On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 12 Lessons Learned in the Last 12 Months - Special Birthday Episode

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Lessons can be learned anytime, anywhere, and at any given situation. These lessons are packed with learning that will help us grow to become a better person. Some are easily learned, some leave lasting and painful memories. For the past twelve months, we all have been trying to adapt to the new normal, to a completely different way of life for our own safety and everyone else around us. Last year was a true test of mental strength, emotional awareness, and physical agility to endure and persevere in any adversary. In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty shares lessons he learned in the past year as he tried to stay on top of his life and remain connected to the people close to him. Grab a copy of your own Think Like A Monk book now! Head over to samatea.com/onpurpose to find out your Tea Personality! Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 02:51 Reflect on the lessons you’ve learned every year 04:41 Lesson #1: Focus on the input and the intention, detach yourself from the result 10:55 Lesson #2: You can’t always find joy and happiness but you can always find meaning and service 14:52 Lesson #3 Remind yourself of the gifts brought by terrible situations 16:00 Lesson #4: We have to learn to celebrate people while they are alive 19:35 Lesson #5: Look at how we are controlled by fear 21:39 Lesson #6: Digital friendships can go deeper 23:45 Lesson #7: Anything can be done in 48 hours 27:19 Lesson #8: There’s never a better time to learn when you’re not sure what’s going on 28:24 Lesson #9: When you don’t get what you want, you get more of what you need 29:29 Lesson #10: Solitude is as necessary as community 30:18 Lesson #11: Invest in energy first, expertise second 30:53 Lesson #12: The mind has to be used by you for what you want to believe Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about?

I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by stellar guests like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you

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or wherever you get your podcasts. We saw a lot of ourselves being controlled by fear in the last 12 months. If we're controlled by fear, we're in the mode of ignorance. And we want to be controlled by love because guess what, love doesn't even control. And so what we have to do is that rising up these intentions is like rising up a ladder. If you try and jump from the bottom

step of a ladder to the top step, chances are you'll probably fall. Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you, I am so grateful, so happy, so excited to be spending this time with you because this is my birthday week episode. I was born on the 6th of September 1987, which means I am 34 years old this year in 2021. And I'm feeling incredible and feeling great. And I'm so joyful because of this amazing community we have. I felt so much love on my birthday from all of you.

I saw posts, I saw shares, I saw comments, I saw people sharing pictures of the book, pictures of the podcast, and I just feel so deeply connected to you all. And I feel so happy that I get to share my work, my world, my purpose with each and every one of you. I really don't take it for granted. And for those of you who are sitting here right now wondering, well, Jay, you're a Virgo. So what does that mean? You're like, now if you're into astrology,

then you know that Virgos, of course, like every other type have their strengths and their weaknesses. And September Virgos, I've been told many times, are slightly different than August Virgos. I'm looking at an article here that says that September Virgos are more ambitious and they can be very driven. I definitely identify with that trait that's something that I can totally, totally get behind. What else does it say? Googling, what are September Virgos really like?

September Virgos have a detailed sense of style this article says, I love that. They say that Virgos are known detailed sense of style this article says. I love that. They say that Virgos are known for being sharply observant and eagle-eyed when it comes to details. I can get behind that around certain things that I really care about and expressed in a more stylistic way. I definitely feel that.

I hope that you feel that through the work that I create as well. It says that September Virgos can be harder on themselves. I think I definitely grew up in a culture where I was hard on myself, where I did expect more from myself. And I learned to turn that into a healthy belief rather than an unhealthy belief. And today, what I want to talk to you about are the 12 lessons I've learned in the last 12 months. Now, the reason that I'm doing this episode is because I want each and every one of you on your birthday, every year, to reflect on the 12 lessons you've learned in the last 12 months. It's only one lesson per month, it's really simple and easy to do. Anyone can do it.

And the joy of that is that you now are learning one powerful thing a month in your life. And when you start thinking about life that way, guess what, you stop making the same mistakes, you don't see the same patterns reoccurring in your life, you save yourself from stress and future suffering. I promised you when I made this list that I want to share with you today,

I realized I was learning so many new things this year or I was deepening lessons that I had learned before. And so I'm really excited today because I love sharing with you my own reflections, my own strengths and weaknesses, the mistakes I've made, the failures, the rejections I've dealt with, what's been going on in my life because I'm encouraging you to do the same in yours. If your birthday is coming up, or even if your birthday just passed, make sure you get a chance to do this exercise of trying to reflect on one lesson per month.

The best way to do this is think about, what's the biggest thing that happened that month? Right, did you travel somewhere? Did something happen to a loved one? Did something happen to you? Did you accomplish something? That's the best way to do it is center it around something big or prominent that happened that month.

And it makes it easier for your memory to be detailed when you think about a particular occurrence or a particular example. So I wanna start off with the first lesson I learned and this lesson goes back to the month of September. So I can't believe it, but think like a monk released last year, exactly one year ago today. Right?

It's incredible to think. It's been that long since think like a monk came out for me. It's a book that I spent years living, two years writing and putting it together. And then I couldn't even go out and tour. I couldn't hug you all. I couldn't come out and tour. I couldn't hug you all. I couldn't come and do events. I couldn't be on stages. I couldn't even do press in person.

I did it all virtually. And there was something really special that happened. And the lesson that I'm speaking about is focusing on the input and the intention and detaching from the result. Attaching yourself to the intention and detaching from the result. Attaching yourself to the intention and detaching yourself from the result. So I'll give you an example of what I mean by this.

It's very difficult to disconnect from the result. We've grown up in a society that is addicted to expectations. We are addicted to results. We're addicted to the outcome and the output. But monks realized that it was all about the input. So what we do is we do whatever we're doing, but then we wait, we wish, we want, and then when we don't get what we want or what we wish for, what we waited for, we get angry, we get upset, we get stressed, we get frustrated, and we often take it out on others and we sometimes even take it out on ourselves. But when you're focused on the input, when you bring all your energy to the input and the intention,

something different happens. So when I was writing things like a monk, a lot of people asked me, they were like, what's your hope for this book? Where do you want this book to go? What do you want it to achieve? And I said, well, if I'm completely honest, I just want to write the best book I possibly can. We had the best science researchers that I could find. I asked my friend at Yale, Dr. Laurie Santos to introduce me to people who done scans on monks' brains so that we can get that science in the book. I had an incredible team put together the artwork in the way I wanted.

We had this beautiful artist that sketched these amazing pictures for inside the book because I wanted the book to be interactive. So all this energy went into writing and creating the best possible book I could, and right now I'm sitting here and I'm surrounded by the book, which has been translated into over 50 languages, which is absolutely phenomenal. But at that time, that wasn't the goal.

The goal was just to write the best book I possibly could. And I focused on that. And then after the book was written, I focused on how can I make sure that everyone knows about this? And I remember the biggest piece of feedback I received from a friend was, Jay, when you think you're talking too much about your book, remember most people don't even know that you have one. And so I realized I had to share it in cool and interesting ways.

And I started thinking about which podcasts I could connect with. The point is I focused all on the input. I put all my energy into how we were going to write the best book, how I was going to have the best approach to share it with everyone, and then the day before the book actually released. I sent a message to my publishers, and they all said to me they'd never received a message like this before, especially the day before the book comes out. And the message went something like this. Hey everyone, thank you so much for all your love that you've given to think like a monk in the process

of putting this together. All I want you to know is that no matter what the result of the book is, I want you to know that I feel we have done everything we possibly could to make this book a success from the writing, to the sharing, to the marketing, to every part of it. And I really mean we've done everything.

I called up every person who knew anything about books to get there inside. I asked everyone for their advice and their help and their support. And I said, whatever happens, I just wanted to know I'm really happy and proud of what we've all accomplished together. And the publisher said to me that they'd never had a message like this the day before a book had launched. They only got messages like this when things went well and sometimes they never even got them,

even when things went well. But this was actually in response to a message that I received from the publisher, which where the publisher said, Jay, we don't think we're gonna be number one. There are a lot of other competition at the time. There's lots of other books, there's lots of books that are about

politics right now that are leading the way because that's something that's really intriguing people right now. And we're not sure that you're going to get the result that we think we want you to have. And my response was, well, I'm grateful and I appreciate it, but we have done everything that we possibly could. Right? We've done it all, and I'm happy with that. And the amazing thing that happened is that a week later, when all the lists came out, the book ranked number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It ranked number one on the Sunday Times best seller list. It was the number one Amazon best seller in India for months, weeks in the UK, months in Australia. It was the number one book in South Africa, but it also was the number one product in South Africa, which just blew my mind.

If you're from South Africa, thank you so much. If you're from India, thank you so much. If you're from UK, thank you so much. If you're from Australia, thank you so much. If you're from Europe, Thank you so much. If you're from UK, thank you so much. If you're from Australia, thank you so much. If you're from Europe, if you're from Asia, wherever you are in the world, thank you so much. The book became the Apple books best audiobooks of the year 2020. The number one audiobook for the British book awards and the audiobook best of 2020. You did all of that. I just put my heart into the input. I had no control over that result. What I did have control over was the energy I put into the book. What I did have control over was the input to trying to write and create the best book I possibly could. You all did the rest. So this is one of the biggest lessons that I've learned this year,

which is focus on the input and the intention. The second lesson that I've learned this year is you can't always find joy or happiness, but you can always find meaning and service. We're all looking for joy and happiness. We want to smile, we want to laugh, we want to be cheery, we want to be happy. And then sometimes you look around and you think, how am I meant to be happy? There's so much pain in the world. There's so much going wrong in the world. There's so many things I don't agree with in the world. How many of you can truly resonate with things that I'm saying. Of course you can, because you all care. You're empathetic, compassionate people. And the monks would always teach this lesson

that don't look for just happiness and joy. Look for meaning and service. You can always find meaning. What's the lesson here? What does this mean for me? What am I being called to do? And you look for service. How can I serve?

How can I help? How can I heal? When you feel you're a part of the solution, the problem affects you less. When you're trying to heal and help others, you heal yourself in the process. I found so much joy in doing meditations behind the scenes for doctors, for frontline workers, for nurses. We worked with so many schools to provide meditations for young people and children who were struggling with stress and pressure and anxiety.

We did our 40 days of meditation. Start to with 20 on social media, we end up doing 20 more and across 40 days, I believe is around 20 million of you that tuned in for a meditation. How amazing is that? And it reminded me again and again, instead of looking for happiness and joy,

look for service. Even if you're at an event or a party, if you're there trying to be happy, if you're there trying to be joyful, I promise you, if you just go help, if you go and serve the food, if you go and hand something out, you'll be happier, right? I had a small dinner with some friends for my birthday

and I was handing some people some plates and we had some pizza and I was handing it out and I was making sure everyone had their seats. And my friends were just saying, no, no, no, it's your birthday and I was saying, no, it's my birthday in my tradition, in the monk tradition, it was always about giving other people gifts on your birthday.

The opportunity to serve was the greatest gift. And so next time you're somewhere and you're wondering why you're not being served or why you're not happy or why people aren't taking care of you, try to take care of someone else. Take a moment to just look out for someone else, even if it's a small thing. Just watch how your life changes. So for me, that's been a recurring lesson in my life. It's stopped looking for happiness and joy. Stop trying to force yourself.

There's also this toxic positivity movement where it's like, oh, we'll just just just be happy. Things are fine, right? So there's two issues. You have toxic positivity and also toxic pessimism. Toxic pessimism is nothing ever goes right. And toxic positivity is, everything is fine. The issue with both of these is that neither of them are the truth. The truth is the only thing that's not toxic. Positivity can be toxic because everything is not okay. And toxic pessimism is of course toxic because it's not true that nothing goes your way. The truth is there are some things that work in some things that don't and the truth

is not toxic. The truth may be painful, it may take a bit more effort, it may take a bit more focus, but it is not toxic. Embrace the truth, welcome the truth. Invite the truth into your life and your mind. You have to zoom out and truly try to look at the bigger picture of the truth of what's working and what's not working. And when you have the honest, truthful, transparent approach to yourself, to your life, you can actually move forward. Now principle number three is every time I want this pandemic to be life, you can actually move forward. Now principle number three is every time I want this

pandemic to be over, I've reminded myself of the gifts it brought me. Now this isn't toxic. This is remembering that even terrible, challenging situations create room for amazing growth. There are times when I keep thinking, oh, well, I've just been, you know, become really good friends with the person, I can't wait to travel with them, I can't wait to do this, I wish it wasn't the pandemic. And then all of a sudden, I remember, actually, I wouldn't be that close to them

if it wasn't for the pandemic. Sometimes there's a client I'm working with them saying, oh, I can't wait to take them to India. I can't wait to take them to this. Spiritual adventure. And then I'm thinking, oh, I wish we could travel. I wish it was safe. I wish everything was okay.

And then I'll have a saddening. I remember I wouldn't have the depth of the relationship I have with them if it wasn't for this time. So think about the gifts, the pause, the greatness that this time has brought into your life. For me, I realized that every time I get discontent or dissatisfied, I try to remember what it has brought into your life. For me, I realized that that every time I get discontent or dissatisfied, I try to remember what it has brought me and how it has served me. Now principle number four

is something that I think a lot of you would be able to relate to. I lost two deer, really dear people to me during the pandemic. And neither of them was from COVID. during the pandemic and neither of them was from COVID. The first was from stage 4, brain cancer and he was a mentor, he was older, he was around 60 years old. And the other was my friend, who was my best friend during my time as a monk, he was 35 and he'd struggled with cancer for the last five years. And I lost him more recently. And one of the biggest things I've realized is we have to learn to celebrate people while they're here, while they're alive. When I lose people, I often go back to all my messages with them, my emails, my texts,

my WhatsApp, and I always check, what did I say to them? How did I talk to them? And I'm always encouraged because all of my messages to them are always full of love, praise, acknowledgement, because I've tried to practice this for a long time now where I always tell people exactly how I feel. My friends often hear from me that I love them, that I miss them, that I can't wait to spend time with them. And some people think, how can you say that every week? And some people also think, well, doesn't that make you weak? Right? How can you say that every week? And some people also think, well, does that make you weak?

How can you say that every week? And does that make you weak if you say to someone that you miss them and you always love them and all the rest of it? And I realize, actually, it's my strength. I love telling people exactly how I feel because then I have no regrets. They know exactly where I stand with them

and where they stand with me. And so one thing that, Radee and I have started on our birthdays and with our friends is we'll often sit down with our closest group of friends and we'll go around in a circle on their birthdays or on our birthdays and everyone just gets to say

what they love and appreciate about that person. And Radee and I were just said, we're wedding this weekend. And we realized the same thing that these people were being celebrated for their wedding, and everyone around them said, we wish we can do this every year. Why is it that your wedding day is sometimes the last day

that you are celebrated, or maybe it's your 30th birthday, or maybe it's your 40th birthday, we wait for these 10 year occurrences, your 50th, your 60th, your 70th. What's the difference genuinely between your 56th and your 60th? Technically, there's a difference, but what genuine difference is there in celebrating someone? We've made our milestones make us more stone-hearted, right?

Our milestones, our targets are actually making us less personal. So whoever's birthday is coming up, if your friend's birthday is coming up, I want you to make sure that around dinner, everyone goes around and says something they genuinely love about that person and how that person has impacted their life. I got to speak to my best friend as a monk, he was still a monk when he passed away literally a couple of months back. I got to speak to my best friend as a monk. He was still a monk when he passed away, literally a couple of months back. I got to speak to him three days before he died and I didn't know he was going to die. I didn't know how long he had, but I didn't know it was going to be that soon. And we laughed and we cried. But he knew I loved him and I

knew that he loved me. And we celebrated him, but I wish we celebrated him earlier. And I may have celebrated him in my messages and my own interactions with him, but I wish we celebrated him as a group. And that's the kind of regret that's kind of feeling you don't want to have. And so make sure you do that. Celebrate people while they're alive. Don't feel that it's a weakness. Don't feel that it's too soft. I promise you it will. It will make you so happy in the long term. Now the fifth lesson that I've learned is looking at how we are controlled. And the Gita, the Bhagavad Gita,

from which I quote a lot in my book, think like a monk. It talks about four different types of motivation and I talk about this and think like a monk as well. And the four types of motivation. And I talk about this and think like a monk as well. And the four types of motivation are fear, result, responsibility, or love. These are the four levels. The lowest level of intention is fear. Higher than that is to be motivated for a result. Higher than that is to be motivated by a sense of responsibility and accountability. Higher than that. And the highest is to be motivated by love. Now, the reason I'm sharing this with you is we saw a lot of ourselves being controlled and accountability higher than that, and the highest is to be motivated by love.

Now the reason I'm sharing this with you is we saw a lot of ourselves being controlled by fear in the last 12 months. If we're controlled by fear, we're in the mode of ignorance. And we want to be controlled by love because guess what, love doesn't even control. And so what we have to do is that rising up these intentions is like rising up a ladder.

If you try and jump from the bottom step of a ladder to the top step, chances are you will probably fall. But you just want to shift one step up. So if you're currently motivated by fear and anxiety, if that's the only thing that consumes you, shift into action, try and move towards the result or a goal. That's why setting a target or a goal is so recommended because it shifts you out of inertia. It shifts you out of that depression and that stagnation

and that feeling of stuckness. Now, if you're someone who's always acting your passion at your driving, you want to get results, start acting from a place of service, from a place of being a leader, taking responsibility for others, helping others, helping others, coaching others, guiding others. And if you're already in that space where you're peaceful,

you're content and move into love, just take that step further. For me, I've really been shifting into that space of leadership and love. I realized that I need to invest more in that intention and that approach. Now, lesson number six is digital friendships can go deeper than you think, depending on what you do together. A few of my friends and I started up these meditation circles. So every Sunday from 9 to 10 a.m. Pacific, probably 9 to 930 actually, we have a Zoom call. And there's about 20 of us that have joined it every week. There's a group of us. Sometimes there's 10, sometimes there's 20, sometimes there's six of us. We've kept it going every week since the beginning of the pandemic. I usually guide a meditation. Everyone shares their reflections.

And I'm not kidding you. I've never met these people. I've never met anyone on that Zoom because it was between me and a friend who, again, I met digitally and he wanted to open it up to his community. We've never met each other. But I feel so close to every person on that Zoom that when I meet them, they will feel like my closest friends.

Digital friendships can go deep depending on what you do together. If you read together, if you meditate together, if you're doing something growth based together, I promise you your relationship will deepen. You don't need time to get depth. You need presence. You need depth to get depth. When you do deep things together, your relationship naturally deepens. You can either do lots of normal things for a long period of time or you can do a few deep things for a short period of time and you could have a really deep profound relationship with someone. Figure out what your community

needs and wants and start doing it together. Maybe you're going to do a thing like a monk book club and once a week you're going to get together for 30 minutes, read and discuss the book. Or maybe you're going to do it around on purpose, maybe every week when a new episode comes out, you're going to set up a digital group where you discuss the episode, whether it's with Esther Parallel, who we had on, whether it's with Alexis Ran, who just came on and people love that episode or Jessica Alba, or any of the amazing other guests that we've had recently and in the past as well. When you center your community, even digitally around depth, you will deepen your relationship. Now principle number seven is a huge one. This one, this really tested me when it actually happened

and it was really, really powerful when it happened. And this rule is anything can be done in 48 hours. Anything can be done in 48 hours. And this was because I woke up, this was earlier this year, I think it was around April or May. And I woke up and I had heard about the news of how one person was dying every five minutes in India. And it brought a lot of pain to my heart because it was the worst impact COVID had had around the world. And India's infrastructure for healthcare and resources wasn't set up to deal with it. And there wasn't much news about this. I was actually hearing this from people that I know that live in India. So I was speaking to them on the phone and hearing about it.

It wasn't that I was reading about it on the news. And rather, it mentioned to me that we should donate or help. And I thought it was a great idea, but I just thought, even if I donate, that's great. But what if I could encourage more people in my life and my community, my network, to be a part of this? So I'm not kidding you. In 48 hours, we galvanized a community of people who wanted to be part of the program.

I found a production company, you could do live broadcasting and create a live show. Everyone was remote still, so no one could be in the same place. I then made the flyers and the posters confirm times that everyone would join and everyone would be there. We then set a date. I knew it would have to be a Saturday so that the more people could see it, I got my PR team to let people know. I messaged everything on my friends. And literally in 24 to 48 hours, we ran a COVID-19 really fundraiser for

India that raised over $5 million. Two million of that came directly from all of you on Facebook and Instagram and through the website. And most of those donations were between 10 to $50. It was phenomenal. And then on top of that, we had Vinod Kostler come and give a million dollars that was being matched by all of yours. We had Ray Dahlia foundation coming forward and giving a million dollars. And then we had India Sparer come forward and give a million dollars. So all of that raised a total of five million dollars. And we had so many incredible celebrities get involved. Sean Mendes donated, good friend of mine, he donated $50,000 of his own.

The Smith family donated $50,000. And my good friend, Brendan Beshard, donated that much as well. Jamie Kern, Lima donated $100,000. Rohan owes a donated $50,000. I posted these all in my groups with so many amazing people. And guess what? All of you helped 250,000 people get an opportunity

to breathe properly. That's what I was told. All the money was spent on helping people breathe again. And I was speaking to the founder of the charity Give India to make sure that, you know, the money was being spent wisely and he would send me pictures of the oxygen tanks and what was going on. And it was just so beautiful to see what was possible. And I was stressed. It was a lot of work. It was on top of everything else that I was doing, but it was so meaningful, it was so powerful. And you know, my team got involved and supported me. And it was purely just because we wanted to serve. And Rade co-hosted the event with me. So next time you think something's

not possible, I promise you anything is possible in 48 hours. We didn't have a full team. I didn't have a production company that was running it for me. It was all just pure passion and love. Now the eighth lesson I learned is there's never a better time to learn when you're not sure what's going on. And the reason I know this is 2,000 people enrolled to become life coaches in my J Shetty certification school. We had no idea, but we launched the J Shetty certification school just a few months before the pandemic started. We want there to be more leaders, more coaches in the world. I feel like therapy helps you make sense of your past, but coaching helps you start building

for your future. So I find that therapy and coaching are industries that can actually support each other and go hand in hand. I recommend a lot of my clients for therapy to therapists that I'm friends with and a lot of therapy clients recommend clients for coaching to me. Because you need both therapy helps you make sense of your past and sense of your mind and then coaching helps you build your future. And so the fact that we have so many coaches, 2000 people that are going to go on to become a credited certified life coaches gives me so much coaches, 2000 people that are going to go on to become a credited certified life coaches, gives me so much joy, but it showed me that people wanted to learn right now, and that there was no better time to learn when there's confusion in the world. That is the

best antidote. Now, lesson number nine is when you don't get what you want, you get more of what you need. And I got so much more of what I needed at this time than I even knew. And it was amazing to experience that. So the idea is that often you're not getting exactly what you want, but you start getting more of what you need. And we've all heard that before. But it's been really fascinating to me that when you are attached to what you want, you then are not open to what you need. So if you're holding on to something, you can't recognize what part you're losing. So so many of us want life to be the same again, or we want life to be normal again. And when you do that, you don't get to see the gift that comes from the abnormality, or the confusionality or the confusion or the chaos.

So I think that was a big one for me. And that's what I'm still thinking about. I'm sharing these like, they're right here with me right now. They might not be perfectly formed, but that's the beauty of a reflection that you plant the seed and you watch it grow. So that's one of the ones I'm going to watch grow. The tent one, which is simple but powerful for me is, solitude is as necessary as community. I find so much growth in solitude and I find so much love in community

and I need both and I need to know when I need both. The mistake you make is when you think you just need one or when you're not even aware of the other. I know I need solitude. I was talking to a friend yesterday and he was saying, oh, we haven't spoken for a while and I said, yeah, because I know I need solitude. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he was saying, oh, we haven't spoken for a while. And I said, yeah, because I've just been preserving energy.

I've just been spending time in solitude and building myself up so that I can actually give when we're engaging. Right? I love giving, but I need energy to give. So what I want you to do is this weekend, I want you to ask yourself,

do you need solitude or do you need community? And really sit with yourself and ask yourself that and your body, your mind will tell you. Lesson number 11 is something I've learned professionally. It's that I've been focusing on hiring energy first, expertise second. See, energy is coachable, energy you can invest in. Expertise is great, but if the energy is not in there, no matter how much you invest or how much you coach, you won't get the result you want. So in my life, I choose people energy first, expertise second.

And when I make decisions, I follow this three step rule, energy, strategy, money. First, I see if the energy is aligned, then I see if that person has the expertise and the strategy, and then it's about the money on whether that aligns as well. And the 12th and final lesson that I've learned in the last 12 months is the mind has to be used by you for what you want to believe. When your mind makes a decision, when you help your mind make a decision, you can convince your mind to do anything. That's the incredible thing. You can convince your mind to do anything. I was speaking to some of the other day and they're moving and they were saying to

me, Jay, I literally loved the house I had, and now that I know I'm moving, I've sealed the floors in it, which means we can convince our mind to feel exactly how we want to feel. Train your mind to love where you are. Train your mind to become comfortable in the discomfort by talking to it.

Train your mind to believe what is happening is good for you and that there's a lesson in it and there's growth in it. You can do that. The way we talk to our mind trains our mind. Why is it that something can feel amazing but the moment we have something else, it feels worthless because you can train your mind to feel how you want to feel.

So learn to train your mind. It's been a big lesson for me this year. I want to thank you all for listening to on purpose every single week. For those of you haven't heard the audio book of Think Like A Monk or Read The Book, you can go to ThinkLikeAmonkBook.com and listen in to learn more about these 12 lessons. A lot of them are inside the book as well. I want to thank you all for all your support and love and I can't wait to keep seeing how our life changes as we continue to invest in our own growth. I'll see you again next week.

Oh my goodness, I have been waiting for this day. Woo! Jay and I are so excited to announce that this fall we will be launching our very own hot tea brand called Drumroll Please. very own hot tea brand called Drumroll Please. Lululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululululul night. Luckily, Jay is exactly the same, so we have a moment together every morning, every night, Siponanti. Over the last year, having a ritual that brings a little moment of peace, comfort and presence has been so important. It reminds me of being at home with my family in London, sitting by the fire, laughing, Siponanti, which is a feeling I have been missing a lot. It's been hard to find that feeling of comfort and of acceptance in the chaos lately, but honestly a cup of tea has most definitely helped.

There's so much more I want to share with you, but for now, go ahead and sign up today at Samathee.com and enter to win a sign, Limited Edition Sampler Box, full of vibrant, delicious, fantastic teas that will inspire moments of mindfulness. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender, invisible

things we don't usually talk about? I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season I'm joined by Stellar, Gas like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. The one you feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face.

We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth. I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual teachers offering powerful lessons to apply daily. Create the life you want now. Listen to the one you feed on the I Heart Radio Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the before breakfast podcast in each bite-sized daily episode. Time management and productivity expert Laura Vandercam teaches you how to make the most of your time, both at work and at home.

These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to Before Breakfast on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.