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Hello and welcome back to Man Enough.
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I'm Justin Baldoni here with the incredible Liz Plank, Jamie Heath, and the one and only my dear friend Mr. Jay Shetty.
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Uh, dude, we're finally doing this. We're doing it.
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Thank you for having me, guys.
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ever Have you ever been on a podcast before?
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I've I've never been on a podcast with three co-hosts before.
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So, this is not your So, this is special. This is very special.
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I just wanted this to be your first podcast ever.
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He's never been on any podcast.
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This is This is the first time I've been on a podcast which has such a beautiful, clear purpose to help people redefine who they want to be in the world.
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And so, it is the first time.
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And uh it's the first time that I'm being interviewed by Justin.
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I've had him on the podcast before, which has been really special.
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It's the first time we're meeting. Indeed.
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And uh Liz I've been a huge fan of for like the last 5 years.
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I've just been name-dropping all her video names since we met.
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And I'm so grateful to get to meet you today, Jamie. So, Indeed. thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. God, Jay.
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You're just you're just special. You're a special man.
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It's like you meet people that you know were sent by God to with a purpose to just like make it a little better.
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And you're one of those people.
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You are a best-selling author.
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You are a former monk and a purpose coach.
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You're the host of an incredibly popular podcast on purpose, speaking of purpose, which has more than 64 million downloads.
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Your YouTube videos have been streamed 2 billion times.
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That's like a third of the planet.
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Um I hope you find success.
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Maybe one day you can be on a podcast.
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Uh when You guys you finished your studies, you turned down jobs in the business world to go live in India and become a full-time monk that inspired your book Think Like a Monk.
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It came out in September 2020 during this pandemic and I know you've talked about it so much.
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Um hopefully we will get to talk about it and so many more of the things.
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Um but it's it's sold out at so many copies and with that in mind I'd love to welcome you to our show to Man Enough. Thank you for the me.
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I know, isn't it awkward to just like hear your, you know, even a portion of your life story and your successes, right?
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Yeah, which perceived successes. Well, it.
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you know, I No, I I I value everything you just shared.
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Like I'm so grateful and blessed to have that.
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But I I have this practice that we were trained in as monks that when someone notices something good about you, even what you were just saying earlier, you accept it and you receive it, but you think of the person that helped you get that skill or ability or habit or practice that helped you develop that.
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Intentionally or unintentionally and you pass it on to them.
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So, I love doing this because I can just sit here and think about all my teachers and monk teachers and pass it back to them and thank them in my heart.
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So, it's an opportunity to be thankful and grateful. So, I love that.
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You've been on the podcast for 35 seconds and you've already dropped something that's helpful to me cuz I have a hard time accepting compliments.
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I just have a hard time with it.
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And I love I love that I can accept it and thank somebody. I can I can do that. Yeah, it's simple.
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I can do that because I I stand on the shoulder of giants, right? Um I appreciate that. All right. All right. Thank you.
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And I noticed too before you before I hope you don't mind me pointing this out.
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Before we started, I saw you I looked over you and your eyes were closed and you just looked like 30 50 60 seconds.
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Is that something that you learned during your um mon monastery Yeah, monastery. What? Monastery?
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During your time in in in monastery?
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During your time being a Yeah, it was uh the idea of using any opportunity before you begin something uh you're setting your intention for service. Mhm.
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So, before you begin anything in the day, whether it's eating or even sleeping or spending time with someone or I mean we literally are serving humanity through Justin and all of you and the incredible work that Man Enough does.
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So, to just set your intention and be like, "Okay, let me get out of my own way. Mhm. Uh let me be a channel. Let me serve.
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Let me you know, not So, it's not really a prayer. It's a prayer.
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You could call it a prayer, absolutely.
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Yeah, you could call it a prayer.
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Um but but the clear thing is you're setting your intention for service. Sweet.
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a prayer for to be of service, absolutely. Mhm.
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So, I'd like to start by asking you, when was a time where you just didn't feel like you were man enough?
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I'd probably say my whole life.
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Like it's it feels like such a real thing because when I was growing up as a young boy, I was overweight and I was one of the few ethnic minorities in my area. Mhm.
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And so, I was bullied at primary school and I'd always be picked on or the mick taken out of whether it was racism or whether it was about my weight or or body image and all of those kind of issues and I actually didn't take it that personally because I'd go home and my mom loved me a lot. Aw.
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And so, I was raised I feel like I was literally raised by my mom and that's one of the reasons why I never felt man enough Mhm.
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because my mother was the most involved parent.
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My dad was very much aloof.
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Let me make my decisions, failures, choices.
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But my mother was always there.
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My mother teach taught me how to shave my face.
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She taught me my skin care routine.
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She taught like my my mother was like the first person to teach me a lot of what people's dads usually teach them.
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And that wasn't because my dad was a bad father, it's that that was his style.
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And we have a great friendship now.
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But uh with my mom, she was the one involved, so I never felt man enough because I didn't have a man teaching me man things, or however you want to put it.
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I was always surrounded by my mother, my sister, and powerful women in my life.
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And I wasn't really exposed to alpha males or any of those figures. Mhm. So, how's that manifest?
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Like, do people call you mama's boy? Do they call you names? Yeah, all of it.
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I remember when when someone would pick on me at school, I'd go to my mom, then my mom would come to school to like, you know, like be like, "Why are you treating my son like this?"
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And that's like the worst nightmare for a kid, right?
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It's like It's like everyone in the school is like, "Oh, gosh, like it's Jay's mom again."
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And you know, my mom can be pretty protective of of me, especially when I was younger. Mhm.
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And so, she'd get right in there with the head headmistress's office or or the dean's office and just be like, "Can't have this happen."
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And then everyone would find out, and then everyone would laugh at you more. Oh.
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And so, I think I think it ended up I actually think it just made me more of who I am today.
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But uh when I went to high school, I started to crave more male attention.
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So, going from that, I then went to an all-boys school. Oh, wow.
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So, I went to an all-boys school from the age of 11 to 18.
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And at that point, you have no one else's validation or recognition to get apart from other boys. Right. Now I want to fit in.
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Did you So, did you seek or crave that attention? Absolutely.
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That's when I was like, "Oh, now I want to be seen as strong, and I want to be seen as cool, and I want to be seen as the guy, and I want to be seen as this and that."
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And so, I think that manifested in being quite competitive. Mhm.
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And so, I I wanted to get a spot on the school's rugby team.
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I wanted to get a spot on the school's swimming team.
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I wanted to get a spot on the school's rugby? I did.
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I think a big part of it was that masculine feeling that it gave me. Mhm.
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And so, I think it manifested in insecurities at high school.
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So, as I got older, I actually think between 14 to 18, it manifested as insecurities of seeking validation and recognition for that which was not me. Mhm.
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So, I wasn't looking to be loved because I was empathetic and compassionate and kind, which is how my mom raised me.
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I was looking to be liked because I was bold and courageous and strong and physical and competitive.
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And so, you almost start looking for validation for the things that you're not.
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So, you became you you were performing. Absolutely. Every day. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mhm.
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Masculinity feels like a like it's a total dance, right?
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It's a total choreography and you're kind of watching other men like do it, right?
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Like even the handshake, like how am I supposed to like do the hug, then the pull, then the um Then the what? Show us one more time.
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There's like a pull, there's a tap sometimes, there's hug.
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No, no, no, it's the bro hug.
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Yeah, there's a lot of different uh it's very funny um not funny, but it can be entertaining as a woman to just kind of watch that and be like, I'm so happy I don't have to figure um that out.
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But but I want to come back to the you know, your point about service, which you really, you know, opened up our conversation with.
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I feel like we overemphasize service for women, right?
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That you are at the service of the people around you and that's your value in the world.
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And we kind of underemphasize service for men.
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And it seems like for you, finding service as purpose was really very meaningful part of your identity.
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I'm wondering how you see you know, us being able to make that connection.
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What does service look like for men and and how is it tied to masculinity?
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Yeah, I I mean, I saw what I was saying was I saw my mother's sacrifice growing up.
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So, my mother was raising me and my sister deeply with love.
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I've always felt loved by my mother and then she would also have her own business.
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So, I didn't even know I didn't know she was an entrepreneur, but she was an entrepreneur, which was so weird because she never made herself out to be an entrepreneur.
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And so, she had her own business.
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She started it so that she could work more flexibly.
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Uh and she was taking care of my sister. She'd drop us to school. She'd pick us up. She'd make us dinner.
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She'd be working as well, and at one point became the main breadwinner in the family as well.
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And so, I saw my mom serve or sacrifice in this way.
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And so, I feel like I got trained by watching her and observing her.
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And then when I met the monks, who the predominant monks that I lived with were all men, and service was at the core of their entire being.
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So, our teachers would always tell us that the only way a culture succeeds is if everyone wants to serve everyone else.
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And so, that was like the encouragement of that culture.
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And that's where it became so real to me.
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And for me, service and masculinity go hand in hand, but service and humanity go hand in hand.
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And I think this is it's slightly veering off from where we are, but I think it's an important to point to make is when I lived as a monk, we stopped identifying as men and women.
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And we were asked to identify as consciousness.
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And that distinction and difference just kind of created this huge like weight off my shoulders, because now I was like, oh, I'm not masculine or feminine or I'm not this or that.
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I'm just I'm just I'm just consciousness. I'm a human. I'm a soul.
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I'm whatever you want to call it. I'm energy.
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And that energy is wired for service.
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And so, the energy inside each of us at this table is wired for service.
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So, the way it connects is that we've been designed to serve.
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But unfortunately, and I've heard that a lot from from women is that often it turns into being a martyr or or or going to the point of self-sacrifice and self-sabotage because of how it's encouraged more.
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And I was speaking at this event, and a man came up to me.
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He was probably in his 40s.
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And I had just told a story about how when I met the monks at 18, they shifted my perspective to service.
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And he said to me, he goes, "You're so lucky that you got that at 18."
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And I was like, "Yeah, I know. Trust me.
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Like, I'm so grateful to my teachers." He goes, "No, no, no. Really."
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He goes, "I only realized that someone else mattered when I had a child."
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And he was like, "That's the only That was the first time I realized that someone apart from me mattered."
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And and you know, he was obviously being really vulnerable, and I appreciated him sharing that, and I met it with compassion.
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But I think that's the case that for a lot of men, I don't think we're trained early on in our life to realize that not just do our kids matter or our partners matter, but everyone matters, and more people matter.
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Well, you're rewarded if you don't, right?
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Like, on the rugby team, you know, sort of what the culture you're describing, where you get rewarded if you are individualistic, competitive, and you know, have this kind of attitude.
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And again, for women, it's the opposite.
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We we get heavily punished when we when we take on those characteristics. That's true.
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Yeah, but that un-gendering is so interesting, right? That happened.
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And and that surplus of energy that you felt is something that we could all access, right?
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If we weren't weighed down by the these gender stereotypes.
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It's like the freedom, right? Yeah.
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So, you're saying that you had sight, you had knowledge growing up by your mother. Mhm.
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And you kind of held that to yourself.
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I gave it up because I saw it as less than.
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So, it's not even that I held it back.
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I gave it up and substituted it with this it in for your man card. Correct.
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For this toxicity, which then obviously encouraged more people to go down that path.
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And then I think the best thing I've done to try and remove that is uh when I became a monk, I became the mentor to a lot of young men in London.
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And uh those young men are still involved in my life.
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So, I've known them since they were like 16 to 18 years old.
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They're all like 26 to 28 years old now.
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And so, I feel like those 25 guys, they know who they are.
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Like, those are like my favorite success story because those I they I just see them make amazing decisions with their partners, their careers.
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Like, they're all most of them in relationships now and I see the husbands and the fathers they're becoming and I mean, it's it's you know, my many of them become fathers before I am one and it's just inspiring that they're also leading that way and showing me that people don't have to make as bad a mistake or go as far as I did. Right. Where do you go?
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Like, when you're struggling, you know, when you and your wife are having a fight or if you ever have fight.
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I don't know if you guys have fights. Lots.
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Where do you go and share that?
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Cuz you are you are a spiritual guru to millions of people now, right?
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And in many ways and so many people look to you for advice, but who do you go to?
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Where do you go when you need help? Yeah.
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So, the first thing I'm going to address that the the arguing with my wife because I think that's such a good thing to talk about.
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This is what I find fascinating about the way humans are wired.
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And and I'll give an example.
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So, me and my wife's been my um first guest every year when we launch a new season of the podcast.
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So, she's been on the podcast three times, the guest we've had on the most.
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And every time we'll do like a 1 and 1/2 hour episode of everything we struggled with that year.
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And so, we talk about like the mistakes, the failures, the things that went wrong.
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And the number one comment will be relationship goals.
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And the number one comment will be couple goals.
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And and what I found is that the human desire to be inspired and want someone to project perfection onto anyone is so strong that my my honest comment back is always, "Please listen to what we just said." Yeah. Yeah. And and not listening. Right?
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Like you like and and not in a not listening in like and I know you don't mean this.
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not in an attacking way, but just like, please just listen to me like, I just told you that when I first started dating my wife, I thought she wanted to be wooed like in the movies of Hollywood, and I got it all wrong because I was doing all this flashy stuff, and my wife said she's a simple person, did not want any of that. I just told you that. we have the same story? Yeah.
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We haven't talked about that.
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I didn't know we I didn't know we When we had our double date, we didn't talk about it.
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not see an identical story. Really? Yeah. I love it. No, keep going. Please keep going.
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So so so my point's being like, if I've just told you that actually for the first 2 years of our marriage, sorry, 2 years of our relationship, we didn't understand each other.
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Don't just look at us and go like, oh yeah, you guys got green eyes and they match and so you match and like, you know, it's there's just so much more to it, and I find that So reductive.
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as humans, we so want people to be perfect that we create a pedestal even if someone's telling you the truth.
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And I think if we just sit and all listen to each other, then A, we won't be let down by people, and B, we won't put people on the pedestal, but but who do I go to?
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So the first thing I definitely turn to my texts.
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And and I know we share this in common, but the Bhagavad Gita has has been such a a companion in guiding my life from so long since I was 18 that I turn to it all the time.
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Uh my monk teacher, who's now uh 70 years old, who you actually met when you when you came to my home. Oh my god, so sweet.
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Yeah, when you came to my home, so you've you've met him, and he's now 70 years old.
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He grew up in Chicago and hitchhiked to India at the age of 19. Uh insane.
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Yeah, he's It's an insane story.
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And and so when I'm when I'm struggling with something in a major way, when it's like a real like like like I feel like it's a tragedy at this point, then he's the person I go to because he always helps me see the reality and see the truth.
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Uh again, there's monks in between that journey, so he's like kind of at the top of the order, but then there's other ones that are more like older brothers, and I can be more vulnerable with them, and I I don't feel like So you have monks on like speed dial. Phone a friend monks.
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And they're there to help you like just recalibrate, bring yourself to account.
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men who don't have monks on speed dial, what is what is your advice for them to do business in a more spiritual way?
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So spirituality and business is an interesting concept because a lot of people today see it as an oxymoron. Yeah.
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Or um you know, mutually exclusive.
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And the truth is that spirituality is so powerful that it actually spreads across everything.
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And I know I know all of you understand that, but it's like if spirituality is what we all say it is, then it has the purity and the power to spread across anything.
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And again, going back to our previous theme, the key element is is this for service of humanity, for others, or is this in the service of myself? Now, that's a fine line. Yeah.
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And I've been on the wrong side of that line plenty of times.
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So there's plenty of times when I assess options and opportunities in front of me and I realize I'm only taking that option because there's ego involved. Mhm.
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I'm only taking that option because there's an opportunity or there's a big payout or there's a nice dollar sign next to it and I'm only doing it for that.
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And I've said yes to stuff like that plenty of times to know that I'm not perfect, but the awareness is what I would encourage people to do is is having the ability to be like, here are the three four options in my life right now.
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Let me write a word above them which is the intention of why I'm choosing that. Mhm.
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And if the if the word isn't love or service, it's not going to feel good after I finish it. Mhm.
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And and so that's that's what I would encourage people to do as a reflection without needing anyone in their life or anyone around them. Mhm. I love that.
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I love that there's this I I I I don't know the quote exactly, but um one of the central figures in the Baha'i faith talks about Abdul-Baha that when you are suffering and when you are going through something and you cannot find a way out to immediately go be of service to another. Mhm.
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Because when you are service to others, you find that your own pains and things um just dissipate through that.
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So, when you talked about earlier about being wired for service. Yes.
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How So, while I think that also there are some people that are put into service toward to others not to be of pure service because they're forced to be put there. Um women are some.
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Wives often times unless we do something different.
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I have these conversations with Liz all the time.
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The service that I've always seen with women in my life, my mother, grandmother, all all of them, they um it was it was there was a lot of sexism going on as well. Mhm. Mhm.
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Not necessarily by my father.
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Certainly I I want to I want to say no.
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But all of the stuff that was being experienced.
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So, I think that this idea of service being elevated, but service being forced, how do we how do we really talk about that?
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And and how does service and capitalism, right? Like which feel at odds.
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Um how do you how do you reconcile that?
20:31
Yeah, there's there's a beautiful statement by Peter Diamandis and he says that we should redefine the word billionaire to be someone who impacts the lives of a billion people.
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Now, whether you think of that from spirituality or from a money perspective, the wealthiest people in the world are creating something that services the most amount of people and the scale of the problem you're solving and the depth of the issue is how much money you make.
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So, if someone created a cure for cancer and was able to scale it across the world, they would probably be the wealthiest person on the planet because they created something out of service.
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Now, you may say, "Well, Jay, well, no, many people out of wanting the money will figure that out."
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I'd say that they may, but I'm hoping that on that journey, they'll upgrade and their desire and their intention will be purified.
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And I think this was what I loved learning from the Bhagavad Gita, which was this idea of there is no pure intention.
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All intentions are percentages and divided.
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So, when you first start something, you may have a 70% pure intention, but there's 30% of ego in there. Yeah.
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Or when you start, it's probably the other way around, 25% good intention and 75% ego, but it's purified in the process.
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So, even if you look at people who've set out their lives, and I work with many of them, who set out at the beginning of their lives to become wealthy and famous, when they became wealthy and famous, they then realized that wasn't the point and they were purified in the process of achieving their goal.
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And so, the way I think about it is that in a capitalist society, even the people that are succeeding are succeeding because of service, whether it's conscious or not conscious, whether it's intentional or unintentional.
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They're still only successful like Amazon is successful because we all want its service.
22:20
Like we want to be served by Amazon. Right?
22:25
And I'm not promoting or depromoting Amazon.
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I'm just making the point that because it serves a daily need for the majority of the population, they are financially successful because of it.
22:37
Does that make sense, Liz?
22:37
I don't know if I'm answering your question.
22:38
Well, And I want I I and I see your face, so I'm like, I want to Well, cuz I I feel like it doesn't purify.
22:43
Like Jeff Bezos uh actually, I don't care about pissing off Jeff Jeff Bezos. I'm doing it with love.
22:49
Um you know, Jeff Bezos uh I don't think I don't I don't have any evidence that he was purified by becoming a billionaire.
22:58
Like he still has 28 bathrooms, but then he's preventing his workers from unionizing, right?
23:01
So, like, yeah, I I I guess I'm still wondering how to reconcile those things, and we've talked about the intersection of of masculinity and risk, about how, you know, women are willing to take big risks when it comes to redistribution, when it comes to more taxation, when it comes to the environment, and it's actually men who uh in particularly white men, sorry, um that I'm I'm just talking I'm just speaking the data. Hey, I'm sitting here.
23:30
It's particularly white men because, yeah, the 10 most wealthiest people are are white men.
23:34
Um you know, they have the most to lose.
23:37
So, I think about that all the time.
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You know, I and and I, you know, I'm I'm bringing this up because it's something that that I grapple with. Yeah.
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Where I feel like my heart is in the right place, and 100% I've known when it's not or when I've done something I'm like, this was not for the right reason.
23:50
Um but yeah, how do we How do you How do we reconcile these things, I think?
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And and yeah, whether anyone's been purified or not, and where their journey of life goes, we'll we'll find out, right? With with everyone.
24:02
I I I really believe that everyone's on this recurring journey of life, and it's all to get people to realize that service is the only goal.
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And we kind of have to keep having life experiences and failures and shortcomings and issues and everything going wrong to only remind you of that, and that being the only satisfying thing.
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The the way you reconcile it is only through stillness and solitude.
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Like, if you don't spend enough time alone every day, and try to hear yourself, and try to hear the words of your spiritual teachers, guides, texts, then you are only going to hear the noise from society outside, and that's what you'll end up following.
24:42
Or if you're switching off the noise to listen to a podcast like this, and all the other episodes that I've I've seen the guests you've had on, and the types of conversations you're having on, you're all performing a service.
24:51
And by the way, everyone who's listening is also serving by learning.
24:56
So, it's not only the giver that is serving, the receiver is also serving.
25:01
I think the bigger challenge is also that we've just lacked uh examples of that.
25:10
And so, to me, it's like I would be traveling with one of our senior monk leaders.
25:14
You know, this gentleman's 70 years old.
25:16
I'm like I don't know, 21 years old.
25:21
And every day we'd wake up in the morning and he would bow down before me on the floor to honor the soul that's within my heart.
25:32
And I would do the same back.
25:34
But, he would always beat me to it and there was no one watching.
25:37
There were no fanfare, there was no audience, there was no one to do it for. I wasn't Jay Shetty.
25:41
Like, I was just a kid who's 21 years old.
25:46
And that's how we were taught to behave with each other with that much level of respect.
25:50
Now, he would have done that with anyone in the room.
25:51
So, the reason I'm sharing that is like when I experienced that level of masculine or whatever you want to call that, like, you know, if when I experienced that, it gave me faith that a man could be extremely powerful by being extremely humble. Yeah.
26:07
That a man could be extremely could penetrate my heart by being really kind and caring and compassionate.
26:13
But, if you've never experienced that, how are you to believe that that's possible? Yeah.
26:19
I think the first step is to seek and find.
26:22
Like, I think it's hard to tell anyone to the formula for how to navigate that without them finding a purpose that is bigger than themselves. Yeah.
26:31
Like, it's it's hard for anyone to navigate life.
26:35
Sometimes your purpose bigger than yourself becomes your family and your love for your family.
26:38
And that's as far and wide as your mind wants to go and that's beautiful.
26:42
And for some people it becomes the world and for some people becomes their town and their city, but everyone has to have something.
26:48
You know, those beautiful words of of Martin Luther King of you know, if you have nothing to die for you have nothing to live for.
26:56
Like that to me is the clear purpose of life where we have to seek out what it is that we really care about and what we really believe in.
27:04
And that can be your family. That's totally fine.
27:06
Like this doesn't have to be like a I'm going to become an activist and change the world conversation.
27:11
This is I care about the quality of life my family has.
27:18
But I think about quality based on the depth of their experience of life not just what they have. Mhm.
27:25
And I'm going to live my life or try and live my life in that way.
27:29
And so to me the first step is to seek mentors, coaches, guides, guidance.
27:32
It has to be It always is.
27:35
I had the fortune of interviewing Walter Isaacson.
27:40
He's famously known to write the biographies of the biggest icons of all time.
27:44
So he wrote the official biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Steve Jobs.
27:50
Like, you know, just it's insane.
27:52
And he worked at CNN and Time before that.
27:55
And he wrote a new book about a lady named Jennifer Doudna who is the founder of gene editing.
28:04
Now, she's a a female scientist who was told by her school teachers that women don't become scientists. Right?
28:12
Like women can't be scientists.
28:13
She just won the Nobel Prize for for her discovery. So amazing.
28:16
And he just wrote a book about her life.
28:19
It's called Code Breaker.
28:21
The reason why I'm sharing all of that is that some girl's going to pick up that book or guy, both or anyone.
28:27
Or they are going to pick up that book and they are going to find their role model in that book.
28:35
We all find We may not have a monk on speed dial.
28:38
We may not have met a monk when you were 18, but you're going to find when you start searching and looking.
28:43
And when you find that you're going to read it, you're going to internalize it, and it's going to change how you think, and I just feel that encouraging people to find coaches, guides, and mentors is the best thing I can do because there's no one we admire that doesn't have that.
28:56
Whether they're an athlete, whether they're a singer, whether a musician, whether they're a videographer, editor, everyone's had mentors, guides, and coaches, but it's become so far removed from our lives today that everyone thinks they have to figure it out for themselves, and that's where the mess is created from.
29:14
It sounds like an obvious point, but it's almost like we obviously haven't pushed it enough. Right.
29:19
Because as a man to take another person as your mentor also requires you Mhm. to have humility.
29:24
You've got to forgive yourself.
29:25
You got to be compassionate to yourself.
29:27
So, the simple act of taking on a mentor actually does more for your masculinity than anything else.
29:34
And also mhm being a mentor. Yes. Right?
29:37
You You reach a You reach a place and you have your success or you have achieved something, and then being of service to that person is sending the elevator back down. Mhm.
29:47
But it's the biggest It's the biggest myth of masculinity that we have to do it by ourselves. Yes.
29:52
Like that we, you know, that we can't ask for help.
29:54
We can't ask for guidance.
29:55
We can't ask for those things. Yeah. Yeah.
29:58
I want to ask you something real quick, Jay, cuz um cuz I don't know how you do it. And social media.
30:04
I want to talk about social media for a second.
30:09
We talked about it a little bit when I joined your podcast.
30:11
But we know what social media in many ways does to our brains.
30:15
We get dopamine hits left and right, much more than, you know, we ever have in human history.
30:21
Like, dislike, followers, comments, all of which are contributing, I think, to uh a different kind of pandemic.
30:29
Um which is like extremely low self-worth, seeking external validation, and everybody wanting to become the center of attention, an influencer, to have influence.
30:39
And And you mix in like what's becoming trendy or popular or woke in culture, and then you have service, right?
30:44
And these lines get very blurred.
30:46
Like I've struggled like, do I post that? Do I not post that?
30:49
Like, oh, that didn't get as many likes.
30:51
And I still have those thoughts.
30:53
Um, and I just imagine 15-year-olds and 12-year-olds now that are getting social media and all of these things.
30:57
And I remember watching this like, I swear she was 8 years old.
31:00
She was doing She was by herself in a CVS doing a Tik Tok, holding the phone by herself.
31:06
And I was really confused and I looked at that and my heart broke.
31:07
Just thinking about the performative aspect of what social media does.
31:13
How How have you stayed above water?
31:17
How have you not been affected?
31:21
Or Or Are you ever affected?
31:23
And I guess that's my question is, are you also affected by if something doesn't have a lot of likes or if a podcast doesn't have a lot of downloads?
31:29
Because you seem impermeable in that way.
31:31
Like you have the teachings, you're so rooted in the teachings and in your meditation and your practice that it's like if you're not shaken by the outside world.
31:37
But you're You're teaching people this wisdom, this ancient wisdom, but yet you're doing it from the swamp.
31:42
How do you stay out of it?
31:43
And do you struggle ever?
31:45
You fall in and you fall in again. Yeah, all the time.
31:48
Social media was my last resort to try and share a message that I deeply believe the world needed.
31:54
And so if I had it my way, I would never have taken to social media.
31:58
I would have done it through one of these official channels that wouldn't give me a chance, but and I think people don't think that.
32:05
People think, oh yeah, you joined social media because you want to get a It's like I joined social media because I didn't know any other way to spread the message.
32:11
So going back to mistakes on social media or or failures, I've fallen into it so many times and I fall into on a daily basis.
32:18
If your life revolves around serving through social media, you have to become phenomenal at social media strategy.
32:27
It's You can't separate the two. You have to.
32:29
The problem is when the strategy overtakes the sincerity. Mhm.
32:33
The problem is when the strategy overtakes the creativity or overshadows the creativity.
32:40
The problem is when the strategy just becomes a game and now you're just living in this fake world you've created. And that's the problem.
32:48
When you just look at the likes and you don't look at the comments, when you look at the views but you don't look at the engagement.
32:53
And when I say engagement, I mean the depth of it. What are people saying? How are they feeling?
32:59
That's what humanizes it again for me.
33:02
So, that's what I'm holding on to is the humanizing of it.
33:03
Of of seeing like how is this genuinely having a human impact, not a data impact.
33:08
And I think that's where our mindset as strategists versus spiritualists goes is as a strategist, you're meant to think data, but as a spiritualist, you're meant to think depth.
33:20
And so, you can't let data overshadow depth.
33:24
And what I love about algorithms is that they always keep you humble.
33:29
You will never beat the algorithm.
33:32
It will always keep you humble.
33:32
So, if you're actually doing it for likes and love and hearts, you will give up.
33:40
But if you're doing it because you just want to find what is going to connect with people, what is going to resonate, what is going to cut through, then that's something that will keep you humble in the process of it because you'll never win.
33:51
You've been able to separate how a video does or performs from my own self.
33:57
From your own self-worth. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
33:59
And I think that is really kind of the key in the question for when that Tik Tok or that Instagram video turns off, they're left with themselves. Yeah.
34:08
And you know, one of the things you teach is being with yourself.
34:10
But if they don't know how to be with their selves, so I guess this is the this is an opportunity I'm asking you to to talk to them if if someone's listening right now who's struggling with that.
34:20
Because I have struggled with it.
34:22
Especially from a service perspective.
34:23
Like I'm here to be of service.
34:25
Why am I making this about Why do I care? Why should I care? I don't care. Do I care? I I care. I care too much.
34:31
No, I didn't get you know, and it's like should I post that? No. But this is my platform.
34:34
I want to post whatever I want.
34:35
I want to post a picture of the sunset.
34:37
But no one's going to like the picture of the sunset, Justin.
34:39
So post something and and I've had these conversations with myself and the fact that I'm having them drive me crazy.
34:45
And you just strike me as somebody who doesn't have them as much.
34:48
Um and maybe that's because you have a sense of self.
34:50
Practical answer is all the work goes in thinking about something up front.
34:58
So when you set your intention to when you're creating a piece of content.
35:00
So my books the the biggest deepest most meaningful thing I put out in the world, in my opinion.
35:07
And I spent a lot of time writing it, researching it, I remember man, you were doing it every day. You were on a mission.
35:14
3-4 hours a day you were Literally, yeah.
35:16
Yeah, and and we I knew that I wanted science in it and I wanted monk research in it and so I had I had monks researching.
35:22
I had a scientific researcher.
35:25
Like it was a real team project to to get it to be what I wanted it to be.
35:32
And I put in all the work up front because my intention was if you create something with the love, with the service, with the intention of that, then that's what people are going to feel.
35:45
Whereas if I create it with the intention of going viral or which which you can't actually do because viral by nature and by what it is means that you can't predict it. Like people can do that. Uh people decide that.
35:59
With the book, if you're obsessed with X result, it ruins the process.
36:05
So for me, when I'm in the process, I really shut my windows and I close the doors and I'm like this process has to be as pure as possible. As possible. As possible.
36:15
So it's not 100% but it's as good as it can get.
36:19
And when we look at and you know, when we talk about how do we share this with the world, let's also make the process really good.
36:26
Are we sharing in the right places? Are we getting it right?
36:27
And then when you share it, you know that you've done everything you possibly could to make it worthwhile.
36:35
And if it doesn't work, you can take that because you've done everything.
36:37
The problem is when you put something out with a desire of oh, it's going to do great.
36:42
I know I I'm masterminded this. It's perfect.
36:44
And then it doesn't do well, then it affects you.
36:46
Whereas when you've built all your self-worth in the process of that, and so I sent my publishers an email uh and and I'm saying this because I'm proud of myself for doing this and I'm and I'm going to say that here.
36:58
Uh I sent them an email the day before the book came out and we had no idea what was going to happen or anything and I said, I just want to thank you for this process.
37:03
It's been the best process I've ever had. I love you guys. It's been amazing.
37:08
Uh it's you've been the best team I've ever worked with.
37:10
I really appreciate you from the editor down to the the fact-checker down to this, whatever, everyone on the team and I just wanted you to know I'm already proud of what we've achieved.
37:17
And I sent that email off to them.
37:20
And I remember the president of the company that I work with, he replied to me, he goes, "Jay, we never get one of these emails the day before the book comes out."
37:25
He was like, "We always get this if the book does well or whatever."
37:29
And I was like, "No, I genuinely feel so proud of what we've achieved already.
37:32
Whatever happens, happens."
37:32
I had my UK publisher tell me, "Jay, you know what?
37:36
We're probably not going to hit number one on the Sunday Times in the UK uh because, you know, there's some big hitters in the UK coming out this week. Are you okay with that?"
37:43
I was like, "Dude, I've written the best book I possibly could.
37:46
We've done the best launch that I probably could have done.
37:49
I couldn't have done any more. I'm good. Like, whatever. I don't care."
37:53
And it's like to me, that's the only way to not care is that you put all your heart into the creation.
37:57
So, that's the practical answer. Wow.
37:58
The philosophical answer and and the more spiritual answer is I'm flawed.
38:08
I do seek validation in what people think of me.
38:12
I do uh get upset if someone doesn't like my videos and like someone else's. And I forgive myself.
38:17
I'm compassionate and I start over again. Mhm.
38:21
Like, that's just the real answer.
38:21
Like that's just the truth. I mess up. I I fall down.
38:24
I get that I'm I I do get worried about oh well, will I be relevant next year?
38:32
Oh, I do get worried about like oh, will people care about me?
38:34
I do get worried about like have I said anything good on this podcast right now?
38:37
Like is there anything that I've said that is actually even worth this podcast?
38:40
I do think about that like every time.
38:42
I think about that every time I record a solo episode of my podcast.
38:49
And I think about it all the time. What What do I do?
38:50
I allow myself to feel that.
38:53
I allow myself to experience it.
38:55
I forgive myself for judging myself and then I start again.
38:57
And I start every day as if it was new.
39:02
And my wife and I have this amazing ability, we both have it, is that we can go to sleep, forget the night before, and start again.
39:07
And I think that my memory literally does that.
39:08
I erase all of my failures and mistakes from the day before and just start a fresh every day because it's the only way I know to allow myself to have another go at it.
39:19
Just the idea of allowing yourself to have some compassion for yourself.
39:23
And I think everyone who's sitting out there who's judging themselves, accept that you judge yourself, be compassionate, but then seek to redirect that energy.
39:30
Whatever table you're at and whoever's at that table is what you judge yourself by.
39:38
So when we heard that famous quote of you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, actually what the truth is, your values become the average of the five people and their values. I love that.
39:49
When we talked, you and I did like a pandemic check-in with like a Man Enough kind of check-in.
39:56
And you had admitted that you were addicted to video games for a little bit. I was. And and that was big.
40:03
In the book I talk about, you know, an ongoing struggle I've had with porn since I was, you know, a kid.
40:07
And um and you said it caught you by surprise that you were addicted.
40:11
You found yourself like, you know, taking all of this emotion and just playing video games and hours would pass by. Yeah. I'm curious. Which one by the way?
40:21
Uh so FIFA, NBA 2K, All right, with you. Uh 2K21 now I have.
40:28
Uh and uh Assassin's Creed.
40:28
Which is really messed up. Wait, wait. A monk?
40:33
Jane Assassin's Creed, yes. Yes.
40:37
So I'm curious, how bad did it get and what pulled you out or or is that still an ongoing thing that you're you're just struggling with a little bit or or is it a you know? Oh my gosh.
40:44
So yeah, with the we just found out as the pandemic, I realized we were going to be stuck indoors.
40:49
I thought maybe this is going to be the last a month. That's what I thought.
40:53
And I was like, all right, well, what am I going to do with this time?
40:57
Like a lot of things were getting canceled at the time and things like that.
41:01
And we had a friend staying My wife's friend staying with us so they would always be spending time together and everything.
41:06
So I was pretty much on my own.
41:07
And instead of meditating more or reading more, I ordered a PlayStation.
41:14
Which by the way, I hadn't played video games for 10 years. Like I just hadn't.
41:18
I hadn't watched TV religious like properly like watch the series on TV. I'd watch movies. I love movies.
41:22
I don't watch the TV show for like 10 years.
41:23
But I literally would sit there and play hours and hours of video games and I think I didn't stop playing for like it took like three to four weeks before I realized that I'd been playing video games for eight hours a day. Eight hours. Time was wasted.
41:41
Uh all of I I thought I was dealing well with what was going on, but actually I was just using that as my escape to what was actually happening in the world.
41:50
And I know it sounds stupid as like a video games, but it's not. It's terrible.
41:55
I mean, when I would play Assassin's Creed, I would walk out and my wife was just like, you look like you've just exited a war. Are you okay?
42:02
Like she would literally look at me like Our camera Our camera crew's laughing.
42:05
They're like, oh, I feel that.
42:05
She was She was literally like, are you Like she would see me come out of the room.
42:08
Like I'd to out of the cave of like She's like, are you okay?
42:11
Like, I don't think that game's good for you.
42:12
Like, I don't think that game's good for your energy.
42:17
And it was like 3 to 4 weeks in where I realized it was like, but the world's suffering right now.
42:20
Like, I should be serving.
42:21
I'm sitting here playing video games.
42:23
But, I have to allow myself and cut myself some slack that that was my escape at the time.
42:28
I just hadn't slowed down and I hadn't stopped for like the last 3 to 4 years.
42:33
I hadn't allowed myself to have any downtime because I was building and serving and creating that that was my outlet.
42:41
You you still realize that it starts to damage your relationships.
42:45
Like, my mom was like, why you're not calling?
42:48
Like, I'm not calling my mom and I'm playing 8 hours of video games. Yeah.
42:51
I'm not calling my sister and I'm playing 8 hours of video games.
42:52
I'm not spending time with my wife and playing You know, it's It's kind of like anything that doesn't have moderation involved. Then it's toxic, right?
42:58
You drink too much water and then it's toxic, right?
43:01
My therapist put it this way.
43:01
If it's fine, it's acceptable behavior if you're doing it and afterwards you don't feel any shame. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
43:07
But, if you feel bad or terrible and yet you do it again, then you should look at it.
43:14
Well, there are bad things that men can do that they don't feel shame about.
43:17
Well, I mean, I'm for somebody who's like, well, by the time you get to therapy and you're actually working on that thing and you're like, hey, you're trying to understand it.
43:24
By that point, it's like, okay, well, this is probably unhealthy for you if you're if you're that reflective and you're already there. There's a Yes. The answer is yes.
43:31
But, yeah, but it's it's interesting that it seems to be the women in your life that sort of pointed that out. Always.
43:37
Like, the women Like, my mother, my sister.
43:40
And from my wife, I've just learned like Like, I I dedicate my book to her because she is more monk than I'll ever be.
43:46
And that's so humbling when when we got married, I was like the guy who'd been a monk and meditating for all these years.
43:55
And even some of my spirit spiritual friends were like, oh, you can't marry her.
43:59
She's new to spirituality, etc. , etc.
44:02
And my wife, like, my wife wakes up earlier than I do.
44:05
She meditates for longer than I do. She is She's amazing.
44:09
Like she's far more spiritual than I'll ever be.
44:11
And and I love that because I need that. amazing. Yeah, and I need that.
44:16
If she wasn't that, maybe I wouldn't be who I am today.
44:19
Like maybe I would have got more deviated from the path and and lost my way.
44:23
Jay, you're you're incredible.
44:25
We're going to go to these last questions.
44:28
Welcome to this week's Man Enough Podcast rapid-fire questions.
44:29
Liz, do you want to start? Jay. rapid-fire questions.
44:36
When is the last time that you cried?
44:40
It was probably when I was You know what?
44:41
I Yeah, it was probably this.
44:41
Uh because I don't live in the same country as my mom anymore, and because of the pandemic I don't get to see her as much anymore.
44:48
I used to go back regularly.
44:48
I feel like whenever I'm leaving London and my mom cries, I cry because it's my mom. Like I love her.
44:55
Like she did every She's done everything for me.
44:58
And I And And the thing about love is there's no way of repaying it.
45:00
So, you can only keep trying.
45:05
And I think that that's the beauty of love and also the the hard part of love is that you can't repay real love.
45:10
And I feel like I'm always in debt to my mom in a good way.
45:14
And so, yeah, I'd say that.
45:16
Tell me something that other people value that you don't.
45:22
I'd say it's probably um being understood.
45:28
I'm okay with being misunderstood. Huh. Wow. think it's the reality.
45:31
I just don't think you will ever be understood by everyone. And so, it's okay.
45:36
Like I don't value being understood anymore. I used to.
45:37
I used to love being understood.
45:40
take that as a superpower. Yo. Uh I'm going to add one. What are you afraid of?
45:46
I'm afraid of not reaching my potential.
45:50
I'm genuinely afraid of that.
45:50
I I I do think about that.
45:52
Like I I think about the future and I'm like I I don't want to die having thought that I didn't try my best to do everything that I was meant to do.
46:01
And my my teacher told me something once which which set the the pedestal of potential much higher.
46:09
And he asked me once, he said, "Well, what are you doing right now as an update?"
46:11
And so I was telling him, I was like, "I'm doing this podcast and we're launching this book."
46:14
And I was just sharing it out of love and and and gratitude to him.
46:19
And he said he said to me, he goes, "You know, for for all of these things that you're doing, I have no expectation, but I simply demand the purity of your heart." Mhm.
46:30
And I was just like, "Oh, that's a lot harder."
46:33
And and that's my biggest fear that I don't live up to that because um I feel like I would have wasted all the love that he's given me over the years and the the amount of investment that these teachers have put into a random kid from London who is on his way to do all the stupid things that people do and they they've they've loved me through so much and it upsets me to think that I I mess it up. So, yeah. Mhm.
46:56
When was the last time you apologized to someone? Uh today to my wife.
47:03
We were doing a video together and I was rushing to come here or somewhere else and I was I had the worst energy and she stopped me and she looked me in the face and she was like, "Are you okay? Like what's up?
47:11
Like I can tell that you're just frustrated to be here, but you need to do this right now and are you okay with that?"
47:15
And and then I was like, "All right, let's just do it.
47:18
I don't like your energy right now."
47:21
And then I went back to her and I gave her a hug and I was like, "I'm really sorry.
47:23
Like I'm just you know, I've had a lot on this past week and whatever." So, yeah. That was That was yeah.
47:26
And the final question, what does it mean to be man enough? Ooh.
47:33
I think in my opinion what it means to be man enough is to There's a beautiful statement by Russell Barkley where he said that people who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways.
47:53
And I think what it means to be man enough is to be able to approach everyone with that love recognizing that the pain they're causing you or anyone else is coming from a place of them being unloved at some point in their life.
48:08
Well, Jay Shetty, you, my friend, are man enough.
48:10
Thank you so much for being here with us, brother. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz.
48:17
I know I know you had to move a lot of stuff around to make this happen, so thank you so much. is so special. I learned so much. So sweet.
48:22
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
48:26
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikemonkbook. com.
48:36
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.