How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S17, Ep2 Jay Shetty on failing to fit in, learning to love and how to survive heartbreak

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Jay Shetty is the monk-turned-self-help-guru who grew up in Wood Green, North London and now counts Will Smith among his closest friends. His mission - to make 'wisdom go viral' - has seen him become a number one bestselling New York Times author with over 14 million Instagram followers. His podcast - On Purpose - is the biggest health and wellbeing podcast in the world. His latest book, Eight Rules of Love, is a guide to finding, keeping, and sometimes, letting go of love.In this interview, Jay talks about how to date, how to cope with rejection and break-ups and how to make compassionate decisions. He discusses his upbringing and his early struggles to fit in and what his time in the monastery taught him, as well as his failure to live up to his own standards of kindness. It's an enlightening listen. Thank you, Jay!--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Jay Shetty's latest book, Eight Rules of Love, is available to buy here.--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpodJay Shetty @jayshetty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Jay Shetty has been a monk, a best-selling author, and a wedding celebrant. He recently officiated J-Lo's wedding to Ben Affleck. His podcast On Purpose is the number one health and wellness podcast in the world. On it, he's interviewed everyone from Alicia Keys to Kendall Jenner with the aim, as he puts it, of making wisdom go viral. His 2020 book, Think Like a Monk, topped the New York Times bestseller list. His latest, Eight Rules of Love, teaches us how to develop the skills to practice and nurture love. Deepak Chopra called it excellent and Joe Jonas says it's beautiful. It's all a long way from wood green North London where Shetty grew up. He was

a rebellious teenager but then went to the Cass Business School in London where, dragged along by a friend, he attended a talk given by a monk. It proved to be a life-changing event. At 22, Shetty was inspired to spend three years as a monk across India and Europe, waking at four every morning, fasting and meditating for up to eight hours a day. Now Shetty's mission is to help everyone apply the enlightened principles he learned during that time of his life in order to be happy. Happiness and success are two different things, he says. Happiness is all about how you feel and how you live. Anyone in the world can be happy. Success is awards, accolades, wealth, achievements. You can be happy and not successful.

You can be successful and not successful. You can be successful and not happy. Or you can be both. And I want both. Jay Shetty, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much for having me. And that was a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much. It's an honour to be in your presence. No, I'm so grateful to be in yours. This is so wonderful. And I'm really excited to have this conversation. Ditto. I wanted to end on that quote because it's so interesting. I feel that we live in a culture which often elides happiness with success. And that can be very confusing when you're growing up in that culture because you think you want one thing and then you might get it and you realize it actually hasn't made you feel content. Do you feel that you've got both yourself today? Do you feel happy and successful? If I'm honest, I feel at this stage in my life, I can say that I'm genuinely on the path of both. I say on the path because I don't think any of

them are ever a place that you arrive or finish or complete. It's not like a level in a game where you say, okay, well, I've made it now and there's nothing else to do. But definitely I've pursued both paths very intentionally and consciously. And I think that's what I was trying to get across when I said that statement originally. Whereas this idea that I think a lot of people, by confusing the two, lose out on both often. So just as we sometimes think of success as happiness, we also think of just happiness as success. And both are untrue. And so I feel at this point in my life, I intentionally pursue them, but for different reasons. I think that intentionally pursuing joy and presence and connection creates happiness in my life. And if I wasn't to pursue that, my external pursuits wouldn't give me that.

I wouldn't just one day find those things. And similarly, I love the idea of how much I grow and learn by trying to do more things in the external world. I'm trying to do more things in the external world. The idea of building a podcast or writing a book or building a company and having a team of individuals who I learn from every day and grow from every day. That, to me, creates a growth in the form of success. And so I'm fascinated by both those parts. And I'm on both those parts even now. Do you think you're competitive? Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I'm on both those paths even now. Do you think you're competitive? Absolutely.

Yeah, definitely. I'm definitely competitive. I'd say that I constantly focus on how I can do better than myself rather than how I can do better than others. And so I'm competitive with myself in, am I improving my process? Am I improving my understanding and analysis? Am I improving how I perform? Because I think that the outward form of competition, which is largely based on comparison,

just makes you a worse version of yourself, or it makes you a worse version of someone else. And that's not the kind of competition I'm interested in. So I'm honestly every day trying to be better than myself. And I think that that creates a really healthy relationship with being competitive, rather than living in a world of comparison based competitiveness, which I think is really unhealthy and can really hurt you. Yes, and I've fallen into that trap. It's something I strive against every day to try not to be comparatively competitive. And one of the things that I have found very helpful is the idea that being successful is actually about being

the fullest, the most version of you, that that's our purpose on this earth. What for you, I know your podcast is called On Purpose, which is such a great name. Does your purpose shift day to day? Or do you have one consistent purpose for your life? I have one underlying purpose that has been developed over many, many years. So it's not that I one day arrived in it because I was journaling and I was just doing a quiz and I ended up with it. And I always try and loosely help people recognize that purpose isn't this thing that you have to figure out in your head and then you live it. It's something that you collect over time. You collect skills, you collect experiences, you collect feelings, you collect emotions. And then when

you curate them together, it creates a purpose. If I look at my purpose today, I collected public speaking and drama school training from age 11 to age 18. I collected business experience during my time at Cass Business School. I collected the years of experience I had as a monk. I collected years of digital social media experience from Accenture. And then today, when you look at what I live, it's like a beautiful mocktail of all of those things. And so I think purpose is collected. mocktail of all of those things. And so I think purpose is collected, but my underlying purpose is to dedicate my life to helping other people find theirs. And I do that by making wisdom and

ideas and habits more accessible, relevant, and practical. That's my goal to make education spread as fast as entertainment. And if we can make enlightening educational ideas in an innovative way, then people will absorb it and consume it like entertainment and it will actually improve their lives. A lot of entertainment is escape, but I want to create entertainment that elevates our minds. And I really believe it can be done.

And so that's my purpose. So those are the areas of my life that I'm dedicated to and that fuel me and wake me every morning. And that's been how I felt for probably the majority of the last 10 years now or 10 years plus. But the way the vehicle changes, so the format changes. So originally I was doing that through doing events in the city of London when I lived here. And maybe two people would show up or maybe five people would show up. And I was living my purpose because I was making wisdom accessible, relevant, and practical. And I was trying to make it innovative. So I was still living my purpose then.

And then when I first started creating my videos, that was four-minute videos. Then we launched a podcast. And the podcast was one to two hours. Then I wrote my first book. Now my second book. So the medium and the format changes, but the vision and the purpose behind each one was exactly the same. And the purpose satisfied me because the purpose was never attached to a number or scale or to followers or likes or sales because it started

when none of that existed for me. And so the purpose is something that will fuel you. I think Albert Einstein has this beautiful thought where he says, if you want to be happy, don't tie it to a person, tie it to a goal. And I changed that to, or add to it to by saying, don't tie it to a person, tie it to a purpose. And that purpose is something that can fuel you forever, regardless of the external result. You must get an enormous amount of offers that come your way. So do you have a shortcut? Do you have a way of checking in with your instincts and being like, does this align with my purpose? That's an easy no or an easy yes. Yes, absolutely. So I have a three-step method it's called esm energy strategy

money it's very very simple and i do this all the time with any opportunity that come the first thing i ask myself is is this energetically aligned with my purpose what i mean by that is when i'm in this person's presence or this brand or company's presence when i connect with them i see how they speak about themselves is it aligned with improving people's lives? Are they building this product? Are they creating this opportunity? Because they genuinely believe they want to improve the lives of others. Do they want to make people happier, healthier, and more healed? So that's the energy point.

Now, if I don't feel that it aligns on that level, we don't go through to the next point. So that's door number one. So it's stages. It's stages. That's door number one. It's stages. That's door number one. So if you made it through door number one, door number two is strategy. Okay. Someone can have really good intentions and really good energy, but do they have the strategy to know how to actually implement this? Do they actually know how to develop this idea further? Because someone can be really wonderfully intentioned, but

that doesn't mean that it's going to work and that doesn't mean that they're going to be able to get there. And obviously we're talking about this from a professional point of view. This is not about, I don't do this with people. We're talking about professional opportunities. The next is strategy. And then the final one is money. Is the money aligned with what they're saying energetically and strategically?

Does it make business and financial sense and i think that those three doors have always helped me in any decision making because they allow you to really focus on what's most important to you which is the energy but then making sure that the strategy of money is backed up by that as well so interesting because i have a rule of three i love it which is passion pay prestige oh very close i know it's very close i like your words yeah i love an alliteration energy strategy money has just always been that way i guess they all uh end in y but yeah yes that's true yeah let's get on to your brilliant book which is eight rules of love and it is so everything that you have just spoken about. It makes wisdom so accessible and relevant.

And I told you before we started recording, I wish that I'd read this in my 20s. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Having said that, I'm now married for the second time to a wonderful, but thank you, to a wonderful person. But the road to get there was strewn with failure and taught me a lot. And that's why I wish I'd read your book, because it's so profoundly wise about so many things I want to ask you about.

I'd love to add that. First of all, thank you for sharing that with your own experience. And second of all, congratulations on believing that love was possible and you still had the full permission to love again. And you you were lovable and you could find it, which is incredible. And also I'd add that I'm not ever concerned that someone may have failures in love because like you said, and me included, I made a lot of mistakes in love early on in my life, which is what led to this book as well. But it makes you appreciate what you have so much more now. And that gratitude that I have for my wife, I'm sure you feel that way, that gratitude you have, it actually makes this even better. And so if anyone's out there and they've been through a lot of pain or they've been treated really horribly, or they've had the worst experiences and had their heart broken, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not

saying it's okay. I'm not saying you deserve that at all. I'm just saying that when you do find it, you will have this deep appreciation and gratitude in a way that you could never have had it if you didn't have those experiences. And so I just want to point out that no one should ever feel discouraged that if they've failed or lost love too many times, that that's a bad thing.

I could not agree more. That was so beautifully put. Tell us about breakups because that is one of the things that really affects listeners to this podcast and massively affected me when I was going through them, because there is no grief quite like heartbreak. It's such a specific and individual thing. And you have some great advice for it. And one of the things that I found most beautiful in this book is that idea that you might be broken up with, but you're not broken. Your soul is unbreakable. Can you tell us a bit more about

that? Yeah, definitely. So first of all, I want to say that if anyone's had their heart broken or has gone through a breakup that was painful because of what someone said or how they treated you, the truth is that it will always hurt because when you look at the science behind heartbreak it says that we feel the same chemical shift as when someone's trying to detox from cocaine and so if you think about that it's like being addicted to a drug that was fueling you and filling you up that wasn't good for you but it was still an addiction. And now that it's been removed from your physical or even emotional presence, you now literally have this feeling of what's craving for another human, just as you crave back for cocaine. And so the fact that it hurts is real and true.

And we should validate that. You shouldn't feel bad that it hurts or that you're a weak person or that you're someone who doesn't have a backbone. Or if anyone says to you like, oh, just get over it. The fact that you can't get over it is a very real emotion. We shouldn't just shun it or push it aside. And then to answer your question, I think what we often find is that we believe that someone's love for us is what makes us lovable. So we believe that if someone values us, then we're valuable. If someone likes us, then we're likable. And so all of our self-belief, self-value, and self-esteem is based on someone else's view towards us. So then when that person leaves, we feel broken because they just took what we so deeply needed. And I approach this from a very spiritual point of view in the book, which is what you just mentioned now. And I've referenced

often the Bhagavad Gita, which is the book that I deeply studied during my time as a monk. And the book is over 5,000 years old. It's originally in Sanskrit. There are some English translations, which are beautiful to read and understand. And that book talks about how consciousness or our first self, as I like to call it. We have so many selves, but our first self is unbreakable. It's insoluble. It's unburnable. And the idea that there's this part of you that existed before this person, during this person, and after this person will always be there. There is a you before every relationship, during every relationship, and there will continue to be one of you before every relationship during every relationship and there will continue to be one of you after every relationship and yes this doesn't solve the heartbreak but it's something you should know inherently and deeply it's very moving that because you can apply it to so many things you can

also apply it to grief that there will still be a soul as you you're experiencing this horror, you will get through it and you will still exist. I think that's a very meaningful thing for people to hear. Talk to us about trust and the expectation we have that love should be quote unquote magic. And so we sort of scatter all of our trust tokens immediately. Yes. I love the language of trust tokens. That's really great. I love that. Trust fascinates me because I consider myself to be someone who always wants to trust others, who generally has positive feelings towards others. And I want to like others and be liked and do good things with them. And I think that's most of us. Most of us feel like we want to trust

others. But I think what I found throughout life was just how trust was something that shouldn't just be given away. It should be something that's earned both by ourselves and by others. I should feel I have to earn my trust with you because we have a new relationship. And the other person should feel they have to earn my trust back. But what often happens is that the halo effect creates this idea where we just give trust away. So if someone's attractive, we believe they're trustworthy. If someone's smart, we believe they're organized. If someone's well-spoken, we believe they're kind. So what we start doing is we start ascribing qualities of trust to qualities we perceive.

And that's where it starts to go wrong because that person hasn't shown you that. You just assume that they have that quality because they have another quality. Oh, they went to a good school. They must be really reliable. They must come from a good family. We start giving them all of these trust tokens, as you said, without actually letting them earn it. So in my first book, Think Like a Monk, I broke down the four levels of trust. The first level is zero trust. When I meet someone new,

and when you meet someone new, as painful as it sounds, please start at zero trust. Often we think of trust as binary. We often think I either trust you, I don't trust you. I actually have four levels. The first is zero trust. When I meet someone, they're starting there. The second level of trust is transactional trust. This is when I say to you, especially in the dating world, I'll be there at 9pm. Does that person show up at 9pm? I'll call you the first thing in the morning. Did they call first thing in the morning? Now they call first thing in the morning? Now, of course, there may be a couple of times this doesn't happen.

That's forgivable. But do we have a level of transactional trust with them or not? Oh, yeah, I'll make sure I send that email to you. Oh, yeah, definitely. I'll be there at 12 on the dot. These are the moments where we get to see transactional trust. And often, if we like the way someone looks or we believe that they might be an amazing partner, even if they completely don't follow transactional trust, we'll give them that benefit of the doubt because there's something else we find attractive and

fascinating about them. The third level of trust is what I call reciprocal trust. This means you have had really good experiences of the first two, and now you do nice things for each other without counting. You're not checking every time a transaction's made. You're not having to watch whether it happens or not. You've gained that level of trust where we do nice things for each other, but no one's counting. And the fourth level and the highest level of trust is unconditional trust. And I call that God-like trust or parent-like trust, which you're not necessarily going to have immediately with anyone. And that's something that could take years to develop. And it's a divine level of trust where I trust you with my whole life. And basically, the higher level of trust you give to someone, the more levels you have to fall. So if you gave someone unconditional trust just after three months, then you're going to end up at zero after three months, which means you just topple down four levels. And that's what hurts. Whereas when you say, OK, they were at one and I expected one or I thought they would be at one, but I got zero, then it's not going to hurt as much.

And so it's a really tactical, practical way of measuring trust. Super clever. And I think that there's a misapprehension that people believe that sort of attitude is somehow unromantic. Absolutely. I think everything I'm sharing sounds really unsexy, unromantic, unmagical, but it's all designed to save you from pain. It's all designed to save you and protect you from setting yourself up for a failure. Often we say, oh, that person misled me. And I'm not saying there aren't people that mislead you, but often we mislead ourselves by giving away trust without anyone earning it. I mean, I looked at, again, I'm looking at research, so I'm not basing this on my opinion. I'm not basing this on my personal experience. I'm basing it on research. Studies showed that around 60 to 70% of people feel too pressured to say, I love you or hear the words,

I love you in the first month. Now that's challenging because sure, we all want to fall in love, but I promise you there's no one who can truly stand by that statement after one month. Men say, I love you within one month and women say, I love you within one month. And women say, I love you within three months. Then studies go on to say that it takes 40 hours to consider someone a casual friend, 100 hours to consider someone a good friend, and 200 hours to consider someone a great friend. So if you need 200 hours to consider someone a great friend, you can't have done that in one month. It's just not realistic. If you saw someone once a week, even if you saw someone once a day for two hours,

that'd be 60 hours in a month. So we're almost giving away really high levels of love for very low levels of time. So interesting. So I had an expectation when I met my now husband, we met online, we met on Hinge, and I was 39 at the time and because I had grown up on a diet of 1980s rom-coms and we're coming on to that don't you worry but I just

I was in love with the idea of love as it had been portrayed on screen in fiction and it took him six months to say that he loved me that and I thought gosh it's taking ages it's taking ages I refuse to say it first because I'm like ridiculous power play and I always remember when he said it he said I've taken this long because when I say it it's a commitment and I felt so safe then that he had said it within those parameters. And it was so beautiful and so romantic precisely because we've gone through those stages. And you write in the book about how we mean different things when we say, I love you. And we have to check in with each other what that actually quantifies when we say that statement. Yes. So I have a rule in the book. One of my favorite

rules is define love before you say it or feel it. Because so many of us, our definition of love is based on someone else's experience. It could be movies, could be media, could be our parents, could be a family friend that we saw. Love is such a interesting word because someone could say, I love you. And it means I want to spend my life with you and someone else could say I love you and it means I want to spend a night with you and everything in between that spectrum and so the challenge is when we hear the words I love you we hear our own definition when it came out of someone else's mouth and obviously we want to say it back so

badly. We don't stop and go, oh, wait a minute. Can you explain what that means? Like, what do you mean by that? You would never do that. And I don't recommend anyone should, but before you hear it and before you say it, make sure you've understood what love means to that person. What does a relationship mean to that person? The fact that your now husband said to you, to me, it means a commitment. That's so beautiful that you knew that, which meant when he said it, hopefully he felt he could live up to that commitment. Now, if someone else to them, love just means I feel attracted to you. I'm really into you. I really like you. And they say, I love you. You may take it to be, oh, that means they're committed, but that's in your head. That's not what they said.

And I think there's so many definitions in between. So I'm not saying you have to go up to your person you're dating and say, what does love mean to you on your first date? But I think you have to decipher and understand as time goes on, how does this person view relationships? Are they scared of commitment? Do they have a history of that as a challenge? These are all things that we have to discover because otherwise we set ourselves up to believe that everyone wants the same love we want. And they don't, not everyone does. And that's okay too.

Now, I know you watch Selling Sunset. Yes, that's my guilty pleasure. I wonder if you've ever watched Love Island. I have, so my wife's watched Love Island and I've watched her watching Love Island, but I've watched maybe bits and pieces, but not something I've watched myself, yes. I only ask because I watched Love Island and I've watched her watching Love Island, but I've, I've watched maybe bits and pieces, but not something I've watched myself. Yes.

I only ask because I watch Love Island. I love reality TV and they say, I love you very, very quickly. And so that I was interested, but in a way that sets up a false expectation of love in the same manner as romantic comedies that we love to watch. What's your favorite romantic comedy of all time? Oh,

in a good one. So I really do appreciate. He's just not that into you. It's so good. love to watch what's your favorite romantic comedy of all time oh in a good one so i really do appreciate he's just not that into you it's so i think it's really good it shows a lot of how we perceive things how we make challenges like there's all the characters in that movie are really far more realistic than most rom-coms and i think the scenarios are far more realistic where you assume someone likes you because they message or you kind of push someone away because you're talking about the wrong things. I think that movie's probably got the best examples in it. Before we get onto your failures, I know you've got an issue with the notebook.

I talked about that recently only because I had an ex-girlfriend that made me watch the notebook a million times. But I think I really sat because of it. No, no, no. I enjoyed it at the time, but I think I really sat and analyzed it because of that. I mean, you mostly don't watch movies again and again and again, but I must have watched that movie like at least 10 times during that relationship.

And I sat down to analyze it because I felt it had so much power culturally. Notebook is such a big movie. And by the way, just to point out, I love Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in actors. They're phenomenal actors. The movie's great. I think it was just the writing of the story. And again, I don't think it was wrong. It's just how people did confess their love. And there are so many scenes in that movie, but one of the scenes is he's like chasing her on the street and she looks

uncomfortable because of it. He's like running around her, walking, moving really fast. And you look at that and go, wow, he's so smooth. He's so into her, you know, because he's a good looking guy and well-spoken. And he says to her, he says, I'll be anything you want. I can do it. Tell me what you want. I'll be it. That's such an unhealthy misconception to say, I'll be anything you want. Whatever you want, I'll be it.

Well, most people, A, can't live up to that. And B, if we want someone to become whatever we want, then do we really love them? Or do we love an idea? The second ones that I really have a struggle with is she's on the Ferris wheel, like the London Eye, I guess, but the old school ones. And he's hanging off of it, literally by his arms. And he says, if you don't go on a date with me, I'll let go. And it's like, can you imagine someone threatening to take their own life? Like that's a really like quite a toxic, unhealthy idea to put someone under that pressure. She goes, yes, yes, I will. Just don't let go. And it's like, that's so uncomfortable for her too. She's been put in that. And I think

so many movies over time have built this idea of the damsel in distress and the savior and the knight in shining armor. the woman has to wait for her prince. That whole idea naturally has made so many people think one day my prince will come and save me. Even if you don't think about it in those words, and I want you to be very careful. I'm not saying you sit there and wait for a prince, but there's a part of you that believes that someone will come and save you. And if you have to be saved, that means you're the one who is saved, which means you're broken, which means you need to be fixed. And if you have to be saved, that means you're the one who is saved, which means you're broken,

which means you need to be fixed. And so it perpetuates all these ideas of I'm broken. I'm unlovable until I'm loved. I'm unlikable until I'm liked. I'm not valuable until I'm valued. You do talk a lot about unlearning, which I think is such a powerful word because we do, all of us have that task of unlearning what

society has conditioned us to believe what our families of origin might have conditioned us to believe and working out who we are and what we are for ourselves and I see failure very much as part of that that actually what is failure failure is when life doesn't go according to plan whose plan is it is it actually yours yes yes and I wonder i'm going to ask you about your failures now but just broadly speaking how do you feel about the concept of failure can i rewind a little because i wanted to comment on what you just said because it sparked a thought for me something really interesting that i came across so when we think about these milestones that society places, i.e. studying hard, getting a good degree, getting a good job, getting married, having kids,

often we go through those without even questioning whether that choice is something we actually want. So it's like, oh yeah, of course you have to get married. Of course you have to have kids. That's what happens after marriage. Of course, of course, of course, of course. And I think often people ask or feel I'm running out of time. Oh my gosh, I'm so late to getting married. Oh my gosh, I'm so late to having kids. And especially women, of course, have that pressure because of their body clock, et cetera. So that pressure is even felt more by women. And when I look at that strongly and deeply, I often encourage people, stop asking the question, is this the right time? Because timelines are based on society's definition, mostly. And instead ask, do I understand how this decision will change

my life? And the second question is, do I like how it will change my life? So if you're thinking about getting married, it's not about whether you should get married or not. It's not about whether it's the right time or not. It's do I understand how getting married to this person is going to change my life? Do I like how that will change my life? That's when you know. And the problem is we're thinking, well, do I need to get married? It's the wrong question. So anyway, I just wanted to interject there and add that. Yeah. I just wanted to help give people a practical tool to use for decision-making. How do I feel about failure? Yes.

I've gone silent because I want to give a very thoughtful, reflected answer because I don't think there's anyone who could truly say they enjoy failure or they like failure. I think that would be a very bold statement with some fiction attached to it. But I would say that I've just learned that it is unavoidable. So I'm no longer surprised by it. And I'd say that if it happens to me, I no longer see it as a sign of my inadequacy. I see it as an opportunity to grow, an opportunity

to pivot, or potentially a chance to say, maybe this isn't my path. And so I no longer see it as a reflection of my worth, my self-esteem. But I also know it's always going to happen no matter how hard I try or no matter how perfectly I execute something. It's always a possibility. And I think we live in a world where we think, well, it's not even a possibility or we can avoid it. And now I've learned, and I remember studying, and this is something I wish they taught in school. And I really hope that we find a way to teach it more in school. We learn history of a country or a nation, but we don't deeply study the history of human beings, of actual people. And I got really lucky because I got so into autobiographies and biographies when I was in my teens. So I'd read Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, all the way through to

David Beckham and Dwayne The Rock Johnson by the time I was around 18 years old. And I loved the spectrum of those individuals because they've all inspired me in different ways. And you can learn so much from any one story. And then many years later, I read Steve Jobs's biography by Walter Isaacson, who I've had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Isaacson. And when I saw Steve Jobs's life and to think that he was kicked out of his own company, only to go and build Pixar in the meantime, to then go back to that same company, to lead it again to further glory. When I look at the people I look up to and I'm inspired by, they've all constantly failed and faced rejection. And that's what convinces me that if I'm failing, it's absolutely normal. But if you never studied those lives and you never

studied those stories, all you ever see is, oh yeah, Steve Jobs was really smart. He was really successful. He was worth like a hundred million dollars by the time he was 30 or whatever it is. But it's like, that's really not the story. And so what you're doing with your podcast is, is really beautiful and wonderful because, and I know we are going to talk about failures, as you said, I think that's a really healthy way to think about people's stories. I think we look at what people did right, but we don't look at where things went wrong. Exactly. We look at their CVs. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history

that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago,

these words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Your first failure is about when you were seven or eight years old. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so this failure is probably, and I really tried to think what was the earliest failure I had, because I think our failures as children often affect us much worse. And we often, obviously, at that age, do not have the ability to process and say, this is part of my path. Like, obviously, I did not have that perspective. So yeah, I was around seven or eight years old in primary school

in London. And we used to have something my school did that was beautiful is we would celebrate every culture. And so there would always be a celebration of everyone's religious holidays and all of this kind of stuff in primary school, which I really appreciated. I think it was a great education in that sense. So this one was an assembly where I was going to have to sing something in my mother tongue. And I was going to have to not only read, but sing in a language that not many people in my school recognized. And I was dressed in traditional Indian clothing. Now, I was overweight as a kid, and the clothes didn't quite fit right. I didn't necessarily look good in them. But my mother was hoping that I was representing my culture and it

would be a really proud moment and I went out onto the stage at school there were around I don't know 400 people in the assembly hall and everyone pretty much started laughing or giggling or from the moment I walked out because I just didn't look like I fit in that day. And I look different to how I usually looked. I then started to sing. I've never had a good singing voice. I don't sing to this day. I won't even do karaoke. I have a terrible voice.

I then start to sing and everyone just is in stitches, like completely laughing. Because not only am I singing, I'm singing in a language they don't recognize. All the kids start laughing. Even some of the teachers were laughing. And then I forget the words because now I'm distracted by everyone else's laugh and pointing and whatever else they're doing. That I look down at my piece of paper that I'm holding to try and remember the lines. And I can no longer read the lines because

my tears have smudged the words. And so now I've forgotten the words and I can't read them. And I can no longer read the lines because my tears have smudged the words. And so now I've forgotten the words and I can't read them. And I know I'm crying. And now everyone's laughing even more because I'm crying. And so my teacher now walks on stage to comfort me. She puts her arm around me and walks me off stage. Now everyone's laughing even more because I've had to be comforted off stage. This was my first ever experience of public performance or public speaking. I felt like

such a failure that day because for the rest of the day, people were pointing, laughing. I felt like I'd let my mom down because I hadn't represented my culture properly. I felt like I'd let my teachers down because they trusted me to go on stage. I felt like I'd let my friends down because obviously I was the laughingstock of the school I'd forgotten the words and I felt like a failure that day because in all sense of the word it it was a failure Jay I can't I I actually I find stories like that so heartbreaking the powerlessness of being a child and wanting to make your parents proud and your culture proud. The fact that you don't do karaoke to this day, is that because of this? No, no, no. I'm just, I have done karaoke.

I would never do a solo karaoke, let's say that. Okay. No, no, no. I'm just, I'm being honest in the sense that I've never felt I've had a good singing voice. I definitely don't have a good singing voice. I'm very okay with that. I have no trauma attached to having a good singing voice. Otherwise, I'd be a singer. with that i have no no trauma attached to having a good singing voice others i'd be a singer no i think more so it was at that time this feeling of just i don't know if i ever want to go back on stage ever again you know that kind of feeling of i don't think i'll ever ever step back in front of

a group of people again and usually when i tell that story not between me and you but if i share it on stage usually people are laughing in the audience too. And so it's really nice to have your compassionate empathy for a change. It was my inner child definitely needed that. Was there an element of not fitting in that you were fearful of at that time? Definitely. I think that I was one of the few Indian people in my primary school. And so people already didn't know Indian people. I was already bullied for having smelly food sometimes in school or things like that. And you're 35, aren't you? I'm 35 now. Yeah, I'm 35 right now.

So there was that, there was not, yeah, not being open to obviously Hindu dress and Indian clothing. And, and then of course me being overweight on top of all of that. It didn't, so there was, you know, I can understand it too. I think it's really interesting, you know, kids are fascinating because they're adorable and beautiful. And at the same time, so many of us do things as kids that we would never do as adults. And so it's always interesting. But I have a lot of empathy and compassion, even just for all the kids in the room, because it was just new to them. What did they know? They weren't educated in it. They didn't understand. As kids, you never get told to encourage others or support others. You may say be friends with that person, but I don't think we

teach our kids to be encouraging and supportive and accepting I don't think you hear about those words as a kid at least I didn't even even though my parents loved me I don't think I heard those words and said oh when you see another kid do something difficult encourage them I don't think I was ever told that by anyone by my teachers either so I also have a lot of compassion and empathy for the fact that you have to train these ideas we have to teach people these things're not, I think we assume that everyone should just be nice to each other, but why would they if they've never heard that? I'm not saying that this incident in and of itself had this effect, but do you think you ended up feeling unlovable at a time in your life? I think that there's another experience that happened a few years after

that made me feel not unlovable. I've never felt unlovable because my mom's love has pierced through every pressure layer or whatever else exists. I think my mom has loved me so deeply that I feel so safe in a deep sense that I don't think I've ever thought myself to be unlovable, but I have thought myself to be unlikable or unwanted or unattractive. And I think those are very different things. And I think we often mesh them all into one, but they're not. And so I remember at 10, 11 years old, end of primary school, all of the boys in school had their first crush around that age. And we all had the same first crush at school. There was this one girl at school that everyone

had a crush on. And no one told her because we were all scared. We didn't want her to know. You're 10 years old. What do you know? And I walked in late to school one day. I think I had a doctor's appointment or I was running late or something like that. And I walked in and everyone was again pointing and laughing at me. And I was like, oh, gosh, what's going on? And then one of my friends sent me a note and I opened up the note and it said, she knows. I was like, she knows what? And then I realized that everyone in the school, the girls and the boys have all told this girl that I'm into her and that I'm the only person in the class that has a crush on her. And then for the rest of the day in the playground, all these girls stood behind the goal. I was only

a goalkeeper. I was only allowed to be a goalkeeper because I wasn't very athletic growing up. And all the girls stood behind the goal and they kept shouting out, she's out of your league. I can't believe you thought you could be with her. You're so fat, you know, all these words. And I think that was more that feeling of I'm unlikable or I'm unattractive or I'm not attractive to the opposite sex etc and all of that and I think when in my teens when I became more athletic and I played sport and I felt like I became more cool in my teens I think that's where I really sought validation from the opposite sex where I really wanted the women I dated to really believe that I was a good guy and I was amazing. And I think my teens, I spent a lot of time trying to understand,

I wanted to be liked and validated. I didn't even want to be loved. And I think a lot of us accept the currency of validation and attention as love. We'll take attention and validation, and we'll even believe that it's love. But it isn't. Attention and validation isn't love. It's a form of liking and attraction. Love is far more deeper. Love is full of care. It's full of character. It's full of commitment. It's full of support. And so I think I, in my teens, was looking more for attention and validation than I was for love, even though it was under the guise of love. How do you see fame fitting in with what you've just said there? Because I think the reason that many people seek fame and then the reason why it's harmful for them is because they are yearning that validation and mistaking it for love. And actually it's pretty hollow,

I understand. But you are globally famous you have celebrity best friends you are highly successful extremely handsome I suppose what I'm asking is how do you protect yourself against being drawn in by that so I think I got really fortunate because the monk experience is a masterclass in detachment. And I'm not saying that I have complete detachment or that I am immune to any of the things you just mentioned. But I believe I have a masterclass training in how to deal with it. So it's not credit to me or who I am. It's credit to this very special experience I had. And so what was really interesting is when I went to the monastery, initially I sought the validation of the monks.

Yes. Because we're always seeking validation, right? We start by seeking validation of our parents, then our teachers, then people we're attracted to. We literally keep just projecting our desire for validation onto different people. So I even went and projected on the monks. The interesting thing was the monks were the first people not to validate it back or to reject it, right? So when you are attracted to someone and you want them to validate you, they either validate you or they reject you. The monks don't validate you and they don't reject you. They train you on how to deal with that. They teach you in how to validate yourself. And so during my time as a monk, I started to learn that the deepest form

of validation was validating myself in becoming the person who I wanted to be. If I was becoming the person I wanted to be, that was the best validation. And the only person who could tell me that was me. And so I really got to a place during my time in the monastery where I was very comfortable with who I'd become. I was very honest about my values. I was okay with those. I was accepting of those. And I didn't need someone else to agree or disagree to make me feel better or worse about them. Not that I finished it or mastered it.

I'm saying it felt real. That idea felt tangible to me. And I actually remember around that time, I organized a charity event when I left. And I remember two very distinct experiences where before my time in the monastery, if I was leading a project and people were criticizing me, I took that to heart. got a lot of people congratulating me. And it was really interesting because the same people that criticized me were the same people that were congratulating me. And I remember having a very deep, profound moment in myself that day and saying to myself, I can't let either dictate the course of my life because people will change their mind at the drop of a hat. And I can't let criticism or celebration dictate my values or the course of my life.

Again, this is something that's tested every day. It's not something that I've made peace with and I'm done and I've mastered it. It's something I'm constantly doing. So I'd say that now, because I've been doing my purpose for so many years, like I feel like I've been living the same purpose without success. I lived doing what I do today for 10 years before it ever became noticed. It's been noticed in the last six to seven years, but I've been doing it for 10 years before that. So this has been like a 17 year journey. Doing something you love for 10 years and not being noticed for it by more than 10, 20, maybe 50 people is a beautiful training ground because you do it for the love of it. And so today I still do it for the love of it because that's all I've ever known. I've done it for so long when I wasn't successful. And then at

the same time, when you get tempted by fame and you get tempted by pride and ego, which comes naturally to any one of us who's in a human body and has a human mind, it's really beautiful to be married and be humbled by your wife in very beautiful ways, not in judgmental or critical ways, but out of love. And I feel that my wife has been an incredibly grounding force because I think as I became more externally successful, I metaphorically held up my achievements to my wife, metaphorically, not physically. And I said, love me for this. Look what I just achieved. Love me for this. Look how cool I am. Look how amazing I am. Love me for this. Look at my bestseller list. Love me for this. Look how many views I got. Love me for this. Look

at how well my podcast is doing. Love me for this. And every time I asked for that from my wife, she didn't love me more for that or less for that. She's only ever loved me for who I am. She didn't love me more for that or less for that. She's only ever loved me for who I am. And I think that if my wife had loved me for what I achieved, I think I would have started loving myself for my achievements. But because my wife loves me for who I am, I think I'm constantly reminded to love myself for who I am because that's what she values.

And that reminds me of what to value in myself. And that's the beauty of a good relationship where what someone values in you can actually be a beautiful thing. I also spend a lot of time, sorry, I know it's a long answer, but there's just so much. I also spend a lot of time meditating on irrelevance and insignificance. And I recognize the inevitability of everyone's irrelevance and insignificance at some point in their life.

There is no one in the world who has held the same level of significance for their entire life and when they finally die and leave the planet. So why would I believe that that would be any different from me? There will be a day when I will be absolutely irrelevant and insignificant

and I have made peace with that now. If I can make peace with that now, then I'll make peace with it then. But if there's a part of me that believes that I have to be significant forever, or relevant forever, then I'm going to feel a lot of pain when that day comes. And my monk training is to detach myself before the day comes, not to wait for the moment when it inevitably will come, and then deal with it then. We'd often talk about how, you know, living as a monk, and this is a very popular Zen teaching, it's not my words, but life is not about learning to live, it's learning how to die because you're preparing for the inevitable.

And so I take that to be, well, sure, death is inevitable, but there's lots of other things that are inevitable. And preparing for those early on mentally and emotionally sets you up for success. So I'm making peace with that now. The friends that I have are genuine friends. I don't spend time with them because they're famous or even if that's the context we met in. I have some really beautiful relationships with people in the same way as I would count my best friends from London

that have been my friends for my whole life who are the people I still speak to the most. Your videographer. My videographer. I've known my videographer since I was 14, so 20 years nearly. He's been my videographer for seven years whenever I'm in London. But I think it's a daily practice. I don't think it's something you achieve. I think I have to think about these things every day. And I have to constantly detach and disconnect myself because

it's so easy to get swept up. And so I'm very vigilant of that. It's something I'm very cautious of. And I think the day I stop becoming. It's something I'm very cautious of. And I think the day I stop becoming cautious will be the day that I lose it. I really appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Let's get on to your second failure, which is that when you left the monastery, you reapplied for jobs in consulting and banking. Yes. And what happened? So leaving the monastery felt like a failure because since I was 18 years old, that became

my dream. And I fought so hard to get there. I had to first get through being 18 to 21 without thinking about settling down or moving into a job. I had to turn down a corporate job offer, had to break up with girlfriends at the time. I had to leave my friends and family behind. So many of my extended family said to me, you're brainwashed.

You're wasting your parents' education. You're letting your parents down. You're never going to get married again. You're never going to get a job again. Like, this is what I heard before I became a monk. And it's really interesting to me today because so many people say to me, they're like, Jay, you have such a cool story.

And maybe you did it for the story. I even get some of that criticism sometimes where it's like, oh, Jay, like, you know, did you just become a monk so that one day you could do all of this? And I'm just like, I'm like, I don't think you understand how uncool it was for me to become a monk. It's something hopefully that I've made more culturally interesting. But at the time, it's like everyone in my life looked to me as I was weird. Like, why would you do that? Everyone's going to work for a company and they're in a relationship. They're thinking about having fun and you're thinking about becoming a monk.

And so I left with a lot of negativity surrounding the decision, but I felt really confident in it. And then when I came back, I came back to that noise. So everyone's like, I told you so, I knew you wouldn't make it. Look, no one's going to give you a job now. You're never going to get married again. Look at all your friends. They're promoted. Did you know so-and-so just got promoted? Did you know so-and-so just moved into a new flat? Did you know that so-and-so is about to get engaged? Did you know so-and-so is making this much money now? You're 26 years old without a job and 18,000 pounds in debt. It was a really depressive moment. Depressive because I'd felt like I failed at being a monk, which was my dream, which really felt like I'd failed at marriage because I felt like I got married to being a monk and it felt like a divorce. Like it really felt like a breakup. And it was the lowest point of my life because I felt that was

it. I felt like I'd made it. And I felt like I'd found something only for me to realize that wasn't my path. And that's really hard, like to think something's your path and then realize it's not. That's so challenging. And I know a lot of people who tried to become athletes and then they had an injury and then they couldn't pursue it. That stuff really messes with your mind. And then when I came back, I'm coming back to all this stress and pressure and these, and they're right because I'm applying to 40 companies. I'm writing individual CVs, resumes, cover letters. I'm a first class honors degree resumes, cover letters. I'm a first-class honors degree, straight A student. I have nothing lacking on my resume, apart from I've been a monk

for three years. And no one will even give me an interview in London. Like, I won't even get through. I'll just get the automatic response that says, your application's not going further. So now everything everyone's saying is true. Three years ago or four years ago, when I became a monk, it wasn't true. Now it's true. Now it's real. And that feels like a massive failure because now I'm going, not only did I fail at becoming a monk, I now can't even reintegrate into society. And now I'm behind this idea of I've fallen behind and I've got debts to pay. My parents are not well off. My parents have been wonderful in supporting me. Let me move in again. But now I feel like a failure in my parents' eyes, even though they didn't make me feel

that way. I felt like a failure in my extended family's eyes, who definitely had that rhetoric. I felt like a failure in my friends' eyes because I hadn't followed through and now they were ahead. And I felt like a failure in my career because I couldn't get a job. And so that was definitely one of the lowest failure in my career because I couldn't get a job and so that was definitely one of the lowest moments in my life not the lowest it's the one before the lowest so yeah what's the lowest the lowest was I have this really big high in 2016 and 2017 when

my videos first get noticed I moved to New York because Ariana Huffington sees my content and I move over there and she wants me to come there and work as HuffPost. The day I get there, she leaves to start a new company called Thrives. And she's amazing. I love Ariana. I'm still very good friends with her. But it took so long to get my visa that it never quite worked. So I wasn't at HuffPost for very long. And I ended up being in the US in a new city, four months away from being broke and 30 days left on my visa. Otherwise I'd have to move back to London. And that's the most stress and pressure I've ever felt.

I don't count that as a failure because there wasn't really a failure there. It was just a situation, hence why I didn't include it. But it was just a really stressful position to be in where I just got married. We're in a new city. I've got four months away to pay for rent and groceries and then I'm out of money. And I have 30 days to renew my visa, which I can't afford.

And I don't know how to get a lawyer and I don't understand the process. And so that was the most stress and pressure I ever felt more than even coming back from being a monk. And it was after that so it felt even harder but yeah so just rewinding a little bit you got rejected from over 40 companies is that right yeah before you even got an interview before I got an interview yeah that's right so all the normal all the financial companies consulting companies like just any professional services company in London that I was applying to jobs for that were not out of my education but because of my age yeah we're saying no finally do you get a job at at Accenture so grateful we'll never be more grateful when I got that call back to the when I got the call for

the first interview I was like I'm gonna be the best interviewee of all time and then when I got a call back because it's like a three or four stage interview it's not like a one and done got through to the first part when I got through the, because it's like a three or four stage interview, it's not like a one and done. Got through to the first part. When I got through the second part, I was like, okay, this could be real. Got through to the third part. And I think, yeah, three or four, something like that. Yes. And while you were there, you started making these videos, which were helping employees with their mental health. Is that right? So I didn't make videos, but you know, when you join a new company, at least I loved how Accenture did it. They had a great onboarding practice and, you know, really, really good culture and how they set us up for success one of the questions was what's an

interesting fact about yourself my interesting fact was i used to be a monk and i can teach meditation and so my colleagues would come up to me and be like that's weird or that's really interesting like people that have different views and so i started teaching meditation and mindfulness classes at accenture in my lunch breaks, after work, at a client office. And literally two people would turn up or three people would turn up. And I loved it because I was getting to do what I loved. And there were people who wanted to learn. And I started to do this and I set up Meditation Mondays and people at the company would meditate at the start of a meeting. And one of the managing directors took a real liking to that work that I was doing because they were really prioritizing mental health. This is end of 2013

in London, really prioritizing mental health at the company, which was incredible to see. And she said to me, she said, Jay, I'd love for you to teach a session like this to your colleagues at the summer event, the annual event. And there'll be a thousand of your colleagues there. at the summer event, the annual event, and there'll be a thousand of your colleagues there. You'll be speaking on stage at Twickenham Rugby Stadium. And would you want to do this? And I was just like, this is unbelievable.

Like what an amazing opportunity. And then Jilly Bryant, grateful to her till this day for giving me that opportunity. And so I went there that day and gave this presentation and I was so stressed out because I was in between the CEO of the company and Will Greenwood who won the Rugby World Cup and he was invited as a guest speaker I'm just an employee at this point like and you have the memories of the Diwali performance and I've done a lot of speaking in between but not to that size I've done a ton of talks and presentations in between but not to that scale but I'm sitting there the whole time going, God, I'm not Will Greenwood. I'm not Olly Benzakri, who was our CEO at the time.

I was like, I'm not those people. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And then I said to myself, I remember, I've just got to be myself. I've just got to be myself authentically and everything will be okay. And then after that presentation, Jilly came up to me and she said, I've never seen a group of millennials be that present with anyone else on stage or be that silent. It was pin drop. And you can, she was like, you couldn't hear a thing. And that day I started from that day, I started teaching meditation across the whole company. And so that was like a real moment of just incredible. Yeah. It's so relief. I also want to ask you, I want to take you back to New York and those four months where

you're four months from going broke. And what happened next? Because it feels to me that your purpose was calling to you. It was almost dragging you through. Yeah. It was just this fateful light that was guiding you. Yes. Yeah.

It felt like another thing that had gone wrong, but it actually was an opening. I think if that moment never came, maybe I would have just continued making videos on the side or it would have been a nice hobby. And by the way, I would have been really happy with that because at that time I didn't know what was possible. So I would have happily had a hobby of giving talks on the evenings and making videos on the weekends. I wouldn't have had an issue with that. One of my mentors, Thomas Power, who lives in London, who was part of training us at Accenture on social media. He doesn't work at Accenture, but Accenture had brought him in. And he often would say to me, he said, Jay, you'll realize your potential when you're in pain. He said, that's when you'll

realize your potential. He said, you will never realize your potential when things are going well. And I used to always be like, I'm proactive. Like when you're proactive, you always know your potential. And those four months of being broke, like being away from being broke and having nothing and being married newly, that made me realize how much potential I had because I'd never been under that much pain. And so I got the most disciplined I'd ever got. I got the most focused I'd ever got. I sent probably like a thousand emails in that first week, letting people know what I could do for them. I would edit videos if they needed it. I could make training videos for their company if they needed it. I would, I was doing anything just to survive, just to live. But it brought this energy out in me that I didn't even

know I had, which was this relentless, resilient consistency and pursuit of excellence that until that point was not really realized. And now I live off that energy. Like, I think it's been the same energy that's fueled so many of the last few years, which is really beautiful. It's almost like you discover a gear you didn't know you had. And now I know which gear I can get to. And that's a really special, special thing that I got from that experience. Your final failure goes back to when you were 18 and you were leading a team and someone gave you some advice. Oh, gosh, yeah. I was leading a community youth group that organized retreats and events. And we'd taken a group of students to Italy. And I was new to this and I was new to management and new to leadership.

But I was getting a lot of criticism from the senior leaders in the youth group. It wasn't the most encouraging atmosphere. And a lot of people were saying to me like, oh, you're not a good manager. You're not a good leader. I'm 18 years old. I have no idea what management and leadership even mean. And I'm getting a lot of criticism. And to me, they're the ones who did this before. So they must know, again, this idea that they're an authority, they must know more than me. So I'm listening very carefully. And one of them said to me, they said, you know, Jay, you're not very assertive. You're like not a very assertive person. That's why you'll never be a good manager. You'll never be a good leader. And really what they were saying is, Jay, you're not

tough enough. And then they went on to say that they say, you're not tough enough. You're not, you're not like, you don't know how to delegate and tell people what to do and so people never listen to you and I've never been that way because I think I've always been loved by my mom in such a sweet compassionate caring way that I consider my leadership style today to be that way I can be assertive for sure I've had to learn to be assertive but I think at that time I didn't know the balance between affectionate and assertive. And I think I was very out of character with someone, for someone who would have thought that Jay's quite a gentle person. He's, you know, even if he's saying something that's hard to swallow, it will be very thoughtfully shared. And I think I was very out of character with one of my team members. And not only did I hurt him so much that he didn't talk to me for the rest of the retreat, he never, as till this day, has never talked to me ever again.

I called him. I left messages. I asked people to talk to him. I tried anything possible to get through to him after we came back from the retreat, realizing I'd made a horrible mistake. And he never got back to me, never replied, never messaged back. And it was a really tough experience because it was really upsetting because that wasn't me. And I knew that it probably hurt him more because it wasn't me. It was so out of character. And it was just, you know, I would have said to him something along the lines of like, oh, you've been really unorganized you've been you haven't been thinking about it we need your

help you're not working hard enough like it was something to those that extent it wasn't I didn't swear at him or I wasn't rude it would you know it was it was along the lines of just being quite forceful when that wasn't who I was and that's always been a reminder to me of don't act out of character for anyone and don't just trust someone knows better than you especially when it comes to people lead with your heart lead with what you know best and yeah that failure is a tough one because it's hard when you can't turn it around I think when most people tell their failure stories it's conveniently stuff that also works out yes it can be a humble brag it can be a humble brag but that one's like there's no brag there's no brag because i don't now have a relationship with him it's not like oh no we're

best friends and we just went out for drinks yesterday it's like i still hasn't talked to me i've obviously stopped pursuing an apology after probably maybe six months i think it was six months of time that i let go by where i was really pursuing him and trying to get through to him through different people and then i just said okay you know what I was wrong I'll take it as a moment of you know there's that famous quote that says that the best apology is changed behavior I don't know who said it but it's a beautiful thought and I really like that statement and I thought well that's the only way I can forgive myself and that's the only way that I can improve for the future is change behavior and my main change behavior is don't listen to anyone else

just because you think they know a bit more than you and do something out of character. And act in alignment with your soul values. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like even till this day, I just, I wouldn't talk to anyone like that. It's just not how I've been raised. It's not how I've been trained by my mom.

I've not, you know, that's not who I am. And I don't want to act out of alignment again. I'd love that person to be listening to this podcast. I mean, that would be incredible. And that would be a beautiful story. But I've also just let go of the idea that that even has to happen for closure. And I think I'd like people to think of breakups that way. I'd like people to think of endings that way,

that not all endings have to have a fairy tale and not all endings have to have a magic moment. Some of them just teach us something special for the future and benefit other people. And you can't let one person's experience define the rest of your life. You just can't. And that doesn't mean I don't feel sorry. It doesn't mean I don't feel bad about it still. I mean, even talking to you about it, there's parts of me that feel guilty. But at the same time, we have to understand that feel guilty but at the same time we have to understand that difference between guilt and growth and guilt can keep you blocked forever from growth and growth is far more the healer of guilt oh that's so good understanding the difference between guilt and growth yeah and i and i'm more focused on growth i'd rather become better and be better and choose better moving forward

than make myself feel bad and criticize myself and judge myself to feel guilty. And I think often we stay in that place of like, I'm gonna criticize myself, I'm gonna judge myself, I'm gonna make myself feel guilty because somehow that makes me feel better that I feel bad about it. But actually growth is me really saying

that I feel bad about it because I'm choosing to become better now for the future. Jay Shetty, I could talk to you for hours. I could talk to you for hours I really could this has been an education in enlightenment I'm so grateful to you for how you are in the world for the books that you write for taking the time to talk to me and for ensuring that I'll never watch the notebook in the same way again well I want to thank you because i i really and i and i don't just say this i say this when i feel it and there's an energy that you create in this room there's a space there's a tone of your voice there's a presence in your questioning and i

really love observing all these like very micro moments and sometimes i feel that way and i feel i've gone inward to answer a question versus going outward and I felt like that today in this in your presence and in your space and the wonderful atmosphere you've created I just wanted to acknowledge that because yeah if anything's been good in this conversation it's because you can be in a room sometimes and you can feel that there's so much space and there's so much pace and this room feels so slow right now and it feels so present and it feels so there's just like a beauty in this room that you know and that's your energy so you're energetically great strategically great and um I'm not getting paid for this

thank you I'll buy your book yeah no I really I really appreciate you thank you I appreciate you thank you so much Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.