The School of Greatness - Discover Your Purpose & Achieve Peace In Your Life w/ Jay Shetty EP 1371
Episode Date: December 31, 2022Jay Shetty is an award-winning host, storyteller, Internet personality, and viral content creator. Since launching his video channel in 2016, Jay’s viral wisdom videos have garnered over 7 billion v...iews and gained over 35 million followers globally. He is one of the most viewed people on the internet internationally.This episode was one that resonated the most with you guys in the past and I’m excited for the value it’s going to bring you. I hope you enjoy it!In this episode you will learn,How to unlearn what we think we know about ourselves.Ways to fill your life with a deep sense of loveThe difference between the monkey and monk mind.How to have tough conversations with other people.
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The ego wants to be the best of the best or the ego wants to be the worst of the worst.
The ego won't accept being in the middle.
So you see these two sides of ego keeping us locked away.
And so the only way to balance it and bring it all into one is genuine...
Welcome to the School of Greatness.
My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week
we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner
greatness.
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
Now let the class begin.
Welcome to today's special episode.
Over the last 1,300 plus episodes, there have been so many
impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have, and I always like to reflect on some of
the most powerful. And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past,
and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's
episode. Now, why is identity something that you focused on in the beginning as something that was
important to talk about in the beginning of the book for you? Yeah, absolutely. First of all,
I want to say I'm really grateful to be back, Lewis. Like, you know, having a real friendship
in this space and collaborating and loving what someone else is doing. I think first of all,
like just the friendship we share is really important to me and meaningful to me. And I feel like, I feel like a lot of people feel like when their career
is growing, it's harder when you're older, when your career is growing, when things are moving
forward, when we're busier than ever, it's harder to build deep relationships. And the fact that
we've done that in the last two and a half years, I think it's testament to who you are and the type
of person you are. Of course, man. It's hard to be conscious.
I love you, man.
I love you too, man.
It's hard to be conscious in creating those relationships
when you have work,
you have family,
you have your relationship,
you know, all these different things.
Yeah.
So yeah, back to identity.
So I start off the chapter
with this beautiful thought
from Charles Horton Cooley.
And I love telling it
because it's just the best.
And I think it was written
in like the 1900s.
And he said, today the challenge is,
I'm not what I think I am.
I'm not what you think I am.
I am what I think you think I am.
It's crazy, man.
And it's like, it blows my mind.
Every time I say it, it gives me the chills.
Like I feel it.
And the reason why I start with identity
is because I think that's the root of all our challenges.
And the first step to thinking like a monk is starting at the root not starting at the
symptoms or the superficial or the surface level but let's go to the root
if you're playing a role if you're wearing a mask if you're dressed in
clothes that are not yours then you end up living a life that's not yours.
And in the book, I give this example of method acting.
Yes, with Daniel Day-Lewis.
Yeah, I'm a massive movie junkie.
And I love method actors.
So people like Heath Ledger, of course,
from the Dark Knight series.
You've got Jared Leto.
So Jared Leto, when he played the Joker in,
this is not in the book, in Suicide Squad,
he used to send dead rats in the mail to his co-stars.
He did not.
He did, because he was trying to get into the mindset of how someone that perverted
would behave.
And then Daniel Day-Lewis, when he was filming for Gangs of New York, he's actually wearing
these coats that are centuries old so that he can get into character when he's off camera.
Yeah, when he can feel it, right?
He's not wearing watches.
He's not carrying around his mobile phone.
They're speaking in the accents.
And he talks about how he actually went crazy.
Because guess what?
When you fake being someone for so long,
you think it's your reality.
And that's what happens to all of us.
We play a role at work.
We play a role at home.
We play a role with our family.
We play a role with our friends.
And then we think that role is us. Right. And we lose ourselves. And to me, that is the core reason
why we're chasing things that are not important to us. We're unhappy despite reaching accolades,
and we feel dissatisfied. So what should our identity be then? Our identity should start with
unlearning everything that we think we know about ourselves. Okay.
How do we unlearn?
So the best method of unlearning is this.
First and I'm going to get really strategic and tactical because I think that people need
to know what to do rather than a concept.
The first thing you do is write down everything you currently are chasing in your life.
Make a long list.
Your goals, your dreams.
Your goals, your dreams.
Accomplishments.
Anything that you're currently chasing and pursuing.
Okay.
Write them down.
You can write down three, you can write down five, you can write down 10, depending on how ambitious you
are. Second line, ask yourself, what is the source of that? Where did you get that idea? Did you get
that idea from a TV show you saw? Did you get that idea from your parents? Did you get that idea from
your mom and your dad, your sister, your cousin? Did you get that idea because your friend just
got proposed to on Instagram? Did you get that idea because your friend just got proposed to on Instagram? Did you get that idea because your friend just got promoted? Did you get that idea because
you just broke up? Or did you get that idea because you just feel it when you do it that
you feel alive? Ask yourself that. Give me a specific example that you had when you were 15,
18 was like a goal or accomplishment that you were chasing and where it came from. Absolutely.
So my goal when I was young
was to be an investment banker.
And when I really asked myself,
where did that come from?
It came because in my community,
small community in London,
the most successful person financially
was an investment banker.
So I believed you had to be an investment banker
to be successful.
So when I asked myself that question,
where does that come from?
It comes from society's version of success, not mine.
And then the third thing you ask yourself is, well, then what is mine?
What is coming from inside of me?
And if you just do that three-step process, now what you're doing is you're filtering out the noise and you're starting to listen to your voice.
The thing is, you've got a voice inside of you, but it's quiet.
It's like, Jay, take note of me.
Like, Lewis.
And it's just like trying to get through.
And the noise of everyone else's opinions is so loud.
So this is where you filter it.
How do we start to find out what we truly want then?
Not based on what other people think is success.
How do we listen to ourselves?
And if you've been chasing something your whole life, how do you say, well, actually, that's not what I want.
This is. Yeah. One of the biggest mistakes we make
is that we confuse inexperience with being unqualified. So because we've not tried a lot
of things, we just naturally believe that we can't be that good at them. So if I've never
spoken on a stage, I just think, oh, I'm probably not good at that. Or if I've never played golf,
I probably think, oh, I'm probably not good at that. Or if I've never played golf, I'd probably think, oh, I'm probably not good at that. And so we start writing off things without even trying them.
So the best method I can share with someone is take the next month, take the next four weekends
in the month that gives you eight days and get really tactical every single day. That's why
you're playing tennis a lot right now. take the eight days go join a course an
online course a workshop go and shadow a friend go to a seminar a conference go to reading a book
listen to a podcast go and expose yourself to eight different things in a month eight different
things different things in a month and guess what in a month you will have learned what you probably
would have learned in eight years because most of us test one new thing a year. Maybe. Maybe.
If that, exactly, right?
Like some people don't even do that.
But if you do eight different things in a month,
and this is how you have to see it.
If you went to eight different restaurants in a month,
you ask yourself after you eat a meal,
I had that burrito or I had that taco.
Did I like it?
Right?
The first question you ask yourself is,
did I like it?
You got to try it first.
You got to try it first.
You got to go to the restaurant.
There's no point.
So you got to say, did I like it?
The second question you ask yourself is, why did I or why did I not like it?
Like, why is so important?
I think too many people just go, I like it or I don't like it.
Why did I not like it?
And the third question you have to ask yourself really, really simply is, do I want to do it again?
And if you do, that's where you start uncovering.
So my point is, inexperience.
Do not misinterpret inexperience for a lack of qualification.
I'm guessing you're doing things in your life right now that you would have ridden off if you didn't try.
I know you've talked about writing a bestselling book.
You've talked about it with this amazing documentary.
I never believed I could do half the things I'm doing today.
And you know that because we met when i was just creating content on social media and it's like now when you see
things expand you're like you don't know until you give it a go and ask yourself do i enjoy it yes
so i grew up very competitive and you talk about competition as one of these i can't remember if
it's like four or five different things and competition is one of the things that's actually
like um i wish i had the page right down here five different things and competition is one of the things that's actually like,
I wish I had the page written down here. But you talk about competition as like,
not the highest level of ourself.
Yes.
In my entire life, I was competitive,
it was driven to beat other people.
And in the last seven years, I've shifted so much.
I'm still competitive, still wanna win,
but I'm not like hurt if I lose.
I'm not upset. It doesn't defeat me emotionally. Whereas before it used to be like, this was my
identity, winning, had to win. Now it's like, okay, what did I learn? What did I gain from
this experience? Did I have fun? Did I enjoy it? Did I inspire people even if I didn't win in this
situation? In chapter two, you talk about negativity
and the quote you use is,
it is impossible to build one's own happiness
on the unhappiness of others.
Does competition and unhappiness link together in your mind?
Like if we need to be competitive to be happy
in order if someone else loses,
how do we manage ourself in this competitive world
of winning in sports, of building a bigger business,
of these different things,
being number one in New York Times bestseller list?
How do we manage that with this world we're in,
but also wanting to be happy at the same time?
Yeah, what a great question.
So the way I see it is that competition
in and of itself is not good or bad.
And this is like the monk mindset on 99% of things, that this mug is not good or bad.
It could be filled with water or it could be filled with poison.
Yes.
And so competition, I'll give you an example.
As monks, our competition is in how much love and respect we show to each other.
That's your competition?
That's what you compete on.
Or how long can we meditate for?
No, no, no.
I can meditate longer than you.
So if any monk, and I did this plenty of times.
Really?
If I sat there and I thought, oh yeah, look at him.
He's scratching his back.
He got out like that.
Your meditation just got destroyed.
All the value.
And so monks will never ask how long you meditate.
They focus on how deep you meditate.
And someone who meditates deep doesn't go on about how deep it was.
But you compete for showing respect.
You compete for serving each other.
You compete for how well you can collaborate.
And I feel like you live this.
Yes.
I feel like you have this.
I didn't used to do that.
Yeah.
But you do that now.
You think like a monk.
I feel like we're always trying to find a way where we can be better friends to each other.
Support each other.
And support each other.
Yeah.
And so you're competing on that.
And that's a positive competition that I think you can have.
So you can still use, and this is the beautiful thing about the monk mindset, you can use
anything in a positive way.
Now, in your second question about what does it mean about business and New York Times about seller lists?
And being number one
This is how I see it
If while you're writing your book if while you're recording your podcast if you're sitting there going
I hope this is gonna be number one. This better be number one
I hope I sell more copies than this person who's launching at the same time because that's the only way well guess what?
Now the quality of your output right now has just dropped.
Because guess what?
You're now living 75% in the future,
and you're 25% right now.
And guess what?
This 25% is going to define that future goal and result.
And your happiness.
And your happiness.
Whether you get the result or not.
Totally.
Whereas for me, when I was writing my book,
and of course I want my book to be a best-selling book.
Of course I want my podcast to do well. Of course we don't't do anything for it to be last. Like no one does that.
But what I do know is that when I'm creating, when I'm producing, when I'm writing,
that's all I'm doing. See, the truth is that only 2% of the world's population can multitask.
Now, the crazy thing is when-
Who are those 2%?
When 2%, when people hear that, they think I'm in in that Oh, I'm in that two percent. Everyone thinks that they're in that but most of us are the 98 percent
Yeah, and the truth is there is no such thing as multitasking. What it is is fast switching between two tasks
The quality is just dropping because you can actually you cannot do two things at one time
You cannot no one genuinely can do two things at once. I guess you could maybe like pat your head and do this
Yeah, yeah, yeah You can't do something productive at once. I guess you could maybe like pat your head and do this at the same time.
You can't do something productive at the same time, right? Or creative. And so what I'm saying is that when you're sitting here going, this needs to be number one, you are reducing that
thing's ability to be number one because it now doesn't have your full focus. Right. So that's
the difference maker that you can want to be number one. There's nothing wrong with that.
But you can't keep comparing what number one is to someone else's goal too
because everyone's got a different trajectory.
Like there are some people that are kind of come in and do really well at one thing
and you're going to do really well at another.
And that's why competition has to first be in your space.
Like don't compete in a space that's not yours.
Right.
Because now you're just trying to be someone else again and you get lost in identity. A new identity. Exactly. You talk about the four motivations. One is fear,
desire, duty, and love. And as I was reading this, you know, fear is kind of like the
making sure you have your basic needs met, right? It's like, do I have shelter? Do I have food? Am
I protected? Am I safe? You know, living in fear, it's being driven to get out of that fear, I guess, right?
Or driven by that.
Then you have desire,
which is probably what was most of my life,
was one of my main motivation, which was desire.
Seeking personal gratifications through success,
wealth, and pleasure.
That's probably most of like,
I don't know, any teenage boy, you know,
who's just like watching the media and seeing what their friends do.
They're driven by desire.
Girls, money, cool toys, results, success.
I don't want to generalize it, but that's what I saw a lot growing up.
Sure, me too.
Now, the last two, the third and fourth are duty and love.
Duty is motivated by gratitude, responsibility,
and the desire to do the right thing.
And love is compelled by care for others
and the urge to help them.
And I feel like in the last seven years,
it's been more duty and love.
It's more like mission focused.
And there's an amount of happiness
that I've never felt before
until I reached practicing duty and love. And I remember I never was
able to fall asleep at night until about seven, eight years ago without an hour,
hour and a half of just anxious, anxiety, stress, concern, worry. And when I shifted
from seeking personal gratifications to being motivated by a mission and love
and gratitude,
it's like I started to fall asleep within minutes. And it's crazy. But why do we live
in this fear motivation and desire motivation when it only causes us a lot of pain?
Great question, man. And thanks for sharing your journey too. Because I mean, everyone,
as you can see, Lewis is already thinking like a monk. it's great I love it but it's so yeah great question the challenge is that we think things come with
emotions feelings we think things come with feelings and emotions and guess what they don't
so if you chase money well they might for a moment right or they won't i don't think they even do
it's such a false sense of feeling i don't maybe for a moment but it's so short-lived that it's
it's not even worth counting almost so it's like when you when you think that i'm chasing money
guess what you will get money yep and that's great money is really important and money is a really
important resource but guess what money's not now gonna fill that gap, that void,
that feeling, that emotion that you're missing in your life.
And so-
What are most people missing?
We're missing a deep sense of love.
I think the biggest need in the world,
as we've heard many times before from all the ancient texts,
they summarize it like this, to love and be loved.
Like that is the need of humanity, to love and be loved.
And when we don't experience that, we then start looking for status. To love and be loved. Like that is the need of humanity. To love and be loved.
And when we don't experience that, we then start looking for status.
We then start looking for money.
Then we then start looking for recognition.
To help us give the feeling of false sense of love.
Correct.
And the challenge is because most of us didn't experience that from our parents.
And this is the key thing.
What we crave in life is what we did or didn't get from our
parents. What our parents did give us is what we continue to crave, or what they didn't give us
is what we continue to crave. So you'll find that most people's love languages that they chase
are things that their parents didn't give them. So if their parents didn't give them time,
they now crave everyone's time. If their parents didn't give them gifts, they crave gifts.
If their parents didn't give them acts of service, they're craving those acts of service.
So it's because of our childhood.
And if we don't learn to process all of that experience, which most people never get the time to do.
And I empathize with that because I've had to go through that.
I've seen me repeating my parents' patterns.
What was the thing you were craving?
So I would crave, a big thing for me was I would crave surprises and gifts because-
That's your thing.
Yeah, that's my thing.
Still it's your thing.
It's still my thing.
Did your parents not do that for you?
No, they did. My mom did a lot of it.
That's why you still crave it.
Correct. So my mom would always, every year on my birthday, she'd always surprise me with the one thing I wanted.
And I wasn't spoiled growing up.
I didn't have a lot growing up.
But she would get that one thing, whether it was like a Power Rangers toy or whatever it was.
Video game.
Yeah, the thing is you want it as a kid, right?
And she would always surprise me with that.
And that became so deep-rooted.
Now, I'll give you an example.
When I then married my wife, you just expect people to know that?
They're going to do the same thing.
Totally.
You shouldn't do that.
No, because I'm expecting my wife to be like my mom in the sense of I expect her to surprise or show me love in the same way.
And she doesn't know that.
She's not a mind reader.
I can't expect her to know that.
So it took communication.
It took time for me to explain that.
So anyway, I think that's where it stems from. That desire, you can say it comes from society and education. Of course it does.
But I think the deepest place it comes is what your parents did or didn't give you. That's where
it comes from. Yeah. Now, this was really cool. I think right now there's a lot of anxiety. There's
a lot of concern. There's a lot of fear in the world with coronavirus and just people concerned
in general of the chaos of their life.
Whether it's coronavirus or anything else that's happening, people seem to live in this fear state of mind right now a lot.
You talked about the fear of fear and how you had to learn to let go of your fear of fear.
What does it actually mean, letting go of the fear of fear?
Yeah. So I talk about how we fear the wrong things. What does it actually mean, letting go of the fear of fear? Yeah, so I talk about how
we fear the wrong things. What do we fear? So most of us are fearful of how our friends are reacting,
what's happening on social media, and what's the random bit of news that we heard.
None of it is fact-based. That's one of the biggest issues. It's worry-based. It's worry-based,
and it's also imagination-based. So we become fiction writers. We've all watched too many movies.
Now we start writing these beautiful movies in our head.
Well, not beautiful, scary movies in our head of what may happen.
So our imagination, and Seneca said it best, we suffer twice,
one in reality and one in imagination.
We suffer twice.
What actually happens to us and then the story we continue to tell ourselves.
Totally.
Now there's this incredible study in the book that I have to talk about.
So they took monks and they took non monks and they competed against each other.
So they put this plate where you experience heat.
And so what happens is the non monks touch this plate.
Now, this plate heats up gradually, softly.
And then at one point it gets
really hot for 10 seconds and then it cools down. And so what happened is that when the non-monks
touched it, the anxiety and pressure and stress in their brain just triggered straight away,
even though it wasn't that hot. It wasn't hot. It was heating, but it wasn't hot to do anything
major to you. But the anxiety and stress in imagination or in anticipation went through the roof in the non-monks.
Now, this is what's fascinating.
When the monks touched it, they showed that it didn't feel anything as it rose.
But as it got to its highest, they felt physical pain, but they showed no trigger of emotional pain because they did not assign any emotional element to that pain.
assign any emotional element to that pain. So my point with that is, you can look at the news right now
and you can get scared straight away and get incomplete.
Freeze mode, feeling stuck, paralyzed, whatever it is,
because what you're now doing is you're creating a story
of what's going to happen.
And that story.
And you can cause sickness in yourself.
You can cause sickness inside yourself.
Just by the story, not actually.
The reality. The facts of the disease hitting you story you can cause sickness in yourself you can cause just by the story not actually the reality
that the facts of the disease hitting you or something happening physically to you totally
and that story again can be used positively so your story may actually be true but if it's going
to be true now you can prepare and that shifts you away from being scared because now you're
preparing yes and so the real you can be confident because you're prepared. Exactly. And so we should be shifting our fear energy
into preparation energy. Because what fear does is it keeps you locked there, right? We just feel
stuck. I'll give you an example. When you were preparing for big games, when you used to play
in the NFL, right? And you're playing American football against some of the biggest athletes
in the world. It's like you can either sit there and be scared
that you're gonna play this game on the weekend,
or you can prepare.
And your confidence is in the preparation.
So when people go, how do I feel confident right now?
Are you preparing?
Are you putting the reps?
Are you putting the reps?
Are you building your immunity?
Are you taking your vitamins?
Are you-
Drinking lots of water.
Are you drinking lots of water?
Are you taking the steps that are needed to prepare
for whatever's coming? You will feel more confident that way yeah so how do we learn to let go of the
fear of fear though like how do we say okay we're only going to allow it to hurt us when it actually
hurts us and not the fear of it is there a process is there just an awareness of this that when you're
in anxiety worry stress fear you you just breathe and meditate then?
What's the process of letting go of the fear of fear?
Yeah, so meditation, mindfulness, powerful tools,
but I'd say the process,
and I want it to be as tactical and strategic as we can.
The thing is to get really close to that fear.
So what we usually do is embrace it,
get close to it, get intimate with it.
Become the bat.
Sit in the bat cave. Literally, literally, yeah. And embrace the fear. Totally.
We run away from fear. We like to run away and go, oh, it's not coming with me. Or what we do is
we hear one thing and we define the whole understanding of our fear based on that one
thing. So it's like someone, and I'll give you a normal example in a normal life scenario.
Someone says to you in the office, you know that they're going to cut a few people.
And you don't even check. You don't even know. And now you just made it real. And now you're
running with it and you're trying to run away from it. So you're trying to avoid conversations
with your boss. You're trying to avoid any conflict. You're trying to, you know, you're
just trying to avoid it. And so actually what you need to do is go, okay, let me actually
discover that
fear let me go intimate with that fear let me ask myself where's that fear coming from what am i
really scared of what am i really scared of am i really scared of losing my job am i scared of not
having any money what am i really scared of and when you get to the root and i call it the why
ladder in the book so it's asking yourself what am i scared of and then go why am i scared of scared of? And then go, why am I scared of this?
Why am I scared of this? Why am I scared of this? And when you can't ask why any longer,
you've got to the answer. And that's what you have to deal with. Most of us are not dealing
with what we're actually scared of. So that's how you let go. You let go by keep asking yourself.
So I'll give you an example of mine. Like if I heard that or if you hear that in your office,
that people are getting cut, it's like you just get scared and panicked.
But the question is, why am I scared of that?
Am I scared of that because I haven't been working hard
for six months?
Am I scared of that because I've been skipping meetings?
Am I scared of that because I know my boss
will probably fire me first?
Or am I scared because I've been performing really well
and I'm expecting a promotion?
Knowing which one it is,
it sets you up to build the path forward.
Not knowing that just puts you in this panic frenzy.
I think also like doing all the things you talked about, which is discovering within yourself, being aware of it, but then also just have the conversation.
100%.
Confront it with your manager, your boss and say, hey, listen, I heard some rumors that there might be some cuts.
And I want to let you know that I'm 100% committed to doing whatever it takes to help this company grow.
Yes, 100%.
I believe in this mission more than anything.
Here's what I've been doing the last three months, and here's what I want to continue
to do.
Is there anything else I can do?
Totally.
Like, show them why you shouldn't get cut.
Exactly.
And you know how to approach that discussion when you know which side you're on, what your
fear is.
I remember as a freshman playing football, I was playing Division II football in Minnesota.
They usually redshirt
all the freshmen.
And I went into this
with a big ego
thinking like,
I'm going to start,
or at least I want to play.
Right?
So I went into it
with an ego in the first place.
But I also,
which wasn't good,
but I also went into it
with some things
that were good
from this conversation.
I told the coach
straight up,
like,
I know you don't play freshman,
but my intention is to play.
What is it going to take for me in order to get on the field you know do I need to get here early do I need to stay late can I sit here in the office with you after the uh before practice
and go over game film whatever it was and he was he told me yeah I need you to come in the office
every single day and watch game film with me I need to be with your receiver coach every single
day beforehand and doing reps and I just did it and I need you to come in the office every single day and watch game film with me. I need to be with your receiver coach every single day beforehand and doing reps. And I just did it.
And I eventually started to play my freshman year. I didn't start in the beginning, but I started to
start at the end. And that for me, it was powerful. It's like I addressed it because I wanted to play
and I was afraid I wasn't going to play at all and just waste a year of practicing like every
other freshman would do there. That was my ego going in like I need to play. But I was also like,
I'll do whatever it takes,
and I'll practice, and I'll confront it with conversation
and say, this is my intention, this is my vision,
and I'm going to do whatever it takes for you.
And so I think that in a workplace,
you've got to be confronting it
and be proactive in your competition.
Correct, and that's a perfect example
of getting close to fear rather than running away from it.
Exactly.
Spot on, man.
For me, my whole mission in the last year and moving forward,
the next projects I'm working on are all about belief in yourself. I believe self-doubt is the
killer of dreams. And I believe that, and you have this amazing graph in here, it's about ego
versus self-esteem. How do we build self-belief, self-esteem, self-confidence
while also not allowing our ego to be so big
and think we can just do anything?
How do we balance ego and self-confidence
so they don't hurt each other?
Yeah, absolutely.
And what we experience most of the time is extremes.
So the two extremes that most of us experience are
either I have to think I'm the best,
I'm the best in the world,
I can crush anyone,
I'm going to show everyone what I'm like,
or most of us experience the other extreme,
which is I'm the worst,
I'm the stupidest, I'm the dumbest,
I'm the most worthless,
I'm the biggest loser.
Notice how that's both ego. Really? Yes. Why is the negative?
So the ego wants to be the best of the best or the ego wants to be the worst of the worst. The
ego won't accept being in the middle. Really? The ego wants to feel the deepest sense of being the
lowest. And that's why victim mentality is actually a substance of ego. Really? Yeah.
That's how it's explained in the Bhagavad Gita.
Because the point is that you can't deal with just being bad.
You have to be the worst.
My pain is the worst.
Exactly.
I think Jada talked about this on your podcast where she was like, you know, I had to tell people why my hurt was more painful than their hurt.
And they could never understand how bad it was.
Exactly.
Exactly. That's ego as well. So you see these two sides of ego keeping us locked away.
And so the only way to get with that and the only way to balance it and bring it all into one
is genuine self-honesty. Honesty is the best place to be. And the best thing about honesty is
I'm really good at this. I'm really average at that.
And I'm really bad at that.
And the challenge we have with that is most of us have no idea. We just have zero self-awareness about what we are good at, what we are bad at, and what we're average at.
So we think I'm pretty average at everything.
I'm pretty good at everything.
And when I hear those answers, I'm like, simple things.
Just go and talk to people that know you.
Yeah, what am I great at?
Ask them, what's my superpower?
What do I do differently?
What do you think I do that is different
than no one else does?
And guess what?
I guarantee you, if you ask a colleague,
if you ask a friend, if you ask a family member,
if you ask people from-
They'll say different things too.
They'll say different things.
But you get to learn about yourself.
So real confidence comes from knowing your strengths
and going all in on them.
Your confidence does not come from just standing up the right way
or just saying the right stuff to yourself.
Body language only.
And that's important.
I'm a big believer in all of that.
But what I'm saying is that that doesn't build real confidence.
Real confidence comes from thinking, I'm really good at this.
I know I can do this and I love doing it.
And really, this is the most important bit.
Confidence comes from serving other people.
When you see the impact you have on others, and this is the biggest issue, the reason why we have
such a low self-esteem today in the world is because people are not serving others. So they
don't see the profound impact they have on others. When you put out a video or a podcast and people
tag you on Instagram and they say, Lewis, you stopped me from depression
or you helped me out of a divorce. Or people, when they watch my content, they'll be like,
that stopped me from committing suicide or whatever. When you see that, you get such a
deep sense of self-worth that you matter. And guess what? Everyone matters. Whether you matter
to one people or one million people, everyone matters. But if you see your impact on someone's
life, you will feel such a deep sense of self-worth.
And so whether you're serving at a giving out free food or whether you're serving at a local charity place or whether you're serving through your work.
Serve, serve, serve.
Because when you take that step, you get a boost of self-esteem.
But why do so many of us live in fear and desire mode as opposed to duty and love mode?
Why is that?
Like, why are we still focused on self as opposed to service?
It's conditioned.
It's conditioned, right?
I've said this before that we're wired for generosity, but we're educated for greed.
I think I just said it to you two years ago when I was on the podcast.
It's like, and when I said that, and it's so true, we're wired for generosity, but we're educated for greed.
Because what happens is when we're kids, you'll see kids go out of their way.
They want to share.
It's part of my candy bar, whatever.
Totally, yeah.
And then as we get older, we're told that there's less.
And this is what the key is.
As we get older, we're told there are finite numbers of how many kids get made on the basketball or
baseball team yes we're told there's a finite number of college spaces we're told there's a
finite number of how many tickets there are we're told there's a finite number of people that are
successful guess what in the theater of happiness there are infinite and unlimited seats and there
is a seat with your name on it there is a seat with your name on it. There is a seat with your name on it in the
theater of dreams, in the theater of happiness. But you think that because you think that there
are only a hundred people allowed in, that if someone else makes it before you, that you don't
get in. And guess what? Is there a cap on how many billionaires there are in the world? No.
No. Is there a cap on how many millionaires there are in the world? No. No. Is there a cap on how
many happy people there are in the world? No. And that's why I really am encouraging Forbes.
I want Forbes, forget printing a rich list, print a happy list, print a service list, print a list of who is serving the most in the world.
Wow. That'll be competition based Teresa I don't think she gave any money to her charities right but you get a lot of time and energy yeah you know you look
at all the people who made a change in the world Martin Luther King Gandhi like
they may not have given a lot of money to stuff yeah you have time and energy
you don't to give resources but your resourcefulness your love your time your
focus your attention your compassion love that you know resourcefulness, your love, your time, your focus, your attention, your compassion. Love that.
You know, resourcefulness of the heart, not of the wallet, I think is key.
Love that.
And you don't need to have a lot of money to make a big impact.
You don't.
And this is the training.
See, we've been educated for greed because we've been told everything's limited.
There's a limited number of this, limited number of this.
And every time you play in numbers, and I think it was Bob Marley who said it,
but every time you play in numbers, you'll always be dissatisfied Marley who said it, but every time you play in numbers,
you'll always be dissatisfied
because guess what?
Someone's always going to have more.
Someone's always going to have more.
I was speaking to a friend recently
and this friend was telling me
that he bought a home,
which is very expensive,
very, very expensive,
and he went to a party at someone else's house
and he told me that
when he was getting a tour of this party he found out that this person had a
painting on his wall which cost the amount his house cost. Shut up. And so he was joking with me.
He was like that guy's painting in the house. He's got my house on his wall. Wow.
And that just puts things into perspective and you think about that
like and then you look at someone like Jeff Bezos and you think oh well he's the
richest man in the world but does he have the most fame? No, he
doesn't. Does he have the most beauty, subjective decision? Does he have the most strength or power?
Maybe not. And so no one has the most of everything. So when you measure yourself by numbers,
you'll always be second, third, fourth, fifth in something. And I think by measuring yourself by needing to have the most of anything is probably a recipe for unhappiness.
I'm like, well, okay, I'm not going to have the most of anything, but I'm going to have the most money.
You're still going to be unhappy.
Totally.
Even if you have the most of something, it doesn't mean you're going to be happy.
Totally.
be happy totally i think it was albert einstein who said it best that not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted and and i love that because it removes
this belief that things are finite and limited and they're not if you want to be happy and successful
if no matter that there are 700 000 podcasts if, if that is your dharma, if that's your calling,
if that's your purpose, like you can do that.
There's no cap on how many successful soccer players
that can exist at the same time.
Or how many books are out in the world.
There's no cap.
There's no one stopping you.
And that's the mindset that we're educated
for that scarcity and greed.
And what's the difference between the monkey mind
and the monk mind? Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. So the monkey mind is what we experience on a day-to-day
basis. The monkey mind is restless. The monkey mind is jumping from branch to branch. The monkey
mind is trying to find a bigger banana. The monkey mind is constantly just like feeling flustered,
dissatisfied, scarce, and overthinking everything.
The monk mind is the exact opposite.
The monk mind is calm and composed.
The monk mind knows to be focused and aware.
The monk mind knows.
So everything in this book and everything that we're talking about
is the transformation from the monkey mind that we experience to the monk mind.
The monkey mind is almost the enemy to the monk
mind. It's the opposite. Yes. And how does someone who is living in a sense of scarcity, because
there are people living in scarcity where they're unable to pay their bills, they're unable to
provide food for their kids, they're single moms, they're stressed, they're stressed,
they're overwhelmed. It's hard to get into a sense of abundance when you're in scarcity and stress.
So how does someone find purpose in chaos when they can't even get out of the thinking because they're just trying to survive?
Yeah.
So beautiful question.
My biggest answer is, first of all, I empathize with anyone who's been in that situation.
I can't ever say I've been in that situation in the same way, but I've experienced similar things.
You've seen the feeling in your life.
Yeah, in my own way.
And I've seen my mom go through stuff like that.
I know that my mom worked really hard to raise me and my sister while working, while running around.
And I've seen my mom be that incredible powerhouse of a person.
And the main thing I would say is what you
can do right now is find meaning in what you do make what you do meaningful passionate and
purposeful you don't need to suddenly look to become an entrepreneur or start a side hustle or
find some more time find meaning and the way you find meaning as you genuinely stop press pause for
a second and go what am i living for like what am
i living for right now and if you're living for your child and if you're living to provide and
put food on the table that is a beautiful thing that we should celebrate more and sometimes it
takes us a moment to stop and celebrate that and so i would say find meaning because you can't
always find happiness you can't always find happiness. You can't always find positivity. But you can always find meaning in that position.
So I'll give an example.
I lost someone really important to me, a mentor, a few days back.
I can't be positive about that.
You can't be happy about that.
Yeah.
It's hurtful.
You feel sad.
You feel lost.
But guess what?
I can find meaning in it.
Because I can make a list of every lesson he taught me and make a plan to try and live every one of those lessons.
Wow. That's beautiful.
And so if you're in a really tough situation right now, don't look for positivity.
Don't look for happiness.
Look for meaning.
That's a good one.
And not trying to get yourself out of pain too quickly or discomfort or frustration,
which I've been in a guilt of being like, I'll just be positive or whatever to people.
But I think it's like, you know, have your experience.
Yes.
Live your experience and find meaning as quickly as possible.
Yeah.
And create a commitment to how you want to use that meaning moving forward.
Okay.
I may not be great tomorrow, maybe not next week, next month.
But I'm going to use this meaning to serve other people, to continue to do what I love,
continue to be great to my friends,
my family in the best way possible. And when you start doing those small things with love and
kindness, so much more opens up. It's like when you, when you can be trusted with the small things
and the small moments, you get trusted with more and more and more. And so like, it helps to just
in that moment, and it's in those painful moments that you realize how powerful you are we all know that like you really recognize it and and what you said was beautiful about not rushing
through the pain because and and you know this example has probably been shared before but if
you have a wound and you've cut yourself it's like you can't rush the healing you can't rush it if
you broke your arm i mean and you've been through so many bodily injuries you can't rush it. If you broke your arm, I mean, and you've been through so many bodily injuries,
you can't rush the process.
It's going to take six weeks minimum to heal a broken bone.
Correct.
Yeah, minimum.
And you've got to sit through that.
It's painful.
There's no injections you can take.
There's no videos you can watch.
There's nothing you can listen to.
But our challenge is
we try and rush through the pain
rather than reflect through the pain.
We try to rush the healing process too.
We try to rush the healing
and you can't rush healing.
And healing is meant to be slow because it buys you time. We try to rush the healing and you can't rush healing and healing is meant
to be slow
because it buys you time.
It buys you reflection.
It gives you so much space
to slow down.
To slow down.
And that's what
your body's calling out for.
And this is our emergency.
Like,
how many times have you heard it
where you slow down,
you slow down
and that's when you fall ill?
Because guess what?
Your body
has been trying to tell you
to slow down.
When you feel pain, so I write about it and think like a monk, pain makes you pay attention.
That's what pain is for.
Notice this.
Notice this.
Look at me.
Look at me.
It's like a crying baby, crying for attention.
When a baby's crying, you don't just go, ah, it's crying.
You don't just go, oh yeah, we'll just put it in another room and forget about it.
You go to it and you find its needs. Whereas without pain, when something's painful, we're just like, oh yeah, I'll just forget about it yeah we'll just put it in another room and forget about it right like you go to and you find its needs whereas without pain when something's painful we're just like
oh yeah i'll just forget about it i'll escape from it i'll do something else you have to go
into that i'll numb the pain i'll numb the pain without alcohol or whatever yeah 100 that's that's
usually our response is what can i do to numb this work more have sex more drink more whatever
whatever it is rather than let me actually become alert.
And guess what?
The pain just gets higher and higher and higher and higher because unfortunately until it really hurts, we don't stop.
Or you need more and more to numb it with.
So true.
And so you go down the extremes of life, right?
So true.
Now, what's been the most painful thing you've had to experience since,
because I know leaving the monkhood was painful for you,
because this was a mission of yours that you wanted to have for your whole life. And I think
you were there for three and a half years. So what's been the most painful thing, I guess,
in the last six or seven years since that time that you've had to reflect back on, take notice of,
pay attention to, and reevaluate? That's a great question. I think for me, it was
in 2016, I moved out to New York. So
just let me paint a picture of 2016. I moved three jobs. I got married. Wow. I moved country.
And I just just started a whole new life. Like my life just transformed. So we went through all of
that with my wife in one year. And by the way, all of that was surprises. The job change was surprises.
The country change was a surprise.
The marriage was not a surprise.
We planned that.
But apart from everything else, everything was a surprise.
Now, I said I like surprises so I can roll with it.
But my point is that's a lot of transition in a year.
So much transition.
And I felt the burden of being in a new city where we had no family we had no friends and my wife who
loves being around her family and no one understands just how close she is to them i felt this burden
on me that i had taken away her time with her family and now she was alone so i was going out
to work and she'd be crying at home and i was thinking she's got no friends she's got no support
and i know you can relate to this with moving
and relationships and so much going on.
And so it's like, I'm dealing with that.
And guess what?
Six months later, I have to leave and move on
and work on a new career to build everything myself.
And then I'm four months away from being broke.
And so on top of all of this,
I've now got four months away from being broke.
I've got enough money saved for four months
to pay for rent and groceries. And that's it. In New York City. And that's it. And guess what?
Even on top of that, I've got 30 days before my visa runs out and I'm kicked out of the country.
So I can't even live here anymore. So not only have I just got married, moved job three times,
changed career again, had to move into a apartment, four months of being broke,
and I might get kicked out in 30 days,
and my renewal for my visa costs $15,000.
So that's going to eat into those four months.
I have probably never been
under that much emotional, physical,
and mental pressure in my life.
Like, genuinely, I felt it.
And I felt my body change.
My breath was more stressed.
I would be breathing faster, shorter shorter breaths not deep breaths
Heartbeat not working out you get into lazy habits you start craving junk food sugar
Do you have energy living in a 500 square foot apartment with my wife?
Which is which is tiny like everything's in that space and guess what we both work from home
So I'm now sitting at a desk hunched over trying to figure stuff out
She's trying to cook in the same room.
Like I'm trying to just trying to figure out what to do.
And I remember the next morning sending like 100 emails to people and just being like, this is who I am.
This is what I can do.
How can we serve?
And that was the same year that I ended up meeting you later in that year.
And the beginning three months of that journey was so stressful.
Like, they were so stressful because I was like,
what if I have to move back to London?
What am I going to say to her parents?
I mean, I just took their daughter away.
Like, I've lived in New York City for six months
and my life's falling apart.
Like, you know, so much.
And I've got all these views,
but there's nothing happening here.
And we met.
But you also, I mean, at this time,
you're also growing so much how are you able to create and reach this impact with your videos that's
growing while you're under so much stress and uncertainty and i stopped a bit at that time
like things slowed down i remember like things slowed down i remember i wasn't creating as much
as i was because i don't enjoy creating from stress or pressure and i don't think you can
really create something from stress and pressure so we really slowed down at that time
and when I was creating I was creating from a place of recognizing that I could share what I
had learned and what I had grown in so far so anything I was sharing was like this is what
I've learned so far so that was the biggest pain that I've been through in the last seven years for sure. And all I can say is
that I remember coming home
to my wife
knowing that this was going to be
the truth
and I came home
and I said to her,
I said to her,
I guarantee you
this is going to be the best thing
that ever happened to us.
What?
The pain?
The pain.
I said that to her the night
I came home
and then she gave up.
I literally came home,
I looked her in the eyes
and go,
this is the scenario
and I just want you to know
that I guarantee you
this is the best thing that's ever going to happen to us. And I said to,
and this is, this is a monk statement that we used to repeat. I said to her, I'm just not going to
judge the moment. Don't judge the moment. Because what we do is we try to label moments as good or
bad. And when you label a moment as bad, it now does not have the opportunity to become good.
I'll give an example. If I go, I don't like this book.
This book's bad, right?
And I love this book.
But if I say that, guess what?
I will never pick it up and recognize the value that's inside of it
because you've labeled it.
And we label stuff.
Like we label, oh, that restaurant's bad.
But when you label a moment.
That person's bad.
That person's bad.
Now you can't learn from that person.
Oh, a great one.
That's a really good one.
As soon as you start labeling people or anything as good or bad, you can't learn from that person oh a great one that's a really good one as soon as you start labeling people or anything as good or bad you limit it you stop it from being something
else and here's the truth every moment can evolve into being anything if you give it the opportunity
to right but as soon as you say it's got no value anymore you lose it and so for me i had to say to
myself don't judge the moment and i'd keep repeating that I had to say to myself, don't judge the moment.
And I'd keep repeating that to myself.
Don't judge where you're at.
Don't judge this.
What's happening.
Yeah, don't judge it as negative.
Don't just start saying it's negative.
Because guess what?
We've all been in positions where a gift turned into a curse and a curse turned into a gift.
That's true.
Right?
We've also been in the opposite.
Where our dreams came true and it ended up not being what we wanted.
Exactly.
And it fell apart and it led us into the our dreams totally
why is it that so many people that win the lottery yeah go broke yeah gifts can turn into curses too
but because we label them as the best moment in our life or the worst moment in our life
whereas when you approach things to neutrality and just what you have on the table you can be
like okay what am i going to do next that's why the greatest quarterbacks are neutral energy
they'll get a little excited they'll get a little fist pump in there every now and then, but they're not hyped every play,
and they're not negative every play. They have this calm. They see the field. You drop a pass,
and it's like, a little bit, let's go. But it's very neutral. Even when you score a touchdown,
unless it's maybe the Super Bowl or a big championship at the end of a game,
in the middle of the game, you want to keep it pretty like even keel paced
so you can prepare for the best or the worst.
That's great.
Yeah.
But you're always up and down.
It's like your energy levels will go up and down
and you'll be exhausted.
You need to have energy in life.
Totally.
And if everything is tied around a story of this is bad,
this is wrong, I'm in a bad place,
I'm messing up, I'm going broke,
that energy is going to pull you away from service.
Exactly.
Or creation.
Or creativity of how do I get out of this place.
So I think it's really powerful. I love that.
And I used to have a coach, and I think a lot of coaches use this, or at least he used to say to us.
He would be like, if you lose, cry for a day.
And if you celebrate, if you win, celebrate for a day.
Yeah, that's it, man. And then move on the next day. Get back to training. Don't win, celebrate for a day. And then move on the next
day, get back to training. Don't live in the past. And what we do is when we lose, we cry for a month.
And when we win, we just move on. Which means that our negative experiences hold us back and
weigh us down more than our positive experiences. So we're actually allowing, because we don't
immerse ourselves in winning and growth, we only submerge ourselves in positive experiences. So true. So we're actually allowing, because we don't immerse ourselves in winning and growth,
we only submerge ourselves
in negative experiences.
Yeah, we need to celebrate also.
We try to celebrate.
I've been, you know,
that's been part of my life as well
is like moving on too quick.
And now we try to like,
let's enjoy,
let's go to lunch or dinner
and really like appreciate this moment
and celebrate this moment
and even have a dinner
with some friends and family.
Otherwise,
what are we working so hard for?
100%.
And we almost feel like
we can't do that
because that makes us complacent.
Right.
But that's my point.
It's never good enough.
Exactly.
But if you win,
celebrate for a day.
If you lose,
cry for a day
and move on.
Simple.
And you've learned
so many lessons over your years.
As a monk,
you learned a ton of lessons
moving to,
you know, getting married,
moving into a new country, building companies,
launching products and books.
And you've had ups and downs.
What's been the biggest lesson in the last 12 months for you?
Because you've learned,
you've created so much in the last 12 months.
You've done so many things.
What's been the biggest lesson for you in your life?
Oh, that's a big question.
What was my biggest lesson in the last 12 months? I want to give you a really, I want to give you the real, I'm going to think about it. Whether it's something new or something that you already
knew, but you had to relearn for whatever reason. I think I'd have to say that it's a,
and I was saying it to a friend on the phone this morning when I was on the way to you and i was just i was just sharing it with him because he was having a moment in
recognizing this there's a wonderful verse in the manu smithy which i talk about and think like a
monk it's a monk book and in the verse it says when you protect your purpose your purpose protects you
Your purpose protects you.
Now, I want to unpack that.
What I mean by that is your purpose is like a rare jewel and a rare gemstone.
And imagine you were walking around with the most expensive diamond or jewel in the world.
How would you protect it?
You want to just wear it on your chest like a baby. Holding it. Yeah. Putting a pillow around it, a blanket. You'd be like, yeah, protect it you want to just like you want to just wear it yeah you want to just wear it on your chest like this like a baby holding it yeah putting a pillow around a blanket you'd be like yeah protect it you'd protect it and so your purpose is like that and guess what people are going to tell you
every day that that jewel is not worth anything they're going to tell you that that jewel is
actually valueless it doesn't have any impact on your life. They're going to try and take away that
value. They're going to tell you that there's another jewel out there that you need to have
more value. And what ends up happening is you don't, I love the word, look at the wording,
protect your purpose. You have to protect it. So what happens is your success grows,
you get more opportunities, more ideas, more things coming your way, temptations,
more ideas more things coming your way temptations but they can all take you away from your purpose distractions and to me i'm repeating this for myself because i'm like i just want to stick
to what i was born to do and i'm so grateful that i get to do it i'm so happy i get to do it and i
want to keep protecting it i don't want to get lost in the waves you know you don't want to just
get chucked in the waves of the ocean and just get lost and just not know where you're going. So for me, when you protect your purpose,
your purpose protects you. So that's been your biggest lesson? That's my biggest lesson. Why?
Do you feel like your purpose has been maybe distracted in some ways? I don't think it has,
but I'm saying it so it doesn't. You're reminding yourself. Yeah, I'm reminding myself. Like I'm
preaching to myself right now. Especially being in Hollywood and the temptation of all these
opportunities out here. Totally. And I think for me, it's a bigger lesson also because it gives me more faith.
So I always encourage, and this is actually, actually, this is why it's my biggest lesson.
I encourage so many people that I coach, so many people that I mentor, obviously everyone in my community and audience and everything, to go and follow that, go and live that purpose.
follow that go and live that purpose and i see time and time again that when i see people trying to live their purpose they are protected that it things work when you're playing in your dharma
and your purpose things work things move you feel momentum happen they happen and i'm not saying
they happen without effort but they happen they move whereas when you're not you just constantly
feel like you're grinding up against you know know, a wall. I know. Challenges. Just constant. So what is your purpose and when did
you discover it? Good question. What is my purpose is simple. It's always has been since,
not since the beginning, because I discovered it afterwards. My purpose is making wisdom go viral.
And I've stuck with that. I've kept it that way because to me, and there's more to it,
making wisdom go viral through entertainment, I would say, is my purpose.
Because I believe that that is something that is uniquely my goal, impact, and service.
And that's why it has to be yours. It's your passion.
It's your love.
It's your talent.
It's everything in one.
Correct.
And the beautiful thing is I'm not limited to a platform.
So that can be books.
It can be podcasts. It can be TV shows. It can be thing is I'm not limited to a platform. So that can be books. It can be podcasts.
It can be TV shows.
It can be movies.
It's not limited.
And this I learned by reading.
I was reading after,
and this was after my video
started to get seen.
This wasn't before I did it.
It wasn't like I sat down
and I wrote this fancy tagline.
I was reading Salim Ismail's book
called Exponential Organizations.
And in this book,
he talks about something called
an MTP, a Massive Transformational Purpose. And he says that every major person organization in
the world has an MTP. So an MTP has to be aspirational, it has to be massive, and it has
to be service and purpose based. So Google's is organizing the world's information. Notice it doesn't say we're an SEO company.
Notice it doesn't say we do Google ads.
They're organizing the world's information.
That's how big they're dreaming.
And when you're organizing the world's information,
you can do driverless cars, you can do Google Glass,
you can sell Google ads, whatever it is.
And so Ted's is ideas worth spreading.
That's what they are, that's what they're about.
So Jay Shetty is making wisdom go viral.
That's what I'm dedicated to.
So when did you discover it?
Because it wasn't when you were 10,
it wasn't when you were 21 in college.
I'd say I was 30, probably two, three years ago.
I'm 32 now, so I'd say like two, three years ago
is when I discovered it.
So 30 years old is when you discovered your purpose.
Correct.
So what was your purpose before that?
My purpose before that was finding my purpose.
It's like that process of just like,
my purpose before that was 14 years.
So I've been online for four years.
I've spent 10 years offline talking about the same stuff,
sharing the same messages in talks, in universities,
in small seminars, in coaching and mentoring.
I've been doing the same thing for 14 years
But I didn't realize it was my purpose until very recently
But I just did what I enjoyed and naturally try to get better at it
So if we don't know what our purpose is and we're working towards finding our purpose. It's okay
That's actually where you're gonna spend most of your life
Discovering what your purpose is and that's the best bit because i think a lot of people are like well i don't know what my purpose is totally
there's so much pressure how do i find it the pressure of finding your purpose is crazy will
stop you from finding your purpose literally the pressure is so heavy and that's why it's not about
finding that it's just starting with the basics what am i good at and i talk about it i break
down dharma in here and i talk about what are your passion? What is your expertise?
What is your compassion?
Because that's really important.
What is your compassion for the world?
Like, what problem do you want to solve?
I often, people will say there's so many things I could do.
There's so many things.
I'm like, my question is not what causes you the greatest joy.
Sometimes my question is what causes you the greatest pain?
Make that your purpose.
Make that your purpose.
If you don't know what your joy is,
you definitely know what your pain is.
What do you not like in the world?
What do you not like?
And so for me,
Go serve that thing.
100%.
So for me, the greatest pain I see in the world
is people not reaching their potential.
I know.
That is painful.
That causes me more pain
because I believe that there is someone out there
who is stacking shelves who has the cure to cancer.
There is someone out there who's Or is a talented singer. Is a talented singer. There is someone out there who is stacking shelves who has the cure to cancer right there is someone out there
or it's a talented singer it's a talented singer there's someone out there who's not living to
their potential and i think we're better people we're better partners and we're better parents
when we live to our potential so that's what i'm trying to solve and i'm not saying that's the
biggest thing sure to say it's my thing whenever i work with people i'm always telling them
to find your purpose focus on what you're most passionate about or what you you have the most pain around. It's the same thing. So it's like, do the thing you
love the most and keep doing it until you either discover that's it. Or maybe I don't love that
anymore. Like I played so many sports growing up. I used to love baseball. I used to love soccer.
And then I got bored with it. I got burnt out by it. It wasn't a love of mine anymore. It wasn't
a passion. And then I switched to football and it was like, oh, this is a passion. And I'm actually more gifted
physically for this sport than I would be for soccer. I was too big for soccer. I couldn't
run seven miles a day right now on the field. But I think you need to try lots of things and you
might think it's a passion, but you might get burnt out and discover, eh, I don't love it anymore.
What else is there? And keep trying new things.
Like you said, eight new things a month.
Yeah.
Until you discover.
Until you discover it.
And it might take you until you're 30, 40, 50, right?
It doesn't matter.
That doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Like, it doesn't matter.
Like, the fun is in the growth and the journey.
Like, for me, the last 10 years before this happened,
and my life changed, it was like, those were fun.
I was happy.
Right.
I wasn't unhappy because of that. Because I didn't have. Because you didn't know the like, those were fun. I was happy. I wasn't unhappy
because of that
because I didn't have...
Because you didn't know
the exact purpose of your life.
Yeah, exactly.
And now I'm very clear on it
and I'm happy for it
to evolve too.
Like, I don't think
it has to stay the same.
I may sit with you
in two years' time
and tell you something
completely different
and I'm okay with that
but I can only work
with what I have now
and I think we start
trying to postpone our purpose or find a date by which you have to.
You put a deadline on your purpose.
It doesn't make any sense.
Like if you really care about it, how can you put a deadline on it?
I know.
You just keep working towards it.
What are three skills that everyone should try to learn in the next one to two years that will help them in their life tremendously.
No matter who you are, where you live in the world,
three things we could start to practice, learn, master
that'll improve our life.
Yeah, that's a great question.
You ask me a lot of great questions.
Every question, that's a great question.
You reminded me of something which I'm gonna share
is a bunch of years back, I went to the launch of Eric Schmidt's book, How Google Works.
Nice.
And I was in the audience.
I didn't get to interview him or meet him or anything like that.
But I remember sitting in the audience.
And there was someone else there who was interviewing him and talking.
And they were like, and someone asked this question from the audience.
So a student got up and they said, what do you think is the number one skill that students should be focusing on?
And they said, everyone should become data analysts.
They're like, everyone in this room should become a data analyst.
And I was sitting there going, I know nothing about being a data analyst.
And I think sometimes we throw out these careers or like hard skills and technicals and it's like, well, not everyone's going to vibe with that.
So I just want to share that because I think so often, like, we get bad advice like that.
I'm like, imagine I pursued becoming a data analyst.
And you have to also know the perspective
of the person you're getting that advice from.
So your perspective, your three things
that people should be taking on
is gonna come from your world perspective
and your experience, so it's worked for you.
But what would you think?
So I'd say the first one for me
is learn how to have a
conversation with yourself. Like just learn how to have a conversation with yourself. Like if you
don't know, if I'll give you one of the studies that I share in the book, which I absolutely love,
men and women were asked either to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes, or they could give
themselves an electric shock if they were bored. They took the shock. 30% of women chose an electric shock and 60%
of men chose an electric shock because they didn't want to be alone with their
thoughts. For 15 minutes. For 15 minutes. Why is that? Because we have not learned to
have a conversation with ourselves. Or even love ourselves. No, we haven't. And I
think that starts with a conversation. I think you. No, we haven't. And I think that starts with the
conversation. I think you're right. We don't love ourselves, but that starts with learning to talk
to yourself. So find time for you to talk to your own mind, to talk to yourself, to understand
yourself, to find out. How many of us, when you go to a restaurant, you know whether you're going
to go back or not, right? You know whether you like it. When you go watch a movie, you know
whether you're going to like it or not. So yeah, let me just say that again. Let me explain what I'm saying there.
When you go to a restaurant, you know when you walk out whether you're going to go back there or not based on whether you like the food.
When you watch a movie, you know whether you're going to recommend it to your friends based on whether you like it or not.
Why do we keep visiting the same people, the same places, and doing the same projects when
they don't lift us up?
So many of us are not aware of the same people that we hang around with that bring us down,
the places that don't feed us, they drain our energy, and the projects that don't light
us up.
But we keep going back there because we don't talk to ourselves.
Because we don't talk to ourselves.
I can ask you, hey, did you like that restaurant?
But when do we ask ourselves, hey, do I want to hang out with that person? Does that person want to be in this
relationship? Do I want to be in this job? We just get scared of those conversations. So we avoid
them. So that's first tip. Learn to have a conversation with yourself. Learn to have a
conversation with yourself. The second thing is know how your mind tricks you. So we used to play
this game in the monastery where every time you lose to your mind, you put a scoreboard up and you put a one for the mind and zero for you. When you lose to the mind,
meaning what? Like, so let's say you make a commitment. So I make a commitment that I'm
not going to eat sugar. And then you do. And I do. The mind beats you. The mind beats me to it. So
I'm going to put a one for the mind and a zero for me. It's great. It's great. It's competing
with yourself in a good way. It's fun. Yeah. And people do this with like, I guess now with like dollar jars or whatever, like you put a dollar in, but that
doesn't make sense because you end up making money every time you swear. So, but if you beat your
mind and you put it, it's great. So you have to start learning the tricks of your mind. When and
how does your mind fool you into making bad decisions? That's good. If you know that. Where did
it fool you the most that it was the hardest for you to overcome? Great
question. I'd say the number one time that my mind has fooled me. The greatest
temptation. My mind's gonna be me but it hasn't. Or what's the
longest for you to let go of something? The simplest answer I can think of straight away is
sugar. Like I love chocolate but that's not a good enough answer. Like that's or what took the longest for you to let go of something? The simplest answer that I can think of straight away
is sugar, like I love chocolate and stuff,
but that's not a good enough answer.
Like that's definitely true.
Like from before being a monk to being a monk,
it was like the last thing you're like,
ah, can I really let go of this?
Yeah, I think the biggest thing was,
it's probably ego.
Like it's wanting to,
it's like walking into a room expecting respect,
walking into a room expecting to be dealt in a certain way.
Wow.
To be like treated with royalty.
Treated with, you buy your own hype, right?
You fall for the stuff like that.
Do you still fall for this sometimes?
I think we all do.
Yeah.
I think I would be in ego if I didn't say I did.
Like ego, that's the trick of the ego.
The ego makes you think you're untouchable
and the ego makes you think that you are you know that nothing about you can can ever go wrong or
you're you're perfect or not even that but the ego can bring you down nothing can hurt you
correct when the moment you think you can't be brought down you will be brought down the moment
you think that you can't,
like one of my teachers would always pray that he never,
and he's been a monk for 40 years,
he would always pray that he would never fall to his temptations.
And we said to him, you haven't fallen to your temptations for 40 years.
Why do you pray for that?
He goes, I haven't fallen because I pray for it.
Wow.
He was like, because I pray for it, because I'm aware.
Not just because I think it's going to, yeah. He's aware. And there's a beautiful story of, what's
his name? Benjamin Franklin, where he talks about before he died, I believe he had 13 or 14 precepts.
These were qualities that he wanted to live by and gain. So they're like simplicity, integrity,
virtues, all these powerful things. And he was asked when he was on his deathbed, which was the one he didn't accomplish?
And he said the last one, that was humility.
And that's like the display of humility.
Like you can't think you're at humility
and then be humble.
Like that's not possible.
It's an oxymoron.
How do we stay humble with greatness happening?
You know, if you're achieving your dreams,
you're making an impact, you're doing great stuff,
how do you stay humble?
I think the biggest one is
surround yourself with people
who are constantly better than you.
And when I say better,
I don't just mean materially.
I mean, when I'm around my monk teachers,
I just feel filthy.
Right.
Like they're so pure.
Yeah, they're so pure
that it's such a mirror reflection.
I'm around them and I'm like,
whoa, I've got so much.
Yeah, I've got so much like dirt. Yeah. And that's a good thing. Like I love being around them and they'm like, whoa, I've got so much. Yeah, I've got so much like, duh.
And that's a good thing.
Like, I love being around them.
And they don't say that to me.
Like, they don't make me feel that way.
It's just that you get a mirror.
When you're around people who are transparent, you get a reflection of yourself.
So I get that when I'm with them.
So first thing is spend time with people who are more spiritually elevated and more conscious
because you get a reflection without them even saying it.
The second thing is keep increasing your goalposts.
Like most of us are not, our goals should keep us humble, not other people's goals.
We try and think other people's goals keep us humble because we're looking at what people
are doing.
It's like your goalposts.
Should never be achieving or it should be bigger and bigger all the time.
Yeah, bigger and bigger all the time.
And the third one is always thank the people who gave you the gift that is being recognized.
Like if you're being recognized for a gift, someone gave that to you somewhere.
Thank your mentor.
Thank your mentor.
Thank your teachers.
Give it back to them because I think we forget that.
You start thinking you're self-made.
And I don't think anyone's genuinely self-made i
just don't think that's true because someone had to give you an interruption an interaction
exchange a skill a gift an idea whatever it was so that's the second one i think oh yeah and the
third one skill the third skill these are really fun questions the first one is to have a conversation
with yourself learn how to have a conversation second is know how your mind tricks you and be
fully aware of it. And was the humility
a part of that or no?
I would say that was just
my personal example
of what I think
I can struggle with sometimes.
Okay, and the third skill
that everyone should learn.
The third skill
everyone should learn
is how to have
difficult conversations
with other people.
So hard.
Because I think that marriages are made of it.
Dating's made of it.
Friendships are made of it.
I think sometimes we've had some difficult,
like in the sense of I had to call you up and say,
and it's like, I think we're good at that with each other.
And that's why our friendship is strong
because I think we're honest with each other.
And I feel that you feel comfortable telling me stuff.
Like we've had email exchanges
where you've been honest with me
and I've been honest with you.
And I'm like, I think that's good because i
think when you don't have tough conversations with people your your relationships just just
sit on the surface and they never go anywhere and you learn about how deep the relationship is
through the challenging conversations you learn like if you break up because of one bad conversation
whether a friendship or family member whatever whatever, if you like distance each other
because you can't handle this hard conversation
or a challenging one, is the relationship strong?
Do you wanna be around this person more?
Or maybe you shouldn't be around this person.
So I think you learn about each other
and you learn about the relationship during that.
I think that's a good one.
So those are three good points.
Relationships is something that you talk,
is probably the most engaged points on
instagram and on your social media content your videos i'm assuming 80 of the biggest ones are
around relationships so assumption maybe i'm wrong but it seems to be like it triggers people
relationship information why is it so hard to be in an intimate relationship and this is a general question but
what's the best way to enter an intimate relationship with the intention of it working
out long term yeah why is it so hard to be in an intimate relationship and what's the best way to
enter one yeah with the intention of having a beautiful experience together long term. I think it's so hard because people don't know how they want to receive love and they don't know how to give love.
And like we said earlier, that the old wisdom is like to love and be loved is the biggest need.
But we don't know how to love and how to give love.
And we carry so much of our baggage from previous relationships and experiences and we bring them into a new person so it's like that person treated
me like that that must mean all men or all women are like that which means now when i'm with this
woman i'm going to look at her through the lens of the last person that i was with and look for them
to to to create this experience again, right? Exactly, yeah.
Find evidence of why this person is this way.
Exactly.
And so now you're approaching each person
with the baggage of the last person,
which doesn't make sense.
You're not coming at it from a fresh, new experience
with the same lessons for yourself,
but we start applying the lessons to the other person.
So I think that's the reason
why we struggle to have an intimate connection.
Now, one of the things I talk about in here are the five types of attraction.
Yes.
And the reason why I think this is the best way to figure out...
Attraction or love? Language?
No, no. These are the five types of attraction that I talk about.
Go ahead.
So the five types of attraction are physical, financial, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
And I'll explain what I mean by all of them.
So physical is obvious. She or he is hot. Attract'll explain what I mean by all of them. So physical is obvious.
She or he is hot.
Attracted to them.
I'm attracted to them.
Financial or wealth.
I like what they own.
I like what they have.
I like what they've achieved.
I like that he went to Princeton or Harvard.
I like that she's a scientist or a CEO.
I like that she's a supermodel.
You like their status, right? So you're attracted to that.
The third thing that we're attracted to is people's mental abilities. This is like when
you're attracted to someone's mind. You just love the way they think. You love the way they
articulate themselves. You love all of that. You're attracted to that. The fourth is the
emotional. This is when you're attracted to someone's emotional
intelligence like oh they're very caring they're compassionate they they're
supportive they have these good traits and the fifth and final is spiritual
where you're like you're you're connected to that person's values on a
very deep level like what they really live by now notice the first three I
equate them to chemistry and the last two I equate to compatibility. So the first three are chemistry.
And most of us get involved in a relationship based on the first three. But here's the issue.
You can feel chemistry multiple times per day. You can feel it with the receptionist. You can
feel it with your personal trainer. You can feel it with the barista at the coffee shop. You can
feel it with the waiter or the waitress. The spark. You can feel that with your personal trainer you can feel it with the barista at the coffee shop you can feel it with the waiter or the waitress spark you can feel that anywhere like you can
find someone attracted by one of those qualities every single day and the challenge is we get into
a relationship based on simply one of the first three and there's nothing wrong with that as a
starting point it just can't be the end point and so what we do is
we keep convincing ourselves that the first three of chemistry is more powerful than the last two
of compatibility and we're letting chemistry do the heavy lifting and it can't and it can't
we're making chemistry do the heavy lifting the heavy work they're like pull and push and like
okay like you you just take care of this that's why so many people rely on good sex to save a relationship.
Always be in conflict.
Totally.
If the values and the compatibility are not there and you're relying on chemistry, there'll always be some conflict.
Always.
Yeah.
And chemistry really easily is those top three and which is good to have.
So you should, but my point is.
You need to have both.
You need to have both.
But you can't just say because I'm mentally attracted to how that person thinks, that's good marriage material.
That's not good enough.
You can't say, because we make broad generalizations.
We say things like, oh, because he or she has a top degree from a top college or a business school and they're at a top company, they must be really kind, loving, and organized.
It's like, what?
Like, how did you just...
And be a good parent, yeah.
Yeah, must have been a good parent.
How did you just draw that parallel?
And so that's the way I would talk about
entering a relationship is,
it can start with the first three,
but don't let it end without the last two.
Yeah, have the emotional and the spiritual,
the values along the way.
That has to align for a real long-lasting relationship.
I feel like I could do this for another three hours. is amazing so good i want to finish with one uh one thought
about service because you live a life of service i feel like my mission is to be of service to you
you are in my business in my relationships with my friendships it's all about service for me as well
and this is a i think it's a quote from the bhagavad gita is that what it is the plant trees
no so this this one is like a famous statement that we share.
It's a statement, gotcha.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you say, plant trees under whose shade you do not plan to sit.
I remember you told me that.
This one's from the Bhagavad Gita.
You told me that a couple of years ago, and I remember that really blew my mind.
Because in business, when I started out, I think it was a lot of like,
okay, let me do this for you, and you do this for me.
Let's do reciprocal type of stuff. I was in the online marketing world where it was about
joint ventureships. It was about affiliate marketing and I'll do this and then you promote
me, right? And then I started to shift it. When I got to the podcast seven years ago, I said,
I'm just going to bring on people I like and I'm just going to serve. It comes around cool,
if not cool. And it's
hard, I think, to switch that mentality, but it's so rewarding to come from a place of giving and
service to literally wanting to see other people succeed, whether they help you or not in return.
How do we get to that place of that mindset when we're like, but I really need some help right now
and I really want someone to support me in return
and I don't want to give all my energy to someone
if they're never going to give me anything in return.
How do we balance that?
Yeah, that's such a smart question
because I think the challenge is that we become overly compassionate often
to people in a certain way.
So what I mean by that is being compassionate and being giving
isn't about spending your whole day
with one person who needs your attention and affection
if your purpose is to do something different.
So for example, you're putting out this podcast.
You put out video content.
You write books.
This is serving lots of different people in lots of ways.
And you're not expecting,
apart from the person buying the book
and getting the value from it,
you're not really expecting them to do anything for you.
You're not asking them to come and champion for you
if they don't want to.
So you're already planting those seeds.
You're already sharing in that way.
And I think the mistake we make
is when we are overly compassionate to one person
and then we're doing it,
expecting that they're going to do something back.
Right? So the only way to... So don't be overly compassionate expecting something in return yeah don't just just if you see yourself don't do that if you're gonna just don't do that if
you're gonna feel that and that's okay like that doesn't make you less compassionate doesn't make
you a bad person like if i don't want to and i have rules about there are some people in my life
that i don't ask for favors because i don't ever want to be in a position where I'm having to ask them because not that they wouldn't do it or whatever.
I just don't want to do that.
It's just not who I am.
And it's like, but that's fine.
And there are certain people in my life that I won't give to because I know they're going to keep asking for stuff.
And so you have to protect yourself.
And I think self-protection and being honest with yourself is the best way. So my favorite analogy in this is if someone's drowning
in the ocean, if you're fit and healthy and you're a lifeguard, great, you can go and save them.
But if you're not, you might need to call the real lifeguard to come and help them out.
And that's what real compassion is. Real compassion. If you can't help someone,
if you're feeling toxic one day, you're feeling negative one day, you're feeling you're not really
giving from your heart, it's better to introduce them to someone or find
someone else who can help them than to go in there with all these toxic emotions and now you're
expecting them to return the favor it's better to not do it if you're going to do something
and in your heart of hearts you're actually feeling bitter and regretting it it's better
not to do it because guess what you weren't compassionate when you did it with that intention compassion's about intention it's not about the result like two people could give
the same amount of charity one person gives it for pr one person gives it because they care about
the kids who's happy the person who gave it for the kids the person both people's money had the
same impact but the intention is what defined what happened so if you're big
begrudgingly going out there and helping someone but getting in your heart of hearts you're like
oh i can't believe they asked me who are they like i don't even like them like they never helped me
and then you help them that guess what that's not compassion protect yourself deal with it deal with
that toxic emotion so i don't help people that when i feel like that and i give myself that that space say no or no yeah i'll be honest with them i'll say i
in honest in the best way that you can have i don't think i can support you on this because
i don't feel right about it or it doesn't make sense to me or whatever it is like fit or it's
not that i fit and i think that's actually stopping yourself from being a people pleaser
yes because we we actually are not compassionate,
we're just people pleasers.
We actually just want people to think
we're like magnanimous and amazing,
so we'll go to everything to support everyone.
But it's like-
We're resentful people pleasers.
Exactly.
We please, and then we're resentful that we had-
Exactly. Didn't get what we wanted.
And then now we want to make them feel guilty
for not doing it back.
So I make a conscious effort to support the people I love,
to make an effort with the people I love and do more there.
And that's fine.
Your compassion doesn't,
you don't have to be this overarching person who's like doing it for everyone.
That's part of the journey.
It's going to take time to get there.
I appreciate you, man.
I love our hangs.
I love our time together.
I love this.
This is going to blow people away.
This is going to inspire and impact a lot of people.
I got one final question for you, but make sure you guys get this book.
I'm telling you, this will be the book of the year.
Go get it.
Get a few copies for your friends.
Think like a monk.
Train your mind for peace and purpose every day.
I rarely read books, but this is one I'm almost finished.
And just going through the rest of this while I'm here,
I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Everything he's talking about,
the monk method,
everything else you want to get it.
There's going to be one tool in here that's going to change your life
or support you.
Go get this book.
I highly recommend it.
You can get it on Amazon.
You can get it in stores.
You can find it on your website,
on your Instagram,
on social media,
Jay Shetty everywhere.
Go follow him.
Are you, are you, what are you on Instagram?
Are you, I am.
Jay Shetty.
There used to be something else on Facebook.
It used to be Jay Shetty IW.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
On Facebook.
Is it still there?
On Twitter.
I think it's still there on Twitter.
It's on Facebook.
Just search Jay Shetty.
You'll find him.
And what else?
How come else can we support you with this book right now?
Is there something special if they get the book?
Yeah. So right now for Is there something special if they get the book?
Yeah.
So right now, for anyone who pre-orders, everyone's getting access to an exclusive workshop that I made, which are four steps to train your mind for peace and purpose every day.
Wow.
It's a video that we made just around the book.
And you get these four incredible steps that you can practice.
Really simple.
And some reflection exercises as well.
And, you know, my real… So when they get the book and how do they get that?
So, if you pre-order the book
from thinklikeamonkbook.com,
you get access to the workshop.
It will be sent to you.
And if you pre-order the book
from anywhere else,
you can go to thinklikeamonkbook.com,
submit your order confirmation or number,
and you'll still get it.
So, thinklikeamonkbook.com
to get the bonuses.
Exactly.
And anything else
of where you're touring
and what's happening in the future
will be on there. Absolutely. Yeah, everything's going to be on that website. And I think of where you're touring and what's happening in the future will be on there.
Absolutely.
Yeah, everything's going to be on that website.
And I think the big thing for me, Lewis, honestly, and I know you can relate to this, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.
It's like if my videos have impacted anyone in any way, like if they've had even the tiniest impact on your family member or loved one, if my podcasts have like been useful to you, you you know it's like i really encourage you to
go and support me on this book like i really appreciate the help because it's like we've just
been putting out so much content like free like three videos a week two podcasts a week like we're
creating all of this to serve and serve and serve and this is one thing that i want you to have in
your home yeah and and i believe that it's my best work it's unbelievable man so i really yeah
here's the thing you einstein you quoted einstein in here yeah uh at some point where it's like something
like you don't master something until you learn to share simply or something like that if you
can't explain something simply you don't understand it well enough exactly and it's hard to train your
mind for peace and purpose every day in a complex, chaotic, scarcity-minded world or environment at times.
It's really hard to think, how do I find peace?
How do I find happiness?
How do I have a conversation with my mind?
How do I not let my mind trick me?
How do I stay in a neutral environment and reaction when I want to react to everything?
It's really complicated to do these things.
when I want to react to everything.
It's really complicated to do these things,
but you break it down in such a simple,
beautiful, easy way where it doesn't overcomplicate.
It simplifies.
And I think that's why this is a,
you're doing a disservice to yourself
and the people that you love without,
if you don't buy this
and get this for your friends and family,
I'm going to get a bunch of copies
and give them away.
I'm going to have them here in the studio
and hand them to people that come in.
This is the book of the year.
Make sure you guys go get Think Like a Monk.
It's going to really transform everything in your life and help you.
Give it to a friend who might be struggling or just wants more peace.
It doesn't matter.
You don't have to be in so much pain, but if you just want more to life, get this as well.
Thanks, man.
Highly recommend it.
ThinkLikeAMonkBook.com.
This is, I asked you the three truths question
the last time, but I don't know if it's different or not now.
And I'm gonna go-
I don't even remember what I said last time.
I don't either.
I'm gonna go look back at it and see what it was
and compare the two.
So let's, you've learned a lot in the last two years.
So would this be different?
We'll see.
But if this was your last day
and you had to take all of your work with you,
all this book, it had to go with you
into the next world you're going to,
wherever that is,
and there's no more videos of Jay Shetty,
no more content, no more Instagram,
no more social media,
and it all had to go away with you to the next place,
what would be three lessons you would leave behind
for us to live by?
Oh, that's such a good question, man.
It's like, that's like, oh, what would I say?
Three lessons for us to live by.
This is all you could share with the world.
The first one I'd say is you can't be anything you want, but you can be everything you are.
That's great.
The first day I shared that publicly was at the Summit of Greatness.
That's right.
I remember that.
I gave the keynote at the Summit of Greatness.
I shared it that day because it was a reflection i'd had for a long time but i think i'd have to say that because
i think we get so lost trying to be everyone that we don't become anyone and then we don't find the
one that we're meant to be and so i'd say that's the first one there's the second one that i'd say
is and this is we know this through studies and science and everything. It's like just don't miss an opportunity to tell someone how much they mean to you.
Like just don't, and I said it better than that somewhere.
I can't find it right now.
But I mean that like just don't miss an opportunity.
Like I was saying that with my mentor, I always told him I loved him.
Always.
And now that I can't tell him anymore, I'm just glad I did tell him.
You're not regretting it.
Yeah, totally. So, like, don't ever leave someone without telling them how much they mean to you because you don't know when they'll leave.
Oh.
And so, like, that is just, like, never let your last interaction with someone, you know, be a bad one.
Be a bad one or be a missed opportunity to express love or just
generosity. Especially the people you love, right? Like you may have bad interactions with people
you've once or twice or a business, but the people that are close to you and you love the people you
will regret it with. Don't just don't, it's just not worth living with. Yeah. Um, the last, the
only thing you'll be able to share left to the world, what is the final truth? Don't settle.
I just don't settle. You don't, you don't,
just don't, don't think that you're at the peak of what you were meant to do because you probably
don't know unless you try. And so for most people, I feel like just don't settle because I think we
just give in too early and don't settle for service. Right. It's like, that's the reason,
that's the intention. It's like service is the one that's pulling you along. And so don't settle for service. The world needs service. The world needs your service. The world needs your genius. The world needs your passion. And you just don't know it yet.
Like, I feel, I look back and I'm just like, God, like, I would have just been sitting there working in a corporate job and not known all the people I know now and connected with this amazing community and met you.
I just wouldn't have had it.
If you didn't go for it.
If I didn't go for it.
If I just settled that my service was this.
So don't settle for service.
Service deserves the best of you.
Yeah, man.
Dude, I really appreciate you.
I appreciate you.
I love you.
I love our friendship.
I'm really grateful for the amount of attention to service you have in the world because your commitment to making content go viral, making the information that we all need to go viral
is so profound and powerful. And you've been through so much in the last few years,
good challenges, opportunities, growth, different things,
and I really admire how you continue to show up,
how you continue to lean into the practice
every morning of meditating, of doing your best,
and you're not perfect,
but you constantly show up with your best,
and I acknowledge you for that, man.
I'm grateful for you and our friendship.
Thank you, man. Me too, man.
I want to say, too, everyone who's listening to Lewis,
and I know you've all loved him for many years,
but it's just like you've all loved him for many years,
but it's just like, you've been the same since we became friends.
And my rule for friendship is I trust consistency.
So I don't like people who change with the times.
Or I don't vibe.
Those people don't survive around me for long amounts of time.
Hopefully I grow and get better.
No, you grow and get better. I mean, the relationship and the connection, the friendship, the kindness has stayed the same.
Of course.
It's never dwindled in tough times for me.
It's never become more in successful times for me.
You've always been the same in that way.
And those, I think, are positive, powerful friendship traits when someone is continuing to love, continuing to show up, continuing to be kind to you no matter what you're going through, you know?
And I think that that, you really, yeah.
You learn a lot about someone
on how they don't show up for you
when you're going through a challenging time.
That's why challenges are the best.
And you learn a lot about someone
when they only reach out to you
when they see you succeed.
Yeah.
And so make sure you're always showing up
for people consistently either way,
good or bad,
high or low,
whatever it may be,
be consistent.
Like that quarterback
in the game,
just be consistent.
And if you're going
for a tough time,
the best lesson you learn
from a tough time
is who really cares.
That's it, man.
And so it's a great,
and it just lets you drop.
Like everything drops
and you just know.
You purge friendships.
It's the best.
It's the worst and the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to find the meaning and the challenges and that just know you purge friendships it's the best it's the worst
and the best yeah you got to find the meaning and the challenges and that's where you find the
meaning that's it jay shetty man thank you man thanks so much i hope you enjoyed today's episode
and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes
in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening,
then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.
Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.
I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support
and serve you moving forward.
And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy
and you matter.
And now it's time to go out there and do something great.