it's an art form of self-exploration and to like figure things out like why do i believe what i believe why do i feel this way and i think much like music if you treat comedy like an art form which i believe it is it really is much like music or writing or poetry it's an exploration of who you are as a person and why you do what you do [Music] okay everyone welcome back to on purpose
the number one health podcast in the world thank you so much for coming back every single week to listen to learn and to grow from some of the most amazing minds in the world and today's guest is definitely not going to disappoint he's absolutely awesome his name is hassan minhaj and he is a comedian an actor the host and creator of the amazing netflix
series patriot act and in 2019 he received and was named in the time 100 most influential people in the world and this is the audio introduction going in as well his one-hour netflix comedy special homecoming king earned him a 2018 peabody award hussein joined the daily show with jon stewart as a correspondent and continued on after trevor nova tour took over as host and
remained on the show through august 2018. he also spoke at the 2017 white house correspondents dinner husson it is so awesome to have you here man thanks for having me yeah i had to do it with you here all right that was very flattering and touching because it's all true and and i have to be honest with you the first time i saw you live
was when you came to l.a last year at the ace theatre and we didn't know each other then but you're you're amazing i thought you were absolutely brilliant and that comes from someone who only moved to the us three years ago so just catching up on politics oh wow and and then i met you through our mutual friend family lily which was awesome which is a
much more intimate setting yeah and i have to say man like you just have this captivating always on energy and and i was just like fixated on everything you were saying yeah i was like i need to have this guy on the podcast it got very deep very fast i was asking a lot of like philosophical questions and deep uh political geopolitical questions and it got very
intense absolutely yeah but but today i want to dive into your journey sure you finding your purpose i want to go back to you know your upbringing here as a first-generation american yeah and i want to talk a lot about you know what what drives and motivates you because when i see you i see you as a activist disguised as a comedian all right that's how i see you that's
just my way that's how i see you but what drives and motivates us i would say right now the things that drive me the most are saying and doing the things that i did not believe was possible 5 10 or even 15 years ago wow that's what really gets me excited like when i choose an episode for patriot act i just try to think about can i be as real and as raw and as
honest as i am with the homies on whatsapp like that's what you're really trying to do as an artist to be like can i be that raw you always think about that right like there's like the persona that we have when we're meeting people and then there's imessage persona yeah we're like oh dude if if this gets leaked i'm getting canceled yeah but how do you be
that just and when has it got to those points where it's like super difficult are you trying with saudi arabia the indian elections like oh there's just everything you've seen on the show is pretty much something that i've talked about with friends you know uh policing in america these are like third rail issues that are very very difficult to
dive into and can be divisive but to me i find them to be the most rewarding so yeah that's amazing and where do you go on that spectrum of like is this too risky is this not how are you pushing yourself like what is that process of pushing yourself in that direction because i think like you're saying so many people just shy away from stuff sure you're hitting it head on but
tell us that process in your head of like how far do i go how do i push myself how do i not settle for you know yeah yeah look like the overton window is only so wide right and obviously given everything that's happening in the world right now certain political figures have stretched that overton window to places where it's sometimes insane or crazy to me it's
really about seeing how far can i stretch it constructively um and am i being argumentatively accurate and you know this is where i lean on the news team and the writing team a bunch is are our facts straight and then after that i kind of you know i throw up a prayer and i hope the man upstairs you know protects me and um i think uh i certainly hope
the audience can even if they disagree with me can acknowledge just he's trying this is a good faith yeah you know what you do yeah i get that pretty powerful and and look like you're talking about the medium that we're in we're looking at cameras is it going to be on youtube there is a lot of media manipulation uh so you know leaning it leaning in for controversy
over dialogue or leaning into just super hyperbole instead of being like really accurate i think i've tried to be a good faith actor even when i'm doing a tough topic that people i know are going to disagree with me yeah i feel that i feel that and how do you prepare yourself for that potential backlash or that potential criticism that naturally comes and i
know you've talked about it before but how are you like how are you like mentally prepared for it like it's that because i love that because what you're saying is hey i'm going to prepare and put my best foot forward i'm going to show you that i've done the research yeah we've done the fact taking i'm not just trying to say something because it sounds good yeah so you've
done all that so that's kind of where your confidence comes from but how do you prepare for the backlash or is that it uh i look i think i've just gotten better and better about it over time being at the daily show i saw john deal with it head-on then when trevor became the host i saw trevor deal with it head-on um so you know i had courtside seats to see
really great people be in the eye of the storm and so um over time things i've just gotten better and better at it and i've been able to take criticism i think a little bit better now because we've now established a body of work so at some point people might be upset that i'm attacking um something that is sacred to them but if you look at the 30 other topics that we've done
you people are totally cool with it yeah and the longer we do the show you can clearly see that like i don't have a specific agenda like i i'm i'm an equal opportunity person who's going to go at the whether it's a big politician a political leader or a corporate institution i love that about you man and i think you do it really really well honestly speaking like i
think it's it's rare to find someone who can do it so effectively and articulately so thank you for doing that man i appreciate it i mean that i mean that genuinely i think it's awesome uh tell me about i want to go a bit into like yo your father wanted you to go to law school yeah yes right yes tell us about what would have happened in hussein's life if he
followed through on his father and parents path and and what they thought of what you ended up doing well dude i got fired from every other job i had so like you know i worked at safeway i got fired safeway the grocery store yeah not not here on the east coast it's it's it's safeway too you worked at what london in england yeah in london they have safeway
you had safeway that's right when you said i was like what no i bagged groceries yeah yeah okay crazy yeah yeah there's there's a grocery store called safeway and um they also used to have this thing called plastic bags and baggers would put groceries and plastic bags yeah i used to do that too but yeah sorry karen you got fired from every
joke i fired from pretty much every job that i had yeah so you know safeway officemax wherever i was working and generally when i got fired like the the manager would would call me in and they would they liked me they'd be like hey look us and you're a nice enough guy um but we got to let you go like it just seems like you don't want to be here
yeah and i remember like every time they would fire me they'd be like is there somewhere else you would rather be because you seem very disinterested here at delta and what would be your i'll tell you exactly where i want to be what's crazy is every time they would fire me i actually did have the answer of exactly what i'd want to be doing and where i'd want to be yeah i wanted to be
performing i wanted to be doing stand-up but i had to shift that night yeah you know so i'm very lucky man i'm lucky like i am extremely lucky that i i knew what i wanted to do like i i found something that i was passionate about yeah and was that the same intention that when you decided to study political science were you that clear that you're like i want to study
this so that i can be factual and have history and like what was that intention like when you were setting yourself up i mean it's just like i was too dumb for pre-med and and i just had a natural inclination for like kind of politics rhetoric uh speech and debate like those were my things that i was really into and so where did that come from um
well in high school i was a big sort of public speaking speech and debate kid right i did i did public speaking and all that stuff and then um in terms of just politics my dad was actually pretty political and stuff like that yeah yes he was had a lot of opinions there was a lot of sort of shouting at the tv and and he was one of the first people that
i could kind of see like looking at an issue having a take or perspective like cracking jokes and i just kind of you know sometimes i try to think i'm trying to live out najmi's legacy i want to take that living room raw and do it on you know the biggest stage i possibly can that's beautiful man i love it i love hearing that because i think it's so different like yeah i
always joke that i i grew up in my parents three options whether a doctor a lawyer or a failure like those are my three options growing up and and you know you think about that as well like why do we get fascinated with certain things and like for me it wasn't politics but for me it was like spirituality and philosophy like that's what i got fascinated by but how
how would who gets like as a kid who gets into philosophy i feel the same way about politics when you're 10 your dad isn't being like oh this is meditations by marcus aurelius you see this is letters to seneca you're not doing you're playing sega no you're not you're not caring about this my dad started to read a lot of that when i was young yeah but as a 10 year
old i'd refuse to believe that you were no i wasn't as a 10 year old so you have it right yeah you like football yeah proper football yeah real football thank you thank you so much real football yes real football anyway but spirituality became more and more relevant just because i started asking more and more questions and when i was looking for the answers
that i was asking like you know like why do bad things happen to really good people why am i losing people why do people die early all of these kind of questions i was finding it there so for me for me that's kind of where it went for me you grew up are you did you grow up as a buddhist christian i grew up as a hindu so i grew up in a hindu family
and and my practices now were like very universal you'd find them in hinduism and in buddhism so you'd see them in multiple places but but i've really looked for in my personal journey it's been about looking for the universal aspects that everyone can connect with because for me that's kind of what what excites me about philosophy and spirituality so i'm always looking for
where we agree there we go there we go but yeah and i'll get back back to you back to you yeah one of the things i look at in your life which i think you're so great at doing is is introspecting right like i see you do a lot on the show you're always introspecting you're always reflecting how have you built that habit to be able to do that
regularly with your own beliefs because you don't sound like someone who's like this is my belief and this is just the way it is you sound like you think through your belief often and regularly i feel that way yeah yeah and you kind of question it yeah you know there's this great documentary with the late comedian gary shandling and he talks about uh and this doc and um you know
judd apatow directed and produced and it's really excellent but he talked about the art form of comedy really being not a not a way to become more famous or to stand on stage and have people clap and applaud you and sort of give you validation but it's it's an art form of self-exploration and to like figure things out like why do i believe what i believe why do i
feel this way and i think much like music if you treat comedy like an art form which i believe it is it really is much like music or writing or poetry it's an exploration of who you are as a person and why you do what you do and what's the belief that you had that through that exploration changed recently or that you've seen change the
most like something that you hold true and then it's kind of evolved and you're like oh wow like i never thought i'd think that way about that is there anything like that and take a moment i know no i can't think of anything like that like off the the top of my head but um but they'll they'll always be something that i'm sort of like uh i'll currently be processing and then
just trying to figure it out through through my work and um [Music] yeah yeah what what are parts of your journey that no one sees like that you know parts of your gender we all see like you know we see we see the shows we see this incredible homecoming king we see you know patriot act we see the 2019 time you know almost 100 influential people
and it's an amazing honor man and you deserve it and it's like you see all of that what's the parts that we haven't seen that you'd you'd like people to be aware of into what it's taken like what are what are the sacrifices the missed points that i think we don't see and i'm not asking you to be egotistic because i know you're not like i want to hear that because i feel
like it's so important for people to hear that the stuff that people don't see i don't think a lot of times people see that um how much especially you know in a collaborative creative effort you're you're really relying on a core group of people there's like jedi that i work with and i would say it's prashanth steve bodogh jim margolis the people that are around
me all the writers the news team upstairs you know we're we're in our production office but upstairs i mean upstairs that's where we're having a lot of these like heated discussions and battles a little bit and i don't think people see they think that i'm just doing this off the top of the dome and like no no i'm very much a studio rapper
i'm not a freestyle rapper like i go in and we really try to tweak and finesse and and just like really focus on every every little detail i think and i think that's what people um i think i wish more people uh knew because i think because of twitter and instagram and social media um we live in a very much a hot take society and we got to beat everybody to
the next hot take and um i wish i don't know how both of these things happen where you have like a hyper-reactive society how do you get people to also see the beauty and like introspect introspection and finessing and refining what you're working on you know what i mean yeah yeah don't you don't you find it kind of like don't you ever feel guilty kind of doing what
you're doing where you're trying to make spirituality go viral but like the whole thing with spirituality is a little bit of disconnecting from the likes and the subscribe button yes yeah yeah no absolutely it's the same thing i feel with commerce and art no art in and of itself you know when you put commerce into it it gets a little ugly yes yes i agree i
agree and it's the paradox that i find interesting to navigate like i like that paradox like i like the oxymoron of like how does this how do you balance these two things because i'm like if i was just gonna go and sit on a mountaintop and be spiritual i think overall i'd be like ah but i need to give this to someone or i'd get bored or it wouldn't even even the
revelation wouldn't go as deep because i feel like there's so much in experimenting with it and if i was just on the other side of like oh yeah let's just go get likes and let's go get followers then it's like that's definitely we both know that doesn't satisfy you so it's kind of like that paradox and i feel like that's what keeps me on my edge got it that i'm
you're walking that fine line correct and i'm always one step away from my foot falling into either side and i enjoy that because i think it keeps me in the middle but that's just kind of like my personal process of enjoying things that don't quite fit yeah uh and but i think that's a really valuable point and i love hearing you say that because i think what you're encouraging
is also that i think we live in a world today where it's always about growing yourself and what you're actually saying that you're getting more from collaborating debating discussing breaking it down behind the scenes yes and often off camera that's happening off camera for you but in most of our lives we're not even doing that right most of our
lives like okay let me build my own platform really well yeah i just feel like for a lot of people who are trying to build their own platform it's not necessarily like oh let's all collaborate and grow so i saw comedians do this really well i remember a lot of my friends who were comedians on instagram and youtube they all got together and they collaborated and their
brands just grew but a lot of people just try to grow their lane and their brand without the collaboration and they didn't grow and so it's nice to hear you yeah give a shout out to everyone that you're working with yeah man they're incredible yeah and and i certainly hope much the way the way jon stewart opened this door and we all bear his fingerprints i hope
maybe one day i can i can hopefully do that for other people too what was the best thing you learned from observing john stuart like what was that one moment where you just like this or was it every day you know he's he's not a note guy like i always wanted jewish yoda to give me these notes like tell me what to do like i just want you tell me how to be funny
he kind of was like master shifu like it was always within you this entire time he kind of just wants you to like you know what why why does this make you upset why do you find this so funny and he just kind of tries to pull that out of you yeah but um he really taught me i think him in i would say colbert and even now like i see with with oliver
is is really how to be like uh to bring a level of decency and to be a good faith actor because there's a lot of clapping back in what we do you're calling a lot of things out but um i think stephen stewart oliver even trevor there's a level of um sophistication and and again just like a good faith effort like i'm not here i'm not trying to just bury you yeah
and eviscerate you just for the sake of doing that like i i really want to do this um in a in a really sort of um spirit not spiritual but it's very compassionate no and pathetic sure sure but just like be a decent human being about it you know and i've seen people enter the lion's den with both trevor and steven and they'll both handle it really really well they won't like have
the audience just gang up on them jerry springer style and so one of the best things that i sort of learned from them is to be you know when you're saying something or if you're going to poke at something is to be like really specific in what you're saying instead of like punching every which way yeah it's it's almost to just be like it's like a sniper shot and
like and this is the thing i'm trying to say or like this is the thing that i that we need to sort of assess and analyze yeah i love the humanity in there i feel like that's off the mist because i feel like when you're making people laugh it's so easy for the audience member to just assume that you kind of just went for the easiest shot or whatever it is right like it's
easy for the audience oh sure it's not that you're doing that sure it's easy for the audience to just feel like oh yeah like this is hilarious and i'm laughing but i feel like we don't hear the humanity and i think almost as an audience we need to raise our game sure so that we recognize that actually oh let's let's look at the depth of this argument
yeah the word i was looking for yeah is be surgical yes wow yeah and like in the in when i saw um john after do a monologue after the sandy hook shooting he was surgical in his analysis of the way america is dealing with guns you know yeah like he's not just like screaming out hyperbole for the sake of yeah totally it's like that right there and then he would build the act around
that just me watching that was like wow and i think that lasts the test of time you're gonna take less l's when you're really specific about what are you critiquing here yeah and then you kind of become better about like yeah i know there's going to be blowback but that's fine yeah i've like come to terms with this because i've closed all the other
doors yes and i've sort of picked the highest hanging fruit yeah to take i love that that's just great advice for all of us in conflict like that's just a great like that message and lesson you've just taught us there like that's perfect for like workplace issues relationships yeah that's that that can be applied anywhere yeah like not just
to your work it's it's such a great principle of like if you are going to debate discuss or argue on something yeah make sure it's done in this sure like yeah i can make fun of the shoes the clothes the this the that the way you look your hair like not we're not gonna do that yeah it's too easy i'm gonna be surgical about this specific choice yeah that i feel is hypocritical
and speaks to a larger issue yes then you're kind of like oh [ __ ] all right like this dude has come to play yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then and then the other person also can't run away from it and use all the other stuff so no i love that man that's awesome what is what is uh being a father has that changed your view on life uh how would you do it my daughter is
now 19 months wow 19. yeah amazing you know one of the cool things that a friend of mine told me that that i didn't really realize was ali he told me that like when you have uh um kids and i in he's a little bit older than me but he told me it's the first time you start praying for other people than yourself like everything i pray for is for her
yes and i'm not even like when i'm asking god like i'm not even asking for me it's kind of crazy i mean i know you with god you get like unlimited ass but i'm just like i'm like i know you don't got time so let me just like i know you got like a quick sec yeah like can you just throw a blessing her away i love that man you know what i
mean and like and i'm happy like that's like me getting jordan's yeah yeah i want her to get jordan's you know like my god just like please hook it up for her yeah do you and i don't even i don't even care that like if what to even ask for myself isn't that amazing yeah isn't that an unbelievable feeling to believe that's even possible yeah but then the thing
that messes with me is also why like when i go take her to say gymboree or like watch her play with other kids i could give a [ __ ] about any of the other kids how messed up is that yeah like i oh i'm so selfless i care about this like i care about this creature no no i care about my creature yeah yeah so that that's also like uh dude you're not as
woke as you think you are you're not as deep as you think you are like i'm i'm a gymboree there's like 19 other like kids with boogers i'm like yo keep the boogers away yeah yeah so it's cool and it's also you know it also has made me like check myself too in interesting weird ways and that's an example of something that i'm trying to be introspective of and like through comedy yes
like that's a common take that i hear now that you're a father you must be so selfless i'm like my parents were pretty selfish yeah yeah absolutely yeah no i get that see mine's the other way around so so when i lived as a monk so much of our focus was on building that love and service attitude towards everyone that's great so it's like a monk becomes a monk because the
whole world becomes your family because now you don't have a biological family that's your own yeah and so this mindset is trained but then when i came back i realized that i started treating my own family as as less than and or the same as everyone else oh and then my family took offense to that too because then they were just kind of like
oh but we're your family you know so then it was that way around i was like oh this is a complicated one but you're like no safeway is my family yeah exactly yeah safe way like everyone that i meet and everyone that i see and i've i've loved that attitude towards it but but i get you and and for me i think i do believe in us going above and beyond and stretching
that definition of family because as soon as you start doing that you know this i mean i think and i think you are to some degree i think you are to some degree because i guess you're i mean would you describe that the work you're doing is also to change the world that your daughter grows up in do you feel that way do you feel that responsibility or no not really that's
that's not really where it goes no i'm just trying to do the best possible work that i can i think that like if i if i put that assignment it's too big yeah i got oh i got to change the world vis-a-vis my show come on man it's just like this is this is my journey while you know hopefully i'm on this earth that i do sort of significant meaningful work that i feel
is challenging and i empty the tank that's really it and so i'm just holding myself accountable is that the best joke you could really do is that the best show you could put together yeah like come on yeah yeah yeah and what's the uh what's the metric of that question like is that a self-imposed metric of like yeah when i go when i go to sleep at night i know
what it is yeah right okay you know what it is like yeah you know when you phoned it in you know when you didn't yeah and you like the way you go to sleep you can really tell dude how can people build that as a way of living because i love that and and i agree with you i think that the most purposeful meaningful fulfillment-driven people in the world
measure things about how they feel when they go to sleep at night but i think sometimes we get lost in measuring ourselves by how everyone else sleeps at night almost oh and you know like like i i don't think that that's what you've just said is not very common like i don't hear many people say that like there's such an intuition there right your intuition's so strong like
you're so aware of like yeah i feel happy tonight like i feel that i've done enough time i feel like i've done my best how how do you think and i and i'm and i'm asking you to unpack it as i'm not expecting you to be like this is my three-step method look i just i just you know like i don't know what what put it inside of me to want to try my dad tells
me this all the time he's like you know because i have me and my my sister he's like you've just been different you've always sort of tried at things and um he was clowning me the other day it was like you've also publicly failed a lot which i don't understand why you sort of put yourself through that yeah and i was like what do you mean daddy's like i remember i used to take you to
soccer games you were really bad at soccer people would make fun of you you were slow like he was just roasting me but he's like you would try really hard he's like i kept taking you to basketball tryouts you would get cut every year but you'd show up like i don't understand why you would do that but i remember like even early on in comedy still you know
when i'm trying to do stuff in in show business i'm just failing i think it's just like you you reach this moment where like you you you interviewed for that job and you know that like you took that shower you brushed you flossed and you use mouthwash like you tied your shoes the right way you pulled up your socks the right way you were prepared you went through all the
talking points that you know your manager is going to ask you about and if it still doesn't go your way you're you're just kind of like what more can i do i'm at that age now where it's like i also can't debate i can't wish that i could be someone else yeah yeah like the verdict is out i'll never be able to dunk i'll never be able to rap i'll
never be able to like it's it's a wrap hustle minhaj god didn't give me that gift and it was just by virtue of trying all those different things failing and you can just kind of come be at peace with it absolutely they're just like i did it i tried i was not good at those things yeah i loved the roast you got from your father about shahrukh khan yeah that was
good yeah it was really good that was great it's great i love that that's brilliant yeah but you know i like i really love him because of that like you don't have to take yourself that seriously like you know what i mean yeah and there's a lot of like you got to take yourself very seriously and i just think that like we all have flaws and pimples and just kind of laugh at it and
i think it's that's more endearing than being like i'm the i'm the [ __ ] best yeah of course yeah yeah yeah no but there's a lot of like everybody's trying to be like an nfl wide receiver where they're just like out of their mind and like do you know who i am you know how blue check verified i am you're like relax man yeah yeah no i'm with you i'm with
you i agree with that i i'm with you i i think that from what i'm hearing you say what gets me thinking is just like you're not leaving you to prove yourself to anyone and that's when things get really serious and thick whether it's your parents or whether it's society or friends or yeah whatever it is and that's when it kind of gets scary to fail
or you get scared to mess up because now you're constantly like what will people say how will people think how can they react to me it's always been about like the fuel so when you've got the chip on your shoulder which is great like it's like espresso in the morning you got that chip on your shoulder where you want to prove someone wrong like ah
man this guy's was hating on me this dude said something about me on twitter oh this this producer wants to keep me out of this project yeah like like hatred and vengeance is a pretty good fuel the problem is it doesn't burn very efficiently correct yeah like uh it just kind of tapers off it's just not a good energy source can get you ignited correct correct correct
whereas like when you're trying to prove it to yourself every day the way that the sort of the like that plays out over time it just plays out a little bit better yeah yeah you know it doesn't taper off after like three days yeah you know yeah tell me about this is one thing that i've been wanting to ask you for a while like how do you go about and we've talked a
lot about i think you know in this podcast already we've talked a lot about like conflict debate discussion how to manage that how do you go about connecting with someone who's already made their mind up about something yeah and trying to take them to the other side or a deeper side like what's your vision with that when you're speaking to
a group of people if i put you right now in a room of people who completely disagreed with you yeah what would hasa minaj do well i i've i've sort of come to terms with two realities like uh number one just accepting and believing the truth is the truth even if like people don't want to go there the truth is still objectively the truth right and then number two um like
my job really isn't to convince you because people ask me this all the time they're like man you did that big episode on blah blah blah but what if people on the other side of the aisle disagree with you i got that that's not the point of even even creating the thing to begin with yeah it's just to present it and um if you come along great if you don't
again the truth is still the truth yeah like it doesn't negate yeah you know yeah i love that see the message i get when i'm listening to you today and i felt i knew this today i felt i knew this by observing you but obviously getting to know you a bit better today like there's just so much satisfaction and contentment in doing the work like when i'm hearing sweet what i mean by that is
you have so much satisfaction and contentment in just doing what you believe is right doing what you believe the best trying to find the truth and presenting that as it is and that's where you get your satisfaction yeah and that is such a great place to get your satisfaction sure because no one can ever take that away from you yeah right
like no one can ever take that away from you and that applies to everyone who's listening and watching right now it's like when you get your satisfaction from the deep work the creativity the research the reflection the introspection that's something you can do time and time and time and time again but when you're waiting for that one person to agree or people to shift their
minds and be like oh because of you us and i changed my mind yeah they're not yeah like i have like people that i love people i grew up with that that still like completely disagree with me that some of them didn't think i was doing the right things in terms of like personal choices i've made professional choices i've made that's okay and i think if i if if
anybody could see this from my work i certainly hope or i would just like to add this to the conversation you can still disagree with people and love them very much 100 but that is not a that is not a common reality that's happening right now in discourse like if you're democrat or if you're republican or if you're this or if you're that you have to be canceled
like we've had some tough episodes on this show we do this whole thing about policing i'm leaving the studio all the people that are that do security for our show are former policemen that's a tough conversation man like you know what i'm saying i've been in so many of the belly of those those sort of beasts where oh man you are criticizing
tech companies and you're doing it in front of tech executives and then you've got a big tech yeah yeah on a big tech platform and then you have to go to the bar and talk to each other but i think just i think all i want to try to show through my work is we can still disagree and i can still like love you and see the humanity in you and uh that's all i can control yeah i love
that man yeah i'm with you i i think that's such a great place to just leave it all out on the table when you're discussing truth discuss truth yeah but then not not taking it and i think that's the challenge right like what you're saying like right now the holidays are coming out yeah and i know i usually get like the number one question i get are how do we talk about
this yeah thanksgiving yeah number one question yeah thanksgiving christmas coming up like jay i'm gonna have to manage like i probably get very different questions to you about the same thing yeah like for me it's not like how do i have a question about this specific issue for me it's always like oh jay like i know this person's gonna
bring this up and it's gonna get real negative and toxic quick like how do i deal with that yeah and woody tom uh well i think what you just said right now is is a great answer what i'm saying is you've given the answer like oh wow yeah yeah yeah i'm saying you've given the answer like i love that i think you're making the point that i think we have to separate people's
humanity from their views and we have to respect them on a humanity level and the fact that we all bleed the same blood and you know have that connection and yeah and and that ideas and beliefs do form us to some degree but not the whole of us yeah and and being able to make that make that distinction is so important yeah yeah how do you go about
encouraging people to make that distinction further i don't know because you've achieved it there's just been moments where i've seen it in their eyes like i'd be like i completely disagree with what you have to say about that issue like i 100 000 percent percent disagree yeah however i i think you're a beautiful person and i love you and they'll be like oh so you just don't want to kill
me you don't want to cancel me you don't want to like ridicule me in front of everybody on the internet i'm like no i just i just i'm telling you you're you're wrong you're wrong about that like your jeans are too tight but i love you are you telling me that right yeah yeah i think i'm saying i think that they're a little intimidating you think they're
too tight i think oh thanks despite that i love you so you could be like i i disagree with your position on you know this prime minister however yeah i think like you're still my grandmother and i love you yeah yeah you know i don't yeah it was a good decision but yes i love you yeah i don't take responsibility for that yeah yeah of course yeah and they're just
like look like because that because i think the point being that there is always going to be someone disagreeing with you about something small or big and so none of us are living lives where every decision we made was perfect yeah so yeah no i love that i love that viewpoint man that's awesome i'm gonna shift forward because we only got a few
moments left i want to shift forward to we end every interview with the final five and i've still got a million questions for you but we're gonna have to do this again okay we're gonna have to do this let's do a part two um yeah we will definitely do a part two because there is so much that we've we've just skimmed over today and there's so much we can go for i hope this was valuable
in some capacities very valuable i think you know for me it's like like i said to you before when we did the kobe interview today there are plenty of people who can have a great political discussion with you that was not my intention today yeah there's great people who'll be able to talk about issues with you it's not me it's not my strength you know but today
i my goal my intention was simply for people to see the humanity the intention the purpose that goes into your work and i think we've done that like i think people will be able to listen to this and be like oh i understand how huston thinks about life humanity and how he constructs this work it's not just you know so if we've been able to do that then that's a win
for me that's great but yeah man okay we're gonna do the final five these are answered in one word to one sentence maximum okay you will probably be too deep for me so i'll have to let you share more so i will let you go there but uh the first question is what's one thing you're currently learning right now patience oh okay where's that where
what's testing your patients and in what area of life i think i think both went like at work trying to line up that interview or trying to line up that piece or why isn't the script where it needs to be it's understanding that like hey man close your eyes it'll be a week from now and it'll probably be better or the verdict will be out yeah like oh that
piece isn't going to work oh that interview just isn't going to happen so true like for better for worse the answer will be there yes like it will either live or die 100 and you'll have come to terms with both realities yeah so just like just be okay you don't have to get turnt about it today i love that so true i would 100 agree with that okay question number two if you lost
everything and had to start over what's the first thing you'd do if i lost everything and i had to start over what's the first thing i would do practically i would probably learn the technical aspects of all this stuff now because like all these like sort of digital revolution realities are now very real now and i think this is the new way we communicate so that's
like from a very pragmatic perspective like learn to program learn like learn the language of all this new technology as like the the medium and water and through which we communicate um but i think the thing i probably tell myself is that like it'll be all right man yeah yeah you did it before you you'll be able to do it again you'll be all right strong
advice awesome number three the number one trait you love in your wife the number one trait yes i love the quality yeah the quality selflessness wow yeah okay when did you start seeing that in there because you've been the moment i've known her since yeah i know i'm saying yeah i remember you told your uh proposal story yeah yeah so yeah so i was yeah i saw it
since college okay yeah well what was it in college that she showed that like how did she show you that in college because uh she she would make all the people in our dorm floor quesadillas oh wow yeah that's impressive and even people that were like [ __ ] i'm like don't give them a quesadilla like she did it yeah i was like let him
starve that's awesome and she's like no i can't people love her like people genuinely love her yeah yeah and she does it like with or without props there's it's not being like it's not an instagram stories or anything like that it's like yeah i remember that day because i got i was late on my flight and i came in late yeah and you guys had
saved like the cold leftovers but then she ordered me fresh food yeah when i got there yeah and i was just like well i know the first time i met her and she didn't even know who jay shetty was yeah this guy's late and i go you don't know he's making spirituality viral and she's like i don't care he deserves hot food no she was she was beautiful it was really she was so sweet
no i really appreciate it i remember that yeah like i remembered it i was like wow like she really and i was like did you do that because he's friends with alan and she's like no that's nothing to do with anything do that that to me is what i love most about her like that's really dope i love that question number four what's uh non-negotiable for you in life like
what's something you don't negotiate on for non-negotiable yeah for yourself i i gotta do and pursue what i love i just have to i can't if i do anything else i'm gonna die i just i just can't do you think you'd be a bad person if you weren't able to i would have been a very angry person yeah me too yeah and i just don't i just don't want to do that yeah you don't i
gotta say what i got to say i gotta express myself i always say that yeah i feel the same way i always tell people i'm like if if i wasn't doing what i loved every day it wouldn't have been it wouldn't have been great like yeah you the part of you that would come out wouldn't be the best yeah yeah i love that okay and fifth and final question
what's one moment in your life you wish could have lasted forever one moment in my life yes uh probably my daughter's really into balloons but the first time i sort of like this is like even just a couple weeks ago i blew up a balloon in front of her and she was like laughing really really hard that's it i i was like there was this big blue balloon yeah and i just blew it
up and then like tapped it against her head and she thought it was the funniest thing in the world i love that yeah and i was like tap tap she was dying tap tap she's like exploding with laughter yeah if i could just boomerang that yeah for the rest move around that forever yeah yeah i'm actually i've never done this before but i'm going to ask you because
i think if you could give everyone something that they had to do daily what would you ask people to do if you could give everyone in the world a practice that they're to do daily for the next 30 days what would you want them to do what is the hardest thing that you can do today just write it down and try to do it okay what's the hardest task that you can do
today it can't be like one of those things where it's just like i'm gonna start the company it's not that it's like what's the hardest task that you can do today it can only be accomplished in 24 hours and do that i love that that is great so if it's like i gotta i have to i have to sit down and write three pages free write after write free right three pages
that's gonna be really hard for me or like i i gotta i gotta run one mile on incline five on the treadmill that's gonna be really hard for but it's like you can do it in one day so it has to be the hardest task of that day i'm gonna take a cold shower whatever that thing is has to be the hardest task you can do in one calendar day i love that that's going to
stick with me for your long time i love that man awesome minaj thank you so much thank you you're amazing please please please let's do a part two because there are so many other things you can talk about yes you really want to do a part 100 want to do a part two okay i'm gonna wear lucid trousers i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna you know all right thank you man thank you so
much thank you guys that was amazing honestly that was appreciated so so great thanks good for you if you want even more videos just like this one make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here i'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book think like a monk from think like a monkbook.com check below in the description to make sure you order today