrace that child and ask them, what's going on? Tell me about it. What's really happening with you? And we've got to talk to ourselves

in the same way as we talk to our children as the same way you talk to your nephew, your niece or a younger person in your life and go, what is it? Where is that coming from? What's the root of that? And when you start having that conversation with yourself, you start to coach yourself in anger. So rather than avoiding it or saying, oh, just breathe or just meditate or just, that's not the point. The point is to understand where is it coming from. And so to find space to have that conversation with yourself, to find space to have that interaction with yourself is actually what's missing in our lives. And when we do that, we find that. We find space to have that interaction with yourself is actually what's missing in our lives.

When we do that, we find the root, and then we go, oh, okay, I get it now. I understand it now, just as you would with your child. Daniel, thank you for that question. This is a question from John, which is such an interesting question. John writes that he also lived as a monk for a few years in a Buddhist monastery. He says, I am still trying to overcome the reluctance to charge people for teaching ancient teachings. Did you have that reluctance? And if so, how did you make the leap?

I only overcame that very recently and I overcame it realizing that two things. The first thing was that I really do believe in giving away as much freely as possible and therefore as Guy was sharing earlier, my videos, my podcasts, we're creating so much content for the whole world all the time that no one ever has to do anything paid if they don't want to.

But what I realized is that when people paid for something, there was a commitment. Now when you became a monk and when I became a monk, you paid with your time, you paid with your service. We paid by cleaning pots and by farming the land. I'm sure you did similar things. Whereas today, when we pay with our money and our time, we're actually more committed.

I've seen that in my genius community and in our certification program, people show up, they bring their best energy because they've invested something that they find valuable. And I think that's what's really hit my heart and help me overcome that, is realizing that you're actually doing a disservice to people by not giving them the opportunity to commit effectively to a program or a path.

Jay, when you think about it, I mean, it probably felt like a long time, right? 2013 and those first few months of trying to find work and the frustration of being back in your parents' house. But here we are, you know, seven and a half years later, and here you are. Do you ever reflect on that journey and just how incredible it is from where you were then and where you are now in such a short time? Yeah, I honestly, Guy, feel like completely humbled and grateful every day, just like I felt when you reached out, because I'm such a fan and admirer of your work.

And, you know, I'm friends with people that I used to watch on TV. I'm lucky enough to connect with people that I admire so deeply in such a personal way. I feel imposter syndrome often. I have gone through so many bouts of feeling like I don't deserve the life I have, that I don't belong where I am and that maybe I'm not worthy enough and I'm not qualified enough. I feel that way all the time. And I love that feeling. I actually embrace that feeling just like the anger because it keeps me being that kid in London that I truly am. And all my friends are also still the same. Like the person I talk to the most has been my friend for the last

16 years. I speak to him every two, three days. He was the best man at my wedding. My best friends are all still back in London because we have so much history together. And the best thing, and I remember Robert Downey Jr. saying this in an interview. And obviously Robert Downey Jr. is this larger than life personality. And he was saying how when he walks in at home, his family aren't like, oh my God, it's Iron Man. They're like, oh, do you want to take the trash out and maybe take the cap, you know, out? And, you know, it's, I think the beauty of life is that when you're surrounded by a, I have an

amazing wife, parents that I love, my sister. the people in my life treat me no differently. That's a blessing too of to be always be surrounded by people who want to keep you humble. And the best part about all of it is my teachers. So my monk teachers, I'll give you this example. When I tell my monk teachers what I'm writing about and what I'm sharing and even if I'm coaching someone

and I'm saying I'm coaching this person, this is what we're working on. This is what they say to me. They say, Jay, you're so lucky that you get to help everyone with all of your problems. and that's their response, you know, and it's hearing that from your monk teacher who's 70 years old and someone that you love and respect so much, it brings you right back down to earth. So I just feel really blessed to have witnessed the journey I'm witnessing.

It's just the beginning. I'm right at the beginning of it. I literally believe I've just got started and I'm excited for the next few decades. How much of what's happened to you so far do you attribute to how hard you worked and how strategic you were? how much do you attribute to luck? I attribute all of it to my training as a monk and my strategic training that I got from my parents and then school. I don't really believe in luck.

I don't believe in it also carmically because I'm a believer in the law of karma and the law of karma would suggest that we're put into situations where we consistently have a choice. And so that choice then defines what happens next. And although I see many areas in my life as being areas of great fortune, and I call it fortune instead of luck, because fortune feels like a blessing. It doesn't feel like to me, and of course, it's all semantics and definitions. To me, the word luck feels like chance, and to me the word

fortune feels like a blessing or a gift. And I would rather live my life feeling that I've been given a gift than that I have had good luck and a good chance at something. And so I feel extremely blessed and fortunate to live the life that I lived, and I feel a great sense of responsibility because of it too. That's wellness coach Jay Shetty, author of the book Think Like a Monk and host of the podcast on purpose. This conversation took place at a virtual live event in March to find out more about NPR's virtual live events. Visit nprpresents.org. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not a subscriber, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You want to write to us our email address is HIBT at NPR.org.

This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Remtin-Arablui. Thanks also to Janet Ujjong Lee, Liz Metzker, Farah Safari, Derek Gales, Bruce Grant, Almanian, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.