the bossbabe podcast - 146. The Real BTS of Building My Business with Jay Shetty

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

Ready to scale your business without the burnout? Join BossBabe Co-Founder & CEO Natalie Ellis and guest Jay Shetty to learn how to easily prioritize self-development, and self-care while in a push season in your business. Hear how Jay built his business, in a way he’s never told before. Ready to join The Société, our membership for female entrepreneurs? Click here: http://Bossbabe.com/connectbuildgrow Order Jay’s Book: https://thinklikeamonkbook.com/ Follow:  BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie: @iamnatalie Jay Shetty: @jayshetty

Okay, before we dive in, I have to let you know that the Society is officially open for enrolment. The Society is the place for female entrepreneurs to connect, build and grow. And if you want to work alongside me, Danielle and so many other experts in 2021 to make sure that you hit your massive goals then this is the place for you we created it because we wished it existed when we started out on our journeys we were so incredibly lonely and finding each other and being able to come together and learn from mentors who've been there and done that has been a real game changer so we wanted to create the place where you could come and find your business bestie, where you can learn from experts who've been there and done it before, and where you can get coaching

on anything that's stopping you or blocking you on hitting those goals. So we're open for enrollment and something that I want to let you know is we are making some big changes to the society and it is coming back bigger and better than ever when we reopen. And with that, we are going to have a brand new price tag and it's going to be significantly higher than the cost right now. So this really is your last chance to get in at this price. We're going to be raising the price a lot because the value we're going to be giving is going to be tripled. It's going to be so much bigger and better

than it always has been. So we're really excited to be making all of these changes. And as it stands, the society is already an amazing, amazing program with over $52,000 worth of value that you get for $35 a month. It's crazy. So if you're ready to get in and you're ready to make 2021 the year that you hit those massive goals, and you want to do it alongside me, Danielle, and some amazing other mentors, then all the info is

below in the show notes for you, all the links that you need, or you can head to bossy.com forward slash membership. I cannot wait to see you in there. As soon as you join, come on into the Facebook group and introduce yourself. With that, let's dive in. For the first two years, I worked seven days a week. I still did all the things that you would call self-care. And so when people say that they work seven days a week, it doesn't mean that they destroyed their health and burnt out. It means that everything else was secondary and there was a priority that was very clear. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and CEO of

Boss Babe and your host for this episode. In this episode, we are getting tactical and practical on all things personal development and lifting the lid on the tangible tools that will help you develop your courage and confidence in life and business, even when you feel you have no space left in your day. Whether you're in the first years of entrepreneurship or working on your side hustle while holding a full-time position elsewhere, we can all benefit from the reminder that where one part of your holistic well-being drops off, the rest will follow. It's vital in the time of massive growth to continue to check in with your mind and body as much as you check your emails, slack, and sales. During the beginning of my career as an entrepreneur, there were weeks where I did work

those seven days a week and it's been really important to me while building Boss Babe to credit that time in life but not to glamorize the hustle mentality because although in some seasons we need to up the pace to scale our businesses it's vital that we continue with self-care throughout those seasons of our lives as well. This episode's guest is an expert on prioritizing daily self-development and mindfulness, even when in a massive season of growth in life and business. And that's why I'm so honored to have him on as today's guest. Jay Shetty, the creator and host of the On Purpose podcast, a former monk, purpose coach, and best-selling author of his book,

Think Like a Monk. In his 20s Jay really struggled to find his passion and purpose in life from being rejected from 40 corporate jobs to securing one and feeling extremely dissatisfied to moving to America from London and being just four months shy of being completely broke with no plan. Jay is the prime example of what is possible when you bet on yourself, pick up a camera and start showing up as a positive influence on social media. So if you're tuning in for this episode, ready to learn more about how to stay consistent with your self-development and pick up a few tips and tricks to increase your courage and confidence in life and business, you are going

to love this episode because Jay has committed his life to passionately creating, empowering, and thought-provoking content to help you on your journey to the highest level of yourself. So sit back, have your notepad and pen at the ready, and prepare to learn exactly how to easily prioritize self-development while in a push season in your business. As always, take a screenshot, share your biggest takeaways and Insta stories, tag me at IamNatalie at BossWave.inc and at Jay Shetty. Oh, and bonus points if you leave us a review because it truly helps so much and means the world. Let's dive in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own

version of success. Yay, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Natalie. I'm so happy to be here. And we were just talking about how we're going to make this interview very different to any other interviews that you've done, which I'm really excited about. So thank you for being so open with our community. Absolutely. I love your community. I feel so much love from Boss Babe on Instagram and I always see them in the comments and DMs. I love what you've built and it's incredible to be a part of it finally. And thank you for giving me this opportunity. Yeah. I mean, we're so honored to have you on here. And one thing that I want to kick this interview off with is, so you've just launched a book and it absolutely blew up. The reception

has been phenomenal. And I want to know what's the one biggest thing you've learned about launching a book from your journey so far? That is a great question. I'm so glad we're talking about that. Yeah. So the number one thing I've learned about launching a book is that you have to build the right team. So often books feel like just individual endeavors. And actually what I realized is that having a team was really powerful. So I'll give an example of what I mean by that. I obviously have a book agent, but when I started writing the book, I realized one of the things I really wanted in the book was a lot of research. So I was asking people around as to who's a good researcher for books, because I wanted a lot of

science and I wanted a lot of data. And I wanted someone to be able to give me the data that I was asking people around as to who's a good researcher for books because I wanted a lot of science and I wanted a lot of data. And I wanted someone to be able to give me the data that I was looking for. And so I hired an incredible researcher. At the same time, I was speaking to a lot of my friends that are professors at Yale or Harvard. And I was asking them to introduce me to their friends that are neuroscientists that have scanned monks' brains or have done studies on human behavior, whether it's to do with negativity or gratitude. And so what I was really doing for the time leading up to the book was that I was developing a team for each part of it from content through to obviously the sharing of the book and the amplifying of the book and the marketing of the book. But the most important thing I'd say is have a great timeline and build a team around

the timeline. Don't rush a book in the creation of the content or in the marketing of it because books are just, A, they're going to last forever. And B, it's really the deepest form of content expression that you can do. And so you can't rush it. And building a team around the timeline that can help support your vision is really, truly important. I love that so much. And I think that goes for a lot of things as well, having that important team so you're not doing it alone. One thing that I want to ask about this, and I've never written a book and I don't think it's for me for at least the next five years, but just listening to a lot of friends who wrote books, they always say, you don't write

a book to get rich. You write a book because you need to put this information out in the world. It's not like, it's not like launching a course or anything like that. It's not really a financial endeavor. It's more, here's the impact that I want to have on the world. Here's my legacy. And it feels almost the investment, everything that goes into the book, like it would take you away from your day-to-day business. And it must be a very conscious decision to say, you know what, I need to do this. And so I need to sacrifice or compromise on other things. Was that something you had to do? Yeah. So the book, I would say in total, took me four to five hours a day for 12 months in total, five days a week, not the weekends, obviously. And so that's the amount of time you're spot on. And it was really strange for me because I remember my agent saying to me, he said, Jay, you already had a full-time job and now you have another full-time job.

And it was just really interesting. And I'll be honest with you, last year, I tested my capacity as to how much I could take on like no other year. And what I was most blown away by is how far I could stretch if I upped my wellness and health game at the same time. So just to give a quick overview of what I did last year, we launched my podcast in February 14th of 2019. So the podcast was launched. The book was written last year, which was all the writing.

I developed a curriculum for my life coaching certification, which went live last year, which was all the writing. I developed a curriculum for my life coaching certification, which went live this year, which is a fully accredited certified program for everyone to become a life coach. I also did my first ever live event in LA last year, which was a full 2000 person event, which was incredible to do. And I'm sure I did a bunch of other stuff, but that's all of those things happened last year. And when I look back and I'm just thinking, I'm like, how did I do all of that in a year? I realized that when you're gradually adding something every year, you start to stretch your capacity. And when I reflected on it, I came up with it in a way that I think would be really useful to anyone who's listening to this right now, is I realized that every year I want to be learning something. Every year I want

to be loving something. And every year I want to be launching something. So these are the three L's of how I plan every year now. And I was unconsciously doing this for the past three years. And the past three years of my life have been the best years of my life, both from a personal and professional and a purposeful standpoint. And I was thinking, what was I doing different? And I realized this is what was happening. When you keep learning, you'll always feel a sense of growth. You'll always feel a sense of achievement. You'll always feel a sense of movement. So often we hear entrepreneurs say things like, I'm stuck, or I feel like I don't know what to do next. And we experience that when we stop learning. And so if you're always learning something every year, you will know what you're enjoying, that is helping you thrive, that is helping you feel like you're

getting something right. And then every year you want to launch something because you want to feel nervous again. You want to feel uncertain again. You want to feel that sense of excitement and experimentation again. So that's how I've broken it down. So last year we launched the podcast, I was learning about writing a book because I was writing a book in the process. And I was loving making videos because that's what I'd done previously. And this year, I went from learning about writing a book to launching the book. And we went from launching the podcast to loving the podcast this year. And then it keeps spiraling in that way. So first you learn something, then you launch it, and then you love it. And if you keep going around in that cycle, and you may say, well, I may not have everything that goes through the cycle. That's fine. If you learn about something and you don't want to launch

it, that's great because you've just crossed that off your list as well. Does that make sense? That makes total sense. And I also love that loving seems to come after learning because in the beginning stages, I think for anyone that initial hurdle is not always the most fun part. When you go back to being a total beginner and seeing that, okay, that comes when you start to get better at it, when you're able to tap into those flow states and then getting into that place where you feel ready to launch. That makes total sense. One thing I want to ask more about is for a lot of our audience, they might be currently in a full-time job and they've got a side hustle. They're doing something on the side.

So they're already feeling like they have these two full-time jobs. And they're also very entrepreneurial minded. So they have ideas left, right, and center. Their notepads are filled with ideas. And the one thing that can, well, two things actually that can creep in, one thing in particular is overwhelm. It can creep in and they start to feel overwhelmed. And then the other piece that creeps in is this voice in their head. Well, are you really good enough to do this? You're already overwhelmed. Has that crept into your journey at all? And do you have any practices for dealing with that?

Natalie, I'm already loving this conversation. This is so great. I don't get to talk about some of these things enough. And so I'm so happy that you're asking me them. This is great. So I want to share with everyone who's listening that I was literally in that position, that exact position. I would say now I was in it up until the end of 2015. So that's five years ago now. So just five years ago, I was in that situation where I left my

corporate job. So I was in a corporate job. I was doing well. I worked at a large consulting firm with 500,000 people globally. It was my office job. And I too, just like all of you, had so many ideas. I was doing courses. I had a passion. I was reading books. I was listening to podcasts. And by the way, that was all a massive part of the journey. I don't think I would have been able to have the courage, the confidence, or the skills and the, to be honest, the capability to actually make the switch if I hadn't read those books, if I hadn't listened to the podcast, if I hadn't done the online courses. And so you're already on the right track. And I just want to assure you of that first of all, because the majority of people don't even get to this stage where they're even considering their passion.

So the fact that you've got to this stage, I just want you to honor that for a moment, because a lot of people don't get to that stage and your commitment to Boss Babe and the community and the movement that this amazing team has built up is just really, really important. But what it was for me is I created something called the rule of three when I was at Accenture. So I had my goal and my goal was that I really wanted to share timeless and ancient wisdom in a way that was relevant, accessible, and practical. I was aware of that. And I knew I was passionate about teaching and sharing and communicating. That's something I'd been passionate about for a while, but I just didn't know where to start. I really,

really didn't know where to start. So the first thing I did is I pitched my video series idea to 40 companies, sorry, to 10 media companies in London. And all of them said no, because I didn't have a media and communications background. So then I actually networked with three executives that I didn't know, three media executives in the UK. One of them I chased on his bike, which he rides around London, the streets of London. One of them I networked through a family friend of my wife's who got me on a phone call with this executive. And the other one, I used to go to networking events and just wait around till the end till I could talk to him. One of them told me I was too old. I was 28 years old at the time to be in media. He said, you're too old to be in media. The other one told me that I was too underqualified. And the other

one told me that, well, if I was getting married, I was getting married the year after to my wife. He said, well, if you're getting married, then you should just stay in a safe corporate job. Why are you taking the risk? And so I was in that mindset where I was genuinely scared, where I was having experts tell me I was too old, I was too underqualified. And what I realized in that point, he says, I had to see whether I had the skills that I knew would be needed. So I went to a TV training day that was run in London for ethnic minorities. So I walk into this studio, there's like six people in the room, we're all brown and black. And I walk in and we're trained in presenting all day. And I was going there to see, do I even have the skills? Like maybe I don't have the skills. And they said to me that I had the skills.

They said, Jay, you're good on camera. You can present. You communicate effectively. And I said, okay, that's great. Like, can you give me a job in media so I can do meaningful well-being media? By the way, this is again, 2015. And they said, Jay, there's no jobs in media right now. And I was like, what?

You called all of us here to tell us there's no jobs in media? What was the point in that? And they said, well, you should start a YouTube channel. And I was like, what? You called all of us here to tell us there's no jobs in media? What was the point in that? And they said, well, you should start a YouTube channel. And I was like, are you kidding me? Literally, I was like, are you kidding me? And they're like, you should start a YouTube channel. And I was like, yeah, that works for Justin Bieber. Like, that does not work for Jay Fetty. Like, that does not work for me. And I remember learning of this Thomas Edison quote at the time, which was, when you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't. And I realized that I was left with the only opportunity I had left was to try a YouTube channel because all the mainstream paths had said no to me.

So why am I sharing this with you? Because the missing link in your confidence and your ability to know where to put your effort and your overwhelm is you haven't identified where your passions and your strengths overlap. It's not good enough to just have a passion about something and like something. You actually have to have a skill in it and you shouldn't mistake inexperience for weakness. So just because you haven't experienced a skill or you haven't tried to develop it, it doesn't mean that it's a weakness. And so ask yourself, not just what am I passionate about, but what am I so passionate about that I'm willing to develop the skills? I'm willing to go and learn. I'm willing to go and become better because'm willing to go and learn. I'm willing

to go and become better because that's what gives you courage. That's what actually gives you confidence is when you feel you have the skills that no one can take away from you. So people can know more than you. People can be more passionate than you. But if you've gone and developed the skills and the strengths and the expertise that goes alongside what you're trying to do, then you won't feel as overwhelmed and you'll actually gain a sense of courage. Does that answer your question, Natalie? Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity,

which I love. Not to mention, our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course, I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening

and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Yeah, that really answers my question. I think that skill piece is so important. And what you touch on as well was being willing to get resourceful. Okay, so they won't hand a job to you, get on YouTube. What's the way around? What's the resourcefulness that you're gonna pick up? Because no matter what you're doing,

whether you're launching something for the first time, the 10th time, it's never gonna go to plan. There's always gonna be some way that you need to get resourceful and figure out a way. And I think getting that, being willing early on is gonna be really important. And I'm wondering for you, so you

decided, okay, I'm going to go start this YouTube channel. There must have been some self-doubt. Who's going to watch this? Is this any good? Or, oh my God, what are my friends and family or coworkers going to think? Did any of that creep into your mind when you were doing it? And how did you deal with it? Massively. I was so scared. I think I actually subconsciously had watched YouTube for like two years before I ever even made a video. So like 2014 to 2016, I'd been like watching YouTube and just thinking, oh, I need to do this. I need to give this a go. I need to try. And I just spent two years just like talking myself out of it because I was so scared and anxious and also just didn't know what I would do and how I would start and all of that. And as you said, and noticed, I only actually went to it when I'd run out of options

and that's all I had. So I remember when I put up my first ever video, all the feedback I got, especially from a lot of close people that I knew. And when I say close, I don't mean like my best friends, but I mean like the wider community and circle was like, Jay, you talk too fast. Jay, the editing wasn't right here. Or the music's too loud in this part. And what they didn't know and what I knew was that I taught myself how to edit. So I would finish my corporate job. I'd get home at about 9 p.m. every day, 8, 9 p.m., eat dinner. And And then I teach myself how to edit from 9pm to 2am because I couldn't afford to pay someone to edit my videos. So I would spend five hours a day, five days a week to edit one five minute video, which are terrible odds, by the way. If an editor

tells you that they need 25 hours to edit a five minute video and their day rate is whatever it is. Do not believe them. It's not true. Those are terrible odds. And every week I would get better at it. So it would go from 25 hours to 20 hours to 15 hours to then 10 hours to then five hours. It was a process,

but I was just teaching myself how to sound edit, how to color edit, how to put B-roll on and stock footage. I didn't even know what those terms was when I started. And then I was getting feedback like, Jay, you talk too fast. Jay, we're not sure about this. And that's the things I was hearing back. And I was thinking, wow, how long am I going to keep this up? But what kept me going is I really enjoyed the process. I enjoyed the process of creating. I really liked the idea of having to think about a topic, talk about it, edit the video, find the footage. And this is another really, really important part

of creating a purposeful life and a life that you're passionate about is you have to enjoy the process, not just the results. So a lot of the time, there's a mistake that we make where we don't enjoy the process, but we only enjoy the results. So you may say, Jay, I hate preparing for a speech, but I love it when everyone tells me I have a good speech. That's not satisfying. That's not your purpose. You can't do that for the rest of your life. And the opposite is also true, which I was in where I enjoyed the process, but the result, at least from the people that knew me, wasn't the most positive one. So what I started to do is I started to tweet out my videos and email my videos. So I literally made a database of every exec and their Twitter handle, their email, and

their postal address that I could find in London. And I would literally send them my video either by tweet, by email, or by sending them a letter saying, and like putting the URL in a letter and saying, please, can you watch this video and tell me what you think? And maybe we can do something with it. And I had some initial people be like, oh, these are really cool. And I had some other people saying like, oh, not really my style. And I just realized that all I had to do was keep putting it out there for one person to say yes. That was just what I kept repeating.

I was just like, all I need to do is just find one person that likes this because that's all it takes. And in three months time of doing that every single week when I released a video, finally my video was shown to Ariana Huffington at Davos. And that was my first tipping point because she really liked the videos that I was creating. And that was really the starting point of the next stage. So yeah, I had tons of doubts. I had tons of anxiety. But like I said before then, I'd done the research on the topic so I'd been just to give you a bit of background I started sharing talks and topics on these themes when I was 18 years old after I

met the monks I had a society at university and you know Natalie like in the UK we have societies right at school I think they have clubs in the US, I set up a society called Think Out Loud at my university. And every week, I would present a topic based on a movie where I would dissect a movie like Inception from a psychological, philosophical, and spiritual point of view. And students would just come and hear me for free. So I'd already been doing this for 10 years offline before it made money, before there were followers, before there were views. And I'd already been doing this for 10 years offline before it made money, before there were followers, before there were views. And I'd already been talking about these topics in companies and coaching people and

delivering these offline. So when I took it online, it was just a natural extension of work I'd already been doing for years. There's so much gold in that, that I want to pull out. One thing particular was you saying you need to enjoy the process not just the results and I think a lot of people listening have probably just had a big breakthrough around yes there's something that I'm doing where I don't enjoy this process and I'm only doing it for the results and going back to think about okay what is it that I enjoy the

process and the results of doing I think that's so important and it's so funny because we have a couple of things in common so I turned down a job at Accenture because that was my big golden plan I spent my whole time at university trying to get this job at Accenture and when I got it I took some time off I had a year before I was meant to start and I realized I want my own business and, I started a society at my university for entrepreneurship because there's no one else like me. And our membership is actually called after that. It's called The Society. That was the place that gave me the confidence to take the leap. So I just want to share that. We have more. I had no idea. That's so awesome. That is

incredible. I love that. Yeah. And so one thing you said was just talking about you to have your full-time job, then you'd come home and you'd edit till 2am. Now, something I see a lot of online is this whole idea of creating these freedom-based businesses where you have all this time, all this leverage and space, and you don't hustle and all of that. And one thing that I try and be really truthful about is yes, now I have more capacity than I ever had. And my business is in a good one thing that I try and be really truthful about is, yes, now I have more capacity than I ever had. And my business is in a good enough stage that I have a team supporting me in those things. But when I was first figuring out what business I wanted, I was doing so many different things and I had so many, pulled so many all-nighters and I don't want to glamorize it.

But I also want to say sometimes that is part of the process because I don't know that I would have gotten to where I am if I hadn't have been willing to put that work in. What do you say about that? That's such a great perspective and I'm really glad that you're mining that. I would have to completely agree with you. So when I moved to the States in 2016, initially to be a senior host and producer at the HuffPost, thanks to Ariana. And then when I left that position in March, 2017, I was in a new city. I had four months left to pay for rent and groceries, and then I would be broke. I just got married six months before that. So I had a new partner and a new person in my life who's obviously now still my wife.

And I was 30 days away from being kicked out of the country because my visa was no longer valid. And so I had to apply for another visa. And I've never experienced that much stress and pressure in my life to be in that financial insecurity, immigration insecurity, relationship newness and challenge all at the same time. And I was in a new country that I hadn't lived in and don't have family and friends in when I first moved here. And it was really, really tough. And I remember working or I remember saying to myself before I work, I remember saying to myself, I can either work really hard for a few years to set myself up to then find more balance. Or I can be in balance in quotation marks for like 10, 15 years and forever and never really get out of this space. And I remember being really honest with myself and saying, I don't enjoy being in this space.

Like I don't want to be in a space of scarcity. I don't want to be in a space where I can't invest in making cool videos because they cost money. I want to be on cool sets where we make life-changing content. I want to have a podcast where we can interview guests and have a proper setup. And all of that's not going to happen unless I bootstrap and unless I work really hard. Okay. So before we continue, I'd love to give you some info on our sponsor for this week's episode. The new year is here and marks a fresh start for your small business whether you're shifting business hours or hiring more remote employees one thing that remains unchanged is the importance of having the right people on your team when your business is ready to make that next hire linkedin jobs can help by matching your role with qualified candidates so that you can find the

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And I have no shame in saying that. And I also don't wear it as a badge of honor. It's just being truthful and real. Now, in those seven days a week that I work, I still meditated. I still slept well. I still made time to spend with my wife. I still ate well. I still did all the things that you would call self-care. It's just that I had to do them and then do my purpose and didn't do anything else. And so when people say that they work seven days a week, it doesn't mean that they destroyed their health and burnt out. It means that everything else was secondary and there was a priority that

was very clear. So me and my wife committed together that this is what I would focus on and this would be a priority. And like I said, that didn't mean that I didn't spend amazing or don't have amazing memories of time with my wife being married in New York. We have great memories, but it's just that my focus was on developing my purpose because I believe so strongly in sharing it with the world and wanted to deeply get it out there. Yeah. Thank you for being so honest with that. And I love saying, yeah, I have no shame in this, but I'm not wearing it as a badge of honor because it's not a badge of honor to be like, yeah, I had to really hustle hard. And I've been in the same situation when my husband was starting his new thing. He's still in it. He's in the process of raising money right now, which is a whole different world. And we just had to have that conversation as a team to say, things are going to look a little bit different for the next couple

of months. And we know why we're doing it. And it's such a big part of our lives that that's just necessary sometimes. And I feel like this conversation maybe isn't talked about enough. So I'm glad that we're talking about it. So you touched on the things that you were doing to make sure you still felt healthy and had energy because no one does their best work from this place of exhaustion. So you mentioned meditating, eating well, sleeping. Can we talk about routines? Because I'm obsessed with routines. I want to know, what does your morning routine look like? Yeah, so this is something that I've tried to not negotiate with despite everything else.

And so I've negotiated, when I say that, what I mean to everyone is, and I'm glad you picked up on that too, I don't wear it as a badge of honor and I'm not upset about it because it was a very conscious choice. And I always say that to people today. I'm like, what do you really want? Because if you don't want, I've really always wanted the world to have access to what I'm sharing. And when I say the world, I really mean the world. And so if I'm really honest about the fact that I want to share this with as many people as possible, then that really means that I've got

to put in the work. Whereas if I say, I actually only want to share this with 10 companies or 10 people, then that is much more manageable. And so everything's in proportion to your purpose. It's not what I'm doing. It's not what Natalie's doing. It's not what Boss Babe is doing. It's about your personal purpose. And so you may say, actually, all I want to do is I want to coach 10 people a year. And that's all I want to do. Or you may say, actually, all I want to do is I want to coach 10 people a year. And that's all I want to do. Or you may say, I want to write a book and I'm okay with it. Just sharing it with moms and dads. Your passion may not have scale in it. And therefore you'll have a different level of work ethic required. But I think the point is that your work ethic has to match your level of scale that you want to have

and I think that's where it all comes down to and being honest with yourself and by the way you may say Jay I don't want any of what you just said all I want is to be comfortable and work simply or whatever it is but that still is going to take some time to get to so going back to your question Natalie remind me I got lost on that one. Remind me where we were going. We're going into routines, but thanks for expanding on that. Sorry, I got totally lost. But going back to routine. So routines is something that I try not to negotiate with. Because as Natalie says, so rightly that you don't create your best work from being exhausted. And I fully, fully back that.

And so for me, my routine for consistently for the past few years has been waking up at 6am every day. I meditate from about 6.15 to about 8.15 and then I hit the gym. And so my first thought of the day is always a thought of gratitude. So I start my day with trying to be thankful for something that happened the previous day, thankful for something I'm excited about that's on my calendar for today. I avoid looking at my phone until 8.15 when I go to the gym. And my meditation practice is breathwork, visualization, and mantra. So breathwork is for the body and to calm myself down and to remove anxiety. Visualization is to get inspired and focused and excited. And mantra is my spiritual connection and what I was introduced to primarily when I lived as a monk. And so I practiced all three of those types of meditation. And then I hit the gym, which is actually a more recent addition that my wife

has always been into both physical and mental fitness. And she was really encouraging me to focus more on my physical fitness. And I have felt a huge, huge difference when I exercise and when I don't in both my body and my mind. And then the other thing that I added that I would do consistently many years ago that I don't do as much anymore, but I'm trying to find the new one, is I would find a source of inspiration daily. So I call this in my book, an acronym called TIME. Thankfulness, inspiration, meditation, exercise, T-I-M-E. That's my morning routine. Start your day with thankfulness because when you're in a state of gratitude, you can't be anywhere else. So if you're in a state of thankfulness, in a state of thankfulness, you can't be anywhere else. So if you're in a state of thankfulness, you can't be in a state of anxiety. When you're in a state of gratitude, you can't be in a state of comparison or envy.

And so when you start your day with a grateful thought, it can transform stuff. And the interesting thing here, I want to add something, Natalie. Natalie, tell me two of your friends' names, real or imaginary, but two of your closest friends. Danielle and Sarah. Okay. So Danielle I've met, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. We're talking about the same Danielle. Okay. So Danielle and Sarah. So my disclaimer is I know Danielle. I don't know Sarah. So anything I say about Sarah is not true.

And so in this scenario, let's say COVID's over, lockdown's over, Natalie throws a great party and Danielle and Sarah come to the party. And the next morning she gets a message from both of them. Sarah messages her in typical Sarah fashion and says, thanks, Natalie. It was great. And that's all she says. Now, Danielle messages Natalie. And in typical Danielle fashion, she says, Natalie, that party was amazing. I love the food. I love the games we played. Oh, it was just incredible. It was, oh, and oh my gosh, like I just had so much fun.

I'm so glad that we stayed up late. And thank you so much for organizing this. And it really made my 2020. Thank you so much. Now, Natalie's a grateful person. So she'll be grateful for both the messages from Sarah and Danielle, but chances are she's going to be more touched by Danielle's message because gratitude is better for the giver and the receiver when you're specific and personalized. So when you're being grateful, if you really want it to work,

you can't just write it in a journal. You can't just think it. A, you have to express it and share it. And B, you have to make it personal and specific. So that's thankfulness. Inspiration, I'll share two of my ones I've done in the past. I'm currently on the lookout for my most recent one. About seven years ago, I used to listen to Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech every single day. I would listen to it. And I listened to it potentially for 90 days in a row. At the time, I knew most of it off by heart. And I genuinely think that that pushed me towards chasing my passion and my purpose because that speech is just so powerful. And every word that he says just had such a deep impact on my life. And I recently interviewed Matthew McConaughey

for my podcast. And I was telling him that I listened at one point, probably about five years ago now, I used to listen to his Oscars acceptance speech every day as well for about 30 days. And by the way, that speech is just five minutes long. And just listening to that every day had such a profound impact on my mindset. So I'm on the lookout for my next speech. So if you have any ideas, I'm open. And then meditation, as I spoke about already, and then exercise I spoke about already. So T-I-M-E, thankfulness, inspiration, meditation, exercise. I love that. There's so much gold. I was writing down notes like crazy. Sorry, I'm talking about long. I'm giving you really long answers. No, this is great. My audience is very specific. So the breath work, what kind of breath work is

it that you're doing? Yeah. So I do a lot of pranayama, which is what I was introduced to as a monk. So that includes a lot of breaths like Kapalabhati breath, which if you've ever seen anyone do the messing around with their fingers and their nose, that's that kind of breath. I do a lot of diaphragmatic breathing, which I'm a big fan of. So whether that's box breathing and all diaphragmatic breath. So I got introduced to diaphragmatic breathing as a monk. And the way it was explained to us was really profound that I love sharing was that, and I'll share the story. I was on my first day of being a monk and I saw a probably 10 or 11 year old monk teaching a group of five to six

year old monks. It was the most adorable site in the world. And I was wondering what they were learning because first of all, I've never seen a 10 or 11 year old lead a class. And so after the class was over, I went up to the 10 or 11 year old and I was like, what were you teaching them? And he was like, well, that's their first day of school. And I was like, amazing. What did they learn on their first day of school? He goes, we teach them how to breathe. And I was like, what? Teach them how to breathe? And he was like, yeah, we teach them how to breathe. And I was like, okay, that's cool. He goes, what did you learn on your first day of school? I was like, I think we learned how to count or the ABCs or something. And he goes, okay, well, do you want to know why we teach them how to breathe? I was like, yeah, sure. Teach me. And he said, every

emotion in our life is connected to breathing. He goes, what changes when we're happy? Our breath. What changes when we're sad? Our breath. He said, the only thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die is your breath. Your family changes, your country changes, your city changes, your home changes, your job changes, but your breath stays with you forever. So if you learn to navigate your breath, you'll learn to navigate life. And it was just one of these moments that was so profound. And even more, I've thought about it. I've thought about it. And I realized we even describe the most life-changing moments through our breath. So we say things like, that's breathtaking, or he or she takes my breath away. Or in the negative sense, we say things like, that's breathtaking, or he or she takes my breath away. Or in the negative sense, we say

things like, let me just catch my breath, or someone shares some bad news with you and you go, I just need to take a breath, right? And so all of our emotions are connected to our breath. And so for me, breathing in for four and out for more than four is something I do throughout the day when I feel anxious and nervous. Or even if I don't feel anxious and nervous and I just feel out of sync, I breathe in for four and out for more than four. I can be nervous before an interview. I can be tired because I'm rushing around. And this is what I learned that breathwork's really powerful because the reason you feel out of breath or the reason you feel stressed or pressure is that your body is ahead of your mind or your mind is ahead of your body. So how many

times have you had it, Natalie, where you wake up in the morning and your body's racing around trying to do everything, but your mind's like, oh, I just want to be in bed, right? Or you have the opposite where your mind's racing around trying to do everything and your body's like, oh, can we just go back to bed? And so the only way to remove that tension is to bring your body and breath and your mind and your body back into alignment. And you do that by breathing in and out, counting your breaths in, counting your breaths out. And you should do this multiple times a day. I do it before sending an email, after I send an email, before a Zoom call, after a Zoom call, before breakfast, after breakfast. The thing is you can add mindfulness and meditation to your life without having to

take out extra time for it. I love that we're talking about this. And I think breathwork is so incredibly powerful. I remember the first time I tried it. I mean, I'm a girl from Newcastle. I come over to LA and someone was like, come to this breathwork class with me. And I was like, breathwork, what are you doing for an hour? And it was the same thing. You go and then you realize everything that you're saying,

how it's such an important part of our lives. And it's really interesting that we're talking about this because I got an email this morning. It's called Trends. And one of the that we're talking about this because I got an email this morning. It's called Trends. And one of the trends they were talking about was the search volume increase they've seen in the word breathwork. So in the beginning, yeah, in the beginning of 2016, there was around 5,000 searches for breathwork. And now it's gone up to 45,000, which is crazy. Yeah. And according to, they were saying,

according to keywords everywhere, sorry to go into the data, but breathing exercises peak highest in April of this year, there was 572,000 searches for it, which relates to COVID and people really looking for that, like stress release and different things that they can do. And breathing exercises have just been going up and up. So I just think it's something, well, we know it's something that's really people are getting interested in and realizing, okay, I don't need to take these crazy supplements or I don't need to be doing saunas and red lines all the time. Like a basic thing I could be doing for my mental health is breathing or meditating, something like that. And I, we were just talking about this is breathing or meditating, something like that. And

I, we were just talking about this before the interview, but I think that's one blessing to come out of this crazy year that the entire world has had is a lot more going inward and a lot more getting to learn what already exists and what you have available. And I think that's one powerful thing we can be grateful for. That is so true. And thank you for sharing that. I love hearing the data behind it. I think that's really important that we're seeing that trend because that people are turning towards it. These are such ancient timeless practices and really are, is they're giving you, the way I think about it, and this is why we can also think about it this way. It's like when you're hungry every day, first of all, you've eaten probably every day of your life, but you still get hungry every single day.

Now, when you get hungry, chances are you might panic if you missed a meal, but you don't really panic because you know all you need to do is get food and that hunger will go away. And that's the same with anxiety. It's the same with worry. It's the same with stress. You are going to feel it every day. It's a natural feeling of living in the world. But what you need to have is your toolkit of what to do with it. And that's what makes you feel confident. So I know that I have a breathwork that I practice before I go on stage. I know that I have a breathwork that I practice when I wake up

in the morning. I know that I have a breathwork that I practice before I go to sleep if I'm struggling to sleep. And you keep trying them out and you keep experimenting until you find the ones that work for you. But it's almost like saying, why do I feel hungry? Oh my gosh, I should never feel hungry again because I've eaten yesterday. And that's exactly how we try and deal with stress and pressure and it doesn't work. Exactly. It's so true. And I could go into so many specifics about all of these different modalities, but it's all in the book. So anyone listening, if you're curious, make sure you grab the book. And then, so you do your morning routine. And

then when you say, sit down to start your work day, are there any specific ways that you structure your work day to get in flow or to make sure you get everything done. Yes, absolutely. And this is something that I recommend even if you work at a company and you can encourage your teams, your leaders, maybe you're a manager yourself to try and structure in this way. So I read a study a few years ago that says you can't be logical and creative at the same time. What that means is it's really difficult to go from a meeting about numbers and business into a creative brainstorm in a matter of minutes. Now, our commute in our office may have been a couple of floors. It may have been an elevator. It may have been walking over to someone's desk. That commute has disappeared. Our commute now is leave this

Zoom meeting, avoid this other Zoom meeting. That is your internal work commute, which means you have less time to think, less time to process, less time to prepare, less time to get ready, less time to have that meaning. And so when you're walking in or not even walking, when you're Zooming in or signing in to a business meeting and then a creative meeting straight after it, you're demanding from your left and right brain to literally go from one side of the other, which is literally like trying to drive through traffic in the middle of the day from one side of L.A. to the other side of L.A. If you're literally trying to drive from Santa Monica to Hollywood in the middle of the day, in the middle of the traffic, and you're doing it back and forth, back and forth, that's what you're trying to do, trying to activate your mind to be both logical

and creative, back and forth, back and forth. And that's where we feel tired. So what I started to do a while back is I started to structure my days and weeks as creative or logical. So for example, today, I'm having a communicator day, which means that I'm doing interviews, I'm doing press, I'm doing stuff that I'm doing things that are very outward, which means I can really get in the zone, I can really get into the space of discovering stories and ideas and answering questions, which means I'm able to really enjoy the process. Before this, I was doing something that was numbers-based. I may spend the rest of this interview thinking about numbers rather than being present where I am. And then I have a logical day where all I will do is networking

in business. So I started to structure my months as I would do all my creation in nine to 10 days a month. And I would do all my business and professional work in 20 days a month. That way I could go really deep on the creative and really allow my storytelling to come out. And then I could spend the rest of the time really going deep on the connections, the partnerships and everything else that I have going on.

And that approach to my days, my weeks, my months has just been totally transformative. So block creating and block business building. Thank you for sharing that. That approach to my days, my weeks, my months has just been totally transformative. So block creating and block business building. Thank you for sharing that. I do something similar with the creative and logical, and it's a total game changer. And you're almost setting yourself up for sabotage, trying to squeeze all things into the one day and context switching because your brain switches off and then you get into that state of, wait, am I not good at this or I can't focus and I notice so often that's then

what perpetuates this cycle of I'm overwhelmed I'm not good enough I'm having that self-doubt again so hopefully for anyone listening you're starting to see how you could maybe set yourself up for more success there and for anyone that might be in a full-time job and they're using the logical side of their brain, and then they're going to come home and work on their side hustle, and they're going to go into creative mode. Do you have any tips for being able to context switch in a healthy way? Yes, absolutely. That's such a great question. And yeah, a hundred percent. So Natalie, we have to do so much more stuff together. This is too fun. This is like, I love being able to get tactical and practical because I just see the value in it. And I'm so glad that we're going in that direction.

So one of the biggest ones for me is differentiating things through sights, what you see, scents, what you smell and sounds what you hear. So what I mean by that is, if you look at a lot of people's desks, like their corporate desk or their office desk, it's likely that you have pictures of your family or pictures of your kids, or maybe pictures of a vacation or a holiday, at least in the UK. I remember when I worked in companies, that was very normal. You often see that on people's desktop backgrounds as well. Even if we don't have an office desk and you're hot desking, and you're not a permanent office, you're going to see that on people's desktop backgrounds as well. Even if we don't have an office desk and you're hot desking, and you're not a permanent office, you're going to see that on people's desktop backgrounds and phone backgrounds. So we are really powered by sites. For me, when you come home, you want to

walk into a room or a corner of your room that is geared for creation. So I'll give you an example, and you can't see where I am right now, but I'm in my podcast studio and I have a podcast studio where I have people, places, and principles that inspire me in frames on the wall. So whenever I walk into this room, I see the picture of Steve Jobs. I see the, I'm just looking around so I can share with you. I see the picture of Freddie Mercury. I see the picture of where I used to live in New York. I see the picture of where I grew up in London. And automatically, I'm in a new mindset. So what are the sites in your home that you can change that make you feel more creative? Maybe you have your favorite movie poster in that corner of the room. Maybe you have your favorite book that reminds you

of that. Maybe you've picked out your favorite page of a book, ripped it out and stuck it on the wall. What is it that can visually trigger you to feel more creative and feel more like you're in that space? So when me and my wife, when we lived in New York, we lived in a 500 square foot apartment and we didn't have rooms. So we literally had corners. So I had a creative corner. We had a TV corner. We had a meditation corner and we had an eating corner. And even that differentiation by corner created a separate energy. I wrote most of my scripts for most of my videos, sitting at a couch in a corner of a 500 square foot apartment where I started from because location has energy. When you do the same thing in the same place every day,

and you put a site there that reminds you of what you feel in that space, you can get into the zone much quicker. So that's one trigger. The second trigger is scent. I really think it's important that we realize the value and the power of sense. If you look at why we, when we walk into a spa or we walk into a massage space, we feel calm automatically. Why? Because they've got sandalwood, lavender, or eucalyptus coming out of the diffuser or an essential oil or a incense candle or whatever it may be. And when you inhale it, you just feel calm. And so what kind of scent makes you feel creative? What scent makes you feel centered that when you walk into your house, you feel it's different from your office. Now that you're in your house all day,

what is that corner? What is the scent design that is different in that corner that makes you feel more creative or ready to create? And the third and final one is sound. Music changes our mood. We've all experienced that. You listen to like, I was watching a movie the other day and it was showing how they often torture prisoners by playing thrash metal. And I was thinking, wow, like they literally use sound to torture people. Like that's used as a negative thing. And so sound is so powerful and sound can make us feel nostalgic. It can take us back to a good place or a dark place. What is the sound that makes you feel creative? Is it nature sounds? Is it water sounds? Is it a particular type of instrumental? What is the music? I discovered very early on that Philip Glass and classical piano, which you will hear in my videos very often, is such a powerful form of music that I love to be reflective to. It's not the music I listen to in the car. It's not the music I listen to in the gym. But look at that. We sound design our lives. We listen to a particular type of music in the car. We listen to a particular type of music in

the gym or on a run or a jog. What is the music you listen to when you're creative? And your music may be silence, but the point is sound design that space. So that's how you create different energies and different spaces in your home and anywhere else. I just had so many breakthroughs hearing you say that about my working space.

So thank you so much for sharing that. And Jay, I just want to say thank you so much for this interview. Thanks for being such an open book and willing to just give so much and for being so present. I think everyone here can just really feel your presence on this. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here. And where can everyone go and run and grab a copy of your book? Thank you so much. And Natalie, I just want to say as well that I really appreciate how

much you care for your community, because I love that we had a conversation about entrepreneurship and passion and being tactical and figuring it out, because that's sometimes the stuff that we don't hear about. And you keep hearing these empowering messages, but then you don't know what to do. And so I love getting really tactical about stuff. So thank you for being so caring and focused for your community. And the best place to head over is to thinklikeamonkbook.com. So it's the title of the book, thinklikeamonkbook.com. And then you'll find links to places all over the world, whether it's Amazon or Flipkart or wherever you live and the appropriate places to get the book. And I look forward to your reviews and feedback. And thank you again for having me. This was amazing. Perfect. So if you're on, you can check

the links below in the show notes and you'll find all the links to Jay's social and book. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a a few more and please leave us a review i really want to hear what you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and i also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next to say thanks for leaving us a review we'll send you a copy of the boss babe 25 the boss of 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth it covers everything from our favorite rituals books and hacks if you want a copy just The Boss Wave 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. It covers everything from our favorite rituals, books, and hacks. If you want a copy, just leave us a review, screenshot it, and send to podcast at bosswave.com.

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