On Purpose with Jay Shetty - How To Create Meaningful Content & Use Social Media Strategically

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

When’s the last time you reflected on your social media use and your purpose for being on a platform? Creating and consuming content comes down to a place of personal discipline. The desire for competition, comparison, criticism, and gossip has always been there, and this is why having an intentional relationship with social media is crucial. My encouragement and recommendation is to share good, follow good, and create good. Text Jay Shetty 310-997-4177 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Getting better with money is a great goal for 2023. But how are you going to make it happen? Ordering a book that lingers on your nightstand isn't going to do the trick. Instead, check out our podcast, How To Money. That's right, we're two best buds offering all the helpful personal finance information you need without putting you to sleep.

We offer guidance three times a week, and we talk about debt payoff, saving more, intelligent investing, and increasing your earnings. Millions of listeners have trusted us to help them make progress with their financial goals. You can listen to How to Money on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The one you feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face. We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth. I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I

speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily. Create the life you want now. Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast Podcast in each bite-sized daily episode, time management and productivity expert Laura Vandercam teaches you how to make the most of your time, both at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your day.

Just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before breakfast on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose. I'm on the road this week. I've been doing a bit of traveling.

I've been everywhere from Vancouver for We Day. It was amazing. We had 20,000 kids who'd done thousands and thousands and hours of service to be live at this event in Vancouver. It was incredible. It was all about service, all about spreading purpose and positivity. And then I went to Lake Tahoe.

I was doing an incredible event with YouTube's team. And we were talking about mental health. We were talking about how powerful the platform is and what a big impact it can have. And now I'm in London, so I'm on the road right now, but I really, really wanted to get a great episode out for you this week. So what I'm sharing with you is a sneak peek

of the interview that took place at Wisdom 2.0 in San Francisco. This was one of my favorite interviews I've ever done. I think we got into a really great conversation about social media, how it can be used effectively, what are the pros, what are the cons, how we can actually create habits that work better. So I can't wait for you to hear this episode. Thank you so much. You're going to love it. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. So we're here to talk about social media and how to use that

and both the creative and thoughtful way. So we had Ev Williams here last night, who's one of the founders of Twitter. And he said, we had no idea what we were creating. We thought if we gave everybody a voice, like life would instantly kind of be better. And then after the last election, when one of the candidates used it very loud and boisterously, he said we have to kind of look again at how social media can either create

divisions or also create unity. And so I'm interested to hear your own experiences on what the possibilities and potential social media are, and how you found using it in ways that actually inspire people versus just kind of go into a scroll, kind of, and I go into this time where you're just scrolling around and you're pretty much mindlessly kind of consuming content. So any thoughts would be... Absolutely. How many of you have ever found yourself in a random rabbit hole on social media? Right, but one of the most incredible things I believe that social media is done is that it genuinely just

amplifies what's inside us already. And that's really harsh and inconvenient truth, but it's true because the challenge is that envy and competition have always existed inside the human condition. And so social media simply puts a massive magnifying glass on there, it makes it feel like it's this new issue. But actually, it's been something that we've not dealt with for a long, long time. The desire for competition, comparison, criticism, gossip,

that's always been there. It's just that social media has put a magnifying glass on an amplified huge again where we're like, oh my god, there's this new issue. And loneliness and not connecting with people have always been there. There's this incredible study that I love quoting at the moment, when men and women were asked to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or choose an electric shock. 60% of men chose an electric shock and 30% of women chose an electric shock. So you do want to be alone with our thoughts for 15 minutes. So social media has just provided us a way to fill that 15 minutes,

but it's us who are so uncomfortable being alone. So what I've seen having started making content around three years ago online, having made content for years offline, but online content, inked a study and released it two weeks ago, out of the 777 million posts on Facebook last year, which I'm sure many of you contributed to, out of the 777 million posts on Facebook last year, the majority of posts that did well were positive. The top 500 posts on Facebook last year

were positive, uplifting, and empowering. And the top 10 videos were all positive and made people happy. It wasn't news, it wasn't politics, it wasn't any of those things that we may spend all of our days talking about and worrying about. It was the things that did well. It was the things that were doing well

and spreading goodness. And so my perspective, having lived as a monk for three years in India, we talked a lot about the neutrality of anything. So this glass is not good or bad, it's what's filled inside of it. So right now it's got water in it, which is great, and it could have poison in it, which would be bad. Thanks for not doing that, sorry. And the glass can't be judged as good or bad. So when I approach social media, I saw it in the same way as this glass

that social media inherently is not good or bad. It's given meaning by how I use it. It's given meaning by what I subscribe to it for. It's given meaning by who I follow, what I follow and what I share. And guess what? The majority of us are sharing good stuff. Statistically, philosophically, spiritually, those are the kind of messages

that genuinely are spreading on social media, and it's for us to continue to be a part of that, rather than be a part of that problem. So my encouragement and recommendation is, share good, follow good, create good, and social media can be a place that and livens and lightens. I, uh, to give you, yeah. Well, I think that's beautiful. And, um, I think I, I'm with you in that on one level, on another level, this glass doesn't know all of your data and doesn't get upset and start pinging you every time

you stop using it for a few days. Jay, did you see your mom's first Jay? So and so like this, Jay. So it, it, it, it's just here for you to use it. So should we attend to be, it needs to be fed, right? At least in an advertising model, it needs to be fed to continue. And so how do you work on that system where you know that it's trying to grab our attention.

And we have to figure out some way of managing that well. And I think that's part of the challenges is like the glass isn't there if you needed and not needed the data that now the systems have for keeping us. That's where I get a little bit of like, I have some conflict around our questions around. I'm wondering how you manage that. And I understand they need to make money and there's people they need to pay. So there has to be some advertising model.

At the same time, there's a lot of data they know about us to keep us kind of hooked in. Absolutely. Yeah, how many of you pull out your phones and then put it back inside your pocket and then wonder why you pulled out in the first place? Anyone else do that? I do that all the time.

You convince yourself that you look to the time, but then when you ask yourself what the time was, you don't know what it is. So thank you. I'm glad you do it too. I do it all the time. And we take our phones out of pocket 200 times a day and check all our posts 2,000 times a day

plus on average. So great question. Completely agree with what you're saying. Don't disagree with it at all. For me, it comes down to a place of personal discipline. Capitalism means you're going to be hit by multiple messages forever. Before social media, it was the billboards, right, or the television. It was the television. Before the television, it was billboards, right, before the billboards, it was something else. I wasn't alive.

But the point is that there's always been a way in which consumerism and capitalism will constantly try and bombard you. So we can either sit here and complain about it or be upset about it, but guess what? Social media is not going away. So what are we going to do about it? It's us building those practices and habits of personal discipline that allow us to refrain from. It's one of my favorite ones is I have no technology zones and times in my home. So there are zones in the home that I don't believe technology should go to,

those are the kitchen and the bedroom because it's more fun to eat and sleep with people. And I also recommend no technology times. So one of my favorite ones is I've trained myself to not look at my phone first thing in the morning. Now when I first started to do this, I literally had to lock every device in my car down the stairs outside my home.

And I ordered a time X alarm clock from Amazon. And I had that by my bedside and that's what I would wake up to. And I would wake up to that and I wouldn't have my phone as an instant way of pushing dopamine through my mind. And I was trading myself out of that habit of relying on that notification to make me feel good. So that I could dedicate my time to my personal two hour meditation practice every morning.

I could dedicate that time to exercising and working out. So I feel whatever it takes for us to build those habits in our lives, none of us genuinely need our fund first thing in the morning. Like none of us can say we need it. There's nothing on that device that you need in the morning. And if you say it's an alarm, there's plenty of other alarm clocks. Plenty nicer alarm notifications too. So I think the answer to your question is, I agree,

but that's not new. It's always been there. It's just now companies are smarter and faster at doing it and therefore we have to be smarter and faster at caring for ourselves. 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 going to eat it, they're not going to stop you. Yep. So he's going to 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 iHeart Video app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior in words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder swindler.

The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissists in your life. Each week, you will hear stories from survivors

who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is what it sounds like inside the box-car. I'm journalist and I'm Morton in my podcast, City of the Rails. I plunge into the dark world of America's railroads, searching for my daughter Ruby, who ran off to hop train. I'm just like stuck on this train, not now where I'm going to end up, and I jump. Following my daughter, I found a secret city of unforgettable characters living outside society, off the grid and on the edge.

I was in love with a lifestyle and the freedom this community. No one understands who we truly are. The rails made me question everything I knew about motherhood, history, and the thing we call the American Dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die, or you could have this incredible rebirth and really understand who you are. Come with me to find out what waits for us

in the city of the rails. Listen to city of the rails on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Or cityoftherails.com. Um, creation of content. What have been some of the surprises? Because you've created things that I thought I'm sure that you've thought, oh, this is going to kill it.

People are going to love it and it didn't do so well. And you probably created other things that's like, whoa, I had no idea. So what have you learned about the content that you're creating that seems to get the greatest response from people? Absolutely. So I read a study by the New York Times that analyzed the 7,000 pieces of viral content to talk about what content actually scales across the human mind. The first type of content is, and there's only five categories of content that are shareable in that go viral. The first one is adventure. Content that makes you feel a sense of adventure is more shareable.

The second is comedy or humor, makes sense. The third one is emotion. Emotion is attached to news, usually negative. When we see some negative news, it triggers a negative emotion, we share it. The fourth is inspiration and positivity and motivation. And the fifth is surprise. We love sharing like a dog cat video or a baby video

that a baby dancing to be on say or a dog doing something else. We share that type of content. So when I look at all of that, and I look at the type of content I've created, every time I've gone wrong, is when I've tried to create a piece of content where I want someone to learn something or know something.

Because if you look at these five things, they're all feelings. Right, we all want to feel a sense of adventure. We want to feel like laughing. We feel bad, right? That's a feeling. We feel inspired and we feel a sense of surprise. We don't know, learn or remember that.

The feeling in itself is memorable. So every time I've made a video where I thought he was gonna do really well, it's when I've been like, I really want you to know this point and to learn this point and remember this point and this point is so important, it's more important than everything else in the world. Which I'm sure a lot of us do his content creators

or curators or whatever we are. And it's when I've forgotten that we're all feelers, we all feel. So now I ask myself when I make a piece of content, how does someone feel after watching this video? Not what they think, no, or remember. And that's been the difference in content that is scaled and content that is not done as well,

because I believe it's humans we love feeling. And how do you see the balance between actually reading something and then taking action? So for example, I can see an inspirational video. I'm like, oh, wow, yeah, I'm going to go be tinder. And then, oh, wow, cool cat video. And it last, that feeling lasts for like one second or two seconds. Like, wow, I'm being motivated to go out and be kind.

When it looks like, it looks like sometimes that, that visceral negativity actually inspires more than the positivity. And I'm wondering if that's just something I'm missing or if the platform is kind of set up a certain way or how we address that as a culture. Because I worry that the loudest, meanest voice, just like in a playground, the loudest, meanest voice can win out. And same with on Twitter or social media, like the loudest, meanest voice is going to win out.

So how do we address that? Yeah, that's a great point. I think it's a great question. I think one of the biggest things I see is that as a human motivator, I remember when I was studying the Vedic teachings, which is my background, they talk about three key motivators of humanity. The bottom and lowest motivator is hate and fear. And it's the easiest one to get activated by. Higher than that is duty,

which doesn't really exist in the world today, but that sense of commitment, loyalty, duty, doing something just out of responsibility. And then the highest is love. And that's the highest one to access, it's the hardest one to access. And it's one that takes a bit more time. How many times does someone shout at you to do something? You do it straight away and someone asked you really nice like I do, right? It's so much easier to get activated by fear and hatred. So I think that's common that exists. We know that, but I think we have to, there's a beautiful thought from Martin Luther King

that I always think of when I answer on the thingy of a question like this. And he says that those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war. Right? Those who, thank you, mind if you can. Those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war.

And that's the mistake I see that we rely so much, those who are coming from a place of love, compassion and empathy, rely so a place of love, compassion and empathy, rely so much on just love, compassion and empathy. We don't get strategic, we don't get focused, we don't hustle hard, we don't work. And that was the difference commitment that I decided to make my own life. I was like, I'm going to be an ambassador for change. If I'm going to make wisdom go viral, if my videos are going to be the most seen videos on social media, which they are, I'm going to have to work as hard as somebody wants to break the world. Right. And if I don't work that hard, thank you. If I don't put in that work, just

intentionally wanting good stuff and wanting to manifest positivity is not enough. And I think that's the biggest challenge. We need to get more strategic, we need to get more focus. We need to be hustling as hard or if not harder as someone who doesn't want the world to go in the right way. So I'm curious, we have a few minutes left. Is there something we haven't covered yet that you're super passionate about? And you feel like, I just, this is really important to me. I want to give it a call. Yeah, thank you for asking that. I think one of the biggest things that I've learned by doing social media and being an online creator is that we can really switch a online community to an offline community.

So part of the work that I've been doing is trying to build tribes and communities around people who connect with my content online. So I now have, obviously, there's millions of people that are following my work online, millions of people that are watching the video, but that doesn't satisfy me. Like I'm not doing it for the views or the follow-up count or the vanity metric.

What I get really excited about is when groups of my community and audience are getting together. So we now have... We're in person. ...in person. So we now have my audience spans across about 140 countries and we now have tribes and groups and meetups in 140 cities every single week where people are getting together without me being there. And that's the beauty of it for me that they're finding their own tribe, their community,

without me needing to be there. And that's the beauty of it for me that people are finding real human connection because sometimes they feel their family is a negative toxic environment. Sometimes they feel their works a negative toxic environment. So this is an alternative family, right? This is giving an alternative option. So I feel the quicker we can transfer our online connections to offline ones, the more meaningful social media becomes, rather than just leaving them there and chatting to people. So I really believe in that transfer of online to offline. And I think that can make a huge impact.

believe in that transfer of online to offline. And I think that can make a huge impact. 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, astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of Longheld 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 eight of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you'll get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. 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.

A good way to learn about a place is to talk to the people that live there. There's just this sexy vibe in Montreal, this pulse, this energy. What was seen as a very snotty city, people call it Bosedangeless. New Orleans is a town that never forgets its pay. A great way to get to know a place is to get invited to a dinner party. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Newdum, and not lost as my new travel podcast where a friend and I go places, see the sights, and try to finagle our way into a dinner party. We're kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party.

It doesn't always work out. I would love that, but I have like a Cholala who is aggressive towards strangers. I love the dogs. We learn about the places we're visiting, yes, but we also learn about ourselves. I don't spend as much time thinking about how I'm going to die alone when I'm traveling, but I get to travel with someone I love. Oh, see, I love you too. And also, we get to eat as much.

I love you too. Mike's a lot of therapy goes behind that. You're so white, I love you too. Mike's a lot of therapy goes behind that. You're so white, I love it. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, it's written in a study recently about whether social media creates more loneliness or despites loneliness,

and that was the difference, the difference was, are you using social media mainly to just keep using social media? And are you using social media to join meetups to find out about events, to find out about gatherings where you actually have a human connection because it's that human connection that actually decreases that sense of loneliness? Absolutely. And we've had various speakers here who started Facebook or Twitter, different kind of things. And they had no idea what was going to happen to their platforms, right?

I mean, the platforms have become something much bigger than they am. They never imagined a Donald Trump when they started Twitter, I think it's 13 years ago, or other people who've used the things. It's like, it's taken on a life of its own. And I'm wondering if we just have a few minutes left. If you can say something about

the vision that you have for social media, which I know you've kind of spoken to somewhat, but I feel like there is a turning point that we're kind of facing, which is now that everybody can have a voice, now that we all have our own production company and platform, what are we going to do with it? And is it going to take us further away from nature, take us further away from human contact? Are we going to not see our children even more because everyone's at the dinner table, like not connecting. And I appreciate the work you've done because I feel like we need models

and we need examples. So we need people who are forging a path. It's like, all right, if this exists, let's at least try to use it. Before we give up on it, let's at least try to use it in a way that inspires. So yeah, any of the final thoughts? Absolutely.

Yeah, if you need to take a break of social media, do it. You know, I think that's important. When you need your break, you need your refuel. I spent 30 days a year not using social media, even though my whole life exists on it. It's been 30 days a year where I go into deeper meditation. And I'm not active on my phone at all, and that helps me. But one thing I'd really look at is figuring out why you're on social media,

like just asking yourself, why am I on this platform? And if you can't answer that with a really honest, genuine, authentic reason, then find one to be on there. Because if we're not focused users, we will only be consumers, and that's when you get drawn in, rather than being additive, we will only be consumers and that's when you get drawn in rather than being additive we get consumed by the media and that applies to everything by the way, not just social media that principle applies to everything that if you can't figure out why you're there, then why are you there? Right and so I think that's really important that we figure our intention, we figure out why we're there, what we're doing there, what's our purpose there, and so for me I made it very clear when I started that my goal was to make wisdom go viral. And so that's what I'm focusing on is how can we use social media to scale?

And I have to add that, how many of you used Pokemon Go? How many of you played Pokemon Go with your kids? Right. Okay, awesome. So, I'll fair for you if you. Everyone remembers Pokemon Go? Yeah. So, I'm using Pokemon Go as an example because it showed something.

At that time, all game manufacturers believed that no children wanted to go outside. Right? That was the running line. Game manufacturers like every kid wants to be inside, no one wants to go outside. He came a man who invented a game. I'm not saying the game is amazing. I'm just making this point. He invented a game that made children go outside.

And the reason behind it was he said that when he was young, him and his father would go out into the woods and his father would explain to him different creatures, different insects, different bugs, different animals. And his father would explain the characteristics to him. He wanted to do that with his son, but he didn't know how to get his son outdoors. So he invented this game that became this worldwide phenomenon. My point being

It's our job to be more creative, more focused, more excited, and more alive and to want to be with nature, to want to try new things, to come up with new ideas. And when we do that, that's contagious. It cascades across the whole world. So we shouldn't sit here and feel limited and imprisoned and And when we do that, that's contagious. It cascades across the whole world. So we shouldn't see it here and feel limited and imprisoned and controlled by a device. It's up to us to decide whether it's in control or we are. Beautiful. So our time is up.

Jay Shetty, everybody. He'll be doing a few. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, then. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of on purpose.

If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you do. And if you have subscribed, please, please, please, leave a review for us because we're nearly crossing that 10,000 reviews mark. We've got over 10,000 five star reviews. It means the world to me that you all get so much out of the podcast. I love, love, love your feedback.

Thank you so much. And I can't wait for you to hear next week's episodes with a new guest and a new solo. See you next week. 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 wellbeing 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 Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. Namaste. The world of chocolate has been turned upside down. A very unusual situation. You saw the stacks of cash in our office. Chocolate comes from the cacountry, and recently, Variety's cacao fought to have been lost centuries ago

where we discovered in the Amazon. There was no chocolate on Earth like this. Now some chocolate makers are racing, deep into the jungle to find the next game-changing chocolate, and I'm coming along. OK, that was a very large cracker now. Listen to obsessions, wild chocolate, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Eva Longoria and I'm Maite Gomes-Rajón. 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.