Transcript for:
Lecture on Love, Relationships, and Personal Development

one of the biggest lies that we've been told about love is that you'll find it when you are least expecting it you'll find it when you're not looking and I don't know anything that you find in the world when you're not looking in that direction I think you gotta have a dream the school of greatness yeah please welcome why uh what do you think are the biggest lies that that hold people back from Finding Love and keeping them single what do you think that is that's such a good question and there's so many but one of the ones that stands out to me is one of the biggest lies that we've been told about love is that you'll find it when you're least expecting it you'll find it when you're not looking and I don't know anything that you find in the world when you're not looking in that direction you can't find your keys if you're not looking for them you can't find your phone if you're not looking for it you can't find your passport like all the things we lose on a daily weekly monthly basis you don't just find it when you least expect it and I think we apply that to love because there's a Romanticism to it it's kind of like oh I want that mystery of like we just bumped into each other and I wasn't ready and I wasn't prepared and it happened and by the way if that happened to you that's beautiful like that's awesome I love that for you and I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I think that lie keeps people single because it stops people from making effort effort working on themselves effort working on finding the right person effort on creating love and I think the reason why that lie keeps people single the most and I was talking about this with a friend just yesterday we were talking about the idea of how you don't stop loving when you move in you don't stop loving when you get married you don't stop loving when you've been together for 10 years and you're celebrating an anniversary it takes constant effort so now we're saying oh well it's not going to take effort to find love which means we're training ourselves to think it's not going to take effort to stay in love and I think that's an unhealthy idea that's an interesting perspective and give me some feedback on this because I want to dive into that a little more I I love it I think it's all about the context of it because when I met Martha and I met Martha I was like I don't want a relationship I was like I was saying to myself I'm not looking for a relationship um but it didn't mean I wasn't open correct right I was open to finding the right relationship yeah I think it was like when you're when you're ready and clear that you don't want the wrong relationships anymore and you're working on yourself and you you you're you're finding yourself you're developing yourself then it's clearer the right person when they when you see them right when you're approaching them when you're out in the world and taking action you're going to attract a healthier version of the person you want to be with yeah and that's also you bumped into someone but you built love out of it of course so you didn't you didn't find love when you weren't looking for it you found a person yes but you still had to build love actively and and I think that's what I'm trying to I want to discourage the idea that it doesn't take effort that love doesn't take action that love doesn't need intention that love doesn't need working on yourself I want to discourage that idea because I think the idea that it perpetuates is love is gonna find you fully formed fully thought about perfect and you don't have to do anything right and I think when you have that mindset about anything in life whether it's love success happiness Joy purpose greatness there's nothing else in the world that works that way so why are we gonna and and maybe that's unpopular opinion and maybe everyone in the comment section is going to be really mad at me but I'm just saying that Finding Love Takes effort keeping Love Takes effort both of them take effort yeah and you talk about these four stages of preparing for love yeah what are what are the stages because I think a lot of people romanticize about you're going to meet someone you're going to fall in love and you're just gonna know right away yeah and it's gonna be perfect and you're gonna you know go off into the sunset what are these four stages that we should be very Mindful and conscious of to set us up for greater relationship success yeah so I want everyone to visualize that life is like a school of Love Like imagine the world planet earth has been designed in order to help you learn how to love approach life in that way and when you approach life in that way you realize that there's four different classrooms or there's four stages and phases that help you learn different lessons about how to love properly and so the four stages are preparing for love practicing love protecting love and perfecting love and what I like about this is we usually like to jump from liking someone to loving someone but these four stages give you the most important middle part which is learning to love someone and so I like to break things down into steps and stages because it stops it from being this big abstract idea and this fluffy kooky feeling to actually being like well where am I on this journey what step am I at what am I gonna have to learn at this stage and I think when you approach it that way it just gives you more confidence and self-assurance and the stages were mapped out based on The Vedas so The Vedas break down these four stages and they talk about how we have to learn different lessons at each classroom preparing for love practicing love protecting it and perfecting it correct I'm curious do you think it's harder to learn how to love someone else or how to learn how to love yourself uh great question so I believe that if you've gone through and and first of all I want to say these four stages are not like you finish one and then you start the other they're always integrated integrated like you're always going to be in a couple of places I find that if you're doing the work to learn to love yourself that process and that skill helps you learn to love someone else let me give an example like if I'm learning to love myself it means I have to get to know my dark side it means I have to get to know my flaws it means I have to get to know parts of myself that make me feel uncomfortable now if I recognize that I have all of that in me now when I meet someone else I'm not surprised when they have it in them because I've already seen it in myself and I think often if we think oh like I'm gonna meet someone and they're not gonna have any issues or they're not going to have any challenges it's partly because we haven't necessarily worked through our own and so I think if your trauma is more visible to you if you're pain and your stress of the past is more visible to you you're actually better at being compassionate to someone else's because you can see it's something that connects us so it's when we're afraid of our Darkness or our traumas or pains or you know sides of us that we don't enjoy what happens when we're afraid of it within us or we're afraid of it you know others when we're afraid of it in us we're surprised when we see in someone else because we haven't sat with compassion with ourselves because if we're constantly judging ourselves and berating ourselves and hating ourselves for some of the challenges or traumas that we have maybe some things we did that we're ashamed of or we feel guilt and embarrassment around now if you haven't worked through that you're going to make that person feel guilty and embarrassed for what they've done because you haven't learned the skill of building space of dealing with yourself with empathy with understanding with compassion so a really great example is this that if you've taught yourself how to play a sport you can now watch someone else play sport and help them become better at it and understand the challenges they have whereas if you've never taught yourself how to play that sport you'd just be looking at someone else going like why are you holding the racket like that or why why don't you know that it's kind of like the guys that saw us yes just to give a very relatable example like me and Lewis were playing pickleball last year quite regularly until I had an injury and whenever we'd play we'd play Pickleball like tennis so we'd be even doing the scores like tennis or ping pong and we'd be like just literally smacking the ball here and there and then this Father and Son came up like Semi-Pro pickleball players and they said we we overheard how you were counting yeah oh you were wrong like that's not how it works and they taught us how but they were so compassionate they were so understanding they were so like I was like I was really impressed they were so slow with us they weren't frustrated by us I think we often get frustrated by other people's flaws because we haven't looked at our own okay this is a question that's a deeper question I don't know if you talk about this stuff whenever whenever Jay's on the show I like to ask him personal stuff yeah so when was the last time you felt intense Shame about something you had done in your past and maybe it was the four monk life or whatever but when was the last time you felt intense shame and what was the process in having compassion for yourself to overcome that so you didn't live in that Darkness yeah I I think my biggest thing that I probably feel like shame around is I feel that I often in my teens did nice things for women because I wanted them to validate me so I did nice dates and organized amazing experiences not necessarily because of how I felt about them but because they would say Jay you're awesome you're amazing like you're incredible and in my teens I was so self-conscious and I wanted to hear that so badly and by the way that links to me being bullied at school for being overweight and being Indian at 10 years old and 11 years old all the way up until 14 when my life transformed externally and so I could see that I was carrying that trauma because when I was 10 or 11 years old I was bullied so hard all the way up until 14 for how I looked and my weight and the color of my skin that I was almost trying to feel better about it but the only way to make myself feel better about it was well women rejected me when I was younger now if women validate me then that will make it all better and I feel shame around that because I think that I feel bad when you mislead someone or when you show a feeling towards someone but the feeling is not real or true or accurate I would never do that now I I wouldn't even do that in friendship or at work or in any way and so I look back on that and I have intense shame around it because I think why was I so insecure that my insecurity made other people feel insecure right when you show someone love and then you take it back you leave them much worse and okay we're in our teens and I can justify it but I still feel guilt in shame around that so how can how how does someone like yourself and others learn to realize the season of life and the things that you did you're not proud of but also not live in shame to where it affects you today yeah and hurt you internally yeah well I think one of the first things is recognizing that you didn't ever get taught like no one ever gave me this lesson like no one sat me down in my teens and said look because you were insecure when you were younger now this is what's going to happen and you have got to avoid this like we never went to a class about that we never got coaching on that I never had therapy when I was 14 years old to understand that so I think you have to give yourself Grace and space to say I didn't know better right I think accepting I didn't know any better when I know better I can do better and that's a great way to give yourself Grace because you're not just giving yourself an excuse you're saying when I learn when I grow when I know better I'll live up to that standard but when I didn't know and I wasn't even aware that that's how trauma and insecurity worked how could I possibly have controlled that I was a good person I was a nice person I didn't hurt anyone and that's the second side I go it wasn't intentional and I was able to apologize to those individuals either during that time or afterwards I was able to express my feeling of feeling sorry and feeling bad about what I'd done and I think that's an important part and sometimes you can't say sorry to the person and look them in the face because you they may not even want it you may not have a relationship anymore and in those circumstances I really feel like offering a apology internally energetically a spiritual apology is so powerful because it also makes you go through that and process that and then at the same time I think you know there's that famous quote that we hear all the time and share all the time and it's the best apologies changed behavior and I love that because to me that's the only way that you forgive yourself the only way you forgive yourself is if you actually change your behavior and if you don't see yourself change your behavior you can't forgive yourself you constantly make yourself feel shameful and guilty because you know you haven't really done the work right so you'll keep living in that shame or guilt yeah and properly masking it or doing things to try to feel good even though you're are you're in shame about it um well it's almost like if guilt's on one side the bridge is forgiveness and on the other side is growth yeah self-forgiveness and so you've got these two points of guilt and growth and self-forgiveness is in the middle but self-forgiveness requires change of behavior right and that gets you from guilt to growth what's on the other side of growth more growth yeah more growth what's available yeah once you've gone from guilt to self-forgiveness to growth what is available in your life on the other side so when you do the work on yourself when you meet other people they don't walk away with insecurities you're now not causing other people pain because of your pain you're now not causing other people to feel insecure because of your insecurities and I find that when we're not doing the work when we're not growing everyone around us feels like they may be the problem that they have an issue that there's something wrong with them I think when you're in a place of growth people can see themselves for who they are and they can see you for who you are I think I feel this way around you as a friend like you know because you're doing so much self-work all the time and that's why we said what's followed by growth is growth but when you're doing self-work all the time now when I'm with you I reflect more on myself I reflect on growth I need to do and at the same time I'm not guessing whether Lewis likes me or not or whether Lewis has an issue with me or not because you're doing the work so your pain is not over spilling onto me right your insecurities are not being projected onto me so I think you actually create a really safe space for the people you love to flourish and grow and Blossom around you when you're doing work sure what's the space that is that is available for you on the other side of growth like what's the place you're growing into right now whether it be relationship or career or health where do you see yourself or internally where do you see yourself growing to the next level I think that when I started this journey in my life of trying to make wisdom go viral and to share ideas and help people train their mind for peace and purpose every day there was a certain speed and pace that allowed me to figure out what I needed to do every 12 months and now I feel like I'm moving away from thinking about the next 12 months to thinking about the next 12 years and thinking about the next 20 years and thinking about the next 30 Years and so I feel like I'm at an evolution and growth in my own life where a change of pace will be what I'm looking for because I found that up until now I felt like I had to do lots of little things all the time to be able to establish what I'm doing today and now I realize it's actually going to take fewer bigger things that you can only get to if you've done this step before but now I realize that that's what it's going to take and so hey what about the you know you're you've been T you've been studying this for the last few years and teaching deeper insights on love practicing it writing about it speaking about it on stage in podcasts things like that where do you see yourself growing in love with friends family your marriage and with yourself yeah moving forward after this work yeah so what I found was as I was doing this work I realized that often the blocks to love are not because you don't have the Deep intention to love people but it's that you are putting yourself under so much stress and pressure that you're too agitated and irritated to be present interesting and actually share love so I saw this study that talked about how you think you don't wake up early the next morning even though you wanted to because you're bad at waking up early but the truth is it's because you're actually experiencing stress and when you're experiencing stress you can't Implement a new habit and so reducing stress allows you to be the person you want to be if you think about when you when you say something you don't want to say it's because you're irritated reactive yeah when you do something you don't want to do it's because you're stressed when you react to someone in a way that you don't think is yourself it's because you're agitated so we act in unloving ways because we are putting ourselves under stress irritation agitation or pressure and so for me what I've realized that if I want to be my best loving self and be present with each and every person and be conscious of that energy I have to learn to not put myself under so much stress that I can't be present so that's been a big lesson of love that you can't love while you're putting yourself under stress or pressure in any way and it goes back to your kind of theme about peace and purpose every day I don't think you can fully give your authentic heart without being peace yes without being in a state of peace and I understand life happens and stresses happen but creating a baseline going back to ease so you can be present yeah what we're not in peace when we're stressed you're in scarcity mode you're in fight or flight you're not present with your friends or family your loved ones or just acquaintances you're you're reactive totally people don't feel loved when you're not present yes exactly you're not looking at them in the eyes or just listening to them and being in a good state of being when you're around them yeah the other one that came to mind when you said that as you're speaking is uh Russell Buckley said that the people who need the most love ask for it in the most unloving ways and so true the commitment I've made to myself is I no longer want to ask for love in unloving ways I no longer want to be Snappy to feel loved I no longer want to be demanding to experience love I no longer want to make someone else feel a passive aggressive comment to feel love I want to communicate about the type of love I needed an open and honest way rather than trying to hope that someone else is going to figure it out because I'm sending subliminal messages or I'm being distant or I'm avoiding them and so that was something deeply that I learned was that we just constantly keep asking even the people that love us the most we keep requesting and demanding love in the most unloving ways yes and if we can free ourselves of that you can actually make a relationship really special and beautiful and so we have to let go of that yeah I'm curious I've been asking a lot of different people on this show over the last year a specific question I don't know if I've asked you this one yet but people who've come on who have done great things and done it over a short period of time or gotten notoriety or gotten you know well known or different things or had a big exit when they didn't have money essentially five years ago you weren't you weren't on the map you didn't have a big audience you didn't have a lot of money you didn't have the New York top best sellers you didn't have all these things I'm curious before all that started on a scale of one to ten the the peace and self-love scale let's call it 10 being you had total peace and love for yourself and love for the people around you and you were present all the time one being you hated yourself where were you before we met and then where are you today after success yeah that's a great question I'd have to say that I was probably at a seven or eight before to be honest because even though my work's been noticed publicly in the last five years or six years there was a whole 10 to 11 years before that where I literally did this for whoever showed up five people literally so like when I was 18 and of course in my first book I told the story of how I met monks I would have I had a society at University called think out loud and what it was was a community where I would put out flyers and posters myself and whoever wanted to come from my University would attend and it was called think out loud I would dissect a movie based on philosophy psychology and spirituality so I would take a movie like Inception and I would break it down I'd take a movie like uh notebook and break it down I take a movie like The Butterfly Effect Goodwill Hunting like I take these let's go Incredible movies and I'll do these sessions they'll be absolutely free and I did it for the first year and five to ten people came second year maybe 25 people came third year there were sometimes there were 100 people were in the room and I was just doing it because I loved it then I became a monk when I came back I did the same thing in the corporate world I had a event in London called conscious living it was on a Friday night literally five to ten people would show up once a month but it would make me so happy to spend hours with them afterwards I would literally do a session I'd serve everyone food because we'd always always sit down to break bread and then we'd sit down for two three hours and I would just answer people's questions and sit with them and I didn't have any followers I didn't have any platforms I didn't have any audience but I loved it and so I was already living the dream in my opinion because I was getting to do what I love on top of having a day job and to me that felt realistic when I look at my happiness and joy now scale of one to ten in like the yeah I'd say to be honest there's days when it's a nine and there's days when it's a five really yeah it oscillates and it's because why is that well I think it's because I've taken on so much more now to think about to be in charge of to lead you have other people that you're responsible for you have teams of all of these people that rely on you to do what you do best and take care of them and connect and they're trying to help you out and build with you and so the responsibility scale level is so much higher now and so it's not that I don't feel peaceful in my purpose but it's that you do deal with daily stress daily challenges daily pressure in a way that I didn't before because it was just about me it's just so fascinating because pretty much everyone asks says something similar nowhere where this like they were peaceful they loved them they had more confidence before it's not so you know more confidence but on the scale of like inner peace and self-love and fulfillment it was like almost Less on every scale because of the weight the pressure the man just so much more going on and needing to navigate yeah a lot more going on in life as opposed to more of a simple peaceful life but one thing I've understood though with with that point is that the reason why that that translate is that discomfort is where you grow that's it and that's what I realized you can't stay comfortable you can't and so I find that a lot of my life today I often say to people like I think 75 of my working week is in my discomfort Zone and so I really crave comfort in my relationships I crave confidence exactly yeah great relationships with you of course and and we have a good group of friends and I have good relationship with my wife and like so I rely on my personal relationships to have some comfort and some stability as I take on discomfort in my service and purpose and so I think that makes sense and so I think you also just get better at understanding what growth looks like and what you need I think if I just sat and lived that life forever I don't think it would have stabilized I don't think I would have stayed at a seven or an eight that would have probably come down as well but for different reasons reasons and so the reason that now it comes down are actually positive healthy reasons or can't be managed in a healthy way yes before the interview continues if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of I've written a new book called The greatness mindset and I think you're going to love this through powerful stories science back strategies and step-by-step Guidance the greatest mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today okay let's get back to this video is there ever a time now where you don't where you feel like you don't love yourself or you have moments of like self-hatred or beat up or lack of self-love I think loving is I believe that self-love is something that should always stay but self-inquiry or questioning should remain and I think that's that healthy balance of saying I will always love myself because Beyond this body Beyond this mind I'm Consciousness I'm Eternal I'm full of bliss and I'm full of knowledge at a Consciousness level and that is worthy of love and so I'm always going to love that I'm going to love my what I've been calling my first self I've got so many selves today I play so many roles and personalities but my first self is eternally lovable and I have to accept that because if I don't what ends up happening is that I think I'm unlovable at the core and then you start acting out in very unhealthy ways right so I believe I'm always lovable but I believe I'm not free of self-inquiry and self-questioning so are there days when I doubt myself yes because I think doubt can be healthy are there days when I question my intention and motivation yes but to me that's healthy if I didn't question my intention of motivation I think that would be unhealthy yeah because I'd basically be saying I'm perfect and everything's okay and so I'm saying all of us this is not just about me everyone is lovable at the core but then we have to question so I question my intention I question where my attention is I question the actions I take I question my decisions I question whether I truly love or whether I'm just being thoughtful like what is the difference I think I am intrigued and constantly curious about am I living My Philosophy accurately and also is My Philosophy even accurate right both of those questions and I think that's uncomfortable it's very uncomfortable to live there because our identity is made up of these pillars and I actually feel like recently I've I've kind of shaken myself sometimes because I'm ready to question my deepest core beliefs yeah which one have you questioned or been close to questioning the most so I think I have and I talked about this on the first time I was on your show and it's still the number one purpose I think in the world was just to serve others I consider service to be the highest truth but my question is always am I really serving most effectively am I really serving genuinely sincerely and I think I have to do that excavation because then only can you truly love and so I would sit down and check that I'm like okay if I really want to serve people what is the best thing I can do with my time if I really want to make an impact on these people what do they really need what do they truly need and so constantly trying to think about almost like a company has to think about their customer first to me when you're trying to serve you have to think about Humanity first and that's a challenge because you've also got limited skills limited resources limited abilities and so then you're trying to find that balance so I think that's I really question how I want to serve who I want to serve and what service really means and I hope I continue doing that for the rest of my life because I think if I don't I could end up in a very different direction that I won't be happy with yeah I want to go back to something you said about believing you're lovable why do you think a lot of people in the world get to a point where they don't believe they're lovable and what happens to them if they enter a relationship and at the core they don't believe they're lovable yeah what happens to that relationship the reason we don't believe that we're lovable is because we think if people don't love us then we're not lovable so we base the feeling of being loved by someone else as more important than being loved by ourselves and so we're waiting we're saying if Lewis loves me then I will allow myself to feel unlovable and if they leave me then I'm not lovable exactly interested exactly and so all of our decision on being lovable is based on other people which as we both know is highly risky because people are going to change their mind people are going to come and go people are going to feel differently on a daily monthly weekly yearly basis you can't base your decision to be lovable on how much love you receive right and and and so I think that you have to decide that you're lovable by knowing all that you have to offer not all of that being noted by other people so you're not lovable because a hundred people love you or a thousand people love you you're lovable because you know what you bring to the table you're lovable because you know what you're willing to offer and share with someone you're like literally going to share a part of your life with someone right that's what makes you lovable so you're lovable because of your abilities your qualities your skills your generosity generosity your kindness your empathy or compassion and I think we don't think of those things as Assets in relationships if you think about how people date most people's dating profile will say I'm looking for someone who's kind good sense of humor driven and ambitious right like or something like that or someone else may say yeah I'm looking for someone who likes to go traveling who likes long walks who likes being at the beach or whatever something like that but those are not are assets in a relationship like no one ever says like I'm looking for someone who's generous kind and magnanimous thoughtful emotive understanding like you never said but that's what we're really looking for and so I think we devalue the parts of ourselves that are the most lovable because we value the things Society tells us to Value why do you think we focus so much on connecting with people based on likes and interests shared like likes and interests in the world versus emotional stability and healthy inner qualities yeah why don't you know because that at the end of the day will determine whether a relationship is going to work or not in a lot of ways yeah how you energetically can communicate and react and respond to each other how you explode or don't explode like it's these these ability to communicate effectively with peace and Harmony you know and the likes and interests yes you're going to want to have shared experiences you're both enjoying these activities but why is it like I like hiking and travel and dogs versus I like inner peace and conscious conversations and mutual respect yeah but it's true because yeah it's a great Point okay well she likes to hike and he likes to swim and so we do all these cool activities but when there's a disturbance or expectations that aren't met and there's not a mutual conscious agreement yeah then he's avoided she's reactive we're explosive we can't communicate and and fight like you talk about in the book how to fight in a healthy way yeah and instead we should be coming to the table with hey this is how I like to communicate yeah this is my love language you know it cares about hiking if we can't communicate totally totally I'm so glad you like doubled down on that point that's that's coming up because but I think that takes so much maturity to realize like it takes so many years when we're 16 we're not doing that yeah exactly yeah even in your 20s right like you just don't you don't think like that you just think oh that's for you you don't even ever consider it I think you just think if we like the same stuff it means we'll be able to do things together and we think that basically about love that oh if we like to say movies we like the same travel we like the same workouts then we're going to agree on everything and I think that's what I feel like sushi yeah exactly exactly the same food and I think that's what it is we think that if we agree on our likes and dislikes we're going to agree on the bigger issues of money sex kids family all these all the biggest stuff which actually what we've realized through our own relationships you're it's very rare that you're gonna fully agree on your exact viewpoints towards something but you can agree on how you communicate and deal with things and that's the value that we have to have the same the value you have to have is the same is not this I I want it to be sunny or I want to live in the cold or I Love Sushi or I love Italian food like those are not the things that make or break a relationship but that is what we Market ourselves as and that's the ads we look at of other people and so we're marketing saying I like these seven things we're looking at everyone's ads saying I like these seven things and to me what I discovered was just when I look at me and radi we're very different people when it comes to likes and dislikes and even your love languages are a little bit different our love languages are completely different right radhi's love language is quality time and words of affirmation and my love languages are words of affirmation and Gifts like those are mine so we have we have one in similar but at the same time the other likes and dislikes are radhi loves working out I only work out if it's sports sports I love sports I can play sports all day radi is far more like connected to Nature and like an outdoors person which which I can be as well but I'd rather be reading books for 12 hours if I had the choice on the couch and so we have so many differences in who we are we also have some similarities we have the same taste in furniture and interior design and that kind of stuff so we have some similarities but what I find is that the parts that make our relationship good uh the fact that we both have this memory where when we wake up in the morning we erase what happened yesterday and it's a new day and our relationship starts again we don't hold on to it now we both have that that's pretty good and it's so helpful and useful in a relationship it's kind of like Men In Black every day literally that's exactly what it feels like and she has that too and so but that impacts our relationship way more than the fact that we have the same taste in interior design exactly like that doesn't make the difference man what is this thing that you would go back before you got engaged to Roddy yeah if you could talk about a few things differently oh that's a great question that you would do that would again you have an amazing marriage and relationship I see you guys all the time but do you think oh this could have helped us have more peace and Harmony and Just Having the courage to talk about these things and really get clear and not just assume that it's going to be a certain way but I just would have said these few things and gotten an agreement that it would have been a lot easier yeah yeah but I think some of the things we did up front was we had a lot of big discussions about the big things in life money money kids where we want to live what kind of lives we want how we're going to use our time what our energy is going to be like during the week we talked about things like me saying I'm committed to my purpose and Radley saying I'm committed to my family we talked about all of the big stuff so that was very good but one thing we didn't do as well till later on and I see you doing it now which is genius is the agreements and the principles that help you make decisions on a daily weekly basis so it took us a lot longer to start forming agreements with things like okay well if you're gonna go out this week make sure you let me know so I can plan something else for myself I'm not around waiting for you so I'm not around waiting for you or expecting to spend time with you you uh things like okay well if we're going to be on our phones let's set a rule about which parts of the home and which times we should do that versus when we'd like to be fully present with each other so these took a lot longer to come and I think if they were made earlier it would have saved us time and energy because now you don't have to go through these uncomfortable conversations later on yeah or like minor resentments for a day or whatever totally even though you guys forget every morning but you still repeat the pattern yeah yeah you repeat the pattern exactly and so go away but you repeat the pattern exactly and so I think that coming up with those agreements and principles which I know are so important in your relationship we literally sell at dinner the other day we were going back and forth with whatever agreements and things and I think that being done earlier I think people I don't think we talk about the big stuff all the small stuff in relationships we just talk about our feelings yes so we say I like you you like me great we're doing well rather than saying well these are the big things do we align and let's talk about the small things I want to talk about the you talk about on page 166 of the book um about every couple fights yes or or should and whatever you or your partner fight about you're probably not alone according to couple counselors there are top three areas of conflict are money sex and how you raise children I want to talk about this for a second before I talk about that we talked about agreements which I think are key when it comes to intimate love and also friendship and you know working environments things like that agreements create alignment it creates Clarity it creates peace is what we all want peace and I think agreements create that there's obviously a famous book called The Four Agreements but I'm curious if you had to call uh create a a book called The Four Agreements of love what are four agreements that we should all have in an intimate loving partner oh I said okay so I'm gonna go practice this off this is off the cuff I like it I'm gonna go practical and philosophical question obviously I have the eight rules which are which some of them could be agreements yeah yeah but if you're like we're gonna create an agreements going into marriage the first one I'd say is uh we sleep at the same time I think that's a huge one if you're living together we go to sleep at the same time so many studies show that when partners are in rhythm with each other in sync with each other our heartbeat sink our breathing sinks and if you have a healthy relationship that can be really supportive to your connection and couples who sleep together get to have important conversations they get to connect they get to not feel or wonder well where's my partner what are they up to what are they doing now of course this has the caveat of there's at least twice a week or when I'm traveling where me and Rodney don't sleep at the same time and that's okay I may be at an event she may be getting an early night but it's kind of like what's your Rhythm right so that would be the first agreement make sure you sleep together and I'd add to that one make sure you sleep at the same time and make sure you eat one meal together every day have one meal that's shared uh the second agreement I'm going to make is when our partner wants our attention we are completely available and undistracted that we'd put our phones away that we stop doing what you're doing when your partner requests that they need your undivided attention hey can you be present for me for a moment correct and it has to be both ways there has to be a request and then there has to be the response I think the challenge today is that there's no request we just want our partner to react in that way and then when our partner doesn't we say well couldn't couldn't you tell I really wanted to talk to you and it's like well I couldn't tell because I was looking at my phone and me and Riley talked about this a lot which was this idea of hey I'm on my phone a lot for work I'm on my phone a lot with everything that we're doing and I want to be present with you but I need to know you need tell me 100 of my presence clearly tell me clearly tell me it's a hundred percent fifty percent or five percent because sometimes you just want to say are you taking your lunch with you I'm like yeah I'll take you with me all right that's a five percent presence but then sometimes it's like I had a tough day I want to talk to you about it that's a hundred percent that's good so use that that would be I like that and use that as defining how much presence you want from your partner okay that's number two number three talk more about your issues with your partner or with a therapist than with other random people that's so good so I think that most people most people talk more about their partner to their friends than they do to their partner or a therapist who's qualified to help and so most of our conversations revolve around talking to the seven friends who are who love us who can't back you up and say yes it was Robin yeah he was an idiot actually leave them yeah exactly and and you're not actually talking to the person that you have a relationship with and I find that interesting that some couples can go weeks without talking to each other but they're talking to their friends about each other every day and resenting each other and ruminating complaining about each other criticizing comparing all of that that takes over and so-and-so's husband does it this way and he did this for him exactly yeah did you see what they did for their anniversary like did you see how he proposed did you see how like and you're hearing that and then that doesn't help you because you don't talk to your partner I like that one so that's number three Number Four The Four Agreements of love I'm gonna have to write the book now now I'm gonna have to write another book the follow-up uh the the fourth one no let me recap the first three we sleep at the same time and and do your best to have a meal a day together yeah um when your partner wants our full attention be present and make sure it's communicated on both sides yeah and and the main part there the Practical thing is the percentage do you want 100 of your partner's attention or five percent right tell say it tell everyone talk more about your issues with your actual partner over your friends or people that are unqualified partner or your therapist yeah and the fourth agreement of love expect people to change and for you to evolve and so keep getting to know them again and again and again don't live in this world that my partner is never going to change we're going to stay the same everything's going to be the same I think this addiction to the same stops us from the most beautiful thing in love which can be changed and if you know if you expect that your partner is going to grow you keep getting to know them I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is we think we know our partners and so we stop asking them questions we think we understand them fully so we're no longer curious we assume that we can read their mind and so we never check and that's when you end up in a surprise when 10 years from now you both go I didn't marry you I didn't want to be with you you're a totally different person and the person thinking yeah of course I'm a different person but we never got to know each other again so get to know each other again and again and again and again and again uh don't leave it to think oh yeah I know exactly everything about them like I remember I was I was coaching someone once and there I was coaching them as a couple and one of the partners would always say to me they'd say well you don't really understand her like you don't really know her I know her I know what she's like now that was true they did know their partner better than me because they'd spent more years together but the challenge that they were making at that point is they thought their partner was stuck to being that person and their partner was feeling like they don't feel understood anymore so you've got one person saying Jay you don't understand them as the coach I understand them deeply I'm like I know you do but their partner's problem with them is I don't feel understood anymore right but they're telling me it's something different exactly exactly and so I feel like getting to know your partner every week every month like almost look at your partner through the lens of if I don't see them in new scenarios I won't learn new things about them what's a question you could ask your partner every month it could be the same question yeah that would support you in getting to know them in a new way every time you do it yeah so I have four questions one for every day one for every week one for every quarter and one for every year that you can ask your partner every day so the question every day is what did you do for yourself today your partner probably spends a lot of their time thinking about you thinking about the kids thinking about work if you remind them to love themselves that's potentially the best reminder you could give them what did you do for yourself today the question that you want to ask every week is what did you learn this week what was something that you gained what was something that you picked up this week that you're going to take into next week every quarter ask your partner is this relation this is the most uncomfortable one is this relationship going in the direction we want if it is what should we keep doing if it isn't what are we willing to do to get it there that to me is the most powerful most important question in a relationship is this relationship going in the direction we want so this is that making sure you stay on course you think about people who only set New Year's resolutions you went off course in month one but you only sat back with your New Year's resolution 11 months later you don't have to wait for 11 months to do that but that's what we do because you only set New Year's resolutions so don't do that with your partner and the fourth question every year is what's your goal what are you pursuing this year and how can I help right and that how can I help is something that also goes with that Weekly question of you know what did you learn this week and how can I help I think our partners rarely hear us say how can I help we're usually asking them for help when you go up to your partner you say I'm really struggling with this can you help me you really go up to them and say I see you're struggling with this can I help you and I found that to be one of the most beautiful questions that I ask radi where I often check in with them say look I can see you're struggling with this so I know this has been on your mind how can I help you with that and most often her answer is nothing I'm I'm fine but the fact that you checked in with me just made me feel better it's not even like it's not even like they're gonna turn around and be like here's a laundry list the things I want you to do for me it doesn't even work that way it's just she will say thank you for noticing that most of the time it's not that our partners feel misunderstood it's that they feel unnoticed and unseen and unheard right misunderstood means you tried to understand but you made a mistake it's so it's so good you're saying that because I like I think I've started to learn this better over the last few years so I haven't always been this way but if with with Martha whenever we have a conversation about you know anything that might be trying to get it to a resolution about something an agreement or whatever when we're done I like to say I don't do it all the time but I like to say do you feel heard and seen and most of the time she's like yes thank you for hearing me and for seeing me and I think again like you said most of us want to feel heard and seen and even if you just say it like that do you feel like I was able to hear you clearly and see you for what you're going through gives people peace and ease and safety yeah in that moment and in the relationship um especially again if people this is not Martha but if people are working to feel lovable themselves or sometimes they don't feel lovable they may need to feel heard and seen more to actually feel loved yes you know what I mean um so that's that's interesting I wanted to go back to the I love those four questions and I think you could add at any one of those you know what did you learn this week and is there anything I can support you with yes next week what did you learn do for yourself today and is there anything I can help you with tomorrow because you can add that probably to anything um and vice versa I wanted to go into one of The Four Agreements of love that you came up with which I think are great we sleep at the same time plus eat a meal together one of the agreements I think me and Martha do that actually a lot we sleep around the same time and I we created an agreement early on because I was like I actually don't want to talk in bed for that long I remember that came up at the dinner table yeah yeah actually I just want to go into like what we're grateful for so we share what we're grateful for and when I put my head on the pillow I want to get ready to sleep um we can maybe Dream a Little Bit together but let's do that before we get into bed yeah and there shouldn't be anything heavy talk for me because my brain is already shutting down I'm already like starting to relax and if I have to wind it back up and be focused and present under potentially uncomfortable conversation it just doesn't work for me so that would be the caveat for my personal relationship that I would add to an agreement go to sleep together and then don't have hard conversations at midnight I would agree I would agree when I say sleep at the same time it's more about the Rhythm and the ritual of it like you're about brushing your teeth of course you're getting into bed I agree I think having deep heavy discussions in the bed is not ideal like yes it's it's not for that that's not the right space and like you're saying that if you truly want to be present and of right mind for a tough conversation chances are when you're getting into bed you're at your lowest form of Tolerance and kindness and everything I shouldn't all these things we're exhausted yeah okay I've got I think I have two final questions yeah before I get to them I want people to get to look eight rules of Love uh how to find it how to keep it how to let it go make sure you get a copy get a copy for your friend your partner your your family who's struggling relationships or people that want to just keep them growing by being more curious um we'll have it all linked up in the show notes on YouTube on audio so again make sure you guys get this follow uh Jay's podcast and uh subscribe there we do a lot of fun stuff together over there so make sure to check that out as well um your first book as well is amazing so make sure you guys get think like a monk his book is sold I think what two million copies now copies make sure to get that again on purpose uh one of the top podcasts in the world and uh if you want a great speaker at your event make sure to hire Jay he's one of the best speakers out there so again get the book subscribe do all those things two final questions I've asked you questions about your three truths before so I'm not gonna ask that I've asked you about your definition of greatness and people can go back and listen to those episodes if they want to this is a question because you have a prompt in here about writing a love letter to yourself so if you had to give a love letter or a love audio note to your younger self the Part of Yourself the time when you felt the most shame you don't have to say what was happening but the time you developed the most shame what would that audio note be to younger Jay of that season of Life a love letter to him [Music] don't try to fall in love like they do in the movies don't try and fall in love like they're doing the songs don't try to fall in love in some big romantic Hollywood idyllic way ask yourself do you know who you are do you know who they are every time you ask yourself do they like me ask yourself do I really like them every time you ask yourself do they think I'm attractive ask yourself am I working on myself every time you think do they want me will they take care of me ask yourself how can I better take care of myself and so everything you want from someone else give it to yourself first that's what I said yeah that's a good love letter it's a good love note okay final question um so imagine this goes back to our Matthew McConaughey scenario oh yeah imagine you're 90 year old self yeah yeah giving a love letter or a love note to your current self what would your 90 year old self say to current Jay to support you for the next season of Love after 10 years of being in a relationship and I think seven years of marriage what would you say for the next 10 20 30 years um after it's all said and done the love you have for Humanity and the love you have to serve and to use your purpose in helping other people that's the only thing that will stand the test of time and uh your life will be measured not by Awards or trophies or numbers but by How Deeply you helped people love themselves and I think that's a really interesting Nuance that [Music] we're often focused on how much we love people but if you really love someone you can make them fall in love with themselves and so I would measure myself not by how much I loved but by how much I was able to help people love themselves yeah because that would be proof that I really love them eight rules of Love Jason love you brother appreciate it man best interview if you got value from that then go ahead and stick around for more coming up right now how does someone who is living in a sense of scarcity because there are people living in scarcity where they're unable to pay their bills they're unable to provide food for their kids they're single moms they're they're stressed they're stressed they're overwhelmed it's hard to get into a sense of abundance when you're in scarcity and stress so how does someone find purpose in chaos when they can't even get out of the thinking because they're just trying to survive yeah so beautiful question my biggest answer is Festival I empathize with anyone who's been in that situation having icon ever say I've been in that situation in the same way but I've experienced similar things or I've sealing in your life yeah in my own way and I've seen my mom go through stuff like that I know that my mom worked really hard to raise me and my sister while working you know while running around and I've I've seen my mom be that incredible Powerhouse of a person and that the main thing I would say is what you can do right now is Find meaning in what you do make what you do meaningful passion and purposeful you don't need to suddenly look to become an entrepreneur or start a side hustle or find some more time Find meaning and the way you find meaning as you genuinely stop press pause for a second and go what Am I Living For like what am I living for right now and if you're living for your child and if you're living to provide and put food on the table that is a beautiful thing that we should celebrate more and sometimes it takes us a moment to stop and celebrate that and so I would say Find meaning because you can't always find happiness you can't always find positivity but you can always find meaning in that position so I'll give an example like I lost someone really important to me a mentor a few days back I can't be positive about that you can't be happy or sad yeah it's hurtful you feel sad you feel lost but guess what I can find meaning in it because I can make a list of every lesson he taught me and make a plan to try and live every one of those lessons wow that's beautiful and and so if you're in a really tough situation right now don't look for positivity don't look for happiness look for meaning that's a good one not trying to and not trying to get yourself out of pain too quickly or discomfort or frustration yeah which I've been a guilt to being like I'll just be positive or whatever to people but I think it's like you know have your experience yes live your experience and Find meaning as quickly as possible yeah and create a commitment to how you want to use that meaning moving forward okay I may not be great tomorrow maybe not with next week next month but I'm going to use this meaning to serve other people to continue to do what I love continue to be great to my friends my family in the best way possible and when you start doing those small things with love and kindness so much more opens up it's like when you when you can be trusted with the small things and the small moments you get trusted with more and more and more and so like it helps to just in that moment and it's in those painful moments that you realize how powerful you are we all know that like you really recognize it and and what you said was beautiful about not rushing through the pain because and and you know this example's probably been shared before but if you have a wound and you've cut yourself it's like you can't rush the healing you can't rush it if you broke your arm I mean and you've been through so many bodily injuries you can't rush the process it's gonna take six weeks minimum to heal broken oh yeah and you've got to sit through that it's hard there's no injections you can take there's no videos you can watch there's nothing you can listen to but our challenge is we try and rush through the pain rather than reflect through the pain you try to rush the healing process try to rush the healing and you can't rush healing and healing is meant to be slow because it buys you time it buys you reflection it gives you so much space to slow down to slow down and that's what your body is calling out for and this is our emergency like how many times have you heard it where you slow down you slow down and that's when you fall ill because guess what your body has been trying to tell you to slow down when you feel pain so I write about it and think like look pain makes you pay attention yeah that's what Pain's for pains notice this notice this is me look at me it's crazy it's like a crying baby craving for attention when a baby's crying you don't just got eyes crying you don't just go oh yeah we'll just put it in another room and forget about it right like you go to it and you find its needs whereas without pain when something's painful we're just like oh yeah just forget about it I'll escape from it I'll do something else you have to go into that yeah I'll numb the pain that's it or whatever yeah 100 that's that's usually our responses what can I do to numb this work more have sex more drink more whatever is more whatever whatever it is rather than let me actually become alert and guess what the pain just gets higher and higher and higher and higher because unfortunately until it really hurts we don't stop or you need more and more to numb it with so true and so you go to all the extremes of life right so true now what's been the most painful thing you've had to experience since because I know leaving the monk Hood was painful for you because this was a mission of yours that you wanted to have for your whole life and I think you were there for three and a half years so what's been the most painful thing I guess in the last six or seven years since that time that you've had to reflect back on take notice of pay attention to and reevaluate that's a great question I think for me it was in 2016 I moved out to New York so just let me paint a picture of 2016. I moved three jobs I got married wow I moved country and I just just started a whole new life like my life just transformed so we went through all of that with my wife in one year and by the way all of that was surprises the job changes surprises yeah the country change was a surprise the marriage was not a surprise apart from everything else everything was a surprise now I said I like surprises so I can roll with it but my point is that's a lot of transition so much transition and I felt the burden of being in a new city where we had no family we had no friends and my wife who loves being around her family and no one understands just how close she is to them I felt this burden on me that I had taken away her time with her family and now she was alone so I was going out to work and she'd be crying at home and I was thinking she's got no friends she's got no support and I know you can relate to this with moving and relationships and so much going on and so it's like I'm dealing with that and guess what six months later I have to leave and move on and work on a new career to build everything myself and then I'm four months away from being broke and so on top of all of this I've now got four months away from being broke I've got enough money money saved for four months to pay for rent and groceries in New York City in New York City and that's it and guess what even on top of that I've got 30 days before my Visa runs out I'm kicked out of the country so I can't even live here anymore so not only have I just got married moved job three times changed career again had to move into Obama four months of being broke and I might get kicked out in 30 days and my renewal for my Visa cost fifteen thousand dollars so that's gonna eat into those four months I have probably never been under that much emotional physical and and mental pressure in my life like genuinely I felt it and I felt my body change my my breath was more stressed I would be breathing faster shorter breaths not deep breaths heartbeat and faster not working out you get into lazy habits you start craving junk food I'm living in a 500 square foot apartment with my wife which is which is Tiny like everything's in that space and guess what we both work from home so I'm now sitting at a desk hunched over trying to figure stuff out she's trying to cook in the same room like I'm trying to just just trying to figure out what to do and I remember the next morning sending like a hundred emails to people and just being like this is who I am this is what I can do how can we serve and that was the same year that I ended up meeting you later in that year and the beginning three months of that Journey was so stressful like they were so stressful because I was like What if I have to move back to London what am I going to say to her parents I mean I just took their daughter away like uh I just got married I've lived in New York City for six months and my life's falling apart like you know so much and I've got all these views but there's nothing there's nothing happening here you also you also I mean at this time you're also growing so much how are you able to create and reach this impact with your videos as that's growing while you're under so much stress and uncertainty and I stopped a bit of that time like things slowed down hard like things slowed down I remember I wasn't creating as much as I was because I don't enjoy creating from stress or pressure and I don't think you can really create something from stress and pressure so we really slow down at that time and when I was creating I was creating from a place of recognizing that I could share what I had learned and what I had grown in so far so anything I was sharing was like this is what I've learned so far so that was the biggest pain that I've been through in the last seven years for sure and all I can say is that I remember coming home to my wife knowing that this was going to be the truth and I came and I said to her I said I guarantee you this is gonna be the best thing that ever happened to us what the pain the pain I said that to the night I came home and then she left I literally came on my literally I said this is the scenario and I just want you to know that I guarantee to you this is the best thing that's ever going to happen to us and I said to him this is this is a monk statement that we used to repeat I said to her I'm just not going to judge the moment don't judge the moment because what we do is we try to label moments as good or bad and when you label the moment as bad it now does not have the opportunity to become good I'll give an example if I go I don't like this book this book's bad right and I don't and I love this but if I say that guess what I will never pick it up and recognize the value that's inside of it because you've labeled it yes and we label stuff like we label all that restaurants bad that person's bad now you can't learn from that person oh a great one that's a really good one as soon as you start labeling people or anything as good or bad you limit it you stop it from being something else and here's the truth every moment can evolve into being anything if you give it the opportunity to right but as soon as you say it's got no value anymore you lose it and so for me I had to say to myself don't judge the moment and I'd keep repeating that don't judge where you're at don't judge what's happening yeah don't judge it as negative don't don't just start saying it's negative because guess what we've all been in positions where a gift turned into a curse and a curse turned into a gift true right our dreams came true and it ended up not being what we wanted exactly it fell apart and it led us into the our Dream Tony why is it that so many people that win the lottery go broke gifts can turn into cuss is too but because we label them as the best moment in their life or the worst moment in their life whereas when you approach things to neutrality and just what you have on the table you can be like okay what am I going to do next before we continue this video make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification Bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day it's one of the greatest quarterbacks are neutral energy they'll get a little excited they'll get a little fist pump in there every every now and then but they're not hyped every play and they're not negative every play they have this calm they see the field there you drop a pass and it's like a little bit let's go but it's very neutral even when you score a touchdown unless it's maybe the Super Bowl or a big championship at the end of a game in the middle of the game you want to keep it pretty like even Keel paste so you can prepare for the best or the worst that's great yeah but they're always up and down it's like your energy levels will go up and down and you'll be exhausted you need to have energy in life totally and if everything is tied around a story of this is bad this is wrong I'm in a bad place I'm messing up I'm going broke that energy is going to pull you away from service exactly or creation or creativity of how do I get out of this place so I think it's really I love that and I used to have a approach and I think a lot of coaches use this right at least he used to say to us he would be like if you if you lose cry for a day and if you celebrate if you win celebrate for a day yeah that's it and then move on the next day get back to training don't don't let anyone live in the past don't live in the past and what we do is when we lose we cry for a month and when we win we just move on yeah which means that our negative experiences hold us back and weigh us down more than our positive experiences so we're actually allowing because we don't immerse ourselves in winning and growth we only submerge ourselves in negative experiences we need to celebrate also we try to celebrate I've been uh you know that's been part of my life as well it's like moving on too quick and now we try to like let's enjoy let's go to lunch or dinner and really like appreciate this moment and celebrate this moment and even have a dinner with some friends and family otherwise why are we working so hard for 100 and we almost feel like we can't we can't do that because that makes us complacent right but but that's my point it's not good enough exactly but if you win celebrate for a day if you lose cry for a day move on simple and you've learned so many love lessons over your years as a monk you learned a ton of lessons moving to you know getting married moving into a new country building building companies launching products and books and you've had ups and downs what's been the biggest lesson in the last 12 months for you because you've learned you've created so much in the last 12 months you've done so many things what's been the biggest lesson for you in your life oh that's a big question I think I'd have to say that it's a and I was saying it to a friend on the phone this morning when I was on the way to you and I was just I was just sharing it with him because he was having a moment in recognizing this there's a wonderful verse in the Manu Smithy which I talk about and think like a monk it's a monk book and in the verse it says when you protect your purpose your purpose protects you now I want to I want to unpack that what I mean by that is your purpose is like a rare Jewel and a rare gemstone and imagine you were walking around with the most expensive diamond or jewel in the world how would you protect it you want to just like you want to just wait without you yeah you want to just wear it on your chest like this like a baby holding it yeah putting a pillow around a blanket you do like yeah protect it you'd protect it and so your purpose is like that and guess what people are going to tell you every day that that jewel is not worth anything they're going to tell you that that jewel is actually valueless it doesn't have any impact on your life they're going to try and take away that value they're going to tell you that there's another Jewel out there that you need to have more value and what ends up happening is you don't I love the word look at the wording protect your purpose you have to protect it so what happens is your success grows you get more opportunities more ideas more things coming your way Temptations but they can all take you away from your purpose distractions and to me I'm repeating this for myself because I'm like I just want to stick to what I was born to do and I'm so grateful that I get to do it I'm so happy I get to do it and I want to keep protecting it I don't want to get lost in the waves you know you don't want to just get chucked in the waves of the ocean and just get lost and just not know where you're going so for me when you protect your purpose your purpose protects you so that's been your biggest lesson that's my biggest lesson why do you feel like your purpose has been maybe distracted I don't think it has but I'm saying it so it doesn't yeah I'm reminding myself like I'm preaching to myself right now especially being in Hollywood in the temptation of all these opportunities out here totally and I think for me it's a bigger lesson also because it gives me more faith so I always encourage and this is actually that's this is why it's my biggest lesson I encourage so many people that I coach so many people I Mentor obviously everyone in my community and audience and everything to go and follow that go and live that purpose and I see time and time again that when I see people trying to live their purpose they are protected that it things work when you're playing in your Dharma and your purpose things work things move you feel momentum they happen and I'm not saying that happened without effort but they happen they move whereas when you're not you just constantly feel like you're grinding up against you know a war I know challenges just just constant so what is your purpose and when did you discover it good question what is my purpose is simple it always has been since not since the beginning because I discovered it afterwards my purpose is making wisdom go viral and I've stuck with that I've kept it that way because to me and there's more to it making wisdom go viral through entertainment I would say is my purpose because I believe that that is something that is uniquely my goal impact and service and the beautiful thing is I'm not limited to a platform so that could be books it can be podcasts it can be TV shows it can be moved it's not limited and this I learned by reading I was reading after and this was after my video started to to get seen this wasn't before I did it wasn't like I sat down and I wrote this fancy tagline I was reading Celine ishmael's book called exponential organizations and in this book he talks about something called an MTP a massive transformational purpose and he says that every major person organization in the world has an MTP so an MTP has to be aspirational it has to be massive and it has to be service and purpose based so Google's is organizing the world's information notice it doesn't say we're an SEO company notice it doesn't say we do Google ads right they're organizing the world's information that's how big they're dreaming and when you organizing the world's information you can do driverless cars you can do Google Glass you can sell Google ads whatever it is and so Ted's ideas worth spreading that's what they are that's what they're about so Jay Shetty is making wisdom go viral that's what I'm dedicated to so when did you discover it because it wasn't when you were it wasn't before it wasn't when you were 21 in college I'd say I was 30 probably two three years ago so I'm 32 now so I'd say like two three years ago is when I discovered that 30 years old is when you discovered your purpose correct so what was your purpose before that my purpose before that was finding my purpose like it's like that process of just like my purpose before that was 14 years so I've been online for four years I've spent 10 years offline talking about the same stuff sharing the same messages in talks in universities in small seminars in coaching and mentoring like I've been doing the same thing for 14 years but I didn't realize it was my purpose until very recently but I just did what I enjoyed and naturally tried to get better at it so if we don't know what our purpose is is and we're working towards finding our purpose it's okay it's actually where you're going to spend most of your life discovering what you're perfect Tony and that's the best bit because I think a lot of people are like well I don't know what my purpose is totally this is how should I find it the pressure of finding your purpose is crazy we'll stop you from finding your purpose literally yeah the pressure is so heavy and that's why it's not about finding that it's just starting with the basics what am I good at and I talk about it and I break down Dharma in here and I talk about what are your passion what is your expertise what is your compassion because that's really important what is your compassion for the world like what problem do you want to solve I often people will say there's so many things I could do there's so many things I'm like my question is not what causes you the greatest joy sometimes my question is what is what causes you the greatest pain make that your purpose make that your purpose if you don't know what your joy is you definitely know what your pain is what do you know like and so for me go serve that thing 100 so for me the greatest pain I see in the world is people not reaching their potential that is that causes me more pain because I believe that there is someone out there who is sacking shell who has the cure to cancer there is someone out there or who's talented singer he's a talented singer there is someone out there who's not living to their potential and I think we're better people we're better partners and we're better parents when we live to our potential so that's what I'm trying to solve and I'm not saying that's the biggest thing sure I'm saying it's my thing whenever I work with people I'm always telling them to find your purpose focus on what you're most passionate about or what you you have the most pain around there you go the same thing it's like do the thing you love the most try to keep doing it until you either discover that's it or maybe I don't love that anymore like I played so many sports growing up I used to love baseball I used to love soccer and then I got bored with it I got burnt out by it it wasn't a love of mine anymore it wasn't a passion and then I switched to football and it was like oh this is a passion and I'm actually more gifted physically for this sport than it would be for soccer I was too big for soccer I couldn't run seven miles a day right now on the field but I think you need to try lots of things and you might think it's a passion but you might get burnt out and discover I don't love it anymore what else is there and keep trying new things that you said eight new things a month yeah until you discover can you discover it might take you take a 30 40 50 right it doesn't and that doesn't matter like it doesn't matter like it the fun is in the growth and the journey and the like for me the last 10 years before this happened and my life changes like those were fun I was happy I wasn't unhappy because of that because I didn't know the exact person yeah exactly and now I'm very clear on it and I'm happy for it to evolve too like I don't think it has to stay the same I may sit with you in two years time and tell you something completely different right and I'm okay with that but I can only work with what I have now and I think we start trying to postpone our purpose or find a date by which you have to you put a deadline on your purpose it doesn't make any sense yeah I'd say one of the first questions that always comes to my mind is is how can I be of service today how can I be in and this is extended from that first question how can it be an instrument of love compassion and kindness and that's what I count as service in my definition and so what I would say to anyone listening is Define the words yourself because what service means to you me may be different to you right and so it's important but for me it's like how can I be of service today and the reason why I love that is we've talked about this before when you're wired for service you're set up right we talked about in the last podcast like service sets you up to feel satisfaction to build bonds and create connections and does so much so being of service is one of the first questions I would ask the second question I was asked myself is what do I love about myself right what do I actually love about myself that is probably the most powerful question anyone could ask because most people never learn to love themselves totally and we always find the things that we don't love about ourselves and we fixate on those things and that's one of the repeating thoughts in our head that keeps us playing small every day all the time all the time and and we talk a lot about today self-love and self-care but I think you know a lot of that starts with self-awareness which we know about self-knowledge but self knowledge creates self-trust and a lot of it's like learning to trust ourselves and it's like if I don't know what I love about myself how am I ever going to trust myself how am I going to trust that I have my best interest at her yeah and so asking yourself what do you love and and then the third and final question I think I would ask myself is is who do I want to be right who do I who is the person that I need to be uh that I can love that I want to love that I want to give more love to like what parts of growth are there still available and and there's one thing I want to add which isn't a question but it has been a really reaffirming or deepening affirmation for me that I keep reminding myself and I think it's helped a lot of people that have shared it with is literally some days I'll just put my hand on my heart and I'll just repeat to myself I'm exactly where I need to be you talk a lot about practicing meditation and also prayer and you say something that was interesting that you said about using silence to hear in between the lines so can you share what that means to hear in between the lines through prayer meditation mindfulness and kind of what this all means how can we understand this there's a lot of noise about it but what does it really mean yeah let's talk about the term and let's talk about that specific answer so when I hear the word mindfulness to me what it really means is intentionality what I mean by that is are you crafting designing and intentionally creating your life or are you just coasting in the passenger seat of your life which is just dragging you and driving you wherever it's taking you and so it's the difference between being the driver or being in the passenger seat and so to me living intentionally is what allows you to live a life of by Design and so I'll give an example of what mindfulness can look like there's something in the book that I talk about called the three s's which are sights sense and sounds now if you think about that we're exposed to sights sense and sounds every single day yeah every single day but how many of us have crafted those to be sight sense and sounds that we want in our life so this is what I realized when we were monks one of the most important things was what was the first thing you saw the site when you woke up and right now most people are probably seeing their screen yeah I think eighty percent of people look at their screens first thing in the morning and the last thing of the night so you've seen your screen first thing in the morning but what are you really seeing you're seeing everyone else's priorities you're seeing everyone else's issues and challenges you're seeing everyone else's messages to you which means you're already starting your day off reactively but what if you started your morning looking at a painting that inspired you or a picture of a loved one that brought joy in your heart or your favorite quote by Lewis or by anyone else that when you've read that in the morning you were like oh yeah I feel in charge today to to make a difference in the world so imagine the first thing you saw in the morning with something inspiring how much would your day change that's mindfulness mindfulness is being intentional and mindful about what you are exposed yourself too let's talk about sounds next so sounds was something that I started to study actually much later from a Modern Life perspective but when we were monks we would wake up to birds we would wake up to water we'd wake up to gongs or symbols chance exactly which are all beautiful sounds now the crazy thing is all of us wake up to something called an alarm just like literally I don't know why anyone would want to wake up alarm why would you want to wake up alarmed it means now your system is alarming like why would you want to do that why would you want to wake up in shock in a state of like a jolt I don't think that's a positive way to wake up so changing the sound that you wake up to now I'm not saying that everyone can wake up to Nature Sounds maybe you're one of those people who just hit the snooze button again but what if you look up to a sound or a song that brought you Joy now when I lived in New York for two years between 2016 and 2018 I started to feel quite exhausted by the end of the day and I was really looking into like why is it that I feel tired and I started to realize I came across this term called cognitive load and what it means is that a lot of the sounds that you hear in New York City are sounds that are insignificant for your mind to process drilling construction work taxis honking driving car screeching scratching people yelling at each other people yelling at each other on the street saying all of that sound is called cognitive load where your brain is now trying to make sense of meaningless sound or it's also just like should I be afraid this is a loud sound because my brain going to fight or flight like I need to protect myself so you're always being alarmed yeah exactly and you hear sirens the amount of sirens that I remember hearing on the streets now when you hear sirens Sirens have an emotional trigger and they have an emotional response to them so think about your day think about when you come home from work well now you're working from home right what sound do you want to hear when you're working what sound do you want to hear at the end of the day when you sound design your life that's called mindfulness that's being intentional and then finally sent uh scent is such a powerful sense that we're not even aware how many of you when you smell your favorite food can't already wait to eat it like you can almost taste it you can taste it already without just through scent why is it that every time you walk into but yeah my favorite yeah I think Pizza has one of the best your wife Roddy's got some amazing food that was amazing set when I walked in the Kitchen last week I was like this is amazing that was for you that was special that's for you that's for you that was a good meal that's a really good meal uh she really appreciated that you love to eat too like she was happy her heart was fun exactly bring a former jock into your house and so no it was great she was so happy that you appreciated it so much she she really appreciated that but the sense is important in your life when you walk into a massage spa it's the scent the eucalyptus the lavender the sandalwood it comes with a peaceful State dude scent puts you in Zen without trying and so mindfulness is intentionally creating a life that makes you feel what you want to feel without having to just create the feeling from inside you may say Jay you know I really struggle trying to be positive I struggle trying to deal with anxiety I struggle trying to be focused your sight sense and sounds can help you do that yeah and you start creating an environment where you naturally feel that like today when I walked into your studio I saw your books I saw these motivational quotes I saw a boxing glove and it's like all of a sudden you're like oh I'm in a uplifting environment right so you already get triggered exactly yeah I think uh a friend of mine mentioned one time on the podcast Chris Lee said you want to create an environment like a rainforest where things can Thrive and grow as opposed to having an environment like a desert where things go to die that's beautiful and if you have sights scents and sounds that are like a desert for your life or your heart and it's gonna be hard to grow those things from your heart but if you created an environment of a rainforest where things can grow water nature you know cool air things like that then you can really start to cultivate that growth you mentioned about creating and designing your life how much of the world do you think we receive by being here and how much of the world do we create ourselves yeah that's a beautiful question it's it's a complete Dynamic dance between what The Vedic tradition would call fate and Free Will so fate is what is already created for you and a good example would be the place you were born the type of family you grew up in the socioeconomic background you had it was already there when you walked in to the world but within that you had choices where your free will came about you had the choice to either do what everyone in your neighborhood did or to do something different you had the choice to have a relationship with a particular person or not so what happens is that we're constantly creating new spaces from which we have another choice right and so you kind of see as this Dynamic dance between okay now I'm in this situation and now what is my choice in this situation so I would say I'm not saying it's equal I'm saying it's a dynamic balance and a switching process where you're constantly creating a new level and then now in that level you have a next choice because we didn't have the choice to be created here we didn't we were here and that wasn't our choice now everything after that is our choice right yeah and there are some there obviously there are some traditions and I'm I'm a big diver into like reincarnation and past lives so according to the beliefs of reincarnation and past lives you have at some point made a choice to be here but taking it more simplistically the truth is that when you're brought into a situation it's the best analogy that I've heard and and it's been told for years is of a father is an alcoholic one of the sons that he has decides to become an alcoholic because his father's an alcoholic the other son decides to never drink alcohol because his father's an alcoholic right so they were exposed to the same situation and same scenario same environment same environment but they both made different choices based on their experience and that's the choice element that's the element that we should be trying to empower in our lives because we can constantly say I'm limited by my environment or I've been restricted by my environment and hey it's true there are so many of us that have been limited and restricted but by now you repeating that you are going to repeat that restriction in your life how much of a positive environment supports us in our growth or Hoards us back there are some people who have the perfect family situation resources beautiful backyards and nature who are lazy and there are others who have you know divorced parents abusive parents abusive friends an environment of a desert yeah and they figure out a way to thrive totally how much importance is our environment play in our overall success if you look at the examples that you just shared and you really analyze life you'd see very little because you see people craft their own life so a good example for me is that when I came back from living in the ashram and there were other people who may have been monks who'd also left the path and I came back to a not financially successful or supportive family so my family doesn't have abundant wealth and couldn't necessarily have taken care of me or paid for me forever and I had to figure out my own life and that to me was a great sense of impetus and incentive to go and figure it out and learn new skills and network and meet people and I saw other friends who'd parents had like a property portfolio with like 10 properties ready to hand them over they had a BMW the second that they came out whatever you know from their own life or I even have friends that had all of that and didn't become monks and didn't even find careers so I've also got friends that I went to school with that today don't even have careers even though their parents were really well established right which has all of these examples have continued me to believe that we truly have influence in our more than our environment our environment affects us for sure it plants seeds and weeds into our life but there is still a choice and and think even if you feel there isn't a choice simply by accepting that there is it means you have a chance to get out of there and I think that's what because if you don't accept that there is then you're just going to stay stuck correct like they've been so many times in my life and there's a beautiful uh quote from Edison I don't think I said this last time but if I did it's it's worth repeating he said that when you believe you've exhausted all options remember this you haven't and the reason why I love that is your mind continuously feels stuck when it's tried the obvious and that's why a lot of creativity and focus studies say that the first 10 ideas that come to your mind are never the most interesting it's when you get into the 11th idea that you start breaking the pattern and so if someone asks you know what's your best business idea your first 10 ideas are probably not that Innovative and so the Mind constantly gets stuck on that train and you've got to keep reminding yourself that there is another door there could be another pathway I was thinking about a piece of advice that so one of my closest spiritual mentors who is in London I knew him since I was probably like 12 and probably but since I was 18 he passed away this year from stage four brain cancer and he did brain cancer for about I think like three three four years now and so I hadn't really had a real interaction with him for the past few years because every time I saw him he wasn't fully functioning in his short-term memory his long-term memory was there but his short-term memory wasn't and I remember speaking to him probably about seven eight years ago and asking him the question I said to him you know I've got so many ideas there's so many things I could do where do I start and and he said this beautiful thing to me he said you know what your role should be to open up every door possible and he said let the world close the doors you're not meant to walk through and walk through the ones that remain open oh and what I realized is most of us just not opening up enough doors because we think we only have the option of two doors we look at life as binary zero and one zero and one right it's just this or that and I mean I I think you'd say this too about you and every guest you've ever had on I don't think life is ever this or that it's like this that and that and maybe that and that and there's always a gap of course the challenge that people have that I've sensed a lot is the fear of criticism when you go after something that you weren't supposed to do or that people don't think you're supposed to do why do so many people fear criticism from peers family friends the media why is that such a big fear and how do we overcome criticism from others psychologically we feel a sense of Safety and Security when we think people agree with us right that is your psychologically true that I we would rather avoid conflict and sit in a space where we agree and therefore we have something called confirmation bias and the echo chamber where we keep surrounding ourselves with thoughts and ideas that are similar and reaffirm our beliefs now I think that you can have that at the same time entertain ideas that you're not sure about yet and so one of my favorite examples was MIT did this study where they asked people which person was more creative and Innovative and they show two charts one chart was Employee a and the other child was Employee B the chart for employee a all of the people they knew knew each other and knew them back so it was almost like a closed loop an employee B they knew lots of people who didn't know each other and they found that people who have more people in their Network who don't know each other are more likely to be creative and productive really why is that because they expose you to opposing ideas and they may counteract how you think so one of my favorite examples of this is a conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and one of his mentors so Mark Zuckerberg told this story at the Facebook headquarters a few years back I wasn't there I've seen it on video I'm sure it's available and he talks about how when he was struggling with the direction of Facebook in 2009 he approached his mentor and his mentor happened to be Steve Jobs wow pretty cool wow pretty cool I wish really good it's so cool man and so anyway so Mark Zucker goes to Steve Jobs and he says I'm struggling with the direction of Facebook remember at that time Facebook was five years old there was no fan pages I don't think I don't I didn't think it was there was no creators there was I don't think there were fan pages it was very much used by University students at that stage like I think it was mainly like Ivy Leagues college kids college kids and I don't even think it was International in a massive way very early days and now we can't even think of that but 2009 I mean you know you just about had the iPhone and just about had Instagram and YouTube so he ran up to Steve Jobs and he said you know I'm struggling with the direction of Facebook what do I do you now Steve Jobs at that time obviously was already the founder of one of the biggest brands on the planet and obviously the brand still is he had access to investors he had access to business coaches I'm sure he had access to life coaches he had access to health experts he didn't say anything like I don't think there was anything scientist I don't think there's anyone and Steve Jobs said something amazing he said you know what Mark I think you should go and live in an ashram in India he did not he did he goes and when you go to live in the ashram in India that's where if you spend some time there that's where you'll find your answer shut up and Mark did it no way went to the ashes I I believe he was there for I believe I've seen two online I've seen two versions of the exact time he was there I've seen some people said it was a couple of days or a week or some people said it's a month so I think it's it's hazy how much time you actually spend there but but he went and he says that based on that experience that's where he found the direction of Facebook to be connecting people now the reason why I love that story is because it's the unobvious alternative random connection and when Harvard did a study of 3 000 Executives they looked at and asked them what's the number one skill for being a good leader and a lot of people would say communication a lot of people would say Vision Vision strategy humility and the number one answer that they got from 3 000 Executives was the one word which is called associating and what that means is the ability to spot patterns where everyone else doesn't see them and that's the connect that real leaders can spot patterns and Connections in anomaly so most people be like what is an ashram got to do with a tech platform right but that is where you expand your mind to find answers that you never expected how important is creating alone time um with noises people busy work to allow your mind to expand is that the only time in that silence I think you mentioned it silence to hearing between the lines yeah is that where we start to hear what we're supposed to be creating where we're supposed to be heading our mission that's yeah I'm really glad you brought that back I wanted to get back to that so when we talk about there's a beautiful statement by David Lynch who's movie producer and deep meditator and he says that prayer is how you talk to God and meditation is how God talks to you and whether you believe in God or the universe or Spirit or Divine whatever it means the point is that there is a dialogue and a conversation prayer is like you're speaking you're saying here's what I want he's on my field help me yeah and meditation is more receiving receiving yeah and so I love that statement because I think it makes it very clear that we have to have a dialogue with the universe we have to have a dialogue with people in our lives we have to have a dialogue and there's both giving and receiving so when I talk about hearing in between the lines the best example I can give you Lewis is let's take a look at you and your relationship and mine and my wife's relationship one of us is always traveling yeah so you travel your partner travels I travel my wife travels sometimes we're missing each other imagine you've got really busy and hectic do you think that anyone listening or watching you can ask the same question if you were really busy and hectic and stressed out do you think your partner feels comfortable to tell you how they feel and get your attention uh if if I'm busy stressed out overwhelmed with my partner tell me how I feel about themselves or about yeah do you think they would feel confident to be like Lewis I need to tell you something really important um I don't think they would they wouldn't yeah they really wouldn't because they don't stress you out they're not presents all these things exactly so exactly that and so what happens is when you're still your mind and body actually get to speak to you and give you signals of how they feel and so when you're still that's when you notice that ache in your foot that you haven't noticed for a month sometimes when you slow down that's when you get sick because your body wasn't allowing itself to be sick because you were pushing it to get through stuff and so just like your partners can't communicate with you until you slow down your body and mind can't communicate with you until you still and so there's a beautiful Buddhist teaching that says what movement does for the body Stillness does for the mind and so when we find that space Stillness and Solitude you really are able to hear your deepest desires and challenges your physical pains and and areas of growth it's one of the reasons why when people meditate they feel sleepy afterwards and they think they're doing it wrong but actually they're doing it right meditation just told you you needed more sleep you need to rest yeah meditation was just a signal so sometimes when I meditate with people that I'm coaching so I pass up some of them some of them will be like I'm so sorry I'm I'm so sorry damn I'm just feeling so tired and I'm like no then sleep the rest yeah that's what your body's telling you because you finally listened and some people like oh Jay I feel so energized and I'm like yeah because you allowed yourself to be in line with your body you know your body saying that you feel energized and that's great you've got the energy go work out go build something so or you've cleared out those negative thoughts or you've let go of those distractions or that resentment and so you're not feeling this weight so you feel lighter correct and so that Stillness and silence is one of my favorite ways for you to actually build that relationship with hearing your inner voice is there too much silence like if you say okay five hours a day it's is there a Tipping Point where you're like okay I think you do two hours every morning but a lot of people say well I've only got 20 minutes maybe yeah yeah is it's five hours too much is an hour you know what is the maximum or minimum a sweet spot you think for people to be silent every day yeah to live a great life I think I think 20 minutes is a great starting point yeah because 20 minutes is significant enough time for your mind to switch off so we hear that study showed that we have 60 to 80 000 thoughts a day eighty percent of negative I'm guessing a lot of them are repeated and so if you're only gonna say I'm gonna do five minutes it just takes five minutes to switch off like it takes five minutes to just overcome that noise and so I'd say that 20 minutes is a good amount of time and hey you're not trying and I think this is the challenge with meditation mindfulness you're not trying to empty your mind you're just trying to be present with it when people get into narcissistic relationships or antagonistic or toxic relationships they don't know what they're dealing with or they're replicating Cycles from earlier in their life right or both and so what happens is is that it's if you if you pivot too quickly you don't get a chance to sort of