On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 4 Essential Trust-Building Practices to Strengthen Relationships & Why You Shouldn't Let External Validation Control Your Life

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Have you been wanting to get over your failures? You won’t want to miss this episode. Today we explore the themes of overcoming failures and emerging stronger than ever with myself and Elizabeth Day Join us as we dive into the profound insights on how to navigate the pain of heartbreak and find love once more, the significance of earning trust rather than freely giving it, and the invaluable lessons embedded within our failures, which serve as stepping stones toward personal growth and unparalleled success. This episode is hope for anyone striving to pursue their goals, persevere through adversity, and embrace the fullness of life. Whether you find yourself wanting a fresh start after a breakup, seeking guidance on building meaningful connections, or simply seeking inspiration to transform setbacks into opportunities, this episode holds immeasurable value for you. Together, we unravel the essence of resilience and the power of harnessing failure as a catalyst for growth. Today we learn- The ways to finding love and jay after heartbreak How to foster authentic trust in relationships Embracing failures as invaluable lessons Finding the path to personal and professional success How to find resilience and grow from challenges This one will leave a mark on your journey of self-discovery. Don’t miss this one!With Love and Gratitude,Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:32 Do you feel happy and successful? Is it genuine? 04:32 Do you have one consistent purpose or does it shift everyday? 07:45 The 3-step method to check if what you’re doing is aligned with your purpose 11:49 This is the reason why breakups are painful and why we shouldn’t push it aside 15:00 Why does trust need to be earned and not just easily given away? 21:29 Define love before you say it or feel it. Love means different things for different people. 23:51 What’s your favorite romantic comedy of all time? 27:19 What is your concept of failure? What about the milestones that society has set? 31:51 What is the earliest failure you’ve had? 37:13 Have you ever felt unlovable? How did you cope? 40:31 Why do we always seek validation from other people? 47:11 Is it considered a failure when you end up becoming someone people don’t normally aim to become? 55:16 Sometimes, things that don’t work out may lead to an opening to a better path 57:17 How does one become a good manager and leader?   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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Listen to the obsessions of wild chocolate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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, Lewis 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 iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Join the journey soon. Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily J is a daily series on calm and it's meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress-free life. We dive into a range of topics and the best part is, each episode is only 7 minutes long, so you can incorporate it into your

schedule no matter how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the on-purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I'll be playing a hand-picked daily J during each of my Friday podcasts. This week we're talking about your relationships and how to create the most meaningful connections with the people that matter to you. Of course, if you want to listen to the daily J every day, you can go subscribe to calm. So go to calm.com forward slash J for 40% off your membership today. Jay, Jess, you're welcome to How To Fail. Oh, thank you so much for having me, and that was a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much.

It's an honor to be in your presence. No, 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 it lies 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 realise 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 pursued 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 pursuit 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. 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 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 your worst version of yourself, or it makes your worst 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 fall in 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 CAS 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, 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 shop. 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 change 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, 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 airlines on that level, we don't go through to the next point. So that's a stage. 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 this 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 in 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

they're making sure that the strategy and money is backed up by that as well. So interesting, because I have a rule of three, which is passion pay prestige. Oh, very close. I know it's very close. You're like your words. Yeah. I love an eliteration. Yes, I do.

You love the idea. I do. I do. I do. Energy strategy and money is just always been that way. I guess they all end in wine. Yeah. That's true. 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 back. I'd love to add the 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's a bad thing. I could not agree more that I was so beautifully put. I'd also 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 loveable. 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 approached 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 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 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, Matt, because you can apply it so many things you can also apply it to grief that there will still be a soul. As 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 truss tokens immediately. Yes, I love the language of truss tokens. That's that's really, that's, 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. Or 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 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 9 p.m. Does that person shop at 9 p.m.? I'll call you with first thing in the morning. Did 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 is 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 when 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

can take years to develop. And it's a divine level of trust where I trust you with my whole life. But often what we do is we start there with people and then we fall back down 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, okay, they were at one and I expected one, or I thought they would be at one, but I got zero, then it's not gonna hurt as much. And so it's a really tactical, practical way

of measuring trust. Super clever. And I think that there's a miss out retention that people believe that sort of attitude is somehow on romantic. 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 it 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 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 three months. Then studies go

on to say that it takes 40 hours to consider someone a casual friend, a hundred hours to consider someone a good friend, and two hundred hours to consider someone a great friend. So if you need two hundred hours to consider someone a great 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, there would be 60 hours in a month. So we're almost giving away really high levels of love for very low levels of time.

How's that New Year's resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off your pesky credit card debt and finally starting really high levels of love for very low levels of time. goals, our podcast, how to money can help. That's right, we're two best buds who've been at it for more than five years now, and we want to see you achieve your money goals. And it's our goal to provide the information and encouragement you need to do it. We keep the show fresh by answering list our questions, interviewing experts, and focusing on the relevant financial news that you need to know about. Our show is Choc Full of the Personal Finance Knowledge that you need with guidance three times a week. And we talk about debt payoff.

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I am Mi'amla, and on my podcast, The R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need and insisting means that you are abusing yourself now. You human! That means that you're crazy as hell, just like the rest of us. When a relationship breaks down, I take copious notes and I want to share them with you. Anybody with two eyes and a brain knows that too much Alfredo sauce is just no good for you.

But if you're gonna eat it, they're not gonna stop you. So he's gonna continue to give you the Alfredo sauce and put it even on your grits if you don't stop him. Listen to the art spot on the iHeartRadart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation

of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was gnawing at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets.

Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets. On the iHeartRad Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 1980's romcoms, and we're coming onto that, don't you worry,

but 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 refused to say it first, because I 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 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 are definition love, is based on someone else's experience. It could be movies, it could be media, it could be our parents, it could be a family friend that we saw. Love is such an 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 challenges 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? Like what does 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 watch Love Island, I love Realistic TV, and they say I love you very, very quickly. only asked because I watched Love Island, I love Realistic TV, and they say I love you very, very quickly. Right. And so that I was interested. But in a way, that's the full-sex expectation of love in the same manner as romantic

comedy is that we love to watch. What's your favourite romantic comedy of all time? Oh, and a good one, that I like it so. So I really do appreciate, he's just not that into you. It's so good. 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 on to 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 want to know we're a million times, but I think I really sat. No, no, no, no. I enjoyed it at the time,

but I think I really sat and analysed 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, because it's such a big movie. And by the way, just to point out, I love Ryan Gosling and Rachel McCadams in actors, their 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 around the street. And she looks uncomfortable because of it. He's like running around, they're walking, moving really fast. And you look at him and go, wow, he's so smooth.

He's so into, you know, because he's a good-looking guy and well and well spoken. And he says, 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 one 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 like, 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 all uncomfortable for her too. She's been putting that. And I think so many movies over time have built this idea of the damsel in distress and the savior and the night in shining armor. The woman has to wait for her prince. That whole idea naturally has made so many people think, one day my prints 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, 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 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. So actually, what is failure? Failure is when life doesn't go according to plan. Who's 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 concepts of failure?

Can I rewind a little because I wanted to comment on what you just said because it's sparked a thought for me. Something really interesting that I came across. So when we think about these milestones that society places, I study 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, we 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.

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 think 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... Yeah, that's brilliant. ...to get there and add that. Yeah, I just wanted to help give people a practical talk 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 chance to say maybe this isn't my path. And so I no longer see it as a reflection of my worth, myself a steam, 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 Therop Johnson. By the time I was around 18 years old.

And I love 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've read Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson, who I've had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Isaacson. And when I saw Steve Jobs' life, and to think that he was kicked out of his own company,

only to go and build Pixar in the meantime 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 is really smart. He was really successful.

He was worth like $100 million 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 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. Yes. But we don't look at where things went wrong. Exactly. We look at their CVs.

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 had because I think our failures is 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

as 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 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 language that I 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

you know 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 know I'm crying and 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. And 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 laughing stock of the school. I'd forgotten the words. And I felt like a failure that day because in all sense of the word, it was a failure. Jay, I actually 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 the same, is that because of those?

No, no, no, no, I'm just, I have done karaoke, I would never do a solo karaoke, let's go there. Okay. 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 or test 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 every 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 compassion at empathy for it. Oh, no. It was my inner child, definitely, you knew that, yeah. 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 because Indian so- I'm 35 now, yeah, I'm 35 right now. So there was that, there was not, yeah, not being open to it. Obviously, Hindu dress and Indian clothing and then of course me being overweight on top of all of that. 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 they're 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 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, and you see another kid do something difficult and 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

They'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 their age. And we all had the same 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 know, 10 years old, what do you know? And I worked 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. And 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 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 or unattractive or I'm not attractive to the opposite sex at 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 was a... 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. 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 iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Our 20s are seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes, and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Spake, 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, friendships and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science and a bit of my own personal experience.

Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about, from the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg, now streaming on the iHotRadio app, Apple podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts. The therapy for Black Girls podcast is the destination for all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

Here we have the conversations that help black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents, our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly ourselves. We chat about things like what to do when a friendship ends, how to know when it's time to break up with your therapist, and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple

podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care. 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 were attracted to. We literally just keep 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. So when you are attracted to someone and you want them to validate you, they'd evaluate you or they reject you. The monks don't validate you and they don't reject you, they train you and how to deal with that. They teach you and 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. And I remember after the monastery when I organized this event, I 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 of 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,

tried an 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 best cellulist, love me for this, look at how many of the user 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. 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 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 is 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. self 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 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 I've been my friends with my whole life where the people I still speak to the mother. Your videographer family? 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 cautious will be the day that I lose it. I really appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Let's get onto 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, your brainwashed, your wasting your parents' education, you're letting your parents down, you're never gonna get married again, you're never gonna 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 cool story and maybe you did it

for the story. I even get some of that criticism sometimes, or it's like, Jay, did you just become a monk so that one day you could do all this? I'm just 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

Everyone's like I told you so I knew you wouldn't. Look, no one's gonna give you a job now. You're never gonna 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 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 break up. 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 try to become athletes and then they had an injury and then they can 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 on his degree straight A student. I'm 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. 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 it 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 are being wonderful in supporting me, let me move in again. But now I feel like a failure on 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 friends eyes because I hadn't followed through it 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 moments in my life, not the lowest. That's 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 Huff Post. The day I get there, she leaves to start a new company called Thrive's 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. I wasn't at half post 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 have ever felt. I don't count that as a failure because there wasn't really a failure. There 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 renting 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 among and it was after that. So it felt even harder. So just reminding a little bit, you got rejected from over 40 companies. Before we even got an interview. Before I got an interview. Yeah, that's right. So all the financial, 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 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 going to be the best interviewer 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 second part, I was like, okay, this could be real. Got through 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 did make videos, but you know, when you join a new company, at least I loved how I extended 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 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. 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. What an amazing opportunity. And then Julie 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 Mother See of the Company and World Greenwood who won the Rugby World Cup and he was invited as a guest speaker. I'm just an employee at this point. I know. And you have the memories of the Duwali before us. Totally, 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 well-greenwood. I'm not Oli Benzakri, who is our CEO at the time. I was like, I'm not those people. Like, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And then I said to myself, remember, I just got to be myself. Like, you know, I just got to be myself authentically and everything will be okay. And then after that presentation, Julie came up to me and she said, I've never seen a group of millennials be that present with anyone else on stage,

you'll 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 and want to take you back to New York and those four months where your 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. Yes, 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 any issues 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

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'll never realize your potential when things are going well. And I used to always be like, I'm proactive. When you're proactive, you always know your potential. And those four months of 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, 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 in 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 where 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 said, you're not tough enough. You're not, you're not like, you don't have to delegate and tell people what to do. And so people will 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, even if he's saying something that's hard to swallow, 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 had made a horrible mistake.

And he never got back to me, never replied, never message back. And it was a really tough experience because I, 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 know, 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 with, 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's 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. Yeah, so it can be a humble brag. It can be a humble brag. 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 wanna have a drink here,

so it's like, I still hasn't talked to him. I've obviously stopped pursuing an apology after, probably maybe six months. I think there's 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 change 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 behaviour

and my main change behaviour 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, exactly. 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 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 fairytale 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 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. Undessigning the difference between guilt and growth. Yeah, and I'm more focused on growth. I'd rather become better and be better and choose better, moving forward, than make myself full bad and criticize myself and judge myself to feel guilty. And I think often we stay in that place of like, I'm going to criticize myself, I'm going to judge myself, I'm going to make myself feel guilty,

because somehow that makes me feel better that I feel bad about it. Yes. But actually growth is me really saying that I feel bad about it. Yes. 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 Chetty, I could talk to you for hours. I could talk to you for years. I really did. 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 really, 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 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, 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 I'm not getting paid for this. Thank you. I really appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. it can be really helpful to see ourselves. So we can notice our missteps, yes, but just as important so we can also see what we're doing well. And mirroring the positive is also something we can do for one another. I'll explain. The next seven minutes are about your relationships and how a little reflection can help spread the light.

I'm Jay Shetty. Welcome to the Daily J. Now, as per usual, let's pause to get centered with three deep breaths. Inhaling and exhaling arriving and settling connecting with this moment and dropping in. It was a typical afternoon on a typical day. My friend was standing in line at a regular neighborhood grocery store waiting to check

out. As usual, she stepped up to the cashier and smiled, and the cashier smiled back. Then something surprising happened. You know, the cashier said to my friend, I'm always so happy to see you in my line. Really, my friend said, what is that? Well, the cashier replied,

it's just that you're always so friendly and it really brightens my day. My friend was taken aback. She had no idea, but my friend isn't the focus of this story. It's the cashier. Because she did something that's so simple, but actually pretty rare. She reflected my friend's light back to her. Writer Edith Warton once said, there are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.

Most of the time we try to be the candle, we do whatever we can to spread our own light. Yet there's an easy and powerful way we can do even more. We can also be the mirror. When my friend had that exchange with the cashier, it shifted something inside her. Suddenly, she saw herself as a person who could improve someone else's day just by being herself. This is how mirroring magnifies. It encourages people to lean into the good they're doing and amplify their positive traits. The truth is, everyone has a light inside them, but when you see it, how often do you acknowledge it? Maybe your mother always helps you feel better when you're stressed. Maybe there's a colleague whose consistent compassion makes your experience at work that

much better. Maybe you think back to how a certain teacher's mentorship made a huge impact on your life. But have you ever told them? Have you ever held up that mirror and helped them see that about themselves? We often underestimate the impact we have on other people, but your appreciative words and actions have the power to make someone's day, even to change their life. And it causes their light to spread. It doesn't take much, plus it feels really good to do it. And so your light amps up too. Now I'm not suggesting that you be insincere or over the top, but the next time you catch a glimpse of someone else's brightness, consider reflecting it back to them. Because if each of us

could help others shine a little bit more, ultimately we might be able to light up the whole world. On that note, let's do a short meditation and then reflect on how you can spread the light. So first, get comfortable wherever you are. Maybe stretching your neck or shaking out some tension, closing your eyes if that feels good and giving your natural breath as it flows in and out. No force, no fight. Simply observing your body, doing the simplest of acts. body doing the simplest of acts, being and breathing. Gently resting your attention there. If your mind ever starts to wander, well that's to be expected considering your human anor. Just see if you

can catch it before it drifts too far away and in your own time at your own pace. Keep breathing and keep tuning in. And now let's open it up. Think about someone in your life who inspires, converts or supports you. What about them do you find motivating or uplifting? How can you mirror their light? Can you commit to getting in touch with them today? Now, if you're looking for another way to spread the light, you can go ahead and share this message with a friend. I'm so grateful for your energy and focus here. I'll see you tomorrow. 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 app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nunehm. I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bon vivant,

but mostly a human just trying to figure out what it's all about. And not lost is my new podcast about all those things. It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place and to really understand it, I try to get invited to a local's house for dinner, where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party, it doesn't always work out. Ooh, I have to get back to you. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. you