The Wellness Scoop - Jay Shetty: the untold journey behind becoming one of the world’s most influential voices

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

This week Ella is joined by Jay Shetty. Jay is a #1 Sunday Times and #1 New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host of On Purpose, and the Chief Purpose Officer of Calm. Since launching his video channel in 2016, Jay’s wisdom videos have garnered over 10 billion views and gained over 50 million followers across his social media. He is one of the most viewed people on the internet on the planet.   In this conversation, Jay and Ella dive into Jay’s extraordinary journey from a rebellious teenager in London, to a business graduate, to then living as a monk in an Ashram in India for 3 years, to then leaving the monk lifestyle and getting to where he is today, sharing his inspiring and motivational messages with millions of people worldwide.    They discuss: External expectation and pressure to lead a conventional life Reconciling two different parts of yourself How to cultivate self-belief to follow your heart and intuition Navigating life-altering decisions How to pursue your purpose Jay’s non-negotiables for feeling his best  Why love is a foundational element of our mental and physical health   Links: Jay’s book 8 Rules of Love Jay’s Love Rules world tour  Jay’s book Think Like A Monk On Purpose Podcast For new subscribers, use code podcast20 to get 20% off the Feel Better App  Wellness Toolkit for this episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quick favor, could you hit the subscribe button? It really helps get the show out there so that more people can be inspired by the personal growth that our guests are talking about and take those lessons into their own lives. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships,

but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast. This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. Every week, me and my guests will candidly reveal our personal journeys of transforming

times of great difficulty into times of enormous personal growth. How did our guests get to where they are today? What have been their biggest challenges? What practices and habits have really genuinely moved the needle for them and how do they keep moving forward? Wellness with Ella has the simple mission of giving you unfiltered empowering conversations that give you the tools, knowledge and inspiration to transform your own life and your own health. So our guest today is Jay Shetty and in some ways Jay doesn't really need an introduction but if you don't know him he is a former monk and nothing short of a worldwide sensation making his ancient wisdom go viral with over 50 million followers across his various social media

platforms. He's also a best-selling author and the host of the number one health and wellness podcast On Purpose. And the reason I really wanted to get Jay on Wellness with Ella as a guest was to talk about this extraordinary journey. I know when I read his book, when I've listened to him talking, I've had so many questions about what it really felt like to move from A to B. And in that, I think this episode really dispels the myth of an overnight success. It wasn't easy. It was very bumpy. It wasn't linear. And even Jay, someone who radiates this ancient wisdom, who lived as a monk for years, had self-doubt, didn't believe in himself at all points, had social anxiety, felt depressed. You know, these very human emotions that I think sometimes we assume people like him don't experience. That's one of the reasons why I found the conversation so exceptionally powerful. You know, Jay wasn't born already at chapter 20, at the end of the book.

So often when we see successful people, we see them at their peak, you know, when they've really become that overnight success. And yet it's a complete myth. He transformed his life over many, many, many years. And I think it shows that that transformation is in many ways possible for all of us and that's what we delve into finding the courage to break from expectation to make huge life-altering decisions time and time again even when there's a lot of noise around you telling you you'll fail telling you it's a bad idea telling you not to do that how did he cultivate that self-belief and ultimately

turn that into an immensely successful purpose-driven career and yet even now he still faces challenges and he's had many road bumps along the way and he was exceptionally open and honest and said himself there were bits of that that he's not really talked about before so I certainly feel incredibly lucky to have had this conversation. I took a huge amount from it. I felt really humbled actually when he left and I hope you feel the same. So let's get into the show. Well, Jay, welcome to the show. It is such a pleasure to have you here. Oh, well, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to meet you. I was just telling you offline just what big fans my wife and I are and it's really wonderful to meet

you. Oh well thank you I mean I think like everyone else probably in the world I read Think Like a Monk so I guess I've had questions brewing for a couple of years so you'll have to bear with me but I think before we get into it just to give you a bit of understanding what fascinates me are people's stories I think we we can go into the nitty gritty of wellness and why sleep's good for us and what meditation does to our brains. And that's amazing and such powerful information. But I think what fascinates me is how people then take that information into their lives and use it to fundamentally transform their lives and live this sense of fulfillment and joy and contentment and this true self which I think so many people want to do and hearing how other people have done it is about as inspiring

in my mind as it gets and that's what I'm so interested in with what what you've done in your life and before we get into that though I would love just to give you the opportunity because obviously you are so well known both being a former monk this kind of online sensation you know teaching people how to live these healthier lives but if you could introduce yourself not with a professional bio but just kind of truly as Jay how would you introduce yourself? That's a great question I often say whenever I go on tv or something and they ask you like what do you want the lower third to say yeah and I always reflect and say, I wish we could all be introduced by our purpose and not our profession. And so by profession, I'm an author,

I'm a coach, I'm a podcast host, but none of that really describes who I am or why I do it. And so I often say, I'm someone who's dedicated to helping people find their purpose. That's who I truly am. At the core of it, I'm a big Manchester United fan. I absolutely love football. I'm an avid reader. I still like real books. Despite having a podcast, I'm not a listener. I just love diving into something and holding it in my hands. I'm someone who loves paradoxes and is fascinated by ancient wisdom, modern science and popular culture, which doesn't seem to make sense, but it does to me. And I'm someone that feels like I live a very disciplined, focused and dedicated life to my purpose, which seems to be all I really care about. If you looked at my time, my calendar, my schedule, and how I spend my energy, I think it'd be very clear to

someone that's my top priority. And that's the bit that I'm so interested in. And you said it in the beginning of Think Like a Monk, and that it just stuck with me. And I reread it last week. You said, if I can do this, anyone can do it. and I reread it last week and it's you said you know if I can do this anyone can do it and I'm paraphrasing it and apologize I'm not completely correct but you you know you didn't grow up having the sense of purpose that you have now and being who you are and before we get to your work today I would love to kind of rewind and understand truly that journey of your upbringing and how you got to this moment of changing your life and how that felt and how that's kind of fed through. So I wondered if

we could rewind to your childhood, to your upbringing. By all accounts, it seems like it was quite a kind of normal, loving experience. How did that start to shape the questions that you had to start to change your life yeah I I look back at my childhood fondly even though I think it had a lot of trauma and challenges within it and I remember in primary school being bullied for being overweight and being Indian I was one of the only Indian people in my school and in my class. And I'd often get beaten up multiple times in a month. And my mom would have to come in and talk to the teachers. And it's really interesting because I often look back at that time and I don't really feel like that was defining for me in some cases, because I felt like I had so much love at

home from my mom that it pierced through the pain that I was feeling otherwise. And it was almost like this protective shield that I felt really safe and secure, even though when I was at school, it wasn't safe and it wasn't secure. And it's really made me believe in the power of love and the power of how much love can protect us from pain. And often we spend so much time trying to avoid pain or try and just dodge it, but that's not real. That's never going to happen. We're always going to go through uncertainty and chaos and stress and pressure. And if we can be loved through it and loved through it, then we're protected through it. So that's kind of what I remember.

I remember working really hard. My parents really wanted me to do well at school. And so I'd be coming back and then doing more tests at home and exams. And so academic study was always a big part of my life. And I think a lot of discipline as well was always part of my life, even though I did not enjoy it and I didn't like it one bit. And I think I was also very shy growing up. So my parents were so worried about how shy I was and what an introvert I was that they forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11 years old. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. But I spent seven years going to these classes that trained me in all these skills.

But even after having the skills, I still didn't feel confident. And it was only until many years later when I discovered the wisdom that I shared today that I really felt confident to use those skills. And so I look back at my childhood as normal for sure in my eyes, definitely with tons of ups and downs and a lot of learning to listen to my own inner voice. And I think I started doing that so early that my inner voice is so strong now that it's become easier and easier to follow. Whereas often it can go the other way where we ignore our inner voice when we're young and then it gets quieter and quieter and quieter. Yeah. And then it's almost impossible to find. And that was, that was certainly my experience. I'm really interested. So when you were, say, a teenager and you said that kind of focus on hard work and I guess with the end goal of that more conventional

sense of success and expectation, I'm curious your experience and how you saw that conventional success and whether that was something you felt you needed in your life at that point. Did you know what you wanted to be or think you might be when you're grown up? I think if someone asked me, there are a few different things that went around. So the most immature one, which I think every kid has growing up in England is I want to be a football player. And I was never good enough, never good enough. I would never have made it. I wouldn't have made it to any league. And so that one, I can be very realistic, but I have no regrets. I wouldn't have made it. I think graphic design and art, like I always thought I can be very realistic about I have no regrets I wouldn't have made it I think

graphic design and art like I always thought I'd be an art director or I'd work in a place where I could use imagery to tell stories and that was a massive part of my teens I loved using photoshop and being creative and doing collages and online and digital and so art and design were always a fascination of mine and then there was a considerable amount of time where I really wanted to be a spoken word artist or a rapper. I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write my own music. I'd done grade five theory. At that time, I played the piano and the drum kit. I can't play either anymore. So I was really musically inclined. And so music was a huge part of my life. And even today, when I speak or I create videos, I try and find ways to incorporate poetry or wordplay or all of these ideas that are so core to how I love language and how I fell in love with language. And so those were the things I wanted to be. And then there were the things my parents wanted me to be, which was, I've often joked that my parents wanted me to be or my family an extended family

I had three options either to be a doctor a lawyer or a failure and I was never going to be a doctor because I was never good at medicine or biology or chemistry or physics at school I didn't want to be a lawyer I didn't fully understand what lawyers did at the time and then I just thought you had to do the conventional path because as strange as this sounds, when I was growing up, I didn't actually know there were other jobs. It's that strange. My uncle owned a news agent, my dad was an accountant, and my mom was a financial advisor. And so to me, those were the jobs that existed. And so I think I had such a limited view of what you could be that I was just like,

you have to get a like oh yeah you have to get a good job you have to get a good degree and that's kind of how life goes but what really changed for me was when I was I went to I went to Queen Elizabeth's boys school in Barnet and it was a really hard school to get into I had to take all these exams it's a grammar school not a private school and when I finally got in and we were working hard and getting good grades, it just never felt satisfying. I just felt so unfulfilled by the journey of get good grades, go to a good university and then get a good job. And I started to rebel. So I got into all sorts of trouble. I became a class clown. I was experimenting with all sorts of drugs. I was hanging around with the wrong groups. I got

suspended from school three times. I just completely went off the rails. So up until 14, I was like a teacher's pet and the ideal son. And then 14 onwards, I completely went the other way. And it was only because I was just like, this can't be life. If life's just about getting good grades and doing well, that's really boring. That can't be it what what am I going to get a thrill from and so I started looking for thrill in the wrong things so did you feel you had this kind of void I guess in some ways in you as like something that you were trying to fill as you said by all these other activities and seeing if that would create the sense of almost like satisfaction well I, I think at that time, I didn't even know that. I think at that time, it was just looking for validation of being cool and being different, which I think every

teenager goes through. And I think what you count as what's cool and what's relevant is different based on who you're around. And I think I was around a lot of people where they were into all these sorts of nefarious activities and therefore that became cool to me. So really I was just probably looking for validation and affirmation and wanting to be one of the cool kids, especially having been bullied in primary school. Now getting older, I'm like, okay, well maybe it would be nice to be liked for once. And you start looking to be liked for things you don't like about yourself. So you're now becoming and molding yourself into a person you don't want to be in order for someone to like you. And I think that's what I did for a long time in my teens. And deeply now, when I look back, I look back and think I was looking for a thrill. I was looking

for something. I've always loved those words by Martin Luther King, where he said that if you have nothing to die for, you have nothing to live for. And I really feel like I was looking for something that I would think was worth dying for or giving my life to, which I didn't really know then. If you asked me then, I would have just been happy listening to rap music and being an idiot. But now looking back, I realized that there was a deeper sense that I had, I just didn't know. And I think that's true for so many young teens that you know there's something else, but you don't know it at that time. And therefore you get lost in this other world. I don't think that's just teens though. I think that's something that so many of us generally struggle with, where you feel, it's one of the things I'm fascinated by, when you feel that something's not quite right, you're not quite in the right place in your life.

But knowing how you move from that place and identify where you're maybe filling a void with something that's not really serving you and move into something else, it's a lot easier said than done, I think. And my understanding is that started to come around for you when you first met a monk. Was that a few years later? Yeah. So I think it started off a couple of years before, because again, my parents were worried I didn't read fiction books.

So every time we'd get homework from school and it was a fiction book, I just wouldn't do it or I'd make it up or whatever, because I didn't want to read the book. And I tried reading Goosebumps and I loved the show, but I couldn't get into the book. That was the book we were somehow studying. It was a bit of a cult hit, I think. Yeah. And it was great. I loved the show, but I couldn't get into the book. That was the book we were somehow studying. It was a bit of a cult hit, I think. Yeah, yeah. And it was great. I loved the show. No, no, it was a great show, but the books didn't,

like I was never a reader. I never read Harry Potter and I love Harry Potter. I love the movies. I love everything about it, but I never read the books. I just never got into fiction. And then my dad used to read a lot of nonfiction and there'd be nonfiction around the house. And so I started reading biographies and autobiographies, which again, I didn't even

know what they were at the time. And I remember reading everything from this when I was around 16, reading everything from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X all the way through to David Beckham and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. So it's like this wide array of the WWE through to civil rights movement in America. And kind of like what you're saying on this show, I was just fascinated by people's real life stories. I was really intrigued by how people went through hell to help other people or how they broke through their generational challenges of their family. Or one of my favorite things was reading about David Beckham and he'd talk about how every night he'd go to the park and he'd hang a tire up in the corner of a goal and just practice trying to get the ball into the tire again and again and again

and again and again. And so many of his friends were out partying or they were out drinking and he wouldn't be able to drink because he was playing a game the next day. And I remember learning about discipline just by reading about his life and thinking, wow, he had to make so much sacrifice to get to where he is. It wasn't just, oh, he was just naturally gifted and talented. There was hard work. And so those ideas started to seep in. And then I would go and try and hear from athletes, musicians, celebrities, CEOs at events in London. This is before podcasting, before YouTube. And so I'd go to these events. And that's when one of my friends said to me, he said, well, we should go and hear this monk speak. And I said, I'll only go if we go to a bar afterwards. Like that was literally my state

of consciousness. had you any interest in religion philosophy spirituality up until not really not really I didn't again I grew up somewhat I'd call ritualistic like where I'd go to a temple or I do some practices but not because it had any meaning just because that's what my family did and I didn't really think I was looking for anything of that sort. I didn't feel a need. I was like, okay, I'm doing okay at school. I have good friends. I'm figuring life out. But there was no search for like, oh my gosh, I need to find a spiritual path or a calling. And so I went to this event, almost expecting nothing and just like looking at my watch going,

all right, when are we going to leave? Let's get out of here. And I went there and I found something that I wasn't looking for. And what I was really blown away by was this monk was talking about what the goal of life was. And in his words, the goal of life was to use your skills and the gifts you have in the service of others. At 18 years old, I'd never heard this concept in my life. The concept I'd heard is, here's how to become an entrepreneur, or here's how to become wealthy, or here's how to invest, or here's how I became famous, or whatever it may be. But here was someone saying, no, the greatest goal in life is to use your gifts that you've been given or that you have to serve other people and impact other people. And that just pierced right through to my heart.

Why was that, do you think? You know, that's a question that still perplexes me because I give the credit to that, to meeting him and his presence and his energy. Because I think that it took someone really powerful to cut through all of the other layers that I had, where I thought I was too cool for spirituality. I had a great relationship life. I had girlfriends and everything. I didn't have a need. At that point, I wasn't lacking in my life. And so to pierce through that veil required some real power and energy, which he had. I'm still friends with him today. Gorongadas is

one of my favorite people to hang out with in the world. I always say to him, if I could be with anyone in the world, it would be with him at any point because he still has that magnetic energy today for me. And I give him the credit because I often ask people, or I want people to think about this, like, who's your monk? Like, who's the person you haven't met yet that could change the trajectory of your life? Like who's the person in your life that's going to surprise you, going to shift your perspective and you haven't met them yet. And it doesn't have to be a monk, but who is it? It could be you. It could be me. It could be anyone else out there, someone that you come across that just completely changes the direction of your life. And so I think I'd give him the credit. He just really meant what he said and he really believed it and he still really

lives it. And I think that's why it hit me. It wasn't because I had something in me, or at least I can't notice that I did. Did you feel he had this, I guess, authenticity that you hadn't really experienced before in your life? Well, I think what I saw in him, and I reflect on this now, is that when I look back at that time, when I would go to hear these speakers, I'd met people who were rich, I'd met people who were somewhat famous, I'd met people who were beautiful and attractive and powerful, but I don't think I'd met anyone who is truly happy. And he was really content and happy in himself. And bear in mind, he's a monk wearing robes with a shaved head. He has an Indian accent. He's from India. Externally,

there's nothing about him that's drawing a young 18-year-old me to him. Yet he's so confident and comfortable wearing random clothing in a place where it isn't normal. And he's at ease with that. And I thought, wow, that's what I want. I want to be in a place where I can be so unbothered by other people's opinions and expectations that you can truly live yourself. And so I went and spoke to him afterwards, introduced myself, did the networking thing. And he said to me, well, why don't you come and listen to all my talks this week? He was in London for the week. And so I went everywhere. I just followed him around. I'd take notes. I'd ask questions. I'd spend time with him afterwards. And then he said, well, why don't you spend a week with me in India if you want to come and visit the monastery? I was like, great. So then

took two weeks off during Christmas holidays and went and lived in India. And I started doing that every year throughout university. And then when I left university and graduated, that's when I decided to actually go and live as a monk for three years. But it was just this incremental steps towards that big decision. The morning after the night you met him, did you wake up the next day and have this sense of a slight shift in yourself and your mindset and your outlook? Did you feel like something had changed a little bit? Yeah, I feel like a door had opened that I wasn't trying to open. So it was very new. And it almost felt like I'd found a new interest and curiosity that I didn't even know I needed to have. And now all I wanted to do that week was to be around him and learn from him. And all of a sudden I was learning about things that I didn't know I cared about. And I just wanted to be around him to learn and listen. That's all I wanted. And I'd never felt that before. Like probably only felt that way about a woman before at that age,

like where you're like so attracted to someone that like, Oh, I just want to be with her all the time. And I just, you know, I just want to hang out with her or whatever and I'd never felt that way about anyone else and so but it was that kind of and not in a sexual intimate way but in that sort of attraction of that level of pull of like I just want to be around him to learn from him and then am I right in saying that over those next few years, you're kind of leading this almost dual life where you're deeply pulled into this world of kind of ancient spirituality and philosophy and religion. And it's a totally different way of looking at the world and totally different expectations and definitions of happiness and success.

But then also doing university and doing internship at a bank. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So I was interning at financial companies in London in my summer, and then I'd either spend the rest of the summer or the Christmas holidays back in the ashram. So I would literally go from suits, wearing suits, going to bars, eating at steakhouses, doing the corporate networking thing, trying to make sure I land a job after I graduate, and then shifting to sleeping on the floor, wearing robes, waking up at 4am and meditating all day. And I've always described

that as like my first AB test or split test, right? Like that, that everyone does now. And that split test just led me to feel, I felt fulfilled every time I came back from the monastery. I just, I was just like, that's, I just had this amazing experience. I'd have so many stories to tell. I'd have so many interesting things that happened to me. And when I was in the work world, I was just trying to impress the person at the top. I was doing whatever it took to make sure that I stood out. You know, there was always a bit of like uncertainty because you don't know whether the people there are competing with you or they're your colleagues. Like it's this awkward environment and I didn't feel fulfilled. And so for me, it was a very natural process of elimination of going, well, how do I feel? And I think that's

one of the reasons why I recommend that everyone experiments so much and you don't have to go and spend a couple of weeks in an ashram in India. But if you can experiment on a potential passion over the weekend or a potential hobby over a three-day retreat or something that you find interesting over an online course, there are just so many resources out there that help you experiment without much cost, not just financially, but in time and energy. And when you do that, you get the sense of whether something works or not. So if I'd never worked in a financial company, I would never have known whether that was good or bad. And if I'd never gone to the monastery, I would never have known.

I can only think so much in my head. And I think so much of us today, we're trying to figure things out in our mind. Like we think, oh yeah, I could just mentally figure out what my passion is or what I should do or how I should live my life. And I actually don't think you can because you only know through the lived experience. Oh, I agree with that a thousand percent. I think lived experience tells you everything you could ever need to know. But I'm really interested in that time. Did you feel like you were almost two people? And did you feel kind of, it was one of the first things I thought when I was reading Think Like a Monk, just imagining what it felt like for you at that period to almost feel almost alien at some times, like you're in the bank and you're kind of wishing you were in one place.

And then maybe you're at the ashram and you're thinking, oh, am I going to lose those friendships? Am I going to disappoint people who wanted me to become this person and I'm choosing my own path. And I think that's one of the things that fascinates me, because as you said, not everyone's necessarily listening or they're sitting here and thinking, oh, I'm either going to join an ashram or I'm going to take like a really, really conventional job route. But I think we all have those moments where we think maybe it's our relationship, maybe it's our job, maybe it's our next move in life, move in country, whatever it is. We have these moments where we feel like we're kind of trying to understand which place should we be in, which decisions should we make. And we're sometimes you then in one place and you feel quite alien. It's quite a quite difficult feeling.

Yeah, I definitely felt like I was living two lives because also I was still seeing people. I was still dating when I was back and then I'd be over there and trying to understand that life. And I think there were points where I was quite self-critical and judgmental. And I was like, I shouldn't be doing this. I should be doing that. I should be figuring this out. And then there were times where I just gave myself grace. And I was just like, I'm just, I'm 20 years old.

Like, you know, there's no pressure. I'm just figuring it out. And I don't know enough about either of these parts yet. So let myself live. So I think I went through that constant conversation, that oscillating effect of I'm judging myself, criticizing myself, questioning whether I'm really trying to do this spiritual path and then going to, well, actually it's okay. Like you shouldn't have to have it all figured out today. And if ever, if ever, and you're allowed to be human and you're 20 years old, like give yourself a break. But yeah, it definitely did feel that way for a

while. And it was always like my inner calling was go be a monk, go be a monk, go be a monk. But the external noise was what I was hearing from my extended family is you're being brainwashed. You're never going to make any money again. You'll never get a job. You're throwing away your parents' investment in you. You've wasted your education. No one will ever marry you. And so you're hearing all of this noise around this time, even when you're spending the summer there or Christmas there, everyone's like, why are you going there? You should be getting another internship. Why are you going there? You should be getting this on your resume. Like it's always about that when it

comes to the conventional path. And so I think that was more the conflict, even more than me feeling like I was two people. It was actually more, I knew what my heart and intuition wanted, but then my head was saying something different because of everyone else. So I think that was the kind of conflict as opposed to an internal conflict. And how did you cultivate the self-belief and self-confidence to then make the decision for you and for what you wanted? Because again, I think that's one of the biggest challenges, isn't it, that people always face in life. It's like the things that we want to do, we feel are right for us but they have implications in some ways maybe not necessarily to extreme degree but

on other people and other people's expectations of us and such a difficult thing to forge your own path I remember when I started our business you know my dad every day used to say Ella needs to get a real job when will Ella get a real job this is ridiculous move out of my house get a job get out of my kitchen you know there was just this kind of consistent like little digging it there's no way you write a food blog like what are you doing you know my brother works in finance my sister's a lawyer like this is insane and I think again as I said it's just a small example but I think it's quite relatable that people there are things you want to do and other people are saying you're

never going to make it and that's one of the reasons why you your story fascinates me because as you said if I you know you've created this extraordinary life and this extraordinary career and helping millions and millions of people every day but But you sat there, not sure where to be, what to do, who to listen to. And it's that sense of you've created that path from this moment. Yeah, I love that. And I love diving deeply into this. I don't think I've ever deeply gone into any of this with anyone. So thank you so much.

Sorry, I'm a very curious person about people's stories. It's awesome. It's really, really beautiful. And it's super curious. So I love it. Saying is a good thing. It's a good thing. I, it's great. I love your curiosity. It's awesome. It's really, really beautiful. And it's, and it's super curious. So I love it. I'm saying is a good thing. It's a good thing. I appreciate that. Yeah. I think the first thing is if you want a specific new life or you have a path that seems interesting to you, you have to spend more time on that path than around the other people. And so even though I didn't spend a lot of time with the monks every year, that time was really deep in the sense that I was fully immersed. Even if I was there for a week or two weeks or a month,

I was following the whole program. I was waking up at 4am. I was having the cold showers. I was sleeping in the same way. I wasn't going there and treating it like a vacation. I was going there and doing the work. So in your case, I'm guessing that when you were writing a blog, you were writing a blog really well. You were trying to build a business really well. You were following your path with a sense of intensity. And even when you're not getting the results, or in my case, I couldn't just live as a monk for the whole year. That intensity was so strong that I'd come back really charged with all my answers and all my voices in my head saying, no, I know why I'm doing this. And so I was really certain because of my immersiveness. And I think a lot of us, we want to be certain, but we're not

obsessed. And it's hard to be certain when you're not obsessed. You can't be half in, half out in your practice of something you want to be, whether it's an entrepreneur, whether it's a creator, whether it's a CEO, or whether it's even a parent. All of those roles are really powerful, but they're really hard to do when you're kind of half in, half out. And so for me, that was the first thing. I was fully immersed in who I wanted to be. The second thing I'd say is that I've had this practice for a long time and it's been really life-changing to me. I get a piece of paper and I put a line down the middle.

And on one side, I write down all the noise I hear. And on the other side, I write down what my inner voice is saying. And I find that activity so helpful because all I have to do now, every time I hear the noise, is I have to repeat what my voice says. And that activity just solves so much because most of the time what happens is the noise gets so loud that your voice just gets drowned out. And this I learned by, at one point in my life, I listened to Steve Jobs' Stanford's commencement speech for nine months in a row every day. I knew all the words off my heart and more importantly, the words really impacted my heart. And he talks about this exact concept in that. And so to me, if you're sitting there and you're worried about everything you're hearing,

and then what your voice is saying, write it out, look at it and keep repeating your voice to yourself. And that will start to strengthen that inner voice as a practical step you can take. And the third thing I'd say, I mean, there's so many, but the third thing I'd say that really gave me the confidence was I realized that no one in the world, no matter how much they loved me, had to live with the consequences of my decisions in full. I'm the only person who has to wake up and work a day in a company I don't want to be in. I have to live that day. I'm the only person who has to wake up next to a partner that I don't want to be with and go to sleep next to them as well if I choose someone based on that. And I'm the only person who has to get old with the memories

of what could have been, what should have been, and what could have happened. I'm the one who has to die with that. And those things to me are still till this day, the reason why I make the decisions I do, because no one else has to live the day. They may live the moment, like my mom had to live the moments of, oh, your son didn't go to his graduation. Oh, you don't have a picture of him graduating. Oh, your son's not making money. He doesn't have a job.

Is he okay? Oh, he's back now. He's old, right? He's not going to get a job now, is he? My mom had to live with all those moments. And I empathizeize with her for that and I love my mum for loving me through all of that she wouldn't have had to live the days and the months and the weeks and the years of pain and suffering and dissatisfaction that I would have had to live with had I chosen the life that society wanted me to choose I love that I love much. I so, and it's taken me 30 something years to realize

that that level of responsibility that only we have over our lives. And I think it's quite a hard thing to internalize because it's quite tempting because it's a lot easier to live your life putting it on other people. But that's probably been one of the biggest learnings that's completely changed my life is consistently internalizing that solution and I'm interested in that moment that you I don't know if it was one moment or maybe it was a few days or weeks where you said okay that's it I've decided I finished university and I choose to be a monk I choose that not I don't know if there was a job offer or a specific job but I that is the path I chose Was there like a crystal clear moment or? Yeah, it was around six months before I graduated.

I decided that was it. And up until then, I was still seeing people and I was still potentially being like, oh, I could work this job and maybe I'd have a move in with this girl or, you know, those conversations that I was having. And then six months before, I just, I thought to myself, you know what, I'm going to regret it if I don't do this. I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. And if I start working and I'm in a relationship and I move in and then we end up together, then I'm going to break someone's heart and it's going to be much worse. Like I would, I was literally walking through that

scenario going, I don't want to be in a relationship for three, five years and then go, should have been a monk at 21. Like now I've got to go backwards, hurt someone in the process, cause all this other pain. God knows what, who else would be affected. Plus I'm in a place in my life right now where I haven't started work yet. So there's no expectations either. I can still take this break. And so I'd say it was about six months before where I made a committed effort. And it's really funny because as soon as you make that commitment, all the distractions start to appear. All of a sudden, I was like, oh gosh, like now I've got to fight off these distractions. And those six months were probably the hardest six months because now you've made a commitment and now you're like, okay, now I

need to be serious about this. But making that commitment was really, really important. And I told my parents that I'd be gone by the time graduation came. And my parents were, by then, like I said, they'd got used to me making my own decisions and they'd got used to me having freedom. But I knew that nothing would change the reality that people are always going to be scared of you doing things that they're scared of. That people will always be scared of you doing things that they're scared of. And that's not because they're bad people. And it's not because they hate you. And it's not because they don't believe in you. It's because they're scared too. And so that just comes from a place of fear. And so don't judge them. Don't hate them. Don't criticize them or judge them. Just let it be and carry on. And so I think't know if you're going to ask me about this, but it's an interesting one because in that six months when I made the decision, I start spending my weekends at my local temple just to prepare myself for when I'll move to India, just to

kind of get in the mindset and stay out of trouble mainly. And a woman comes into the temple and I'm asked to show her how to do certain services around the temple. And I've never been asked to do this before this day. I was never asked to do it again. And she's around my mother's age and I show her around. She's very friendly. She's wonderful. And at the end of it, she says to me, I'd love to introduce my daughter to spirituality and meditation. And you seem like a young person, like, how do I do that? She's young too's young too and I said well I'm going to be a monk I'm going to become a monk in six months so I'm not I'm not it's not really appropriate for

me to meet her but I'd love to introduce her to my sister because she's also involved in spirituality and meditation my younger sister and she said sure that sounds great so I arranged to meet with my sister and her and her daughter so that they could connect and the first time I saw her daughter she was I just thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world who now happens to be my wife I was like on the edge of my seat and I tell me that's your wife to be my wife and at that point I just I literally had to talk I was like no you're going to become a monk just introduce us I just introduced to my sister stepped away just said hello said hey this my sister carry on never talked to her again went off and became a

monk and then when I came back her and my sister had become really good friends my sister was our my wing person and put us together but the reason why I say that is it's it's interesting how that was like the last kind of test before I went because I saw and and if you ask her like when I saw her I was like oh my god she's she's beautiful and stunning and if you ask her she didn't feel anything she's like whatever just some random guy with a shaved head I was about to ask if it was love at first sight for me it was for me it was it was one-sided so I don't know if that counts at love at first sight but uh it was for me not for her that's absolutely I've got a few questions on that but I guess one thing I wanted to pick up on is what you said is that it was it was a very difficult six months because again

and I think it's just something that I'm fascinated by I think we we always think that the journey is easy you know people might find out about you now now that you're so successful and you know pop up all over the place and they wouldn't necessarily have assumed this whole journey and kind of how hard it is to keep moving forwards and how did it feel when you got to the airport you know getting on the plane did it feel kind of yeah like I remember well even before the airport I remember the look on my family's face when I got in the car to go to the airport because my parents I told them I didn't want them to come to the airport because I thought it would be too difficult. I was like, if they come to the airport and they're going to cry and I'm going to cry and it's just,

it's going to be way too heavy. And then maybe I'll change my mind. Maybe I won't get on. And I'd heard stories of so many people at the monks who said, oh yeah, you know, everyone wants to be one. And then everyone pulls last minute. Or I'd heard so many stories like that of people. And I'd also had stories of people who've ran away from their wedding day, like, you know, and then that would be discouraged. You couldn't join the monastery if you were running away from your wedding day. And so I was, I was always worried about that. And so when I remember like I packed all my bags, put them in the car, emptied out my my bedroom I remember giving away my record collection I gave away my because I really wanted to take it seriously and did you think you'd be going forever yes yeah I literally I

genuinely believed that and that was why I gave away my record collection because I was just like if I can give this away then I'm truly ready for this because these are things that are important to me yeah I gave away all my football jerseys I had amazing I'd like I love I've loved football my whole life I have like all the original iconic jerseys of every major player every major team gave them all away because I thought this is it I have to do this and I had nothing in my bank account I was like that's great like I mean that was pretty normal as a student in London anyway and I thought that's it and so when I walked out I remember seeing the look on my mum's face the look on my dad's face at the door, not knowing when I'd see them again, like no plans to say, oh, I'll see you at Christmas,

or I'll see you in a few months, like just no plans. Because I was like, I have to go all in because if there's any moment of weakness, I could potentially not go. And so if I say, I'll see you in a couple of months, it creates another expectation in them. And now if I don't come back, then they'll be sad and let down. So I have to create no expectation. And I remember my parents just, and I was just holding back the tears. I was just going, don't cry. Like, just don't cry. Like just, you know, you've just got to stay strong. And then I got there, got on the plane. And then as soon as I landed on the other side, I was like, this is exactly where I'm meant to be. And it was just, the pain was like the conversation in my head throughout the journey, which is like, did I do

the right thing? Did I really let my parents down? Maybe my parents do need financial support. Maybe I should have been a good son. Maybe I'm being a bad son, like all of that. And that never went away for those three years. It was there the whole time. It was, it was there not every day, but it was there every couple of weeks. I often visualized, you know, not to sound morbid, but to be truthful. Like I visualized what it would feel like to lose my parents if I never saw them again, because I had to get close to that reality if that were to happen. Like, how would I feel about that I would sob in my visualization because it would be just so emotionally draining and painful to think wow I may never see them again or what does that look like and then I ended up seeing them a few times a year anyway when they would come to visit or I'd

come back and so it wasn't that I didn't see them for that time but at least when I left it was that's the kind of pressure I put on myself because yeah any form of weakness in a decision like that and it all falls away but I love again it's just going back to the fact that you still had self-doubt because I think sometimes people think when they make these big decisions like it would just be easy and then it will be easy from ever on and like life it should be linear and it's never how it works the hope is that you move forward in an upward trajectory but you're going to go up down all around on the way there and you're going to have to work really hard to keep doing that and I think that's one of the things that fascinates me and why I'm so interested

in people's stories is understanding like what they actually look like because often you see the end and you hear about the very beginning and it's this like almost this gray area of how do you actually move from A to B that fascinates me. And I'm sure this is like an almost impossible question, or at least one that has like a two week long answer. But if there was any way to sum up, like what did you take from those three years? Like what was it that kind of seeped into your soul, that huge transformation that you went through, wherein you wanted to live this different life completely? What was it? So I think there's a few things. wherein you wanted to live this different life completely? What was it? So I think there's a few things.

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Email Bob at Libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N.com. So I think there's a few things. The first one, and I'll share things that I think people can relate to or are digestible. One of them was adaptability. So you don't have a place you sleep. You sleep anywhere on the floor that's available. So you don't have a bedroom. You don't have a place you sleep you sleep anywhere on the floor that's available so you don't have a bedroom you don't even have a section that's yours someone else could sleep there tomorrow and you'd have to sleep in their place there's no space you know sometimes you get back and there's no food left sometimes you're out on the streets all day serving food but you didn't

get to eat sometimes you got a good night's sleep sometimes you didn't like to eat. Sometimes you got a good night's sleep. Sometimes you didn't. There's just so much adaptability that you learn. Sometimes you'd get somewhere thinking you had a place to stay, but then you didn't. There was just so much uncertainty in your day because you don't get to pick what you eat. There's no menu. There's no restaurant. It's not like, oh yeah, I'll eat this today. You eat what you're given. So you start developing this appetite for adaptability where whatever happens, you survive and you live and you think, oh, wow, like I can actually survive either way. And I think that that stays with me today. I mean, we were just talking about with my team, like I slept one hour last night, but I've done that so many times and,

and served all day that it, it's just normal. It's. It's part of the adaptability training of you can keep giving and keep going even without that. Now, I wouldn't do that every day. That's only because I was on a plane. Just to give that caveat, I don't recommend people burn themselves out. That's a very specific thing to this particular time that I'm in in this next couple of weeks. But the idea of adaptability was huge. The other one that I thought was really special, which is to our conversation right now, is that I lost all concept of time. Because as a monk, you don't have to have achieved something by 25 or by 30 or by 35 or by 40. So in our world, you should be married by 30, you should have kids by 35, you should be this by 40, You should have kids by 35. You should be

this by 40. You should be retired by whatever. I think we have all these markers. And in monk life, there are no markers. There's no marker. It's not like you should be spiritually enlightened by three years of meditating. It doesn't exist. There's no fake milestone. The milestone is just you and your journey. And you could be on step one or step nine or step 10, but no one's telling you to hurry up or there's no speed. There's no context of speed. And Gandhi has this beautiful quote where he said, there's more to life than increasing its speed. And I think we're so addicted to speed, whereas there was no pace. There was only your own pace. And so I think I started moving at my own pace in my own time, not on someone else's pace and not on someone else's time even more. And the third thing I got from it was

time to really understand what was important to me, what I valued. And you really lose sense of your outer self because there's no mirrors in the monastery. So you never look at a reflection of yourself. So when you're on the streets, you're like looking into a window to see how you even look. But otherwise you don't know how you look. So you forget all concept of age, time, appearance, which is there to only help you go inward because then there's only one way to go. There's only one way to, or one place to to put your energy and so I think I really dialed in that ability to go within and be able to understand and reflect and introspect and be comfortable and confident being on my own and so I mean there's so many more things as you said two week answer but those are a few things that stand out right now

and did they build over those three years like you can imagine that well I can only imagine if it was me that the first little bit would feel even if you feel you're in the right place it's a bit sticky to start with like it's hard you know I imagine you've had times where you have to sit there and you're like but you're almost like pushing through to an extent because it is it's such you imagine the first time there's nothing to eat or like you wanted to sleep in that corner and you couldn't you think you're going to catch that traditional like western you know London born and bred mentality of like that's my space yeah yeah exactly and I think the the time in the summer vacations and Christmas holidays had helped that because I had I had a very clear concept but I would definitely say that year one was just me saying look no matter what hard it is, I'm just going to push through. And I remember

one moment where I woke up late and we were traveling at the time and we were sleeping in this like massive warehouse almost, you know, like a hundred monks in this warehouse all sleeping and everyone had woken up early for meditation. I woke up a little bit late that day and they told me that the shower was like a hundred or 200 meters away. And so I walk outside and it's raining like buckets, like not just drizzles, like full on raining. I'm like, God, I got to walk to the shower and it's raining. I woke up late. Everyone's already meditating. I'm judging myself for waking up late. I'm thinking, oh gosh, I'm late to meditation. Now I have to walk in the rain to have a shower. I'm soaking in the rain. I'm walking through the mud. We're in India. It's

not like, and so my feet are covered in mud now. I'm like, God, this shower is going to take even longer. I'm going to be late. I'm carrying my robes, which are getting soaked in the wear. And then I get to the showers and realize that they're open air showers. So there's no covering. So I'm like, what was the point of this whole thing? And there were tons of days like that where I'm like, what the hell am I doing here? Like, why am I doing this to myself? But at the same time, it was training me in adaptability. It was training me in resilience. It was training me in this idea of life's never going to be easy. And I really appreciate that training.

I don't look for, as monks, you don't look for peace, you create it. And I think that that's the most beautiful thing that's come out of it all is you realize everything is something you create in any moment. And it's not something you choose. It's not something you look for. It's not something you're searching for. It's something you're creating. And when you realize what a powerful creator you are and we all are, you start recognizing that I can create peace. can create joy I can create moments of gratitude yeah you don't need to wait for the external events to create them what was the kind of moment to decide after three years maybe it was to come back to find your wife now that's what I'm gonna think that's the answer but what was the reason to my health took a lot of knocks during my time as a monk communal living is really tough I'd get sick very often because if someone got sick in the monastery, you could grab it off of anyone.

And there's so many of you using the same showers. You're in these bigger rooms with lots of people. So I used to get sick fairly often. That was really tough on my immune system. And I'm a light sleeper and you're sleeping in a room again with so many people, maybe 30 people at certain times. And some people are waking up at 2 a.m. and some people are waking up at 3 a.m. And so you're waking up multiple times per night.

I'm not sleeping as well as I would like to have. And so my health really took a hit. And that really made me question whether this was like a sustainable long-term place for me. Because when your health goes bad you start questioning everything and I think that that's kind of what happened to me where my health had gone so bad that I was just like god I don't know if I can I don't even know if I'm going to survive and I remember one of the doctors saying to me like oh you can either be a monk for the rest of your life and be in bed or you can leave being the monk and you you can be healthy like it was literally that's what one of

the doctors in India said to me when I saw him. And that really, really hit me. I was like, wow, yeah. Does being a monk mean just sitting in bed all day, being sick? Like if that's what I'm going through. At the same time, I was having a more psychological dilemma where I really wanted to present what we were learning to the modern world, but that wasn't our job. Like that's not what we did. I wanted to go back to London and tell all my friends. And I'd been doing that since I met the monk at university. So for all those years from 18 to 21, before I became a monk, I had a society at university called Think Out Loud. And I would teach philosophy and wisdom and meditation to students who came, whoever turned up. And I was like, I want to go back to doing that. Like that's my life's joy is sharing this

work, but that's not life's joy is sharing this work but that's not what monks are meant to do all day we do a little bit of it we teach we guide but that's not what you're dedicating your life to and I didn't know who the prime minister of England was I didn't know who won the world cup in 2012 I didn't know all these things and I was like well how am I going to relate to people how can I connect this to them when I don't know what the latest movie or tv show is and it's so out of context and so I started to realize that I don't know what the latest movie or TV show is. And it's so out of context. And so I started to realize that I had all these independent ideas and rebellious ideas to some degree. And they were a calling again from that inner voice, the same inner voice that told me

to go and live as a monk was saying to me, maybe this is not your path. Maybe you're meant to do something else. But the problem is it was another maybe. And I was like, gosh, not again. Like, you know, we worked so hard to get here. You're like talking to yourself. It's almost like you have a little character inside of you. Like we worked so hard to get here. Now you're telling me to go the other way. And so I probably thought about leaving for like six months. It wasn't a quick thing. It was like, I thought about it and I meditated on it. I reflected on it and I worried about it because now the worry was, and this is what actually happened when I came back, we told you so, oh look, now you're not going to get a job. Look at all your friends now. They're renting apartments. They've got mortgages. They've got a car. They're dating people. They're in

serious relationships. They got promoted. You're going to be behind. And so that was all going through my head for six months when I was thinking about leaving and then I was like wait a minute if I joined the monastery not caring about what people thought how can I force myself to stay here because of what people think and so I wasn't going to stay here for the wrong reasons when I wouldn't have not joined in the first place for the wrong reasons. And when you did get back, was it almost easier, obviously having spent so long embedding these, this different way of looking at the world, did it then feel like you'd had the practice to be able to say, it's okay. I know you think that, but drowning out the noise was just becoming easier

and easier and saying, this is my path. I want to translate these ideas and help people in the way that someone helped me. And like, I imagine you looked at it and being like, I wish I had those tools and that access to information when I was 16, 17, 18. What I really felt was most people are not going to become monks. No. And so if I stay here, I'm selfish. That's how I felt. That's literally how I felt. I go, if I live here for the rest of my life and I live a really happy life, which I was happy apart from my health, I was mentally and emotionally happy and spiritually happy. I saw that as being selfish because I was just like, well, what about that random kid in London, just like me, who thinks they're too cool for meditation,

who doesn't think that they need to be spiritual, that doesn't have any access to wellbeing and doesn't care about it. What about that person? Like what, what if no, what if I didn't meet that monk? Like if I didn't meet him, where would I be today? And when I came back, I wish initially I had more confidence, but I didn't because this is what we all experience every day. You think you're really strong. Then you walk into a family event and all of a sudden, all your strength is completely destroyed because the power of collective societal thought is just so absorbing that you walk in and all of a sudden everything's gone. So I came back and everything they said was true. I was rejected from 40 companies before an interview. I literally wrote individual resumes and cover letters for 40 companies that would have given me a job at any day of the week before. And every single one of

them rejected me before an interview. So I wouldn't even get to step my foot in the door. And surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire a former monk. I'm surprised, it's ultimate discipline. Like what are you? No, well, I think people's perceptions are like, you know, what are your transferable skills? Like being silent and sitting still

and like no one wants that. And so now the reality was affirming everyone else, not me. The reality was affirming. People said, you're never going to make it. You're never going to get a job. You're going to be behind. That's all true now. That's all factually true. And I'm sitting there going, did I make a mess of my life? And I think that was the moment where I actually started applying everything I learned as a monk. I said, no,

I haven't. I know I learned really valuable things. I know there was truth to what I did, but now I have to learn how to apply it in this world. It's not going to look like how it did there, but it's going to have to be figured out here. And I think that's when I made a commitment where I was like, I'm going to figure out how this works here. And the more I can figure that out, that's going to make a difference in how I live my life. And then luckily I finally got a job at my 41st attempt and that definitely took a lot of stress off. And so from that moment on you started putting the teachings out in the world as I think if that's right it's almost like a side project outside the normal job? Yeah so I finally got a job at a company called Accenture which I'm very grateful to I worked in worked there in London and I started on the graduate program

age 26 and everyone else at the company on that program was 21. So again, I fell behind. And at work, I said to myself, I'm going to play to my strengths. I know myself. I know my values. I don't need to compromise. I need to follow what I've been taught. And there was this beautiful verse that I learned during my time as a taught. And there was this beautiful verse that I learned during my time as a monk. And it says, when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. And I kind of wore that as a mantra on my heart where I was like, I'm just going to protect my purpose. I know what my purpose is. I'm not going to sell it short. And I need to create a life that I love every day because that's what I had as a monk. And so I went through, I would say I went through depression for the first

nearly six months of bringing back because it was so tough. Getting a job was a breakthrough, but then it was awkward because I remember the first night was pizza making. And then I'm turning up to like a pizza making networking session. And I've forgotten how to do small talk. I don't know how to like start a conversation anymore. I only know how to have like really deep, meaningful conversations. And I'm going, God, what am I going to ask people? Like, what am I going to talk about? Like, if someone says, what have you been up to?

Like, what do you say to that? Like, just when I became a monk, like it's just so random. And so I'm dealing with all of that social anxiety of how do I reintegrate? And what does that look like? And what do I have to talk about? Like, I don't drink anymore.

Everyone's going to be drinking tonight when they're networking. I've given up have to talk about? I don't drink anymore. Everyone's going to be drinking tonight when they're networking. I've given up alcohol and I don't drink alcohol anymore. There were just so many things like that where I was like, well, I don't fit into this corporate, at least before I fit into the corporate world,

but now I don't even fit in and I have a suit that doesn't fit because I haven't worn a suit for so long. And so all of these things are there. And I got to a point where i started to feel more comfortable because they asked us this question on our first day which was like what's an interesting fact about yourself and i was like thank god so it's like i lived as a monk and i teach meditation that was my interesting fact about myself and everyone was really curious

about it i was like that's amazing like what like, it was just so nice to like, actually get some curiosity and intrigue. And then there were definitely people who were just like, that's weird. Like, what is that? Right. So you'd get a bit of both. And so I started teaching meditation at the company. I would teach lunchtime sessions and one or two people would turn up and it would be amazing. And I'd feel so fulfilled because like two people turned up and they really cared. And I remember that one of the rugby lads on the team, he came up to me one night and he said to me, he goes, Jay, look, I know people come to your meditations, but you know, I don't want them to think I'm soft. So can you do a private meditation session for me? I was like, yeah, sure. We'll do it. So we went that evening and we went into a

room, dim the lights. And I was leading him in a meditation. All of a sudden, everyone turned on the lights and walked into that room and saw me and him in this dark room meditating together. So his secret was out. But it was just really interesting because all of these people were just coming out of their own ways to seek meditation, mindfulness, some sort of coaching, some sort of advice. And it started to build my confidence that what I had learned was useful. I started a event in London called Conscious Living. I would do it once a month. Maybe 10 people would show up, but I loved it. It was amazing. It was so beautiful to do it. And I just kept doing it every month. No money, no social media, no followers, no, none of this stuff. It was just for free. Whoever turned up.

And what, when is this just for context this is 2013 i got back okay so this is like 2013 to 2016 yeah around that time and then my company notices i'm doing so much of this and so one of my directors says to me she says jay i want you to teach meditation at our next summer event with the company and so here are a thousand of my colleagues. We have an event at Twickenham Rugby Stadium and my director's asked me to go on stage and teach meditation. And these are all my peers who don't know me.

I don't know a thousand people at the company. I don't have a brand. I don't have any videos. I don't have anything. It's just me. And so they don't know who I am or what I'm doing. And she says, Jay's going to teach you how to meditate. And I'm really worried because I'm in between our company CEO and Will Greenwood,

who won the Rugby World Cup. He's speaking just before me. And I'm thinking to myself, God, how do I follow the CEO and Will Greenwood? How does this make any sense? But I went up there and I taught in the way that I knew. And my director said to me afterwards, she said, Jay, I've never heard a group of millennials be that silent for that long and be that present for that long. And she said, it really worked. Do you want to do more of this? I said, sure. So I literally traveled the entire company teaching meditation, which just gave me more and more confidence. And then in the end of 2015, I decided that it was time to leave to do this, to try and do this professionally and to do it

for more companies than the one I was working at. And that's when I left to follow that path. The thing I have to just say thank you so much for is just that I think when we look at people who have done really well in life or are doing really well in life, particularly I think when you're doing it from a kind of wellness perspective from a mental well-being perspective you probably just assume that those people have never had the problems that you've had or the inner struggles that you've had and I think for you to say even after all that experience and all that exposure to all this amazing spirituality you still had a moment of depression a period of depression and still had a lack of self-belief in yourself and social anxiety and these things that we all experience but we don't always share as openly as we probably could and I think it's just incredibly humbling

but also incredibly inspiring that that was your experience and you're still moving through it and continue on that trajectory to where you are today I can't not ask when did you then meet your wife oh no so I met my wife in 2013 okay when I came back when I came back she was at my house all the time because my sister her they've become really close and my sister's one of my closest friends she's around four and a half years younger than me and my wife's three years younger than me so they have a shorter age gap and so they spent a ton of time together and my sister's one of my closest friends she totally knows me and she got so close with my wife that she totally knew her and so one day she came up to me and she was like I know someone who likes you and in my I'm secretly hoping it's my

wife and I'm like who is it who is it and she goes no I'm not telling you like is there anyone you like and I was like well you know I like Rad? And I was like, well, you know, I like Radhi. And she was like, yeah, she likes you too. And it was like this really sweet moment. And then I found out that year that her mother that day, all those years ago, probably talking about like four years before that, I'd prayed that day in the temple that her daughter would find a guy like me. And it was just one of these really full circle, beautiful moments of just connecting. So yeah, we started dating 10 years ago now, 2013, July time, so nearly 10 years ago. So got to you for days, but I'm very interested in like, how, how did you fast forward from that moment in 2015 to where you are today? Cause you know, I was reading the, from the press release around your new book and it's, I think it was 10 billion streams of your video, 50 million people you speak to on social media. I mean, it must feel extraordinary that desire you had 10 years ago in India to take these ideas and bring them to

people in the modern world to feel like you haven't just done that you've kind of done that in spades and then 300 million times over it's extraordinary yeah it's just it's uh I got emotional hearing that from your perspective it's really humbling I'm just so grateful because I was happy to do this for one person or two people. And I was genuinely satisfied by that. There was no scale as a value came much later on as a concept even. But in the beginning, I was very happy just if two people showed up to a meditation class, I'd pull my heart into them. Or if I did an event in London and people stayed for three hours after, I'd answer all their questions and sit with them. And so I've just done this for so long before it became noticed. So I was doing

this from 18 to 28 before it became noticed. I was 28 when it first kind of took off seven years ago, but those 10 years were just beautiful. I was fulfilled in just doing it for whoever came. There was no part of me that was like, oh, this is not enough for like more people. It wasn't like that. It was just, I wanted to share with more people, but more felt like 20 or 50 or a hundred, like more wasn't like a million or a billion. I didn't have the concept of those ideas. And what happened was when I did leave to do this for companies, so I started working with executives and corporates because that's what I was doing at Accenture. So that was very natural. I worked in the corporate world. I know how much burnout and stress affect us. I could speak that language and I could do that work. But I got to a point where I was just like,

I do want this to reach more people. And when I thought more, I literally mean a hundred people would be good because that way more people would have access to these things. And I remember pitching my video series ideas. This is before I made a video, to lots of media companies in London. Again, I got rejected before an interview because I didn't have a journalism or a communications background. Then one day, Jon Snow came to speak at Accenture. Not Game of Thrones Jon Snow, but Jon Snow, Jon Snow, the Jon Snow. And he came to give a talk

for us at Accenture. And this was before I'd left. And he went out and I chased him while he was on his bike. And I just said, Jon, I was like, I'll come work for you for free, like whatever you want. I just want to shadow, I want to learn. I want to figure out how we can bring wellbeing into the mainstream and talk about it more publicly. And he was really sweet and kind. And he gave me his card and he said, go get a master's and talk to me when you get your master's. I was like, God, I can't afford a master's. That's more time out. That's not going to work. And then I pitched my idea to three chief executive editors at top media companies in London. I networked at events, met them, spoke to them afterwards, whatever it took. And all of them said to me, Jay, you're too old. Everyone who wants this job is 21. You're 28. Some of them said you're too underqualified. You don't know anything about journalism or presenting or communication. So it was just like, no, no, no, no, no. And then I finally ended up at this BBC TV training day run for ethnic minorities. So I walk into this room, there's five to six brown and black people in this room. And I went there to just test if I had presenting skills,

whether I could even do this. And I went there and at the end of it, they were like, Jay, you have some really good presenting skills. You should pursue this. And I was like, great, give me a job. I was like, I'll take anything. I don't care what the starting salary is. Just give me a job. I'll work my way up. I'll work my socks off. And they said, oh, well, there's no jobs in media. And I was like, great. Well, you've told five to six brown and black people to come here to tell us there's no jobs in media. That doesn't make any sense. And they were like, well, you've told five to six brown and black people to come here to tell us there's no jobs in media. That doesn't make any sense. And they were like, well, you should start a YouTube channel. And this was in 2015, going on to 2016.

So 2015, you should start a YouTube channel. And I was like, that works for Justin Bieber. That works for one in a billion people. It's not going to work for me. But it did. Yeah. And so that was like the quick version to getting started. That just gets us there.

I mean, there's so much more between 2016 and 2023 that, you know, I can go into as much, if you want me to pinpoint, I can go into some. But I think that's what's so interesting, right? Is that it did. And I'm not saying it did like that. Of course it, you know, it took a huge amount of time before and after, you know, it's that whole myth of the overnight success. You know, as I said, we see kind of the very tip of any iceberg but it's just

it also shows that putting yourself out there you know it can work yeah it can work and i learned about a quote from thomas edison then which i hold close to my heart again and he said that when you feel you've exhausted all options remember this you, you haven't. And I live by that so much because even at this point in life, and I love that you are kind of emphasizing this point, that even today, when maybe perception is that things come easy and people probably feel this way about you, people may feel this way about me, that Jay can probably do whatever he wants at this point. It's just not true. There's so many doors being closed every day. There's so many no's. There's so many, we don't think you're right for this. There's so many, we're not sure yet. There's so many, you're underqualified,

you're too old, you're too young. That's always going to be there. And so that never goes away. And that's true for the people right at the top. And that's true for the person at the beginning. I know plenty of massive Hollywood actors who have blockbusters, but would never win an Oscar because their movies are not considered Oscar worthy. And so they don't get that. I know plenty of people who are starting out in the music world who are not getting on the Spotify playlist they want, right? Like there's always going to be that block, whichever end of the spectrum you're on. And I think for me, when I started creating content, I had 150 million views at one point and I was four months away from being broke. That was the paradox because you couldn't monetize views at that time. There was a point where I wanted to launch a podcast.

We found a company that was going to sponsor the podcast. They pulled out two weeks before my podcast launched and told me that they pulled out because they didn't think it was going to be a big podcast. And I had to scramble for those two weeks to launch my own show and figure out the team and like pay for everything myself because we thought they were funding it. And they were going to own 60% of the podcast. And now we own the whole thing. And it was amazing. But at that time it wasn't amazing. At that time I was like, crap, like, how am I going to pay for this? I don't have money for this. And so I could keep going on and on. I would, I sat with 17 imprints for my book, Think Like a Monk, the first one, and 14 out of 17 told me not to call it Think Like a Monk. They said, Jay, no one wants to

think like a monk. Don't call it Think Like a Monk. It's a terrible idea. Call it something more broad and vague and it will do better. And I was just like, but that's the book I want to write. And so that never goes. It never, ever goes. And I think the fascination or the hope that we have that one day we'll get to a place when everyone will agree with us and everything we'll say will work and it doesn't exist and so you finish how you start and you start how you finish and get used to that feeling not expecting another one I have three questions I guess they all they sit nicely ish with each other on that which is I guess I'm very curious in terms of you know in those earlier days when you were teaching like maybe that one guy the rugby guy two three people does it feel any more or less fulfilling than now when you're speaking to millions and tens of millions of people that

that's sort of something I'm really really interested in because again I think sometimes we all think you know when that external thing happens when I just get to this point life's gonna feel so good. I'm going to be so happy. And that's a topic that fascinates me. But the second is this self-confidence to keep going and keep building and keep building. And I think I'm curious how much you feel it ties into, you know, the thing I love about your new book is that part one is called Learning to Love Yourself.

And that's a topic that's very close to my heart it's something that's fascinated me and it's been a big part of my own experience over the last 10 years but I'm interested in exactly that that level of fulfillment and then that self-confidence and that self-love to keep to keep going and to keep building and to keep hopefully enjoying what you do yeah I think so in beginning, I definitely got so focused on online when it took off that I stopped doing any one-to-one work. I've always had a group of young men that I've mentored in London who are, I've been involved in their life through our spiritual community since they were all like 14 years old. They're all like 28 now. So I've, I've known them

for a long time. And so that was kind of, they've always been the people that I've spent the most one-on-one time with. There's about 20, 20 young men who are phenomenal. I'm so proud of who they've become today. And so that there was always that personal part, but as my online presence grew, I definitely focused much more on that because I think when you don't expect something to happen and then it happens, you cherish it and you go, wow, I've just been given this amazing opportunity to talk to millions of people. I'm going to take it really seriously and I want to take it really responsibly. And I don't want to let this community down and I don't want to throw this opportunity away. I'm not going to be complacent now. I'm not now going to think like,

oh, this is amazing. I'm going to keep working harder than I worked before. I believe that I work harder today than I've ever worked in my entire life because I love what I do. And this is what I always, I didn't even wish for this, but to have it in this way, it makes me want to give it that time. So I've now gone back to, I have a very small one-on-one coaching practice still, because I find the joy in scale and the joy in intimacy are two different joys. I get so much joy out of knowing that hundreds of millions of people listen to the podcast every year, that billions of people watch the videos. I get so much joy out of that because my goal was always to make wisdom entertaining. It was always to try and help a mainstream audience connect with these very

supposedly niche ideas. So I get so much joy from that. And I get so much joy from knowing that everyone has an opportunity to learn no matter where they are. At the same time, watching growth intimately and deeply in one person is what gives you all the tools to help all of the people. And so it's a symbiotic relationship. I don't think you can help a lot of people if you can't help one person. And I believe that the more I get better at helping one person, and because I did that for so long, that's why I'm able to communicate with more people. Because when you understand a few people's pain deeply, you then can start to understand the psychological challenges that we all have so that's the first part if that answers your question beautifully

and the second part was more the persistence you were saying like well i'm interested in the self-confidence and the relationship that you see between self-confidence self-belief and self-love because i think the thing that i've just become it's just a personal opinion but i've begun to feel it very very strongly and just be my own journey with it but i i feel maybe it's just a personal opinion but I've begun to feel it very very strongly and just be my own journey with it but I feel maybe it's because I'm looking for it but I keep seeing it in other people that you know when we think about wellness we think about well-being both mental well-being and emotional and physical well-being we so often think about eating broccoli and jumping up and down doing star jumps and you know like making a green smoothie and and i guess the obvious right the low-hanging fruit and i think but i'm convinced that self-love and

appreciation and a knowing and a belief in yourself is fundamentally the absolute core of real well-being i don't think you can do on any of the above with real meaning and take care of yourself your mind and your body for the long run if if you don't appreciate yourself. And I don't think you can change your life if you don't love yourself or appreciate yourself, because I don't think you can keep having the belief to put yourself in uncomfortable positions to get outside of your comfort zone. Because obviously your story is illustrated perfectly today. Your life's taken this crazy trajectory. It's kind of, if you're going to use conventional, use the word success, it's the success of all successes, but it wasn't easy and it felt difficult and low and sticky and mentally very challenging at points. And I think it is

that self-love and that self-belief and that self-confidence that sits at the root of that. And I'm just interested in your experience and your viewpoint on that. Yeah. An idea that's come to me recently is that and it refers to what you were talking about earlier with like the green smoothie or the star jumps or the broccoli or whatever that self-care is all about comfort but self-love self-confidence and self-belief is all about discomfort and that you learn to respect yourself and you learn to love yourself and you gain self-belief by doing hard things, by being uncomfortable. And I think two things.

One thing is I don't think people give themselves enough credit for how many hard things they've already done. And so there's so many challenges that I promise every person who's listening or watching right now that you've done, whether it was giving birth, whether it was supporting your family member, whether it was being bullied at school, whether it was a terrible ex-partner who broke your heart, like you've been through something really difficult. And if you just honored yourself, if you took a moment to recognize what you've overcome, you will have so much self-respect and so much self-belief and so much self-confidence. But the problem is we see our lives as normal

or we see them as pain as opposed to this idea that I can do hard things. I've done really difficult things. And I really believe everyone has. I don't think this is something you have to create artificially. I think everyone listening today has done something challenging, no matter what that challenge is. And don't start comparing your challenges because your challenge is yours, right? So I think that's something that I love about self-love and self-belief is that I started to notice that I have done difficult, challenging things. That means I'm good at dealing with more difficult, challenging things. I can have confidence because of that that's one the second thing I found and this is a beautiful concept from the book flow

which I really love the philosophy of flow and the author talks about this idea between when we feel different things so he says that you're living in one of two states. One is where your challenge is greater than your skill. And in that you become frustrated, you become depressed, and you become disappointed when your challenge is greater than your skill. He said the other people, their skill is higher than their challenge. They get lethargic, they get lazy, they get complacent. And he said flow or flow state, which is a state of being in the zone, the state of being in a place of thriving, the state of feeling like momentum, that's when your challenge meets your skill. So when it comes to self-belief or self-confidence, the question I always ask myself

is, what skill don't I have? I'm not worried about what problem I have. You're always going to have problems. The question is, what skill do I not yet have that's going to help me solve this problem? It's so simple, yet it changes your whole mindset because all that you're experiencing, if you're disappointed, if you're stressed, if you're under pressure, it's because your challenge is above your skill. So this isn't about looking in the mirror and saying, I believe in myself, or it isn't about just saying affirmations to yourself. It's going, let me go learn a skill. Let me go develop a new tool in my toolkit that now I can pull on in any time. So all I've tried my whole life has gone, let's develop that skill. Let's develop that skill. And now I open my toolkit. I've got all these skills, which are useful. And now I still

have to develop more. So that's the second one, which gives me a lot of confidence now. And the third one is realizing that self-doubt is a sign of growth. If you still only wrote a blog, that would not challenge you. You could probably do it with your eyes closed now. And therefore you'd never feel self-doubt or anxiety because it would be so easy. But every time I do something bigger, harder, more scaled up, more intimate, more personal, the more self-doubt and anxiety I feel. And that's become my norm now. I get it. I'm like, of course I'm going to feel self-doubt because I'm doing something that's scaring me. That's why I feel it. I feel it because I'm growing. I don't feel it because I'm stuck. And so often our desire to constantly feel at peace can actually block our growth and block our potential because that little bit of discomfort is needed in order to have that

self-confidence. So to me, that's really what self-confidence and self-love is. And do you have that, you know, you said the word toolkit, do you have a kind of toolkit of things that you do daily or weekly to keep looking after your well-being, keep moving forward? Yeah, I have an acronym in Think Like a Monk that I love and I stand by because it's probably my favorite, which is TIME, T-I-M-E. And after I wrote the book, I realized I forgot one. So there's five, it's S-T-I-M-E- And after I wrote the book, I realized I forgot one. So there's five, it's S-T-I-M-E-S, times. T stands for thankfulness. I really believe that practicing gratitude for what you have is the only way you continue to be thankful for what life will bring. And I think Radhi and I have always been thankful since day one, and we're still thankful today.

And I hope that we'll continue to be thankful because it was a part of our practice. And so I think practicing gratitude for the people in your life that have always been there, the things, the opportunities, and taking time to notice that daily is so powerful. Like I'm grateful to be here with you today to have this conversation. I'm grateful to be surrounded by a wonderful group of people that I've been traveling with today. I think being grateful is just such an important skill and it's so needed. The second thing is insight. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is that we don't allow new ideas to come into our life. Most of us are surrounded by the same ideas or the same conversation. And so I find whether you're listening to this podcast or

whether you're reading a book or whether you're listening to an audio book or whether you read an article, the idea that you learn something new today. So I gave the example where I listened to Steve Jobs' speech every day for nine months, every single day. It was just one practice. I recently have done a few interviews with Matthew McConaughey and I told him that I listened to his Oscars acceptance speech every day for a month. It's a five minute speech and it's mind blowing. And just doing that same thing every day gives you that bit of insight. It gives you that bit of inner dialogue that keeps you pushing in the right direction because otherwise the noise gets too loud. The M stands for meditation or mindfulness. And if anyone's like, oh,

gee, I tried that. It doesn't work for me or it's really hard, I'm going to give you a really simple tool. Sit down in your schedule, just put five minutes at the start of your day and five minutes at the end of your day in your calendar. And in that five minutes, sit alone with yourself and ask yourself, what's one thing I need to do for myself today? That's it. That's all you need to do. What's one thing I need to do for myself today? That's it. That's all you need to do. What's one thing I need to do for myself today? And then the E stands for exercise. I'm a big believer in movement. It sounds so basic, but even if it's a walk, a hike, a trek, if you like going to the gym, great. I don't. If it's playing sports, awesome. If it's dancing, great. I think we underestimate the power of movement. And then S is sleep. I don't compromise

on sleep apart from this one day that I'm talking about, but sleeping seven to nine hours is just, and these things are so obvious and they're so basic and they're things we all know. But I think so many of our wellbeing challenges would dissolve through some of these changes. And I don't need to talk about diet with you because that's your forte and my wife's forte. So my wife has transformed my life through changing my diet, my energy levels, my alertness, my focus, my longevity, like so much has changed because of my change in diet. And so I think I'm a massive proponent of the basics. And the biggest mistake we make is trying to change all of them at the same time.

So just choose one of those things I said, not all of them, and watch how your life changes. Completely. I think we overcomplicate it like there's absolutely no tomorrow. And that's why it's always quite refreshing again to have someone sit here and just say, these are the things I do and they're all things that we could all do and they're all largely free or very, very, very accessible. And just as my final question, if there's one thing you wish everyone could take from your new book, Eight Rules of Love and the way we think about love and relationships in our life, what would that one thing be?

I would say stop seeing your relationships and love as separate to your well-being and mental health. When I was researching for this book, all I saw was studies that relate your brain health to the quality of your relationships, your physical health to the quality of your connection, your heart rate to the quality of love in your life. Like it is so interconnected. And so I think we often think about love as a feeling, as an emotion. It's a chemistry, it's a biology, it's scientific, it's the quality of your relationships. And I think with the challenge we've all had over the last few years with our relationships, often we're trying to tinker with so many things, like you said, like a green juice or a broccoli, but it's like sometimes even if you had the perfect morning routine, even if you ate perfectly today, if you had an argument with your partner, it ruins everything that you're feeling that day.

And the opposite is also true. When you're not taking care of what you're eating and your sleep, you're more likely to be irritable and stressed out with your partner and so just understand how it's all interconnected but don't ignore investing in your relationships because that's what the quality of your life is based on i know i think it was one of the things that surprised me most because i came into wellness through food and the more i started to learn and i remember the first time i heard about that harvard, the one that tracked those two groups of people and showed that your relationships and the quality of that connection is the most important predictor for your longevity and your health over your life.

And it was quite shocking in a way to start with. I mean, there's this incredible study that I found when researching. It's from a researcher named Feldman. And they talk about how your heart rate gets synced up with anyone you're close to. And so at the beginning of your life, your caregiver is what your heart rate gets synced up with. And as you get into a relationship, if you spend lots of time with someone, your heart rate gets synced with them. And so it goes on to say that the best thing for your nervous system is another person. But the worst thing for your nervous system is another person, but the worst thing for your

nervous system is another person. Because if you don't have a healthy relationship with that person, that sink is not going to affect you positively. So I think we underestimate the power of how much our lives are impacted by the quality of who we surround with and even more so the quality of how we connect with them. I think today we connect on such low levels of frequency and vibration. We connect and I get it. I'm tired too at the end of the day, but our number one form of connection is watching a TV show. And I watch TV. I love movies. I'm not against it. I go to the theater. I'm a big, big, big movie fan. But if that's your only form of connection with your partner, you're completely removing all form of shared connection, all form of intimacy and all form of presence because you're watching the show together. Chances are you're both on your phone as well. Now you're both feeling like you're both

not paying enough attention to each other, but you're also upset that you're not paying enough attention to the tv and the real problem we have is you're not paying attention to each other it comes back to that and so i find that we need to find ways of creating deeper intimacy and deeper connection and so i give three other levels of connection in the book which include experiments and experiences, education together, and then finally engagement, which is finding a way to serve together, finding a way to give back together. And I just find that we need to find these higher vibrational ways of connecting with people because otherwise it completely takes away all the depth of a relationship. So you could have something really special and you're just going to throw it away over a Netflix and chill.

Yeah. I love that. That's absolutely brilliant, honestly. Well, I can't thank you enough. It's been so generous with your time. I know you're a very, very busy person, but so much wisdom. I think the biggest gratitude that I certainly have for your time today is just the normalization of that human experience. And as I said, people might come to you today

and not know a huge amount about your background and just think that someone handed this to you and and actually it's been this huge experience not linear in any way up down and all around but so clearly so enriching and you really feel that sitting with you so I just appreciate how honest you are and thank you for the inspiration yeah thank you and I deeply appreciate your way of curiosity. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of deep curiosity to ask the questions you do and to sit and digest them and to have that much ability to listen for this long to someone like me talk for this long.

That's an amazing skill. And I really appreciate that perspective. I think what you're doing for people through this podcast and hearing people's real stories is really really special so thank you so much for doing that and I know it's not just with me so thank you for doing what you're doing oh thank you yeah thank you wow what a guy truly could have kept going on this episode for another three or four hours but I appreciate you probably don't have time for that but maybe there's a part two because there is just so much to take away and I think fundamentally it's this a how humble Jay is but also the fact that no journey is linear no one has everything sussed at the click of their fingers everyone has bumps everyone struggles with self-belief

everybody has self-doubt. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how much meditation you've done or how many wellness tools you have. Life isn't just always one upward trajectory. And I think that's such an important lesson. You know, we're all deeply human no matter what we're doing in life. And I think that's so important. And as always, we'll compile the tools and the universal themes that we've been talking about on every episode on Feel Better. So you can go check them out there. And otherwise, I just want to say a huge thank you for listening. Huge thank you for being part of this community. And please, please do share the episode. It makes all

the difference to spread the word of what we're doing. So share it, rate it, review it. Give us your feedback because I love hearing it. It makes this so incredibly worthwhile. As always, you can share any feedback on social at Deliciously Ella or send me an email podcast at DeliciouslyElla.com. Otherwise, I will see you back here next week. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community.

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