On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 2 Transformational Habits To Change Your Mental State & How to Refine Your Intentions for a Happier, Fulfilled Life

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Today, we have another special Friday episode and this time it is an interview I had with Deepak Chopra from his Deepak Chopra’s Infinite Potential podcast. It is a conversation that revolves around finding success within you and ultimately achieving success by knowing yourself deeper and learning your purpose. We discuss how incorporating discipline in our life is one of the main catalysts of positive change, finding your purpose and having the right intentions to act upon them, and the benefits of surrounding yourself with the people that contribute to your personal growth.Key Takeaways:00:00 Intro00:01:09 It was always about how you did well at school00:02:48 The tough ego façade 00:06:44 Meeting the monk00:08:58 Discipline is a key trait in our lives00:14:38 Falling back into your old habits00:18:16 Finding a way to spread purposeful intentions 00:24:25 Difference between happiness and success00:29:13 Be around people who can help grow yourselfLike 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!Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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podcasts. Hey, it's Debbie Brown, host of the Deeply Well Podcast, where we hold conscious conversations with leaders and radical healers and wellness around topics that are meant to expand and support you on your well-being journey. Deeply well is your soft place to land, to work on yourself without judgment, to heal, to learn, to grow, to become who you deserve to be.

Deeply well with Debbie Brown is available now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Namaste. I'm Eva Longoria. And I'm Maite Gomes-Rajon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry For History. On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages,

from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now I know that a lot of you love and respect Deepak Chopra and this conversation that you're about to hear is one of the first ones I ever had with him. He's always been someone that I think has presented wisdom in a really fascinating and interesting way. And the questions he asked me in this conversation

are truly unique. I think you're gonna hear a lot of new perspectives and ideas from me. And I am so grateful that you made time to listen to this episode. So thank you for being here. And I hope you've been loving it. I mean, we have been spoiled in the past few weeks.

Everyone from Dr. Gabel Matey to Dr. Daniel Aiman, Selena Gomez, Kendall Jenner, Alex Cooper. I hope you've gone back and listened to those episodes. If you haven't, do that right after this one. Tell me a little bit about your background growing up. Absolutely, yeah. I was born and raised in London as a normal Indian kid. The highest values of success were work hard at school, get good grades, life is all about performance.

My parents were wonderful, very supportive and more liberal than I think a lot of Indian parents, but still it was always about how well you did at school. And that kind of lasted for me until I was 14 when I started to rebel. And I think I started to rebel because I saw that despite myself doing well at school, I was still bullied for being overweight and obese at the time. I was still, you know, a victim of racism at the time in the area I grew up in in London. But a lot of that was I was still experiencing these things. And I was thinking, well, getting good grades in school obviously is not solving life for me. And that took me to the other extreme of rebelling. So I got involved in petty violence, crime. I got involved with experimenting with drugs. I just started going totally the opposite way, just as a desire to experiment and test because I wasn't feeling satisfied and happy with the life that

had been paved for me. Well, that's very interesting. I know when you're that part of you. Yeah. Yeah. I completely went off rails. And that was my way of trying to look for something more meaningful. I was always seeking a thrill in life. I wanted to feel deeply passionate about something. And you know, one of my favorite thoughts is from my Luther King where he said that if you have nothing to die for, then you have nothing to live for. That's beautiful. And for me, I was looking for that, but I was looking for it in all the wrong places. Tell me about that period with the drugs

and the violence and all that. You know, at the time, it was that tough ego facade that I had. So I would portray myself as being very tough. I was doing all these things and I would have this ego, but inside I was actually really scared. I was actually really insecure. I was worried sometimes about going to parties or events because of who I'd run into. Any time I was experimenting with anything, I wasn't actually as confident

as I'd make out to be. But I remember at that time you would just put on this face to appear as if you had it all going right. How many years did that phase last? I'd say it lasted for four years, from 14 to 18. Then what happened? Well, what happened was that when I was around 16, I lost two of my best friends. So one of them died due to gang violence and one of them died in a car accident.

Like I look back and I was like, you know, all of us that were involved in all these things, we could all go back home and our moms would cook us dinner. Right? It was like, it wasn't like we actually had to be part of gangs. It just became a part of culture, which I think is very interesting. So for me, that was one of the biggest challenges. And when I lost two of my friends, that really made one as a result of...

Correct, correct, because knife crime and one because of a car accident. And when I lost both of them, that really made me reflect. Because to me, they were good people. They were people who were very kind and loving. And I lost both for them at an early age. And that really made me start to question what's life all about? Because if these are good people, they're beautiful people. And I've lost them. I'm spending my life in this field, which doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere. And that really made me start to pause and reflect on how I was using my time because all of a sudden time became very valuable. I started to recognize how little time we could have if it was used unwisely.

So what happened after that? So at that time, you know, you're a curious 16 year old, and maybe people who are listening right now can feel like a curious 26 year old or 36 year old. It doesn't matter what age you are. For me, I was a curious 16 year old, but I was still doing everything every 16 year old does. You know, you just carry on. You think deeply, but you act undepleased and it's raging hormones. Yeah, exactly, right? Like, you think deeply, I think a lot of us have this challenge today where we are mind wants to think higher, but we're still acting on our lower nature. And so we see that contradiction. So I was a walking, talking contradiction.

I would think deeply, think highly, but live lowly and be completely as servant to my mind and my lower nature. And then I met a monk when I was 18. So every week I would be at university and we would have different speakers, influencers, celebrities, authors, CEOs come and speak. And I didn't want to go because I was just like, what am I going to learn from a monk? You know, what does a monk even have? And so I literally said to my friends who were getting into spirituality at that time, who told me to come, they said, no, you have to come. And I said, okay, I'm only coming if we go to a bar. And that was literally my line. I was like, I'm only coming if we go

to a bar afterwards. And that's how that's how degraded I was. And they were like, okay, great. So they confirmed. And so I went. And I went in there with zero expectations and I was completely mesmerized. I'd never heard someone who spoke with such eloquence, who spoke with such grace, who really had an aura of contentment around them. I mean, you have this too. The first time I met you, you have that too. And I think when you meet someone like that, for me, it was really interesting because at that time I'd met people who were rich, I'd met people who were famous, I'd met people who were stunningly attractive, but I don't think I'd ever met anyone who was satisfied or content or happy.

I had the equanimity. Or an equanimity, exactly. I don't think I'd met someone yet at AT&N who had that. Which tradition was he from? So he's from the Vedic tradition. Oh, okay. Yeah, from the Vedic tradition Okay, yeah from the Vedic tradition the Vedic Hindu tradition and for me it was just You know when you meet someone and you're just inspired them and you want to learn everything about them So I just went up to him and I said look I love what you stand for and he was standing for service

He was standing for helping humanity and I said I want to have more of you in my life I I just feel like I want to experience more of this. And so he said to me, you now need to spend your summer holidays or some of occasions, as you say here, he said, you need to spend all of them with me in India. And so I started spending every one of my summer holidays of occasions in India.

Before that, did you go to the bar that night? We did, we did go to the bar that night. Yes, no, no, no, no, no, with the monkey, doesn't it? We did go to the bar that night. Yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, the monkey doesn't do it. We did go to the bar that night. I stacked to my promises and very committed. I spent the whole night thinking about what I'd just heard. And the biggest thing that stayed with me was he spoke about sacrifice, like giving up your own needs to serve others and going out of your way to make a difference in the

life of others. And that really resonated with me at 18. It almost gave me that thing to die for. That made me want to live. So then you did actually have a stint as a monk yourself? So every summer holidays I spent half of my summer living with him as a monk, as a trainee monk, just visiting. And then I spent the other half of that summer working internships in the city of London.

So I would literally go from steak houses, bars, cars, and the world of finance in London, in the city of London, to then going off and trying to emulate the life of a monk. And then when I graduated in 2022, I went and lived as an official monk for three years. For three years? There was a lot of, there were a lot of month breaks every year. And during that time, I was just going back and forth. So I meet a lot of people today and I'm sure you do in your whole fast few decades that you've been serving people through your knowledge.

I'm sure you've met so many people who say, you know, I'm stuck between the two worlds. I'm kind of, I can't shake it off. I've done that. I literally did that for four years where I lived two polar opposite worlds in one sense. It's that phrase to be in the world and not of it. Exactly, exactly. And I didn't know that then. I was still learning that.

And so when then when I got to go and live as a monk for three years, that really gave me that experience. So what did you learn? Oh, so much. One of the best things I learned, which I think is just really practical, is discipline. And I think discipline is so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but I think is just really practical is discipline. And I think discipline is so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this,

but I think discipline is so underestimated today. I think we talk a lot about creativity and spontaneity and I love all that. I'm very creative, I'm very spontaneous. But I think discipline is just so underestimated. I think anyone in any field, in any practice, whether it's finance or business or singing or art, discipline is such a key trait.

So the discipline to wake up at the same time every day of 4 a.m. every single day, the discipline to sit and meditate for multiple hours a day, the discipline to do something even when you don't feel the benefit, the discipline to do something even when you don't have taste for it yet, but to recognize that with patience and practice, the taste will come and that meaning and fulfillment will come. That discipline is just so powerful and discipline is a hard thing to talk about because it's not attractive or sexy. It's like, you tell someone to do something with discipline, they'll just be like, oh,

that doesn't sound inspirational. But it's like, that's such a core part of life transformation in my opinion, in any way is discipline. So I learned discipline. I didn't wake up discipline. I used to always try get off school if I could and all the rest of it. So to be able to take that on at 22 in my life, to really value discipline and to break the mental limits of what I believe discipline was. I never believed I could wake up at 4 a.m. but then when you have people who are doing it around you,

when you build up a practice, everything becomes possible, which is quite fascinating when you start breaking your limits. No, as you start to reflect, when people go into meditation and if they're honest with themselves, there's a lot of inner demons that wake up too. The shadows accompany the light that comes. Yes, I made a video called Why Meditation Made Me A Bad Person. And it was exactly in line with this. So I talk about how, you know, when you see people meditate today, it's like

everyone looks really serene and tranquil and wearing yoga pants and these beautiful sunsets. And it's like, well, when you start meditating, it wasn't like that for me. A beautiful analogy that's given in the, in the Vedic literatures is of cleansing a mirror of the mind. So a mirror that's not been cleansed or a attic or a loft, that's not been cleansed for years and decades and lifetimes is covered in dust. So when one first starts to clean it through the mechanism of meditation, the first thing that happens is the dust comes in your face. And that dust is those inner demons. You're ego, you start noticing it more, you're pride, you start noticing it more,

you're lost, you're anger, you're greed, you're envy, all of these demons you start to notice them more. All the things you don't want other people to find out. Exactly. All the things that have just been sitting there and you haven't focused on and you don't want people to know you have them exactly and you start seeing them

more. So first when I started meditating, I was like, oh my God, I'm such a bad person. And really the way I broke through that was recognizing that again, I am not those things.

They are not me. I am not Envious. I'm pure consciousness. Envy is something that I've taken on as a garment that needs to be taken off. A lot of people say I don't have time to meditate, to evolve this work, to do. I have to take care of the kids, my job. I have all this stress on those the people who need it most. Yeah, we all need it most. I feel like we'll, you know, excuses are always going to be then. This is why I say to people that I think it's good that we start five minutes a day, ten minutes a day. But if you can, take a day, take half a day, whatever's practical

for you, if you can, take a week or a weekend, go on a retreat and have a real, deep experience of how powerful meditation can be. When you have a deeply profound experience, you'll want to do five minutes every day, even if you don't have time. Right? We all make time for the things that we're in love with or that we really, really need in our lives. And we also forget that it's the pause that helps everything else. And I think we think, and I know you've got your daily breaths every day, which I think is so beautiful. And it's like, we forget that, wait a minute, if you don't breathe properly, none of this is gonna last for very long. Then you left after three years.

Yes, yes. And what was going on in your mind? Yeah, so this one's easier to answer in hindsight. It wasn't as easy to answer then. At that time, I was conflicted. The first thing meditation does is that it gives you a really raw mirror reflection of who you are to yourself. And for me, at least for my psychophysical nature,

my meditation was giving me the self awareness that I wasn't a monk, that I enjoyed rebellion. I enjoyed my independence. And Monk Life isn't about rebellion and independence in one sense. It's a lot about surrender. Surrender, exactly. One of my teachers said to me, he said that he felt

it was my time to leave so I could share what I'd learned. And when I actually left at that time, it was really heartbreaking because I was still conflicted whether I was doing the right thing or not. So I always describe it was like a divorce. I really felt like I'd got divorced from the love of my life after three years because I'd given up my corporate jobs,

I'd given up a girlfriend, I was dating, I'd given up my family, I'd given up everything to make this step'd given up a girlfriend I was dating, I'd given up my family, I'd given up everything to make this step and now I was going back into a world that now was judging me as well. Because when I left, my extended Indian family was like, you're really gonna become a monk after all that education, after working so hard,

all your family's doctors and lawyers. So were there lived when you came back into the world? No, when I came back, you failed at being a monk. Really? They were more mortified. They were just like, what, they sent you back. You weren't good enough to be a monk. So it was actually harder to come back to it at some time. So what to do re-enter into? Not too long ago, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life. I saw it and I saw, oh well, this is a very unusual situation.

It was cacao. The tree that gives us chocolate. But this cacao was unlike anything experts had seen, or tasted. I've never wanted us to have a gun fight. I mean, you saw this tax of cash in our office. Chocolate sort of forms this vortex. It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate.

You're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind, so they could search for more of this stuff. I wanted to tell their stories, so I followed them deep into the jungle, and it wasn't always pretty.

Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building arm with machetes. And we've heard all sorts of things that you know, somebody got shot over this. Sometimes I think, oh, all these for a damn bar of chocolate. Listen to obsessions while chocolate on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. I'm Yvonne Gloria. I'm Maite Gomes-Rechon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry For History!

On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages, from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Corner flower. Both. Oh, you can't decide I can't decide love both you know a flower tortilla your team flower. I'm team flower. I need a shirt Team flower team core join us as we explore surprising and lesser known corners of Latinx culinary history and traditions

I mean, these are these legends right apparently this guy Juan Mendes He was making these tacos wrapped in these huge 30-yas to keep it warm, and he was transporting them in a burro, hence the name, the burritos. Listen to Hungary for history with Ivalangoria and Maite Gómez-Rejón as part of the Micoltura Podcast Network available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and I've spent my career exploring

the three-pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities. Like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or, can we create new senses for humans? Or, what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality.

Listen to Intercosmos with David Eagelman on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I re-entered into moving back in my parents physically and mentally feeling like, wow, this is going to be really challenging because now I have to think about normal stuff. Like, maybe I have to think about a career, maybe I have to think about money, maybe I have to think about paying rent. And then all of these, you know, all of these thoughts start brimming up. So I started every day, I would wake up at the same time every day, and I would meditate every day, and I was trying to stick to as much as I could. And there were a few months in between where I did the opposite.

Like, I remember the day I left thing among. The first thing I did was buy lots of chocolate. The second thing I did was go and catch up on every single movie and TV show I'd missed out on. And so I completely went the opposite way. And I think that's very natural that when you've been in one extreme, you can fall back into your old habits very quickly. And I think someone has filled this after holidays or retreats or you go on a meditation retreat with deep back.

And you go really deep for two days and three days, and then you come back. And then after a couple of months, then I started to kind of come back in the middle. So other than discipline you learned, of course, reflective self inquiry, right? Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely.

Asking the bigger questions of existence. 100% and this is what I talk about that. I think today we're so enamored with circumstantial solutions, but what we're trying to do is solve our existential challenges with circumstantial solutions. So my point being, existentially we don't feel connected to ourselves. Existentially we don't feel like we're serving. Existentially we don't know our purpose.

And we try and solve that with a bottle of wine. We try and solve that with a late night out with friends. And again, we feel that same thing every week. So circumstantial solutions don't solve the existential problem. So for me, this reflective self inquiry that you're speaking about was me really asking myself, what is my life about? What is the purpose of my life? What do I want to do with this incredible time and human form that I've been given, this

unique blessing of being a human with a human mind and human consciousness? It's such a gift and such a blessing. How can I make the most of it? And so I used to spend every day after meditating for two hours a day. I would go and sit in a library and just read. And I would read and study everything I could just try and find more answers. And particularly the commonalities between what I'd studied in Vedic texts and what I was seeing in modern knowledge. Sure. some insights.

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. I think one of the biggest insights I saw was that all ancient texts tell us that we're not the mind and we're not the body. And all of our problems come from our belief that we're the mind and we're the body. Which are transient, if you're a ungraspable movement in consciousness. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Would you explain far more particularly beautifully than I ever will? So, I'm going to leave that to you. But that's the truth, that we are completely in the belief that we are this mind and body.

The mind and body are an experience. Exactly. You're the one who's having the experience, right? Exactly. We are simply witnessing, we're observing, we're within that, we're the energy that sees through the eyes, he is through the ears and functions through the mind and body. And so for me, one of the first things was how can I remind myself of that on a daily basis? Now that I'm in a world where I'm back believing that I'm the mind and body. When I was a monk,

you forget you're the mind and body. We didn't even look in the mirror practically for three years because you're removing that aspect of yourself. And so I started to put up like a small sticky note next to where I brush my teeth every morning, saying remember you're not your mind and not your body. So every morning I'd be brushing my teeth, I'd look at that, and that would help me and remind me that I wasn't.

So how did that lead to, you know, pure, well-known in the world as an expert on success, a purpose-driven life? But tell me a little bit about your initial kind of fore-ain to the world of business and the world of commerce and the world of, in a sense, everybody wants that, right? Everybody wants success in one way or another. So one of the first things that happened when I came back is a lot of my friends

now worked at large corporate companies. And they'd been working for a number of years, three to five years, and they were all experiencing stress and burnout. So they had that I'd come back and they reached out to me and said, Jay, you're a monk, right? This is 2013. And they were like, you're a monk, right?

I said, yes. And they said, well, you must have learned something about like mindfulness and meditation. These words were just kind of coming up into the mainstream world at that time. And I said, yeah, I learned how to meditate and I learned these principles of leadership and these values and how to work from a deeper place

and intention setting. And they said, well, do you mind coming in and speaking at our companies? And so I started to get invited into court courts, and a lot of the executives then would ask me to coach them one-on-one. So this was almost like a natural default coaching world that was created in my life out of demand rather than me. But the monk could actually help you.

Exactly. With the career that you're in right now. 100%. Like, I would not be where I'm at today without living as a monk. And I laugh about that now, because so many people when I was about to become a monk Said Jay you realize no one will ever hire you ever again This drink is cool who wants to have a monk on their resume, right? Like what job do you get with that? And so I was speaking at these companies. I was coaching executives

I was working one-on-one with incredible people in in England mainly and Then I went through again this reflective self-inquiry. I said, I'm serving a certain type of person right now. But having lived in India and wanting to serve absolutely everyone and having lived in England and seeing that not everyone has access to money and not everyone has access to invest and not everyone has access to coaches, I was like, how do we scale this to every person in the world? Like, how do we really touch every person who has a phone, every child, every young person? Like how do you just spread this everywhere? Like how do we get it out of the corporate boardrooms and beyond?

And so one of the reflections I had at that time was maybe this is going to happen through video and content. And so what I did was I had a video series idea before I ever made a video and I pitched it to every single major media company in England. And I was rejected by 40 media companies for my video idea because I had no background in media communications. And so I went to Chase, some well-known executives and directors in the media space in London. One of them I called up who was a family friend's family member. And I said, hey, I'd love to have a break into the media. Here's my video idea.

And he said to me, he said, how old are you? I said, 28. And he said, you realize everyone who wants this job is 21 years old. And I said, yeah, that's fine. I'll work as hard as them. And he said, aren't you getting married this year? I said, yeah, I am getting married this year.

And he said, well, dude, you make more money right now. Don't worry about it. Just forget about it. Just start a blog. And so then I chased another TV broadcaster, very well known in London. I chased him while he was riding his bike around in London. I saw him.

I literally chased after him. He was polite enough to stop. And I said, hey, I want to come and shadow you. I want to learn from you. I work for free. I don't want anything. I just need to learn how to make content that helps people. And he gave me his card and he said, go and get a master's and come back in a year. And I thought, God, I don't know if I can go and

get a master's and then I applied to four master's programs in London. I was rejected from all of them because I didn't have the background for it. And so then I was really feeling like I was running out of ideas and I had this video series idea for mindfulness and wellness and I was thinking how do I do this? And so I ended up at an ethnic minority TV training day run by the BBC. And I'm at this TV training that I walk in and everyone's brown in the room and I'm like, oh, your brown, brown, we're all brown. Like it's just like literally just six ethnic minority people. Pond your train. Yeah, literally.

And so then we're all trained that day. And they were like, Jay, you're great, you can present, you understand how to work with et cetera. They were very encouraging. I said, okay, where's my job in the media? And they said, well, there are no jobs in the media. So I said, okay, what do I do?

And they said, well, start a YouTube channel. And at that time, I had the biggest mental block in my mind that starting a YouTube channel only works for Justin Bieber, right? It's like a one in a million, one in a billion chance that YouTube could do anything for you. One thing that I love now is Thomas Edison said that when you believe you've exhausted all options, remember this you haven't.

And that's really become a big mantra in my life because every time I've tried to take a traditional route to something, it's never worked. And I've always exhausted all options. And at that time, the only option I had left was to start a channel. I started my own video channel, put up my first video, launched it, and it did about a thousand views in 24 hours, which wasn't great, and it wasn't bad, it was okay. And then within three months, someone showed my video to Ariana Huffington at Davos, and so I got a call from Ariana Huffington and she said, I love your content. We'd love to test it out on the Huffington Post Channel.

And so then they posted four of my videos, which I made for them, produced in London, I sent to them, they posted it in the US, and those four videos did 100 million views in mid 2016. I didn't expect that. They were totally mind blown because they didn't expect that. And then I moved to New York in 2016, which is when we met, and I took a big risk in 2017 March

where I left that role, which was an incredible company to be a part of, but I really felt that I had to grow what I believed in and spread it further. I started investing in growing my own video channel. I'm just blessed and very grateful to everyone who's ever watched, liked or shared a video. And my real focus with all of these videos is how do we make wisdom go viral? How do we take all of these knowledge and insights that have not been consumed by a lot of people? And how do we spread them

all over the world to give everyone access? People listening to you right now probably be saying to themselves, how can I be like J? How can I be like J. Shetty? What advice would you give them? How would you define success and purpose and the connection between those two? Sure. So for me happiness and success are two different things. Happiness is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself. That, to me, is happiness. Is how you understand yourself without a reflection or mirror of how anyone is viewing you. To me, success is our external achievements, whether that's monetary, whether it's awards, whether it's status. Success doesn't make you happy, and happiness doesn't guarantee success. One is deeply internal and an inward journey and one is an outward journey. I think commonly

we confuse both of them as one or the other. We think if we get an award, we'll be happy. Everyone who's won an Oscar award or an Emmy award will tell you that doesn't work. Or we have the other option where it's like, oh yeah, if I become really happy, then I'll naturally be successful and attract awards money and well, then that's not true either. And so for me, my monk life taught me how to be happy. It gave me the deeper connection with myself, it helped me declutter the noise, it helped me stop living with reference to wanting to be anyone or anything apart from deeply being myself and deeply connected with my consciousness. So for me, that gave me access to all happiness. What I had to do was I had to infuse that into my search for spreading this

inner successful way. So my first thing is refining intentions. I every day will refine my intentions as if it's a seed that I'm planting every single day. And I feel that every day we are challenged with working for lower intentions, i.e. money, fame, power, and control, whereas to me higher intentions are love, compassion, empathy, service, connection, community, and unity. Those to me are higher powers to work for. And so for me, every day, I'm literally refining my intention, taking out the weeds of desire for ego and pride and fame, and trying to replant the seeds of doing this

for love, compassion, and empathy. That, to me, is the core of a happy life, first of all. Because without that, you end up building something that you may not even want to build. And you then look back down from your tower and go, wow, I wasted a lot of time building a tower, I didn't want to be on the top of. And so for me, that's step one.

The second step for me is, recognize that you have a genius, you have unique potential, we're on infinite potential, and now you have unique potential, we're on infinite potential and now you have unique potential inside of you and it's your role to uncover that. You don't need to be me, you don't need to be Deepak Chopra, you don't need to be any or you need to be you and you have that genius then it's about strategy and I do think strategy is important when you're building a business, when you're building an institution, when

you're building a company and I think the most effective leaders, there's a beautiful statement by Martin Luther King again where he said that those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war. And to me, that's been such a driving force in my life that if we truly love peace and love, we have to be really organized, we have to be really effective,

we have to be productive, because that's what people need. So for me, becoming strategic about your endeavors is important if you want success. Success won't come from just having good intentions and being a nice person. You have to become strategic and deeply focus on your strengths in that space. So you know, all the wisdom traditions tell us, seek the highest first and everything else comes, right? 100% and in short, the formulas pursue excellence, ignore success and it comes.

I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And I think that's the problem that we get attached to the result, not the process. So I love waking up every day and making content, writing, making videos, speaking, being on a podcast with you. I love waking up every day and making content, writing, making videos, speaking, being on a podcast with you. I love this. I'm not looking towards an external form of success. I'm in love with the process, in love with excellence.

A little while ago you used the word self awareness. I think that's the best definition of spirituality one can have. The self is what spirit is, right? 100% But our world right now is sacrificed the self for their selfies. Yes, yes. Which is again, going back to the wisdom traditions, you sacrifice your soul for your ego. Yes.

And that's the downfall. 100% of so well said. And that's the biggest challenge today that we are completely captive of our mind and bodies, rather than living beyond them. The mind body is the selfie. Correct, correct. Exactly.

That's what a selfie is. Exactly. That's exactly it. You know, there's again, I'm going back to young people who are inspired by you, who are looking at their life ahead. Give them a few tips right now. Yeah, absolutely. One of the first things I'd say is genuinely take time to be with people who are growing yourself, not your mind and body.

Like be around those people, whether it's listening to deep back, whether it's reading specific books, whether it's going on retreats, whatever, have those experiences in your life that are helping you go beyond your mind and body. And right now, if that doesn't make sense, what I mean by that is go to places where you forget to think about how you look, who you are and what your status is. Like that's a very practical way of doing it.

Go somewhere, no one knows you, go somewhere where you get to explore yourself beyond the self you think you are right now. When I started, I never thought this would happen. The strategy for social media is deeply serving your audience. It still starts with service. It's like, do you really understand people's needs, dreams, and worries?

Do you really understand what people are challenged by? And do you really want to make a difference in their life? If you do, your content will naturally get views and likes and shares. And if you don't take the time to care for your audience by understanding them, then your content won't. So if you're just trying to get likes, views and shares, yes, you may get one viral video

and you may get one little hit and it may make you feel better. But when you're taking time, so I'm deeply having conversations with the audience I create for. I spend so much time in personal meetings with people who are aged between 18 to 35 because that's the majority of my audience. Just talking to people to learn about what their challenges are, what can be helped with

them. I've been coaching people for the last 10 years of my life younger than me and just observing their challenges and helping them when it made no money. When I was a monk, I mentored so many, when it made no money and got no views. So I've done this for the last 13 years in my life, when it made zero money, when it had zero views and had zero followers. If you don't know who you are, you don't know the world.

If you don't know yourself, you can't actually relate to anybody else. Peace can only be created by those who are peaceful and just like love can only be shown by those who have experienced love. So this is very important work that you are doing and I must congratulate you for doing this at such an early stage in your life and being such an inspiration to so many millions of people now billions, I would say. And I have to thank you for doing this because you're really doing it so effectively. I am Jan Levan Zant and I'll be your host for the R Spot. Each week listeners will call me live to discuss their relationship issues.

Nothing will tear a relationship down faster than two people with no vision. Does your all are just flopping around like fish out of water? Mommy, daddy, your ex, I'll be talking about those things and so much more. Check out The R Spot on the iHeart Video app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. When my daughter ran off to hop trains, I was terrified I'd never see her again, so I followed her into the train yard. This is what it sounds like inside the box-car. And into the city of the rails. There I found a surprising world so brutal and beautiful that it changed me. But the rails do that to everyone. There is

another world out there and if you want to play with the devil you're gonna find them down the rail yard. Undenail Morton. Come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to City of the Rails and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Or, cityoftherails.com. Our 20s are often seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time?

I'm Jermis Beg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.