Jay Shetty on Life, Love, and the Business of Podcasting

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29:29I want to kind of move more towards your domain expertise. And I'm going to start out, I want to talk about a couple of things. I want to talk about anxiety and I want to talk about finding love. And I'm going to, so just so you know, my guests are nothing but a vehicle for me to talk about myself. So this is that part of the program. I struggle with anger and depression. I've been able to manage it without pharmaceuticals. I do it through exercise, time with my boys, trying to eat clean. I have a bunch of tricks to try and, you know, or practices to keep me sort of even keeled and hating my life less and less every day.

30:03But things will trigger me and I'll go down a rabbit hole. And that's happened to me recently since the election or since the inauguration. and whether that those feelings are justified or there's something deeper, I've really struggled with trying to disassociate or separate or maintain some perspective around what's happened recently in the U.S. And this isn't a political statement. I'm not saying that my anxiety is warranted or in any way justifies or indicts what's happening. But what advice would you give to me to say, okay, Scott. And for me, meditation is like flossing. I lie about it. And that is when my hygienist says, do you floss?

30:45I lie and I say yes. I very rarely floss. And when people ask me if I meditate, I lie and I say yes. And the reality is I don't. I really don't do a lot of meditation. So given that I'm a newbie, given that I'm struggling a little bit with anxiety, given the state of the world, give me your best shot. Like give me your download on, all right, Scott, these are some best practices, some initial steps you should be taking to manage your anxiety? First of all, Scott, I want to validate your anxiety by saying that I'm not surprised that you feel the anxiety that you feel. I think we're living at a time, I was reading an article that said, we digest or consume more tragedy in 24 hours than we used to do in our whole lifetime 25 years ago.

31:40And if you think about that for a second, the amount of news, information, negativity, noise, notifications that a human consumes today is not something we've upgraded to yet. It's not something that we've figured out yet. And so anyone who's listening right now, which I think will be all of your audience that feels anxiety about something in their life, it's because we're so overexposed. Me, you and everyone, we're all overexposed. You know what's happening halfway across the world before maybe even someone who's in that area, in that vicinity, if you're logged in and tuned in. And so I think the challenge we're having is we are exposed to more negativity, noise, news notifications than we ever have in our lifetime.

32:27Now, accepting that, and we have to accept that because I think if we don't accept that, we can get very judgmental. We can get very harsh with ourselves. We can get very critical with ourselves. If we just think I'm weak, I'm not strong enough. I'm not, you know, maybe there's something wrong with me. It's like, no, no, no. Some things have changed. Things have shifted and they've shifted fast and you might even have missed it. So what do we do with that? I think it's really important. The first thing I'd say is before we even get into meditation is we've got to be really careful with our digital diet.

32:59If your digital diet means in every gap of your day, you take out your phone and you scroll on TikTok or Instagram and you allow yourself to discover the latest piece of news around the world, it's literally like going to your refrigerator or your snack cupboard and picking out a bag of chips every single part of the day where you have a break. Now, if you did that, if every single break you had, you went and grabbed a fizzy soda, a Coke, you went and grabbed a bag of chips, if you went and grabbed an unhealthy snack, no wonder your diet would be terrible, you'd be highly inflamed and you'd have massive health issues.

33:38But that's what we're doing to our mind. And so the first step for me is being really clear about where you get your news, how you get your news, and how often you get it. That, to me, will solve half of our issues. I don't think people are curating how they consume difficult information. if you think about it, like if you were diagnosed, one of my friends recently sadly had a diagnosis of cancer. When his doctor was telling him he had cancer, the doctor would say to you, take a seat. I've got something to share with you. Do you mind coming in? They might even call you and say, hey, do you mind coming in?

34:16Take a seat. Hey, this is what's going on. That would be the environment in which you consume difficult information. Now, not that all the information we consume on a daily basis is about us. But if you're going, oh my gosh, I just heard that someone got shot down the road and oh my God, I just opened up the, whatever that, you know, the ring app. And I know that someone got burgled like a mile away from me. And then, oh my gosh, there's fires happening over here. And it's all of a sudden you're not informed, you're overwhelmed. And so I would really ask people to differentiate between what is your definition of being informed and what are the newsletters you follow?

34:54What are the news accounts you follow? how often do you look at it? And that digital diet has to become everything because otherwise your anxiety is going to be constantly triggered because by the way, these platforms are told to do that. They know that they've got to have breaking news every moment. And I know so many people who just have a news channel on in the background of living their day. No wonder you've got all of this anxiety just seeping in moment to moment. Studies show we have 60 to 80 ,000 thoughts per day and 80 % of those are negative and 80 % of those are repetitive. So you're not just having lots of different negative thoughts.

35:34You're having the same negative thought again and again and again, which means you can disrupt that pattern, which means you can change it. So how do we do it? You were saying you struggle with meditation and I could give you loads of great meditation advice. And here's the thing, Scott, until I lived with you for seven days, maybe 30, and sat next to you every single day and meditated with you, chances are it would be hard for you to truly internalize it. Because that's the kind of pattern shift that your life would require. Or anyone's life would require. So what I'm going to say is this, you can't control 60 to 80 ,000 thoughts per day.

36:13You might not even be able to meditate for 10 minutes a day. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to master the first thought and the last thought of every day. Because usually what happens is our first thought is repetitive and our last thought is repetitive. Think about it. You go to sleep and you say to yourself, I'm so tired. You wake up in the morning and the first thing you say to yourself is, I'm so tired. You somehow make it through to 9am to get your morning coffee and you're thinking, I'm exhausted. Then you get to 12 noon and you're well, lunch is going to be a bit late. I've got a couple of meetings.

36:48I'm exhausted. And now it makes it a 6 p.m. You're like, I'm so tired, but I've got to work a bit. And somehow at 10.37 p.m., you get the courage to click next episode and watch another three hours of your favorite show and the cycle goes again. So we're used to repeating the thought, I'm so tired. And that thought's useless. It doesn't help because we're not making it useful. So how do we master the first and last thought of the day. You set an alarm at night to wake up in the morning. You don't set an alarm in the morning, right? You don't say, I'm going to wake up at 7.30. And when I wake up at 7.30 in the morning, I have it on my alarm.

37:24You go the night before, I want to wake up at 6am tomorrow. Let me set my alarm. Let me set the mindset I want to wake up with tonight. What is the coding that I'm going to put into my brain, into my mind, I am going to wake up rejuvenated, rested, and fueled. I am waking up feeling rested, feeling calm, and not being distracted from my phone. What is it that you want to program yourself to do? You'll find that if you do that intentionally, of course, if you ideally sleep at a decent time, you'll wake up in the morning and you'll find that if you planted that thought deep enough, it will be the first thought of the day.

38:05And all of a sudden you won't reach for your phone and allow the news negativity and notifications and the noise to come in. And you'll say, you know what? I'm gonna go on a little walk, get some sunlight, go and take my morning coffee, morning tea, whatever it is for you. And yeah, in 30 minutes, I'll look at my phone. And by the way, I won't just look at my phone. I know the newsletter I'm gonna look at or the page I'm gonna look at. So I would encourage you to master your first and last thought of the day as a preliminary practice to meditation. Because to me, those thoughts are the ones that are repeated and meditation ultimately is a repeated thought.

38:42And so that's where I would start. And I would have never gotten there on my own. This is virtue signaling, but I'll do it anyways. Finally, I'm older than you. I'm at a point in my life where I want to catch up from all that I've taken and I'm starting to give away my money. And it's something I find really rewarding, but I want to be intentional and purposeful about it. And I met with someone who was so insightful around giving. And they said, well, what are you passionate about? And my passion is helping struggling young men. Like, well, what would you do for them if you could do, if you had a group of young men and you wanted to do something for them, what would it do?

39:14What would you do? And I said, well, number three, in reverse order, I'd want more male involvement in their life. And that's, you know, you can solve that. Big brothers, there's some stuff that's more complicated, ranging from family court or different types of legislation. Number two, more economic opportunities. So you can think of things. You can think of legislation or vocational programming. But the thing I would want to do for young men, and my question to you, is if I could give anything to a lot of young men, it's that one in three young men are in a relationship and two in three women under the age of 30 are in a relationship.

39:50And you think, well, that's mathematically impossible. It's because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. And when I look back at the most important things in my life as a young man, it was having the joy, the love, the camaraderie, and quite frankly, the guardrails of a romantic relationship. It was just so important, you know, to have someone who was crazy about me and then not crazy about me, to get my heart broken, to learn resilience. It's just that partnership, saving for a house. It was just so, more I think than money, more than anything.

40:28It just shaped me as a man. And so few men are finding this at a young age. And you've written a lot about this, but how could you advise a young man to be more successful with respect to romantic relationships and finding love? And I know that's a really big—I know we're going to need a bigger boat, but are there any practices for a young man who thinks— I remember thinking, I didn't have a girlfriend until I was well into college. I remember thinking I'd be the best boyfriend if someone would just give me a shot, right? And I think there are literally millions of men out there who are thinking the same thing.

41:08Anyways, your thoughts? Yeah, it's a huge question. And I'm so glad that you've focused your life on this. I was very fortunate enough in my younger years to mentor a group of 20 young men in my spiritual community who I've seen grow up, probably mentored them for around 15 years now at this point. And it's been an incredible journey watching them, you know, become phenomenal young men, find love, settle down. Some of them have started to have children now. It's been one of the most meaningful investments in my life that I probably didn't realize how deep it was going to be then. And these men are my younger brothers.

41:48You know, they've become very, very close friends. And so it's something very close to my heart. The first thing I'll say when it comes to love and for young men, which is probably counterintuitive and probably one of the hardest things to train, but I do believe it's so valuable, is sense control. Because sense control, this is what I was fortunate enough to learn in the monastery, sense control is the greatest confidence booster and builder that you'll ever, ever have. You can't be a master of your senses and not be confident. It's just not possible because you've conquered the hardest thing.

42:31You've built a relationship with the part of you that pushes you and pulls you whenever it feels like it. So how does a young man do that in today's world that's bombarded by porn, bombarded by exposure to too many things, too many sensory images, sounds, everything else. How do you do that? I think it's really powerful when men can build up a healthy relationship with spending time alone by themselves. And I think that comes through doing something hard. It's not sitting alone with your thoughts. It's not sitting around where you are. It's picking up a sport, a habit, a practice, a workout regime, whatever it is that you're passionate about, reading, going there and building a strength and commitment by focusing on doing something hard.

43:23When I say sense controlled, I don't mean every single sense of yours is mastered and you never feel any urge. I mean, how can you do something that's truly hard? How can you do something that's truly challenging? And how can you do something that's measured, right? How can you do something where it's like, okay, I'm black belt now, I'm blue belt now, I'm yellow belt now. How can you do something where it's like, okay, I'm able to play this pace of tennis. I'm an amateur, I'm semi-pro, whatever it may be. I think taking on a challenge that can be measured is critical. And I think taking on something younger is ideal.

43:57I was very fortunate. My parents were so scared that I was going to be so shy and insecure growing up. They forced me to go to public speaking school. And so from the ages of 11 to 18, for seven years, I took exams in public speaking. I went to nine hours a week public speaking training. I went to drama school. I did a ton of training at that time. And it was hard. I was terrible. My friends would laugh at me. It wasn't cool to go to that. And when I look at any success I have today, it's because of those seven years of working, working really, really hard on a skillset that I didn't even know how I was going to use.

44:29I didn't know podcasting didn't exist. Social media didn't exist. It wasn't like it was a strategic investment. It was just the idea that there was something that I could do that was hard. I didn't enjoy going. I was forced to go. But there's power in that So don't resist something that's forced That would be step one The second thing men can do for romantic love Is Be really aware Whether you like someone Because you just want to be liked I think a lot of young men Like you say They say they're going to be a great boyfriend But it's because they want to be a great boyfriend They want to be known as being a great boyfriend Not being a great partner And I think that's a big big big challenge as to why young love is so hard because we're doing the right thing Not to be a good person But because we want to be as seen as the person who's doing the right thing We want to be seen as the guy who does all the right stuff and you may realize three months from now You don't even like that person that much And so i'd be really really clear on am I doing this to be liked or do I actually like this person?

45:31If I like this person, let me really invest in this. Let me really be building something powerful here but let me not do this because I'm building my self-worth off of someone else's praise of me doing the gimmicky thing because I think it's going to make them like me. That's going to end up messing their life up and messing my life up. And the third thing I'd say in love is be really conscious of how your past pain create present problems. And so reflect on where you're hoping your partner, I call it the gifts and gaps. We're often wanting our partner to fill the gaps our parent left or to repeat the gifts that our parents gave.

46:22Be really aware of those. I'm not saying either is right or wrong or they can go either way, but to be really, really conscious and aware of where they're coming from because what often ends up happening is we've ruined something great because of something terrible in the past. And it's because we're so unaware of what triggers we're taking forward with us. I mean, I could talk about this for hours, but those are three things I'd think about. We'll be right back.

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49:52we're back with more from jay shetty i love the way you think you kind of you think in three is very much like a consultant and give us your top line thoughts on what you've learned with your partner and the relationship advice you would provide or give to more men who are in a a a relationship, a monogamous relationship. One of the things that was really hard for me to get over Scott was as someone who's a, you know, someone who's on stage, a public personality. And I think men have this regardless of whether you have a public profile or not. I think men, we want to be admired. We want to be appreciated.

50:36We want to be respected, especially by our partners and some men I know want to be celebrated want to be adored want to be fanned over to some degree and I was really fortunate because my wife by her own admission I would say isn't my isn't the number one fan of my success but she is the number one fan of me And I think this is a really important point. I had to learn through my wife to value myself based on who I was and how I behaved, not what I achieved and what I killed and what I created. And I think if it wasn't for the way she loved me for that, I think I would have been someone who measured my value based on simply my success, my wins and my accolades.

51:31And so I would encourage people to say, is your partner here for you? Because chances are they are, but we're so wrapped up in wanting them to love us for what we achieve and what we do. I've had so many friends who are like, oh my God, I just don't feel valued for what I'm building and what I'm creating. I'm like, that may be the case, but what if you lost it all? Would that mean you wouldn't be valued now? Is that how you want to be loved? Do you want to be loved for that and unloved for not having that? Or do you want to be valued for the qualities you have, the characteristics you have, the values you live by?

52:06So that was a big, big, big lesson for me that I learned through my wife. Not that she doesn't love the podcast and the books and whatever. She appreciates all of it. But it pales to insignificance and irrelevance compared to the love and appreciation she has for me as the man I show up as. And I think that's made me value myself more highly and better than I would have before. So that's been huge. Uh, another thing that comes to mind as you ask that is if your partner is trying to change you, help them understand how unlikely that is. I find that a lot of men deal with this problem the most where their partners are trying to change them.

52:49And I'll often get women in my audience that will say to me, I really want my husband to like get into like self-development and personal growth. And I just don't get out to get him into it. And he won't listen to me. and I'm giving him all the books and Jay, I sent him your podcast. I'm like, oh, please don't. Please don't send him my stuff. I don't want him to hate me for the rest of my life. And I get a lot of those questions of like, how do I do it? And when I'm speaking to the women, I'll always say to them, don't do it. Let him find its way to it. Let him find something that's natural to it.

53:16Don't send him my interview with the person you're inspired by. Send him my interview with the person he's inspired by. Maybe he loves athletes. Maybe he loves musicians. Maybe he loves Scott. That's the conversation he needs to listen to, not X, Y, and Z that you love. Stop trying to make him the version of you. And I think for a lot of men, either we pretend to change or we promise to change or we say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we go along with it rather than saying, you know what? This is who I am. I'm really gonna struggle to be that version that you want me to be. The amount of times when I met my wife, I was so clear.

53:48I was like, this is who I am. This is who I'm gonna be. This is what I value. This is my purpose. This is the guy I am. I'm not the guy who wants to go to the movie theater every week I'm not the guy who wants to do xyz Like this is who I am And communicating that And then also hearing from her Who is she? What does she want? And then we learn this art Where we've overused the word respect But we've actually undervalued what it means Respect means I don't need you to value what I value But you respect what I value You allow me to live life the way I want to live it and I allow you to live life the way you want to live it Because I respect your value, but I don't need you to change to be who I am So I think being really careful about being open about this is who I am.

54:37This is what I can realistically do I'm, not going to pretend and promise and over share on this potential of i'll be there someday i'm getting there Oh, yeah, yeah i'm reading it's kind of like what you said about meditation like What's the point of lying? What's the point of pretending? And as you said, I like threes. And so I'll give you one more because why not?

55:00My favorite one probably is letting my wife change. I married, my wife and I met in our early 20s. I was in my mid 20s. You know, we've been married, we've been together for 12 years, married for nine and I've been pretty much the same human through most of it I don't think I've changed that much the scale of my life has changed and things like that but my priorities and the way I work I'm pretty much very very similar my wife has changed and lived so many different lives in the last 12 years and I feel like that's the mistake a lot of us make where we go well you didn't care about this three years ago why do you care about it now you you didn't want this seven years ago why do you want it now you weren't this person nine years ago how are you that person now and i think the realization that hey the person you marry on your wedding day is not the person that's there at your 50th birthday and is not the person who's there when you're sick in hospital that person changes and you probably will too so recognizing that they're going to change i'm going to change and I'm going to allow space for that because guess what?

56:17That's what makes the relationship joyful. That's exciting. And by the way, if I don't find that exciting and I want to find someone that's going to be the same, I'm going to find someone who can probably be the same for seven years, right? Divorce happens between the first five to seven years of marriage and cycles every seven years. Maybe someone can stay the same for five to seven years, but even the cells in our body are changing during that time. So maybe someone's going to to be a new person every seven years. So maybe you're going to leave that person, find another person. Maybe you'll find someone who stays the same for five to seven years, but that person's also going to become a new person.

56:47So start getting real about the fact that there is no consistency and stagnancy and, you know, remaining the same. What remains the same is that you've lived that much life together. My wife's a different person today, but she's the only person in the world who's experienced my trajectory with me as intimately. That's what I value so deeply about that consistency. Kind of invokes that old adage that women want men to change and men want women to stay the same. I mean, it's, yeah, anyways, I have found that with a partner that they are forced to go through to change their complexion and approach to life because they take sometimes a disproportionate and unfair amount of responsibility around the kids.

57:34But you've been very dense with your time. I just have one more question. You have a very public profile. It's impossible to have your profile and put yourself out there as openly and as provocatively on, you know, issues this important without getting a lot of criticism. How do you deal with criticism and what advice would you be in terms of a practice for how to handle, you know, be thoughtful, right? I've never, anyone who is immune to criticism, I wouldn't trust. I mean, okay, I think that makes you a sociopath. So how do you deal with criticism? One thing I've learned just by observing and having the fortune of coaching people who are far more successful, famous, and accomplished than I am, is that the closer you get to the top 1%, the more likely you are to have 50 % of people disagree with you.

58:27So if you look at the most prominent positions in society, you take the president, chances are close to 50 % of the country disagrees with you, right? So you look at the more someone gets into the top 1%, athletes, you look at, you know, you look at athletes, it's like you have, you look at Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, you get 50 % on either side, you get Kendrick Lamar and Drake, you get 50 % on either side, like it's very hard to be the 1 % of your industry or the world in case of these people that I'm talking about, and not have 50 % of people disagree with you. So I think the first step is recognizing that the closer you get to the 1%, the more chance it is that 50 % of people are going to have an issue with you.

59:10So I think everyone remembers as an early stage creator, when you kind of had 100 ,000 followers and your comment section was la la land, right? You lived in this little bubble where everyone loved you. Everyone said wonderful things. Things were beautiful. And then you got to a million followers and then that changed proportionately. And then you got to 10 million and it changed and whatever else it may be. So that's the first thing. We have to look at it realistically, statistically, and realize it's not personal. It's math. That's the first step. The second thing is, how can I take feedback without the sting?

59:46And this is an art that I was really grateful to learn in the monastery, which was this, the quality of humility. What does humility really mean? Humility doesn't mean I'm weak and I'm not good enough and that's low self-esteem. Humility means I have the ability to extract that which is beneficial for me and leave that which is hurtful and poisonous. Can I actually have the ability to listen to something, to consume something that may be really hurtful but extract the minimal truth in it that may inspire me, that may make me better and leave behind the part that was venomous or poisonous. And I try and do that as much as I can.

1:00:36When I see anything, I'm always like, where is the truth in that? What can I take from that? What is there about that that can actually improve my character from? And let me leave behind the negativity, the venom, the envy. Sure, I'm sure it's covered in envy, ego, competition. I'm sure it's covered in all these things, but the skill of humility is the ability to leave all that stuff behind and extract it and see if I can work on myself. And the third thing is to be really careful about having a group of people who truly know you, who deeply know you, who intimately know you, making sure that you're not lonely at the top.

1:01:25I've seen that for so many people, the cliche is true. People are lonely at the top because they don't make friends with people that go through similar things. Most people who are at the top will make friends only with their childhood friends, which is great. I love my childhood friends, but my childhood friends can't relate to what I go through at this stage in my life. So I have to have friends in the similar industry, in a similar space, to actually be able to share what we're going through. And if those people know me intimately, those are also the people who can remind me of who I truly am, why I started, why I'm here.

1:02:03And to me, that is the most powerful investment you can make. The biggest mistake you can make is to think because you're number one, you don't need anyone else around you. And by the way, back in the day, like 25 years ago, people were pit against each other. They were told, you can be the only successful black man in Hollywood. You can be the only successful woman in this field. People were told things like that. And I think that naturally made people disconnect and not build friendships in their zone of genius. So I would encourage people to make friends in their zone of genius and deep, intimate friends, because chances are that's the only person who knows what it feels like.

1:02:42And so that's how I think about it in those three areas again. And by the way, my biggest takeaway on all of that is it's so wonderful to be detached through criticism to praise and ego and your own hype. If it doesn't offer any other value, it offers the value to remind you that you do this only for the reason you do it for. You get joy from the fact that you're doing it because you believe in it. And that from a very spiritual perspective, you don't get to take your fame with you. You don't get to take the money with you. You don't get to take the accolades with you. And no one's even going to remember any of that.

1:03:27So the universe is just preparing you to be detached from things that are going to be taken from you anyway. so why not learn to be detached while they're still here rather than wait till the moment they're all snatched away and then try and grab a hold of them and scrap with them why not embrace your own insignificance before you truly become insignificant and irrelevant and so it gives you a glimpse of that it gives you a really beautiful spiritual ego death and glimpse of that which materially is the worst thing to go through and spiritually is the most beautiful fulfilling thing to go through.

1:04:00Yeah, I like that. Embrace your insignificance in a healthy way. Jay Shetty is a global bestselling author, entrepreneur, and the host of the world's number one mental health podcast, On Purpose. Born in London, Jay embarked on a transformative journey as a Hindu monk before merging ancient wisdom with the digital world. His podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Chops the Charts, is one of the world's leading podcasts with over 35 million monthly downloads and features. Influential guests, basically, you name it, I won't even go through all of these and is also has several bestselling books. He joins us from his home in Los Angeles.

1:04:36Jay, I really enjoyed this. You are, you're sort of like enter into this like dreamlike state. When I listen to you, I'm listening, but I just find a sense of calm about the rhythm and the cadence. You're really a joy to listen to. I appreciate your time and am really happy for all your success and thank you. I think you deserve it. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Chalon. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.

1:05:12And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

1:05:26day.

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