Jay Shetty Podcast#1 Psychiatrist Dr. K: The #1 Reason You Keep Attracting the Wrong Men!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
125 min read · 24,991 words- 0:00 – 2:08
Intro
- SPSpeaker
50% of people under the age of 30 still live with their parents. 70% of people in their 20s are going through something called a quarter-life crisis.
- JSJay Shetty
He's a Harvard-trained psychiatrist- Who specializes in modern mental health.
- SPSpeaker
Meet Dr. K, the man behind Healthy Gamer.
- JSJay Shetty
And the voice helping millions navigate the digital world. What does someone do with the feeling of feeling being left behind?
- SPSpeaker
People who feel like they're not enough, that feeling comes from trying to make other people happy and failing.
- JSJay Shetty
Humans need to grow. We need to pursue something. We need to move in a certain direction to stay alive. True or false?
- SPSpeaker
Chasing growth is not the same as growing. A lot of people get focused on doing, but they don't pay attention to what's happening.
- JSJay Shetty
What does it even mean to be a man right now?
- SPSpeaker
A lot of masculinity right now is men trying to become as manly as possible in the alpha sense, and that doesn't translate over into happiness and that doesn't work.
- JSJay Shetty
When you look at people who are growing up right now, people in their 20s and 30s, why is it that they're confused, lonely, hurt, when externally everything seems to look okay?
- JSJay Shetty
The number one health and wellness podcast.
- JSJay Shetty
Jay Shetty.
- SPSpeaker
Jay Shetty.
- JSJay Shetty
The one, the only Jay Shetty. When you look at people who are growing up right now, when you look at people in their 20s and 30s, why is it that they're secretly confused, lonely, hurt, when externally everything seems to look okay?
- SPSpeaker
So a lot of the people that I work with, I think externally things don't look okay. I think, I think that was more true a few years ago.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
I think now we're starting to become more and more aware that things are even externally not okay.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
But I, I'm totally with you. I think, um, you know, I was just, uh, reading a paper about, um, this guy named Erik Erikson who sort of talks about the stages that we go through in life. He was a psychologist or psychiatrist and, and so he said that a lot of people are going through something called a noiseless crisis. So quarter-
- JSJay Shetty
Explain that to me, yeah
- SPSpeaker
... a lot of people that you look at are going through a crisis that you will never see. So we're sort of familiar with this idea
- 2:08 – 6:58
Are You Having a Quarter-Life Crisis?
- SPSpeaker
of a midlife crisis. This is when men like me and you, um, you know, we maybe hit our 40s, maybe hit our 50s. We're, we're maybe paying a mortgage. We, we don't get to do what we want. We'll maybe c- dye our hair, buy a convertible and start driving really fast.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But what I think is, is happening way more, and there was a interesting study on LinkedIn that found that 70% of people, um, in their 20s are going through something called a quarter-life crisis. So this is a time when you're sort of like, you sort of took all the right steps, you did what you should do, but you wake up one day and you realize this is not the life that I want. So I think we're seeing a ton of that, and I think that one of the main reasons for that is that the answers that the generation before, before gave us used to work. So, like, when I was growing up, you know, my parents were, like, super, like, "Alok, you have to be a doctor." And, and then this sort of idea of going to college, getting educated, you'll get a good job, and then you'll be able to buy a house and happily ever after kind of stuff, but I think that formula doesn't work anymore. I think our institutions have started to fail us, not in a negative way. But I think if you look at the way that psychiatry develops, you know, we'll do research for 20 or 30 years before we figure something out, and there's still studies being published on Facebook today. And I don't mean Meta, I mean Facebook. So this was a trial that started, like, eight years ago that they're s- like publishing the results now. So the rate of change in the world is rapidly increasing, and we don't really know how to deal with it, and young people are getting absolutely crushed.
- JSJay Shetty
And is that affecting... Are you saying it's affecting our identity? Like you said, before there was almost a path that was laid out.
- SPSpeaker
Yep.
- JSJay Shetty
And so you had these milestones effectively. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Yep
- JSJay Shetty
... I go to college, I graduate, I'll get married at a certain age, I'll buy a house at a certain age, I'll retire at a certain age. There were these milestones that were laid out for you, and now whether you go to college or not, there's basically no milestones because the goals have changed, the targets have changed.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So, so I don't even know if the- I think the targets have changed, but I think the bigger problem is the targets aren't meetable anymore. So just as a simple example-
- JSJay Shetty
Interesting. Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... when I went to college, it cost about $5,000 a semester.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
$6,000 I think. So, you know, college cost... It, I mean, it took me five and a half years to graduate. Um, so, so it cost me somewhere around $30,000 to get an undergraduate degree. I mean, that's the cost of one year now, right? So costs are increasing a lot. If you look at this idea of, like, you know, getting married by a certain age, and I've so many patients who really struggle with this because they feel like they're late. They're like... 50% of people under the age of 30 still live with their parents. So if you sort of think about how does that cascade out-
- JSJay Shetty
Say that again.
- SPSpeaker
50% of people under the age of 30 who, who are adults still live with their parents.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow. I didn't know that.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So people don't-
- JSJay Shetty
In the United States?
- SPSpeaker
In the US, yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
That feels like India. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely, right?
- JSJay Shetty
I'm like, yeah, I'm like, wow.
- SPSpeaker
But, but, but, and it's an economic thing because it used to be that you can, like, I mean, think about, you know, we're here in New York, like, rents are crazy. Like, you can pay, like, $3,000 for, like, a closet, you know? So, so now it's just not people are finishing college, they have a ton of debt. There's inflation. People are not able to get jobs. And then if you think about the cascading effect, if I want to date, right, and I'm like a 27-year-old dude, and then, like, if the date goes well, it's like, "Do you want to come back to my place?" And then we go back to my place-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... and, like, my ma is there, you know? [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And then it's kinda like you can't really, you know, do that.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So we're seeing sort of this epidemic of loneliness. We're seeing this, like, dating and mating crisis amongst, like, men and, and women, and a lot of young men are struggling, a lot of young women are stri- struggling, too. And so, like, I think the world that we lived in has changed, and we need new answers. We need new paths to navigate this world.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, I love what you said about how the targets are just unmeetable-
- 6:58 – 12:35
Why You Really Feel Behind in Life
- SPSpeaker
because you didn't ask me why. You asked, what does someone do, right? And I think that's what sort of exemplifies what I appreciate about you, is that you're always focused on what to do, not necessarily why things happen. So I, I think, um, you know, if you have that feeling, there are a couple of important things to do. The first is that that feeling has to do with your sense of identity. So where do you get these expectations? Who do you think you are? Um, and I don't mean that [laughs] so, so bad, but, like, really, who do you think you are? How do you understand who you are? And this is what we see in people who have a quarter-life crisis, is that they are too busy with identification that they don't understand identity. Now, I know that's kinda confusing, but if we think about identification, what does that mean? That means that I'm gonna look outside of me and I'm gonna find a group of people, and I'm gonna say, "My identity is, like, I'm one of these people now."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? Like I, I, I'm a, I'm a goth kid, or I'm super into football, or I'm a gamer, right? Or I'm, I'm an incel. Like, there are all kinds of ways that we can identify. We can identify with a political party. But identification and identity are two different things.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And I think that when people feel like they are behind, they have this expectation, they're looking outside, and they're saying, "This is what I should be," but their information about who they are comes from what they see outside of them.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And the most important thing that you can do, I know it sounds kinda generic, is to look within. And I mean really think about, you know, how do I feel about myself? What do I want in life? I oftentimes find that people who feel like they're not enough, that feeling comes from trying to make other people happy and failing, right? So if my parents want me to be a doctor and I don't go to medical school, which is what happened in my case, you know, then you've let them down. And we get so much o- our, our core sense of identity, the way we're socialized, usually comes from people outside of us. So there, there's a lot of research on things like attachment theory, where a child knows what they feel based on reflection from people around them.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And my favorite example of this is, like, you know, wh- when, I remember when I had a two-year-old daughter, and she was, like, running around, and then she would fall. And then in a moment, what she would do is look around, and if everyone else is like, "Oh my God, are you okay?" She'd start crying. But if everyone is laughing, she'd get up and start laughing too. So we learn so much about ourselves from the people around us. I think the problem is that the expectations that everyone places on us-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... are no longer meetable in the same way.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So what you really need to do is ask yourself, you know, who am I living for? What do I want? What are the expectations that I've internalized that m- that form my value? And then e- I, I also tend to use a lot of meditation practices, so I really like for people who have identity problems, people who have narcissism or low self-esteem, I'll do a certain kind of meditation practice called shoonya, which is, or shoonya means void or nothingness. And so they sort of c- you cultivate this experience of, like, complete emptiness. And when you cultivate that experience of emptiness, there's a part of your brain called the default mode network, and this is the part of your brain that thinks about you. So, like, you know, y- your brain thinks about all kinds of things. I'm paying attention to you. But there ... Sometimes when we reflect on ourselves, what do I think of myself? The really interesting thing is that the default mode network, this self-reflective capability, is hyperactive when you're very depressed.
- JSJay Shetty
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
So when people are super depressed, what are they thinking about? A lot of people think that they're thinking about how the world is falling apart. They're really thinking about themselves. I'm a loser. I'm pathetic. I, I've had patients who will come in and say, you know, "My family would be better off without me," like, "I'm hurting my kids by existing, so I'm gonna kill myself." Like, you, you know, they think so negatively, and you can't get them to stop. And so the interesting thing is, as we treat depression, the default mode network deactivates. As you do meditations, and I think shoonya is a specific meditation that I suspect activates this pretty quickly, you stop thinking about yourself. And when you stop sort of hyper-focusing, then it's ... This is, I know it's kinda paradoxical, but when we think about ourselves, what we're really doing is we're internalizing expectations. Then you start getting data from within. That's not the same as thinking about yourself. It is actually paying attention to yourself. And then you start to get these internal signals, and you get some amount of quietness, some amount of stillness, some amount of groundedness, and then people start to move in the right direction. They start to feel better.
- JSJay Shetty
Talk to me about that difference between paying attention to yourself and thinking about yourself. What are the different thoughts and emotions and feelings that are connected to each?
- SPSpeaker
Ah, beautiful. So thoughts, emotions, and feelings are all thinking about yourself.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
When I think about myself, I'm literally having thoughts. Alok is good, Alok is bad, Alok is beautiful, Alok is ugly. That's all thinking about yourself. Getting information from within is not thinking about, right? So if I think about something, I am over here, and the thing is over there. So the object of what I am thinking about happens to be me, but the thinking is happening over here. I am using my mind to think about myself. So it's kinda like if you look at your reflection in a mirror, you don't see yourself.You are seeing a reflection of yourself. What you're really seeing is a mirror, right?
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So what I think people... And people get stuck in this, right? Because they're thinking about themselves a lot. Instead what they need to do is pay attention to themselves. Now, paying attention
- 12:35 – 15:45
Thinking About Yourself vs. Paying Attention to Yourself
- SPSpeaker
means observing.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Not thinking. Just watch.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And something really interesting happens. So I, I work with some patients who have schizophrenia, and they become psychotic. And, and it's really interesting. So when I was, uh, back at Harvard, I was trying to develop meditation protocols for particular mental illnesses. So if you suffer from depression, um, you know, what do you... w- what kind of meditation do you do, and anxiety and stuff, and I, I turn that all into a guide. Um, but when I have patients with psychosis, what I would try to... So these are people who are having hallucinations and delusions, and w- what I would really focus on with them is they would get so caught up in it, right? And in psychiatry, we try to make the hallucinations go away. That's a good treatment. Uh, uh, you know, that can be very good treatment. But the other thing that I would add to the medications and things like that is let's learn how to just watch it without getting pulled into it.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
If they're there, like, so what, right? Can you just continue to focus on this? Can you shift your attention away from it? So simply observing gives us distance. So there are other patients that I have that will get so caught up in something, and, and maybe, you know, your listeners have situations where, like, someone gets dumped, and then your friend comes to you and they're like, "Oh my God," like, "Well, my life is over. My life is over." No, like, take a step back. Like, get some perspective. So as we observe things, the bite comes out of it. We start to gain a little bit of distance from it.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And y- so you can just witness, "Okay, I'm feeling anxious today." Right? So this is very different if I say, "My life is falling apart," versus saying, "There's a part of me that feels like my life is falling apart." That doesn't make it true. Thoughts aren't facts.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So that observation is a little bit different. It's actually a skill, uses a different part of the brain. And as people start doing that, they get some distance, they get some perspective, and the really a- interesting thing is when that part of the brain activates, it's like your anterior singular cortex. The part of your brain that experiences emotion, like your amygdala, this is like your threat center, your survival center, that actually starts to calm down. So people will literally, as you turn this part of the brain on, this other part of the brain will naturally turn off.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow. Yeah. It's almost like thinking has an element of you attaching your story and prediction and projection onto yourself, and observing is just watching the story. It's almost like there's not even a story actually. You're just watching.
- SPSpeaker
As-
- JSJay Shetty
You're just seeing
- SPSpeaker
... i- it's, it's a, it's a beautiful way to put it.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So, so i- you're right that your mind attaches a lot of stuff, right?
- JSJay Shetty
Yes. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And, and, and this is why I'm, I'm curious about your background, but, you know, in, in, in Sanskrit and in the Eastern spiritual traditions, we have this concept of detachment or vairāgya.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And what, what, what we sort of notice is if you really think about what the source of your suffering is, it's... There can be pain, but usually what really messes people up are the implications-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... of what happens.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? Oh, if like, if this person says they're... If this person doesn't return my text within the hour, what does that mean?
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
That means they don't like me. That means they think they're better than me. That means
- 15:45 – 20:35
Discovering the True Source of Suffering
- SPSpeaker
they're more important people. We attach all kinds of things, and it happens really rapidly. It happens subconsciously. That's really where our suffering comes from.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Well said. Yeah. The Buddha called it the second arrow.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
Like, the first arrow, it hurts, it stings, and then the second arrow is the meaning, the story, the implication that you have not even checked, you've not fact-checked, you've not observed, and there it is.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So it's a... I'm, I'm glad you brought up that example because I, I was reading that text recently. I didn't realize, I think... So we, we talk about the second arrow a lot in psychiatry, which is this concept that, you know, life sends you the first arrow. You can't control whether you get dumped or not, but it is the implication that you attach, right? So if I get dumped, that's a fact. That's, there's some amount of pain, some amount of grief. But then you start to tell yourself, "I'm a loser."
- JSJay Shetty
I'm not good enough.
- SPSpeaker
I'm not good enough. I'll, I'll always be alone. Those kinds of thoughts are what you add to the equation.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
The really fascinating thing about how to stop doing that, so this is why I was blown away. I, I, I recently read... I realized I'd never, like, actually looked at the teachings of the Buddha.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
What I had done is everyone talks about the teachings of the Buddha, right? But it's like other people talking about the Buddha.
- JSJay Shetty
Yes. Commentaries, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So what I didn't realize is the Buddha actually says the second arrow, so we in psychiatry talk about this is how you avoid pain and negative emotions. The Buddha says that s- the problem with the second arrow is also your positive emotions.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
He says you should stop attaching that to your positive emotions as well.
- JSJay Shetty
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
So when something good happens to your life, we get excited about it. He says don't do that.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So if you get a promotion, that means I'm gonna do this, and that means I'm gonna do this, and that means I'm gonna do this. Stop doing all that. Promotion is... That's all it is. It has no implications.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And the really fascinating thing is this is why it's so hard for people. Everyone wants the associations of the good stuff.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But nobody wants to give up the associations of the bad stuff. That's not how the brain works.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
If you wanna decouple those two things, take something in your life that is good and look at why you're excited about it, and then let go of that excitement.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
It's, it, it happened. That's it. Observe it. It's in the past. It doesn't mean anything about your future. And if you train yourself on both sides of those coins, of that coin, then your mastery will increase way more quickly.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, absolutely. It's as, as you know as well, it's the, uh, definition of equanimity in the Gita, of that idea that one's not disturbed by happiness or distress.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
And that's really interesting use of words. It's like how could you ever be disturbed by happiness? But that's how you are because you created so much additional meaning which now when it didn't happen, the promotion didn't even make you happy anymore.
- 20:35 – 23:54
Why Chasing Growth Isn’t Real Growth
- JSJay Shetty
With a State Farm agent, you know someone is there to help protect what's important. And with so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you, so you can continue to celebrate all of life's biggest milestones. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. What I'm really intrigued by is how do you kind of factor that thought in with growth? Because it's almost like humans need to grow. We need to pursue something. We need to move in a certain direction to stay alive. True or false?
- SPSpeaker
I think that's the most common way.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- SPSpeaker
I-
- JSJay Shetty
So what's, what's a healthier way, or what would be the better way?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, healthier or better is, is a s- is tricky language.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah. So what's the-
- SPSpeaker
So, um, I, I think that... So this is really confus- I'm glad you asked this because-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... I, I, I think chasing growth is not the same as growing.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
A lot of people get focused on doing-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... but they don't pay attention to what's happening. So I see this all the time in patients with addiction where, like, you know, you're, they're doing something like a substance or pornography or something like that, but they're not really paying attention to how does pornography or the substance rewire my brain?
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
If I crush up opiates and snort them right now, what am I signing myself up for tomorrow? What, what is the human I am creating? What is the life I will inherit if I take this action today? And the interesting thing there is once you start paying attention to that, it's not really about growing. It's not about getting anywhere. It's just, "What do I want to inherit tomorrow?" That's a great way to, I, I think, to think about it, right? Think, like, actually super short term. So I think wanting growth, ambition, goals, these are wonderful motivators, but they won't bring you happiness.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So you can get satisfaction of the ego through achievement, but then you've done something really sneaky, which is that you've made the lever of satisfaction in your life gratification of the ego.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So I wanna chase this. I wanna get promoted. But that's really tricky. Like, sure, you can get promoted and you can feel really good, but now you are training your brain to feel good when you get something.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And so this is something that no amount of promotions will ever be enough.
- JSJay Shetty
It's less about what's happening and who you're becoming and what you're inheriting and more about what you're doing, and that's why we get addicted to doing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, absolutely.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So we get addicted to doing because we want our internal state to change.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So if I'm like, if I'm not happy, if I do something about it-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... then my circumstances will change. If I get her flowers one more time, she'll say yes when I ask her out on a date.
- 23:54 – 28:50
Remember You Always Have a Choice
- SPSpeaker
that's what happened to the Buddha, right? So he said, like, "I'm gonna walk this spiritual path," walked away from his wife, walked away from his son. And so I think that there is a certain part of this path that is not conducive to life.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
That you will start to change so much, you will stop, start to stop caring so much about the things that everyone around you cares that, that it can become really difficult.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say, that even if we go back to the simple idea at the beginning where you said, "If you know who you are"-You can start to choose your own values, almost your own metrics, your own milestones that aren't based on your parents, society, the things around you. But the challenge with that is you're fighting against decades and decades of wiring-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- JSJay Shetty
... that is encouraging you to move at these milestones, to move at this pace, to be married by this age, to have kids by this age. And so it's such a struggle sometimes it can feel, because you're like, "Wait a minute, I'm trying to follow my whatever it is, but over here, there's this chart that feels like it's ranking me constantly that doesn't just disappear."
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely.
- JSJay Shetty
How, how do we hold on to our values and a new vision in a world that has a very clear script you should follow?
- SPSpeaker
So it's a great question. Um, I guess this is where like I'd like to just share my experience, which is really weird. So I think that I got to where I am by making a series of terrible decisions, and I strongly encourage everybody else to consider doing the same. So I spent seven years studying to become a monk and then decided to walk away from that, right? So this is like abandoning this path that I spent so much time putting into. Decided that I fell in love and the whole, met my wife and was not super interested in brahmacharya, um, celibacy. And, and so, you know, did that and then ended up going to medical school. Towards the end of medical school, I was gonna do holistic oncology and, and do like evidence-based complementary alternative medicine for cancer treatment. My dad was a cancer doctor, so I was like, I learned all this stuff in India, and I was like, "Let's cure cancer with like herbs and yoga and meditation, and chemotherapy." And then towards the end of it, I fell in love with psychiatry, and even my family was like actually super against it. They're like, "This is crazy." Like, my mom, who's a doctor, was like, "You're gonna go crazy if you spend time with crazy people all the time." Right? "Why don't you like be a real doctor? Like, do cardiology, Alok." You know?
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
"Do statistics." My wife was watching Grey's Anatomy. She wanted me to be a neurosurgeon.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
I was like, "Same organ, but maybe in a different way."
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And so I sort of walked away. I'd done a bunch of research and, and things like that, and so I sort of walked away from that path and like at the 11th hour sort of tried to apply for psychiatry, ended up getting lucky. And then I, I wound up at Harvard and I was like faculty at Harvard Medical School and was like, you know, working on these meditation protocols and stuff like that. And then I kind of started streaming one day, talking to like broke gamers on the internet 'cause I realized like no one's really helping them. And so like walked away from like that academic career a- and then the weird thing is like that sort of picked up in a weird way. So I, I think that what a lot of people don't realize is that, so here I am, you're kind of saying, "Okay, so how do I... The world wants me to be this. This is what I wanna be," and there's a fundamental mismatch. Even if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna piss off the world. And what I've seen not only in myself but also my patients who I encourage this path for, I was really worried because I realized that about 40% of my patients within 18 months of coming to see me will make a career change.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
And I was like worried that I'm biasing them in some way, like am I like shaping them? But I think once you start to realize, okay, this is the direction that I wanna move, once you cast some of those things off and you start moving in your direction, you get so much positive internal feedback. Like, yeah, people around you are upset, but you are grounded.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And if you really think about when you feel the most out of control in life, it's because you let the opinions of other people disturb this. But as long as you are secure in what you're doing, if you really lean into that, and there's so much positive feedback, like it-- the first time I started s- streaming on Twitch and, you know, like there were five people there, it felt so good to talk to them. It just felt right. It felt right in here. And the biggest thing getting in the way of that in today's society is we use technology to dull what's going on in here. I'm feeling anxious, like-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... I'm on the subway, I'm bored. I don't like feeling bored. Let me pull out my phone. I'm feeling anxious. Let me pull out my phone. Oh my God, my boss just told me like, "Ah." Let me pull out my phone. So we do so many things with technology that dull our sense of self. We don't like to be with ourselves anymore. I saw a super
- 28:50 – 36:00
How to Stop Living for Others’ Opinions
- SPSpeaker
scary study. People are spending so much time on the toilet with their phone, it's increasing the risk of hemorrhoids by about 65%.
- JSJay Shetty
Oh, gosh.
- SPSpeaker
And they're not even pushing. They're just sitting there, and if you stay in that position in your body, it puts pressure on the blood vessels and like, like sitting on the toilet with your phone is giving people hemorrhoids.
- JSJay Shetty
Oh my God.
- SPSpeaker
It's super scary, and it does something similar to your mind too. I don't know what. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
That's, yeah, I mean, it's... As I'm listening to you, I'm just thinking like that's really the core of all of it, and you talked about the ego self at the beginning. It's almost like the reason why we're so obsessed with what everyone thinks about us is because of the ego.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
It's right there. So if I was to ask you, what does someone do to truly stop caring what people think, because there's usefulness in caring what people think-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- JSJay Shetty
... it's, it's what helps the world stay sane to some degree. But at the same time, there's a part of you which what you're saying, which I love, is this idea of I loved, I loved the explanation you gave between, "Hey, when I was live on Twitch for five people, it felt right here." And then the opposite to that, which is, "I don't feel good right here, so I'm gonna numb myself with technology," or you said dull yourself. How do we even get to that clarity that I like doing this right now? Because I think we've all become so clouded, and I'm sure you see this with the people you help and serve and the millions of people online all the time, that even when you encourage someone to move in a direction of noticing what's true to them-It becomes a really difficult concept for people because they're like, "I don't know what's true for me. I'm kinda... I like these, all these things, and I like this, but then, but now I'm distracted by video games. I'm now distracted by porn. I'm now distr-" Like, there, those pulls are so strong that even if you're close to knowing, "Oh, I really like this five people on Twitch," the distraction of, "Oh, I wish I had a million subscribers" is so strong that you get pulled away from that sense. How does someone truly know something that feels right for them to pursue in a world where they're either clouded, so they don't know themselves well enough, or they get distracted?
- SPSpeaker
I think the answer is sort of in the question. And I think [laughs] this is why it's fun to talk to you because you ask questions with certain concepts in mind. So I think, you know, I don't know what I feel, so let's understand that first, right? So if you wanna understand what you really want, because you are getting distracted, like, and it happens to me, too. I'll see, you know, now that I'm in, like, whatever room I'm in, I make comparisons, right? Oh, this doctor is doing this. This influencer is doing this. Um, so the first thing to understand is that where you spend your attention is gonna be where you get information. So literally, like, if I numb your tongue, like if I'm doing dental surgery, like you, you know, you can't talk, you can't chew. So one of the key concepts is awareness precedes control. And you kind of pointed this out, that if we look at what's happening in our world, where is our perception going? Where is our attention going? It's always going outside of us. You know, I... When I was in med school, I started med school at the age of 28, which was behind, and so I was like, "Oh my God," like, "I have to be efficient. I have to be efficient." Everyone is so concerned with productivity and efficiency. I think it's one of the most damaging things in the world because now I'm listening to a podcast on the way to the train. I'm reading on the train, listening to a lecture on the way to the lecture hall, paying attention in the lecture hall. Like, every moment I can be productive. I can be efficient, but my attention is outside of me, so I get bad. I, I... Basically, the other thing to understand about the mind is the mind never wears out. It rusts. The faculties that you do not use, you will lose. This is why we forget languages that we don't practice, right? So we're, our attention is going outside of us, getting pulled away by things like technology. And then once we start to... If I spend all of my time thinking about what everybody else is doing, I will not have a good sense of myself. So the first thing we need to do is internalize our awareness. The second thing to understand is that internalizing our awareness, why don't we do that? Because it's usually painful. So I don't know why the world is designed this way, but when a patient comes to me and sits in therapy, they don't have a breakthrough first and then cry a lot at the end. [laughs] They cry a lot. They face their trauma. They face their negative emotions, and then the good stuff is at the end. So the reason people don't like to look within themselves, we actually try really hard to never look within ourselves because there's usually a lot of pain in there. Like, I remember when I was at the height of my video game addiction. I was, like, 18 years old, and I ne- I, for 18, for a whole year, I never went to sleep. I always passed out. If I got into bed, and what would happen if I was idle, thoughts would start to flow, like, "You're screwing up your life." You know, "The, a month has gone by. You haven't gone to a single class in a month. Uh, you're screwing everything up." I could see that I was destroying my life, and I was powerless to stop it, so shame and guilt would flood my mind, and I hated that. So I would play until 5:30 in the morning, 6:00 in the morning. So I was so exhausted that I would just pass out immediately. Because if I was awake for even five minutes, my mind would turn on, and I would be awake for hours in absolute torture.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So we don't like to look within ourselves because looking within ourselves is painful. This is where there has to be this ugly part. And from a neuroscience perspective, what's going on is we are doing so much emotional suppression through technological devices. That's what they do, right? So if you're feeling anxious and you pull out your phone and you, like, laugh at cats, then, like, suddenly you feel better. So it shuts that stuff off. So as we shut off these circuits of the brain, we have to reawaken them, and this is probably from an evolutionary perspective. I don't know if this kinda makes sense, but negative emotions keep us alive more than positive emotions. So our brain has a bias to experience the negative over the positive. So the first thing we have to do is move our attention away from the outside world. Spend some time with yourself. No music, no headphones, no podcast, nothing like that. I mean, I love podcasts, love this podcast, but spend some time. You know, after you listen to this episode, sit in silence. Let yourself absorb. Second thing is if you sit with yourself, what's gonna come up is a lot of negativity, but that negativity has to come out before it disappears.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So when I'm sitting with a patient who has a history of trauma, the trauma's, like, stuck inside them, and they use so many defense mechanisms to bury it. We wanna bring that stuff up. We wanna have you crying and stuff like that, and then let it go.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And then underneath all the negativity, you will find that voice, that internal sense of really what you want.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? When you have a good cry, at the end of that, like, you'll have a sense of peace, and you'll be like, "Okay," like, "this sucks. Now that I've
- 36:00 – 37:29
The Brain’s Natural Ability to Heal
- SPSpeaker
sat with it, what am I gonna do about it?" And it's amazing how it happens. You don't have to do it. All you have to do is create the right circumstances, and in the same way that your body, the moment that you swallow a piece of food, your body takes care of the rest. If you give your mind the right environment, it is designed to heal, just like a cut on my armIt will get rid of those negative emotions. You just need to stop getting in the way.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm. That's such a, that is a really brilliant explanation. Never heard it put that way so well. It's... I love the idea that your mind is already designed to repair and heal itself, and if it's given the right parameters and the right setup and the right environment, it will naturally find its way.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely.
- JSJay Shetty
But, but the key part that you put there is the pain and the discomfort is the prerequisite for a breakthrough, and our ability to sit in that is the part that makes it contingent as to whether we'll actually rise above from it.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So I, I think just one other example.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So I want y'all to think about when you get food poisoning, what does your body do? It's feels nauseous. I'm gonna vomit. The nausea and vomiting is, doesn't feel good, but it is healthy.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And so sometimes what, what I'll also do, like when my kids get food poisoning is I'll, I'll wait. I won't give them anti-nausea meds un- unless they're in, in risk of dehydration. So there's times where you have
- 37:29 – 43:07
Learning to Let Go of Ego
- SPSpeaker
to stop what the, the mind naturally does. But generally speaking, we want the mind... Like, think about it for a second. Every time you stop, if anxiety arises, your mind is trying to, like, get rid of it. It's trying to vomit it out. Why does your mind keep doing that?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Why does it keep going there? Because that's the problem it's trying to solve.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm. Yeah. Let's go back to the ego now.
- SPSpeaker
Sure.
- JSJay Shetty
'Cause you didn't wanna... I, I didn't want you to miss out on that part. The ego I raised because I was saying that, we were saying that a part of us has to stop caring what people think in order to even pursue this path. I'm assuming when you were studying to become a monk for seven years, where was that intention or desire coming for you?
- SPSpeaker
Where was the intention of, to be a monk coming from?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It was coming from the ego.
- JSJay Shetty
Right. Talk to me about that.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So [laughs] -
- JSJay Shetty
'Cause that doesn't make sense to the outside person.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I mean, here's what happened in my life. So went to college. So growing up I was, like, kinda gifted. Um, so never really, like, learned how to study. And then my parents, you know, were like, "Oh, you have to be doctor, Alok." And then I remember when I was 15 years old, I was at a, a party one day, and some, some adult asked me like, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" And I said, "I wanna be a doctor." And they were like, "Arre waah." Like, "Wow," like, "You're gonna be a doctor? Like, that's so amazing," right? And so my ego loved that. I was like, oh, my God, I just say I'm gonna be a doctor, and people are gonna be like, "Wow, you have so much potential." I loved hearing that. And then, but my heart really wasn't in it. It was, like, ego. So then when, like, I got to college, I was like, eh, like, whatever. And so then what started to happen, something weird happened, is, uh, is I started to fail, fell into video game addiction. I started to feel a lot of shame. And then all of my friends, like, left me behind. I, I remember I went to a Christmas party where there was a friend of mine from high school, and I hadn't seen her in a few years, and I was like, "What are you doing?" And she's like, "Oh, you know, I just finished med school. Like, I'm gonna start ophthalmology residency in, like, a month." She's like, "What are you up to?" And I'm like, "I'm applying to medical school for the third year in a row. I've been rejected a hund- 80 times." [smacks lips] What ended up happening is my ego was so low, or, like, it was so bruised that I pulled a really interesting trick that happens in, in spirituality, where I said, "I'm going to be not material anymore. All of these materialistic people are chasing these material... You want to be a doctor for money and fame and pride and all of this. I'm going to be better. I'm going to let go of materialism. I'm going to rise above you. I'm going to be Swami. I'm going to be Yogi. I'm going to be great." But it was really ego. So that's the original... Uh, so I fell in love with it in a genuine way. But also what kept me there was like, this is the way that I win. This is the way that I catch up. This is the way that I impress people.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So it took a lot of-
- JSJay Shetty
And both of them were that way, 'cause even the doctor lane is that too.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, ab- absolutely, right. So that's what's sneaky about the ego.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It'll twist and turn.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
That sort of happened for a while. Thankfully, I had some really excellent teachers. I did a lot of meditation practice, and I kinda discovered that years later, that, oh, this is actually, like, my ego. So that was my journey. And then, then I actually, like, let go of the ego quite a bit. I stopped caring about my grades, and we'll get to that in a second. So I, like, ended up getting into medical school, and, and I, I tried to take my vows. So when I was 21 years old, I went to my, my guru and I said, you know, "I wanna become a monk. Like, can I take my vows?" And his response was really interesting. He said, "Becoming a monk is about giving up your life, but you don't have a life worth giving up. Your life is empty, like you haven't done anything. What are you giving up? Nothing. It's an escape." So he said, "Go back to the US, get a doctoral degree, and if you still wanna do it when you're 30, we'll take you. You can come back every summer. We'll continue teaching you practices. You can continue learning. You can walk that path, but we're not gonna let you take vows." So I said, "Okay, fine. Deal." So I went back, focused on getting a doctoral degree, so I decided to go to medical school. Um, that's a little bit silly because my wife wanted to be married to a doctor. I was, like, dating her [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And so I was like, all right, might as well.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Um, which is, like, so funny because, you know, everyone thinks like, oh, like you have some deep... No, I was just like, I gotta get a doctoral degree, and, like, this chick that I like wants me to be a doctor, so, like, let me do that-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... 'cause she's gonna think that's hot. Um, so I mean, it was so, like, simple, right? So as I start really focusing on the work, and then I think I, I sorta let go of my ego. And so you kinda talked about, you know, how do you stop caring? So in, like you said, you should care. So I care a lot about what people think, but I don't let it determine my identity. So people say negative things to me all the time. I got reprimanded by the Medical Board of Massachusetts. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a healthy thing. I think that sometimes in life I make mistakes, and I think sometimes in life I behave in a non-perfect way. And so I value what people think, but I also accept that I'm not perfect, right? So of course I'm gonna make mistakes. I don't, I, I try not to let it affect my sense of me.And that's the key differentiator, 'cause what a lot of people do, this is the biggest mistake I think you can make, is if you're... This is what happens, right? People are like, "I care so much what people think, so how do I fix that? I stop caring what people think." And then you turn yourself into an asshole, and then that causes lots of problems. And so the problem is either end of the pendulum is a bad idea.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So receive what people think. Also, add some context to it. Don't just take it at face value. Where is this person's criticism coming from? 90% of the pr- uh, criticism I get is projection, right? They see in me something that they don't like, but that's not really who I am. So accept the criticism,
- 43:07 – 46:06
Living in a World Where People Feel Replaceable
- SPSpeaker
and then also recognize that just because someone says something about you, even if it's true, that's not who you are.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? It's an attribute of you, but at your core, you're just a regular human being trying to navigate this world, doing the best that you can. And the moment that you accept yourself as that, nothing great, but also nothing terrible, things become way easier.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. It, it seems like for most people, following, whether they call it ego or whether they call it something that gets them the result they want, i.e., I get to marry the girl I want or the guy I want, or it gets me a promotion, gets me some more money, helps me move to this city, it almost feels like that's a base-level motivator that pretty much all of us function on.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
It's almost like the general operating system of the world-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely. Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... which is I need to get this to get this. And it either serves you because you get there and you get the girl, or it doesn't serve you because you don't get it and then that's where people turn towards depression and, and other things as well. Like, that's... It's almost like when your ego's not fulfilled for what it may think, it may end up moving towards being disheartened, depressed, and lonely.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely. So I, I think ego opens the door to those things, and there is a ton of evidence for that. And, and I love your observation that this is the default way. I think that's what... That's how far physical evolution got us.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So if you look at, like, how human beings evol- evolved, like, you know, we evolved to care what people around us think, right? So exodus from the tribe, o- ostracization from the tribe meant death when we were, like, growing up and couldn't take care of ourselves and things like that, so we lived in these very tribal communities. I think society has changed so much because in those tribal communities, we cared a lot about the judgment of other people, but we also had a lot of baseline connection. You know, I, I remember I had a friend who was, like, one of the earliest streamers, and I, I asked him why he quit, and he said, "Well, because people on the internet are assholes." And he's like, "You know, when I used to play games in arcades, like, if you're m- mean to everybody, no one's ever gonna play with you, but on the internet, you can be mean to anyone. There's no consequence."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So we used to have this, this... Our brain evolved for some amount of, like, caring what people think, but some amount of default connection. People just don't give up on you.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
In today's world, people are so replaceable. So those things worked when they, when they were both there. Now we have an imbalance where people are so replaceable, everybody ghosts everybody. Online dating is like I can keep on f- I, I don't have to choose between 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people. The number of options, Jay, is infinite.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I can keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling until I find what I want. So that sort of thing has, has really changed, and so now what we have to do is learn a new way to relate
- 46:06 – 51:41
Why Is Modern Dating So Difficult?
- SPSpeaker
to people, to form our identity. And then arguably you can talk about, like, this is the limit of physical evolution and there's a whole weird spiritual perspective on, on spiritual evolution, um, but I do think that, like, this is a skill and this is why we're seeing an explosion of mindfulness.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? I mean, it, uh, it was transformative for you, transformative for me, that these concepts are what you need to survive and thrive in today's world.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. It's almost scary when you put it like that, though, where you're like... And, and I love that example of, yeah, if you were playing a video game at an arcade, generally if you were decent, people would crowd around you and watch and cheer you on.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
If you were bad at something, maybe one person would walk past and laugh or make fun-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... of you. And, and now of course that's escalated, and that's what leads to loneliness because people are like, "Well, I don't wanna put myself out there. I don't wanna go on that dating app. I don't wanna make a video. I don't wanna chase my passion because actually if I do that, there's gonna be hundreds of thousands of people, or forget that, there's gonna be just the 10 people around me, my own family, that disagrees with what I'm doing." And so if someone's in that state right now where they're like, "I'm scared about putting myself out there from a..." Let's, let's choose dating because you brought up dating. "I'm scared of putting myself out there from a dating perspective because I think I'm replaceable. I'm actually scared of even believing that real connection exists. I don't even know if there's someone out there for me. How do I even begin to work against the math and the algorithm which is feels like it's set up against me?"
- SPSpeaker
This is the first time I'm gonna say I don't know.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So I think dating is the one thing I've been focused a lot on-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- SPSpeaker
... over the last year. But in terms of what I understand and what I know, I got lucky. So, like, I found my hopefully life partner before things got really, really hard.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And I think if you're not someone... Uh, so, so this is the one area where I kind of feel like I don't know. So some of the things that I'll do, and, and this is why, like, I kind of make the content that I do, is, you know, I, I made this guide to meditation. And what the best answer I have is start to use some of these concepts.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Start to internalize some of these skills. If we look at the way in which dating in today's world scars you, that involves hits to your ego. That involves these things like samskaras, and there's a, a, we have a trauma guide too where we kind of go into that. But if we kind of think about, like, why is dating so hard, this is the, the, a Sanskrit c- concept of something called a samskara. So this is kind of like a trauma. So if you kind of think about every person that you date, you're not just dating that person.You're carrying the emotional baggage of all of your experiences. And this is why online dating is such a mess. Because if you go to date someone online, they're not judging you based on you, they're judging you based on all of their past experiences
- JSJay Shetty
And yours
- SPSpeaker
And yours, right? So, so when someone doesn't text you back, your mind attaches associations to that, right? Like, oh, this means they're ghosting me. Well, why do you interpret that as ghosting? Because I've been ghosted before, and it hurt so much. So as we go through life, we start accumulating baggage. And then what happens is we're not dealing with a person, we're interpreting that person, and I'm sure there are people in the audience who have felt this, where people don't judge you for you. They look at some tiny fraction of you, and they inject all of their negative experiences with people like that.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
All men are dangerous. All women, you can't trust women, right? So where do these generalizations come from? And we see this so much, get this kind of indoctrination, uh, using social media. But the, the root, uh, the psychological injury is there. And so, uh, the best thing that I know how to do is teach people, let's give you a course in yourself.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
This is how you work, and that's really what I learned in India. And when I was here in the United States, they'll teach me about physics, they'll teach me about chemistry. No one could explain to me, I want to wake up at 8:00 AM, but I never do. I want to stop playing video games, but I can't control myself. And so as we teach people... Like, it's interesting 'cause we have a lot of incels that have been coming into our community for the last few years, and, like, they're starting to get better. As you teach people this is how I work, this is where my ego comes from. I want a relationship so bad that I'm gonna tolerate abuse because I'm scared of loneliness. I would rather be abused than alone. So once you start to understand these things about yourself, once you start to dissolve your ego a little bit, once you start to realize what your samskaras are, what is the emotional ba- baggage that you carry around that sabotages all of your interactions? And the way that you know this happens is because the same crap keeps happening to you over and over again. This person takes advantage of you, this person takes advantage of you, this person takes advantage of you. That's because you are sending out a signal that they are picking up on. Because they test boundaries. They'll, they'll treat you a little bit inappropriately, and you'll take it. Or they detect that you're a people pleaser and that you don't, you can't tolerate someone being upset. This is one of the huge... One of the biggest things that I think people, we've trained people to do is tolerate, uh... People have now become intolerant of
- 51:41 – 54:40
It’s Never Too Late to Turn Your Life Around
- SPSpeaker
the dissatisfaction of others. If somebody doesn't like me, I can't handle that anymore. And so as you start to realize some of these patterns, then I think you're, you form yourself into a better human being, and then fingers crossed it's up to karma or God or the universe or whatever, or the algorithm. But I think the best thing that I know how to tell people is turn yourself into the healthiest human you can, and then the rest of it is kind of out of your control.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. I actually, I actually find that approach quite refreshing. And, and I think it's true. You just get a better radar, you get a better ability to spot frequency. And I don't mean on a spiritual level, I just mean on a, on a-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... general human level. You, like you just said, you set up your boundaries better. You have better barriers. You have better filters early on. You don't allow someone-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... with bad behavior to last longer than they should.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely.
- JSJay Shetty
And all of those things save you from wasting time and energy. And I think one of the biggest things is you don't allow your old kind of Hollywood romance Disney version that was programmed into you to rerun the program every time it feels that way. So I think so much of this goes back to that same thing. It's like how do you not let that old circuitry take over again, even if you've learned all these new principles and you're meditating and you're mindful and all this stuff, but it can just flip back-
- SPSpeaker
Yep
- JSJay Shetty
... because it's so hardwired. And, and that ultimately, sometimes you see people who are doing all the right work, but they meet someone that they found attractive traditionally, and then everything's gone out the window.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So I think it's really uncomfortable. It's, it's a beautiful example because you kinda do everything that you're supposed to do, but you never do the one thing you need to do.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I see this all the time in my patients. And, and you offered, I think, the best example which is you find someone that you're attracted to. And what a lot of people need to do is start looking at people they're not attracted to. Don't just accept that attraction because when you follow that kind of attraction, it gets you back into the cycle.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I'm gonna meditate and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this, but then this p- kind of person shows up, and I'm gonna make the same damn mistake again.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, so it, and it feels so counterintuitive. I think another thing, like, so sometimes my patients will come in and w- we'll talk about, you know, dating and relationships, and they'll be like, "You know, but, but it sounds like, Dr. K, you're saying I shouldn't be myself." And I'm like, "Yeah, you shouldn't." I think being yourself, I know this sounds kinda weird, but let me explain. Being yourself is one of the worst things that you can do. Like, what created this version of you? A lot of unconscious programming, a lot of social conditioning, a lot of trauma, right? All of these things have turned you into the current version of you. So I think the real you is way more formless and egoless and all that kind of stuff. We actually need to dismantle.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Don't just be this set of patterns. That's what they oftentimes mean. They say like, "You know, if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best, so I'm gonna continue acting at my worst."
- 54:40 – 59:57
What is True Masculinity Today?
- SPSpeaker
This is what we tell people nowadays. I think that's a terrible idea. And we wonder why there's such a dating and mating crisis when everyone's like, "I'm just gonna be me. If you don't like me, you can move on. I'm gonna move on too. Everyone is replaceable. I don't need to change."
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So I think we need to take a step back from that and try to really turn yourself into the best human being that you know how to be. And then I think things will turn around, which is what I see pretty consistently.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah. At, at least you have the tools.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Like you said, they may not, it may not solve all your problems, but at least you have the tools to know what to do with it. What do you, what do you think it means... You talk so much about masculinity, which I really appreciate because I think it's an area that the country as a whole that we both live in is dealing with right now.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
The, the world's dealing with it for sure. What does it even mean to be a man right now?
- SPSpeaker
I, I don't know.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so I mean, I, I, I don't-
- JSJay Shetty
What, yeah, what's confusing people I guess is the question then.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so I, I, I, I mean, I don't prescribe... So masculinity, my understanding of like the, the scientific or literature definition is like, it's like the set of, you know, behaviors and expectations that we put on men. That's not, that's not the lens that I work. So if you ask me about masculinity, I'd say like, "Go ask someone else." I mean, I'm gonna talk about it, but like just to be clear, you know, I'm a clinician.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So my, my f- I'm zoomed into one person at a time.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So what I, I think is going on right now, um, you know, I, I, I had a, a really interesting, uh, video come out recently that got a lot of controversy about why women prefer beta males.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So this is like a big thing where everyone's like, "I'm gonna be alpha," and there's so much weird science that people don't understand. So w- as one simple example of like a lot of what masculinity, like everyone wants to be ripped. So there's a great study that looked at something called drive for muscularity.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So this is not how muscular you are, but how much you wanna be muscular. So the higher your drive for muscularity is, the lower your likelihood of entering a long-term relationship. You can enter short-term relationships. Um, higher likelihood of divorce, and I think there's, there's a lot of like crosstalk where like a lot of women are saying, "What we want is like safety, not some dude who's like super cut." And so there's a lot of confusion about what it means to be a man. I think one of the reasons why there's confusion is because of sort of the way that men and women operate. So there's a part of men that focuses on intramale competition. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about animals, and I don't think that translates over 100%, so big caveat there. But if you look at sort of like, you know, a, a, a, a lion pride, right? The males will fight amongst themselves, and then one male will rise to the top, and then he becomes the male of the pride. So there's this idea that like men will fight amongst each other. They'll create a hierarchy, and then that'll make them attractive to women. And I certainly know that it was really weird. Once I got married and started we- wearing a wedding ring, I got way more female attention. So I think there's some element of that's, that, that, that's true. But I think that having spent a lot of time working with female patients, everyone's an individual. We're not just like products of our biology. And I think this is what really confuses men is that we can fight amongst ourselves, but that's not actually what women want. That's not what they actually make their, their selections based off of. So I think a lot of masculinity right now is men trying to become as manly as possible.
- JSJay Shetty
In the alpha sense.
- SPSpeaker
In the alpha sense. And I think that people get super confused because like that doesn't translate over into happiness. And if it doesn't translate over into happiness, you know, the, these dudes, like I've worked with so many men who like are super into transactional relationships because they really think that human females, that these general principles of how lions select mates will translate over to an individual person who has unique genetics, unique history, and that doesn't work. So they approach this relationship transactionally. They'll think like, "Oh, all women want is like money." So if I approach a relationship from a transactional perspective, if I see a woman as just a biological uterus, the women who want a partnership will run away. The women who have enough confidence will be like, "This guy is an asshole." They'll, they'll leave. And so all you'll be left with is women who also view relationships in a transactional way, and then that will sort of feed into giving you this idea of like, "Okay, this is all women want," because all the women who don't want that will never date you in the first place. So I think we're seeing a lot of these like mechanisms at play. I think a lot of this masculinity is because, um, we expect a lot from men, but as men are failing those expectations because I think they're unreasonable, we're not really giving them an alternative.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So I think, you know, research shows that most women still want to date s- a man who makes more money than they do. But 60-plus percent of people who go to college are now women. So what's happened is men are in this really tough spot where the expectations for men have not changed, but society has changed, so we can't meet those expectations anymore. And so th- there's this really
- 59:57 – 1:06:45
Common Challenges Women Face Today
- SPSpeaker
interesting gap, and when people feel crushed, when they feel rejected, the ego activates. We fall into all of these like unhealthy behaviors like pornography and drugs and video games and stuff like that to soothe our internal environment. We don't teach boys or men emotional regulation skills. And so I think there's like just a confluence of a thousand things going on, and men are getting like crushed and squeezed.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that, I mean, and, and I appreciate, I know you're a clinician. I just find your perspective on-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... some of these more societal challenges to be, to be, you know, great observations. And, and I, and I feel similarly. It's almost like it's what we talked about. We talked about there were targets. Somehow some of those targets have remained, but they feel unmeetable.
- SPSpeaker
Yep.
- JSJay Shetty
And then there are moving targets which you keep trying to place, i.e., I need to get more buff, I need to get more ripped, I need to get more money, whatever it may be, and they become arbitrary, abstract targets. What's happening for women on the other side, because society's also changed?And, and their desires
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I think they're getting equally screwed.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, so I, I think the, you know, of the first thing to understand, and I, I don't think it's like a competition. I think as society is changing, women are facing particular challenges, men are facing particular challenges, and one of the beautiful things we've seen in our community is the more that we understand that, I think the better off things get.
- JSJay Shetty
That's the conversation that needs to be had.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So, and it's beautiful. I, I remember a post that someone once made. So there w- there was a, a, a woman who's very attractive who said, you know, "I'm an incredibly attractive physical, a physically attractive woman. I feel so incredibly alone. Every time I meet someone, they don't see me, they don't care about me. They just care about the way that I look and things like that. So there are people always around me, but they're, like, using me constantly." And then the really funny thing is, like, there was an incel in, in our subreddit who was like, "Wow, like, the way you're describing loneliness, that's exactly how I feel. I never imagined that, like, a 10 out of 10 attractive woman could feel the way that I feel." And it was, like, a really beautiful moment, like, of weird connection over the internet. I think one of the key things that women are struggling with right now is, first of all, safety. So I think that, uh, men are getting very aggressive, men are getting very angry, and there's some reasons for that. I think that's not some- That's a problem, but I think it's the only card men have to play in today's society. So I think their, their safety is kind of the number one priority, um, or, like, the number one danger that a lot of, like, women face. And I, and I think it's something that a lot of men, like, can't understand. So I remember getting frustrated because I was, like, walking behind a woman, and we were walking. So I was walking down in New York City, actually, and she, like, turned ahead of me and it was nighttime. But I'm, like, walking behind her. We're walking at the same pace. And then, you know, later on someone kinda tells me like, "Oh, you shouldn't do that because it seems like you're following her." And so then they're like, "What you should do is, like, pass her." So then I started walking really fast, and someone else tells me like, "You should never do that because now you're like, it seems like you're walking faster. You're, you're get, you, you're getting closer to her." So then it's, so it was like, "What am I supposed to do?" And they're like, "You should cross the street." And then I cross the street, but then, like-
- JSJay Shetty
Then you got run over. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
I didn't get run over, but then there's another woman on the other side of the street. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
It's like, 'cause it turns out that-
- JSJay Shetty
You're like standing in the middle of the street. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So I'm just, like, like, zigzagging back and forth. So, so, but I, I think the reason that they feel this way is because they, they... Things are unsafe.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. It's true.
- SPSpeaker
And a lot of men feel like they, women don't give them a chance, and it's kinda like imagine that a third of the people that walk into your store are gonna steal from you. W- how would you relate to that? I think a lot of men just don't understand the statistics-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... around how easy it is to become a, a victim if you're a woman in this world. You can become a victim m- a, as a man, too. I, I don't think we take, um, you know, cases of, of male sec- uh, sexual assault victims, even by women and teachers and things like that, we don't take that seriously, um, which is a, a, a real problem. But I think that's one thing that they're really struggling with.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
I think another thing that they're really struggling with is that there is a lack of good men, that women are looking for partnership, they're looking for companionship, and a lot of men have become angry. And this is where, like, you know, people will say, like, we blame them. I think that's the big mistake that we make. I think the reason that so many men are struggling right now is because they're the one demographic that we as a society don't help. So the one thing that hasn't changed, this is maybe the most damaging thing, is we expect men to solve their own problems. So 60% of people who go to college are women. Where are the male-only scholarships? We don't want... We don't need those because men have privilege. And I think this is what's really scary is, you know, I, I, I see this a lot because I'll have CEOs come into my office and then, like, I'll go and work in a jail and, right? And most of the people in jail are men. And so when we talk about male privilege, which is real, the key thing is, like, it affects men, some men a lot, but it doesn't affect others. So the majority of workplace injuries, um, you know, things like that, like, th- those are all men. And so I, I think that we need to sort of stop thinking about, yes, male privilege exists, but it may be insufficient to compensate. And this is how people think. They think that if there's privilege, that means that there isn't hurt, right? But, like, it, those things don't even out.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
O- one thing I appreciate about medicine is things are very multifactorial, so there's a lot of variables here, and just because you're rich doesn't mean that... Like, that has great advantages, but if you get cancer, you still have cancer. It's not like being rich cancels out cancer. It may help in a very significant way, which unfortunately I've seen. There's some degree of, like, connection there, but one doesn't replace the other.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, and it, and, and I think you took it to the higher ground there, which I really appreciate, which is that's the convers- and that's why I asked about both. The conversation that needs to be had is how do we just understand each other better? Because generally what we find, and it's easier because it's clickbait, gets more views, gets more attentions, is the small echo chambers-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JSJay Shetty
... of one or the other. Like, we could be sitting here as a conversation as men having a conversation about how women have let us down, or we could be having a conversation about how men are terrible because then that makes us-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... look like better men, and both are not helpful for society because we're just gonna sit on the opposite sides of the bridge and just point fingers.
- 1:06:45 – 1:14:04
Rising from Judgment to Understanding
- SPSpeaker
matter if you're a man, it doesn't matter if you're a woman, you have a unique set of advantages. You have a unique set of challenges. Let's understand who you are. Let's give you this basic set of skills of, like, self-understanding, dissolving your ego, emotional regulation, and if you, like, work on this stuff, I think that's the best way is you become a healthy human.An independent human, I think that sets you up for the best kind of relationship
- JSJay Shetty
I think that speaks to a big issue right now, and I'd love to know how you work with people on this because it's a big part of self-understanding is there's such a challenge we have with raising the mind from judgment to understanding. It's so much easier to judge, blame, point fingers, shift responsibility, to make sense of someone through very little amounts of information, to have a projection on them. How do we encourage, how do you encourage your clients, how do you encourage your patients and people you meet to rise from judgment to understanding in a world where we don't have time, we don't have energy for that, it requires so much more effort?
- SPSpeaker
So I don't know about time, but it does require more energy, and it does require more effort until you learn how to do it. So I, I once had a patient who, um, I was in training at the time, they were an adolescent, and they had all kinds of behavioral problems. So this was a kid who would start fights, um, would smear feces all over the bathroom at school. And, like, what everyone does, s- this is so sad, but what everyone- when someone does something really crappy, what we wanna do is punish them. But if you wanna stop that behavior, what you really need is compassion.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So if you sort of think about judgment, judgment is like a narrowing, right? So I'm saying, like, "You are bad." So there are a couple of things that create judgment in the brain. The first is activation of negative emotion. If my adrenaline is high or if I feel angry or afraid or anxious, this does something really interesting. It narrows our peripheral vision-
- JSJay Shetty
Interesting
- SPSpeaker
... from 180 degrees to 30 degrees.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
So literally when, if I were angry with you right now, I would be zoomed in on you because you are the threat, you are the danger. The really interesting th- thing is that it does that psychologically too.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
We stop seeing context. When this person dumped me-
- JSJay Shetty
Oh, that's so good
- SPSpeaker
... I didn't think about what's going on in there. Not even dumped. When this person said, "No, I don't wanna go on a date," I didn't think about what's going on in their life. I didn't think about the way I smell. I didn't think about any of those things. All I see is that hurt, and it causes me to see red.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
And then I will snap into judgment. And this is evolutionary, by the way.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So when a tiger, when I'm like working the fields and a tiger shows up, I don't wanna be like, "Hmm, I wonder what, how that tiger's feeling today. Like, is the tiger hungry? Is it not hungry?" So this is evolutionary. Fear and anger cause us to zoom in, see black and white, and act before we think, which is the only way that we survive. So what we really need to do to stop judgment is to lower those emotions.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And we see this so much with Israel, Palestine, Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, men, women, right? Everyone is angry. Everyone is fighting for survival. And when you fight for survival, there's no room for compassion. There's no room for empathy. There's no room for understanding. So what we need to do is two things. One is if someone is coming at you really hard, try to be compassionate. And this is what's really interesting. You know, it's like weird, like being trained as a psychiatrist, like we get trained in this stuff formally. It's really hard to do. But when a patient comes into my office, you know, like, uh, like, "You're terrible," and, "Psychiatrists are all terrible," and like, you know, like, "I hate being here and I don't need to be here," and, "All y'all, you're just trying to scam me, like big pharma's paying you to fill people up with meds," the natural reaction is like, "No, they're not. No, I'm not." You know, "No, no, no, no, no." But I'll be like, "Okay, hold on a second. I can see you're really upset, but tell me like why you hate psychiatrists so much. Like, what have been your experiences? I'd really like to understand." And when someone comes at you with hard emotional energy, if you sort of make yourself like water, if you kind of give them that space, they kind of deflate.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So if I come at you, like I, you know, I argue with my wife all the time, and if I come at her hard, like she's done an awesome job recently of like really handling my anger, where I, I would come at her hard and she would fight back, right? And if she comes at me hard, like I'll fight back. We've done a really good job of like giving each other space. Be like, "I get you. You're pissed. Like, tell me more. Let me understand. Help me understand." So don't respond to that negative energy with like a negative emotional energy. It'll narrow your view. And for those that you judge, so, so if someone is coming at you, I think you gotta cool off a little bit, right? So, and then if someone is coming at you, try to be compassionate towards them. Now, this is where a lot of people get tripped up because they think compassion means giving them what they want.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So sometimes people will come in and will be like, "I need Ritalin. I need Adderall. I need it. I need it. I need it. Don't you understand, Doc? If you don't give me this, um, everything's gonna fall apart," and things like that, and I'm like, "Okay, look, I already prescribed you once. I told you that if you lose your medication, I'm not gonna prescribe it to you again. I totally feel that these consequences are there. I'm not gonna give you more meds." Right? "But I recognize that doing that is gonna put you in a really tough spot. I'm gonna hold my boundary, but with compassion. What else can I do? Do you want a non-stimulant medication? Do you wanna do some other things? Do you want me to write a letter to your professor telling you that, you know, your ADHD is particularly bad right now?" I don't have to include details of your clinical history, but say, "Can you please give him an extension for medical reasons? I'm happy to work with you. I'm not, I'm gonna hold my boundary, but I'm gonna be as compassionate as possible."
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And what a lot of people think is that compassion means letting people run all over you. That's not what it means. So you wanna be compassionate, but you wanna be stable. Now, if you, if you are feeling judgmental-I think take a step back, take a breath. Also pay attention to the way that you are indoctrinating your mind, right? So if we're spending a lot of time on social media, if we're, like, watching, like, spending time in echo chambers, your judgment is gonna be through the roof. And oftentimes if you are judging someone else, sit down and let them add their human context to your projection. You think this person is doing this and they're doing this and they're like this and they're like this, and all women are like this, all men are like this. No, that, I don't know about all men or all women, but this human being is not all of those things.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
There is unique human being, and as you train yourself, and it ain't easy, this is where doing some emotional regulation practices and things like that, like nadi shuddhi pranayama and activating your parasympathetic nervous system and stuff. We have a guide to, to meditation that's all about that kind of stuff, but I'm sure you're familiar with, you know, alternate nostril breathing and things. Um, so as you do those
- 1:14:04 – 1:17:25
How to Become a Better Partner
- SPSpeaker
kinds of things and you, like, emotionally regulate, as you calm down, then you'll be able to do that. But that requires a lot of energy and effort. Like, you're spot on. Reacting is really easy. One of the most draining things, so if you look at willpower as a battery, one of the top drainers of willpower is regulating your emotions. It is the most emotionally taxing thing you can do. So it's hard.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
But then you'll get better at it.
- JSJay Shetty
That's a brilliant answer. The idea that anxiety, anger, and fear narrow your viewpoint and therefore don't give you the ability to see everything else in the context around it is such a, such a useful lesson to know why that's happening and how to regulate it. And I'm thinking about, talking about your wife. I, I was thinking about something with my wife. She sent me an idea recently for a new venture that she wanted to start, and in my head, all the fear [laughs] and anxiety went off, and I messaged back and I was like, "Yeah, no, but I don't think it's gonna work." Like, you know, she just shared an idea. She's like, "I'm really excited about this." And my response was like, "Yeah, I don't think that's gonna work, and here are all the reasons why it's not gonna work, and maybe we can do it in, like, five years," like, all this stuff. And then again, my, yeah, my wife's amazing at this, and she just called me out in the most compassionate, loving way, and she was just like, "Hey, I was just sharing something I was excited about. I wasn't saying we have to do it. I wasn't saying we need to do it, and I, I would've just loved for you to just at least hear my idea out."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Right? To just give me the space to say, "Oh, tell me about your idea. Tell me what you're excited about," rather than... And it's so interesting because even though I would generally naturally do that, in that moment, my anx- the reason why I didn't-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... I'm now reflecting back, was my anxiety, my fear, my, uh, there wasn't any anger, but my anxiety and fear were high.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
And therefore my response was not helpful, and therefore if my wife had not been as evolved as she is, then we would've just had a full-blown argument about nothing.
- SPSpeaker
Y- yeah, the o- one thing that really shocks me is how much yogic training and psychiatry training don't prepare me to be a good husband.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] That's a great one.
- SPSpeaker
Like, being a good husband and a father, actually, so like-
- JSJay Shetty
But it does prepare you, it's just we're not-
- SPSpeaker
I mean, so that's, that's the crazy thing, man. I think, like, I, I thought, I was like, "Oh, I got this stuff on, on lockdown," you know? Like-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... I'm yogi and I'm doctor. Like, great. It's going to be... No, it's like, it's really hard.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, like, my, my wife brings out, like, some of my worst tendencies-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... and I really have to work on it.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And she's awesome. It's like I turn into a different person around her in, like, not a good way.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
You know?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
A- and so I think that's also healthy in a sense because she's not a patient of mine. She's not, like, a client or someone in a meditation class or whatever. And when I go into psychiatrist mode, it pisses her off a lot.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- SPSpeaker
It's like, "Oh, tell me how you feel."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. [laughs]
- 1:17:25 – 1:28:55
There’s Not Just One Path to Growth
- JSJay Shetty
physical, verbal abuse in any way, and that's not what I mean. But there's a beauty in being able to show your full self to someone with the vulnerability of it, as long as it's not harming them.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
And for them to help you with it and for you to help them back. That's why I think that is that one relationship. I don't, I don't think anyone knows me better than my wife.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
It's the only person who knows what you're doing at 6:00 AM and-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
... what you're doing at midnight-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... and you know, everything else in between. And so it's beautiful. But I wanted to touch on something with you that I wanted to talk to you about actually, because I've, I've watched so many of your interviews and I've been... Today is, my, my intention and my focus has been to really mine that spiritual clinician side in you and to, and to find some of that maybe more ethereal stuff, which, which you're such a deep expert in as well because I think the two complement each other so wonderfully in your expertise. What is that spiritual evolution that's being demanded of humanity right now? When you mentioned it earlier, you were like, "We've kind of reached the peak of our material evolution based on ego development." What is the spiritual evolution that's, that we're being invited to?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so I, I think, um, this is where, like, I gotta start with a big disclaimer. So I think this is where, like, we're talking about spiritual evolution, which is not clear whether this stuff even exists from a scientific perspective. So I may touch on studies and things like that on neuroscience and meditation and brain changes. So there's some evidence of this stuff, but there's a lot of stuff in the spiritual traditions which there's no scientific evidence for. So before I even started med school, I was in a-
- JSJay Shetty
Yet. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yet.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I was in a tai chi lab, a neuroscience tai chi lab at, at Harvard, and so we were trying to understand this, like, concept of chi or prana or life energy. And so the really interesting thing about this kind of stuff is that there's no scientific evidence that it exists.But when you do a practice that supposedly activates this stuff, it outperforms physical exercise, like yoga, for example, right? Or tai chi. So we were studying tai chi. And so there seems to be like something where like the health benefit is greater than physical exercise, but we can't really detect-
- JSJay Shetty
What are you measuring to know that it's greater than physical exercise?
- SPSpeaker
I mean, it depends. So, uh, you know, one of my early mentors was, um, uh, uh, Dr. Wang, w- w- has a great paper in The New England Journal of Medicine on tai chi and arthritis. So she's just measuring the improvement in, of arthritis if I give tai chi, if I do exercise, and tai chi is superior. So I was trying to study the mechanism of that, and the mechanism is, is super interesting. So I was in a chronic pain lab, and the really interesting thing about chronic pain is that it locks your brain into like one part of your body. So someone who has chronic pain, they're always thinking about what hurts.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah [laughs] . That's so true.
- SPSpeaker
Right?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
And, and then what happens when we do yoga or tai chi is that we're putting our body in different places to where if I'm, like if I'm standing on one leg and twisting myself into a pretzel, my brain is focusing on other parts of my body, and that trains my brain to move away from the hurting part. And then once I move away from the hurting part, then I feel it less, and so the pain actually feels better.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And this is also what we do mentally with yoga and stuff. It's like, let me move away from this ruminative thinking. Let me return my attention to the breath. So you're literally training your brain to do what you tell it to.
- JSJay Shetty
Well, it's, it's just what you said right at the beginning, which was thinking about yourself versus paying attention to yourself.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely, right? So it, the beautiful thing about yoga and tai chi is that they force you to observe yourself.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
'Cause once you stand on one leg, so you can do a simple, like so I'll challenge everybody in your audience to just raise their arm. That's it. I just want them to raise their arm, and we're just gonna continue talking, okay?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
We're just gonna have a conversation. And over time, what's gonna happen, you don't have to do that [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
'Cause I wanna converse with you. You won't be able to converse.
- 1:28:55 – 1:37:07
How Emotions Shape Your Behavior
- SPSpeaker
world, we're all moving in this direction.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Like meditation is exploding, right? We have like, you know, uh, champions of it like you, and you've spread a lot of knowledge about it. Like, something weird is going on where from a scientific perspective, it makes sense that we have all these like technology things, and we need some kind of antidote to that. From a neurochemical perspective, I think that makes sense. But I do feel like we're all being called to meditate more.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. But then going back to that mental training point that we all have, it goes back to that same point that you brought up earlier. We're all being called to do this, but then we struggle to do it, and we can't. We try once, we let go. We know we need to work out. Everyone knows they need 10,000 steps a day. We don't get 10,000 steps a day. Everyone knows they need to eat better, but we're still, you know, making all the fast food companies rich and wealthier. What's the disconnect there?
- SPSpeaker
So I think the biggest disconnect is information doesn't change behavior. So like, you know, I had a patient once, this was, uh, bad, but I had a patient once who was... I was a medical student, and so they come in and, and they smoke, and I try to tell them, "Hey, so, like, smoking will give you lung cancer. Smoking will give you heart disease." And he's like, "Yeah, Doc, I know." And I was like, "I'm a medical student." He's like, "Yeah, I know, but you're a doc, basically." He's like, "Yeah, Doc, I know." And he's like, "I'll stop. I'll quit, I promise." Comes in a month later, "How's your smoking?" "Oh yeah, I know I'm supposed to. It's not working." And I was like, "Okay, maybe you want some medication for that." And he's like, "Sure, Doc, give me the medication." Comes in a month later, "Are you taking the medication?" "Not really." "Okay, let's give you, like, let's try nicotine gum. Like, let's try this." He's not doing it, not doing it, not doing it. So I, I was, you know, working with my preceptor, and I read some about addiction and, and things like that, and I realized, like, you have to, you have to motivate him. And so the next time he comes in, I take a different approach. I'm like, "So tell me about yourself. Tell me about, you know, what you're excited about." And he's like, "You know, I, I love being a father. I have three daughters, and you know, I'll die happy the moment that the last one is married because I, I know they're being taken care of, and it's gonna be such a great day, day. Like, my oldest daughter is married. It was awesome. Like, walking her down the aisle was one of the best experiences I've ever had." Then I ask him, "Oh, great. When your, when your second daughter gets married, do you wanna be wheeling an oxygen tank behind you? And do you wanna be pushed in a wheelchair when your third daughter gets married?" And he was like, "No." Right? Like, I said something that was so mean. I was like, "That's what's gonna happen if you don't stop smoking."And so that was brutal. I wouldn't recommend it. I was still learning. I was still a medical student. But I think a lot of behavioral change comes from, like, motivation within. You have to have a good reason to do it, not in, in, like, an intellectual, like, "Oh, this is, like, I'm not gonna get cancer 40 years from now." Your brain doesn't understand... So y- this is what people don't get. When I tell you, like, "Do this or you'll get cancer," how does your brain know what cancer feels like? So if you touch a hot pan, your brain knows. They're like, okay, s- and then it's hard to touch a hot pan.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
But how does your brain know this, like, hypothetical thing? It doesn't. So information goes into this one part of our brain that really doesn't shape our behavior. What shapes our behavior is emotions. So if you think about when you get angry, then everyone's telling you not to act.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Stop, slow down, don't act. The- but when you get angry, you feel like acting.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So the first thing is that we need to focus more on finding, like, our right, like, the right emotional reason. Like, what is the reason for your change? What really drives you to change? The more you connect with that, then the information will become useful. There's another really interesting-
- JSJay Shetty
Such a great answer, man. That's awesome.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. It, it-
- JSJay Shetty
So great
- SPSpeaker
... one other thing that I would say is a lot of people don't realize, I don't know if this makes sense, but there's something called ambivalence, which is when we're internally conflicted. And anytime somebody wants to change, there's a part of us that wants to change, but there's a part of us that doesn't want to change.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So when we want to change, I tend to think about the benefit. So in this moment, my brain is telling me, like, oh, like, we wanna get... let's get healthy. But, but you j- so you're thinking about the benefit when you start, but as you start, you see the cost. So when I go to the gym, all it is is suffering. And so then what happens is, like, the cost gets really big in my mind 'cause I'm reaping the cost now, I'm feeling the cost now. This is really hard, and the benefit is far away. So when I get started, I think about the goal, I think about the benefit, but I'm not really appreciating the cost. When I actually do it, I feel the cost but don't think about the benefit.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So one of the biggest mistakes that you can make is thinking about the benefit when you wanna do something. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
Interesting.
- SPSpeaker
So instead, what you should do is actually focus on the cost. Tell yourself, "Okay, this is going to be hard."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? Like, it's gonna suck going to the gym. And accept the cost upfront. Do I want this thing? Yes. But you need to balance it. So when we have high expectations, we're gonna have low follow-through.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And when we have low expectations, if you say to yourself, "Look, this is gonna suck. I'm gonna do it anyway," that's the approach you should take. Now, a lot of people will say, like, "But I don't do it anyway," and that's where you need to really dig for a reason.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, that reason being that idea that emotion shifts behavior-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- JSJay Shetty
... and figuring out what that emotion is is so critical. Like, I'm thinking about most of my spiritual aspirations come from a deep sense of gratitude. Like, that's the emotion. It's like a gratitude to my teachers, the people that have invested so much time into my life when I didn't deserve it, people that are far more enlightened and far more well-read, and people who've actually dedicated their life who found it useful to s- uh, that I found so useful and were so kind to give me time and energy.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
That's kind of what it carries from, because I'm like, yeah. And then there are certain other things which, coming back to health, yeah, knowing that, [clicks tongue] hey, all my friends are getting cancer at 40 or 50 years old, or-
- 1:37:07 – 1:39:50
The Hidden Root of Pornography Addiction
- SPSpeaker
thing is that I think if you use sattvic emotions, your material success could be way lower.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, for sure.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So, so as you start operating from love and as you s- become a little bit more detached, you may not achieve as much, but you'll be happier.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah. Whereas if you have a lot of mode of passion in your life-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... you'll be much more successful but more-
- SPSpeaker
Yep. You'll also have ulcers
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, for sure. For sure.Uh, I, I really like the idea about just going back to that mental training piece around, yeah, the emotion. What's at the root of our addiction to pornography right now? Like, what's at the root of that from a-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... from a core point of view?
- SPSpeaker
Or, or at the root is meaninglessness. So this is what a lot of people don't realize. They think that pornography addiction is about sexuality. They think it's about being horny. They think it's about lust. It's not lust. So y- you know, one of the top variables, there's two. One of the top variables for addiction to pornography is lack of purpose, lack of meaning. So when I was designing our coaching program, I was seeing that there's a lot of new problems, but they have these roots that are a little bit different. So in psychiatry, they don't teach us how to find purpose. But our initial pilot study of 1,453 people found a 68% increase in purpose and direction in life at 20 weeks. So that's also where you gotta stick with it for a while. It doesn't happen overnight. So I think what's going on is, to be br- like, blunt about it, when you are addicted to porn, you gotta have a reason to not watch. So what happens with pornography addiction, a lot of people don't realize what this looks like. They think it's, like, automatically associated with lust and masturbation. Oftentimes, it's on the second screen, so we're seeing a, a big explosion of it with, like, work from home. People will really use it to regulate their emotions. That's really the number one reason.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So if we think about sex and what it does to our brain, if I'm feeling anxious, if I'm a man, biological male, and if my testosterone is, is intact and stuff like that, you know, we will oftentimes, if we get sexually activated, all of our negative emotions go away, and it's such a powerful activator. It's, like, the most powerful biological way to shut off your negative emotional circuitry. Happens im- immediately. Like, once you get horny, right? And a lot of guys, and sorry if this is a bit vulgar, but, you know, we'll experience this post-nut clarity. And literally, what happens in, in your brain is when these sexual circuits activate, they suppress everything else, including our risk assessment circuitry, which is why we make really bad decisions. They shut off everything else. They shut off your reasoning. They
- 1:39:50 – 1:41:46
The Harmful Effects of Pornography
- SPSpeaker
shut off your logic. They shut off your risk assessment. They shut off your anxiety. They shut off your fear. So what we're seeing is that as people become more directionless and as their capacity to handle negative emotions decreases, they get addicted to pornography-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... 'cause it's the most accessible biological tool that you can use, and it doesn't involve, you know, opiates and spending money and things like that usually.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. And what are the negative effects of pornography anyway that we're seeing? Because if someone's watching this and going, "Well, it's not that bad anyway. It switch-
- SPSpeaker
Uh
- JSJay Shetty
... switches off, helps me emotionally regulate."
- SPSpeaker
Yes. So I think the scariest one for me is, um, the rise of erectile dysfunction under the age of 30. So erectile dysfun-
- JSJay Shetty
How do the two correlate?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I'll tell [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, so erectile dysfunction under the age of 30 used to be 5%, right? So as men, we're in society, we tend to think, like, as you get older, right, like, once you have kids, once you have grandkids, like, then it doesn't work the way it used to, right? But actually, what we're starting to see is the rate, uh, some studies suggest a rate of 20% of people under the age of 30, boys, men, um, will have erectile dysfunction. And the reason that happens, it's kind of also a little bit, uh, vulgar, but it's medical. So the hand grip strength, uh, the PSI, the pounds per square inch of your hand can be, like, 120, 130. The vagina has a PSI of, like, 15 to 30. So literally what, the way you de- define erectile dysfunction is it is the inability to maintain erection until the completion of the sexual act. So what we're seeing is that when boys start using pornography and masturbating at a very young age without lubrication and stuff like that, their body gets trained for a certain kind of stimulus in order to complete the sexual act. And when they engage in a sexual relationship, their penis
- 1:41:46 – 1:43:48
Steps to Prevent Pornography Addiction
- SPSpeaker
doesn't know how to handle it. Like, it's just, just not enough. And then eventually they'll go at it, they'll go at it, they'll go at it. They'll lose the erection, which is physiologic. And then what happens is we have all kinds of, like, shame associated with it, you know. And then, like, once the shame kicks in, that shame can be so powerful that the sexual drive cannot shut that down. And then you have anxiety around sex and things like that, and it can really mess up people's relationships.
- JSJay Shetty
What's the mental training for someone who's saying, "Okay, well, I, I wanna disconnect from porn. I wanna detach, but I'm not gonna find purpose tomorrow." So what's the stopgap?
- SPSpeaker
There is no stopgap, and you have to stop thinking about things happening tomorrow. [laughs] Honestly, that's where you start. So y- you know, our approach to pornography has three major pillars, and I think you have to tackle all three. So the first is, like, a very standard addiction-oriented structure, where, like, if you're trying to quit alcohol, you gotta stop going to bars. So from a structural standpoint, what I recommend to everyone is that they, um, you know, log out of all their devices, use only one dev- device for pornography, and restrict your pornography use to, like, one or two hours of the day. So it has to, like, stop infecting every part of your life. That's the first part. We're gonna kinda restrict it. Um, the second thing is emotional regulation. So as long as your brain requires pornography to manage your emotional, uh, uh, your emotions, it's, you're never gonna be able to quit. So you need to develop alternate skills to manage your emotions. These can be things like meditation practices, even going for a walk, stuff like that. Um, one thing that I also really recommend to people is that they give themselves time to think before they, before they go to sleep. So spend an hour of idle time. I love pacing. We need a lot of time to process emotions. You can also s- do things like dream journals. So dreams are one of the main ways that our brain processes emotions.So the, the emotional regulation is number two. And the third thing is finding meaning or purpose. So watch more episodes of On Purpose-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... with Jay Shetty.
- 1:43:48 – 1:48:44
Making Better Choices That Lead to Purpose
- SPSpeaker
So as you develop that purpose, you're right, it's not gonna happen overnight. We see that it takes about 20 weeks. That's when people-
- JSJay Shetty
20 weeks is amazing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so it, it-
- JSJay Shetty
Impressive
- SPSpeaker
... it, it's focused, right? So what we did is we took some of these, like, clinical things that used to be used to treat depression, and we shift those, those same conversational techniques, exploratory techniques, to finding something like purpose, and that works incredibly well. And then we can go into the details of, of, you know, what that involves.
- JSJay Shetty
I was gonna ask you, that, that was my next question. How do, how do you define purpose? What are you looking at in the 20 weeks? What are you trying to get people to-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so, so the funny thing about purpose is, like, it's not what everyone thinks it is. So the way you find purpose is, like, really kind of counterintuitive. So it actually involves, it, uh, act- I don't know what purpose is. Maybe we can ask you. But what we know is what are the scientific mechanisms? So if I take someone who has no purpose in life, and I take someone who has purpose in life, what do they do differently?
- JSJay Shetty
Yes, great.
- SPSpeaker
That's what we try to change.
- JSJay Shetty
Great question, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So the first thing is self-direction. So people, as long as you, as long as life is happening to you and you are not making choices, if you are forced to make choices, you will feel out of direction.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So this is kind of counterintuitive, but w- the first thing I tell people to do is start making choices.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And then the first question that they ask me is, "How do I know what's right or wrong?" That's not actually... Doesn't matter. The, what matters in your brain is that you choose.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And the whole point, this is really insidious. If you think about right or wrong, if you figure out right or wrong, you're not ma- you're not making the choice.
- JSJay Shetty
Making the choice, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
The world tells you this is right and this is wrong. That's the world making the choice for you, this is right and this is wrong. So forget about right or wrong and just make a choice. I don't care what it is. Choose matcha instead of coffee. Put your left shoe on first instead of your right shoe. Start brushing with your left te- uh, your left hand. So you need to start making choices. There's a beautiful, uh, element about anxiety that we can talk about there. It'll also, like, drastically help your anxiety. Second thing that you need to do is stretch your capacity. So we feel like we have purpose in life... 'Cause it's not purpose, but this is, like, literally what the scientific makeup of purpose is stretching your capacity. So we always feel overwhelmed. I don't want to do it. I want to do the bare minimum. We're a society of people who do the bare minimum. We're a society of people who companies use ChatGPT and AI to review applications. Now everyone is using AI to apply for jobs. It's just AI talking to AI.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
We're trying to do as little as possible, and we're seeing an epidemic of purposelessness.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
We're seeing an epidemic of pornography use. That's because in your brain, these two things are connected. The moment you stretch your capacities, once again, it doesn't matter what you're doing. If you swim 10, 10 laps, swim 11. If you are, wake up at 7:00 every, uh, 7:00 every day, wake up at 6:59. This is the beautiful thing. The content of what you do is completely irrele- not completely irrelevant. That's not wrong. That's, that's wrong. But the key thing is that you stretch your capacities. I didn't think I was capable of this. You don't even have to succeed. You just have to stretch it. I didn't think I could do this. Turns out I was wrong. At least I tried. When you start thinking in this way-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... right, when I ask someone, you know, if I, like a quick thought experiment, we're always afraid of giving it our, our all and failing. But when you give it your all, how do you usually feel? You can usually sleep at night, as long as some of the stuff like ego and stuff doesn't get in the way, right? At least I tried my best. That can give you a, a good sense. That's a, a hard lesson I learned in med school because, or in residency, is like, you know, what helps me sleep at night is not whether the patient lives or dies. Did I give it my all? Did I do everything within my power to try to help this person?
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And if I did, the rest is out of my hands.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right? So you have to stretch your capacities. The third thing, and this is the hardest one, relatedness. So people have to be able to see you-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- 1:48:44 – 1:51:46
Paying Attention Within to Find Clarity
- JSJay Shetty
relevant, and practical for the modern person.
- SPSpeaker
Perfect, right? So that's what most people think it is. They think it's like this goal.
- JSJay Shetty
Thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- SPSpeaker
Right? But this is what I want people to understand. If you really think about it, how do you know that you have purpose or you don't have purpose?
- JSJay Shetty
Oh, yeah, it's not that.
- SPSpeaker
It's, it's an internal feeling. Like, I wake up every day, like my guess is you wake up and you're like, "I have purpose."
- JSJay Shetty
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
It's an internal feeling.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So how do we cultivate that internal feeling with these three things?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. I love that. I think it's beautiful. I really, really like those three things, and they, they come closely to some of the things I've thought about before as well in, I think there's a need, and your people get it because they're part of your community. But I think belonging's such a first step in purpose.Like even, you know, recently I took up pickleball, and I feel like I'm part of the LA pickleball scene.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
And I'll just walk up to a court, and I can just go play with anyone.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
We don't have to know each other's names. I don't know what job they have. They don't know what I do, and you're playing pickleball together. There's a sense of belonging which makes me feel automatically linked to something bigger than me.
- SPSpeaker
Yep.
- JSJay Shetty
So belonging isn't a sense of I have friends. Belonging is I feel connected to something that is beyond me and beyond this person, and I think that's such a part of purpose. The second one, which is aligns with what you're saying to me, is learning, but really it's what you're saying. It's that challenge to stretch my capability to, to try something new every day. That idea of curiosity, uh, is so key to it, as well as a habit. The third, this one's really important for me. It's people who feel independently useful. So now you're part of this bigger thing, but you know what you do. So I'm the guy who brings the pickleballs. I'm the guy who, like, puts the net out, right? Like, I have a pur- I have a use that is unique to me.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... you know what's really fascinating is I love and am amazed that my guess is that you did not, like, read a bunch of scientific literature to come up with these things.
- JSJay Shetty
I've, I've read enough, but I didn't use it to sp-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... but I have. I'm, I'm def- I'm always reading-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... and learning. Yeah
- SPSpeaker
I, I, I, I know you're, you're quite well-read and stuff.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I enjoy reading. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
You know, so, so-
- JSJay Shetty
But I'm not a scientist. Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... but, but it's not like you're like, "Let me read 1,000 papers." That, that's how I came up with my answer.
- 1:51:46 – 1:56:02
Dissolving Ego Through Service
- SPSpeaker
and that is enough for you to find the right answers.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And it's crazy 'cause you hit all three.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
You didn't come up with four. You didn't come up with two. You came up with three.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
And it's all the same buckets.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah. True.
- SPSpeaker
Really amazing.
- JSJay Shetty
I have two more. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Oh, really? Okay.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, no. There's, there's two. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, so that's actually really cool too.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
'Cause if you've got two more, I wonder if we're missing something.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah. And I'm not, and I don't... I'm not saying you are. This is just my own reflection.
- SPSpeaker
No, no, no. M- but I mean, I would bet money we are. So tell me what those two are.
- JSJay Shetty
The, the fourth one is service.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- JSJay Shetty
So having a sense of give back, having a sense-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- JSJay Shetty
... of being involved in other people's wellbeing, which goes back to you've... It's really beautiful 'cause I've heard that idea before but not as strongly and concretely. This idea of you explaining what it means to not think about yourself today has just, like, really cut through for me, which is so powerful because it's been explained in a clinical way, I think, and that's what that service element is. It's like all those first things were still about... And once it, belonging was beyond you, it's thinking about something bigger than you, but this one's a key part. It's like, how are you doing things for things which are not about you? I'm not thinking about how am I useful. I'm not thinking about this. I'm trying to think about someone else. So service, and then the fifth one comes back to our point earlier on detachment, which is surrender. I use the word surrender because it falls into my FIVE acronym that I have. But the e- the last is surrender because there's such a need for ultimately that detachment from I t- what you just so beautifully said, that at the end of the day, I can't decide whether I'm gonna save someone's life or not. The only thing I can be satisfied is I gave it my all, and that to me is what surrender really is-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... is the ability to say, "I did everything, and now I'm holding my hands up, and I'm living with the, the, the results because I can't control what's going on." So that's-
- SPSpeaker
Karma phala.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Also from-
- JSJay Shetty
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- 1:56:02 – 2:01:54
Dr. K on Final Five
- SPSpeaker
thinking about ourselves.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So literally to spend time, to give your break, or your brain a break from thinking about you, worrying about you, just focusing on somebody else-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... is profoundly helpful for your default mode network and your ego.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Dr. K, I could talk to you for hours.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, man.
- JSJay Shetty
I'm gonna need to book you in again-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] That sounds-
- JSJay Shetty
... 'cause, 'cause this is, like, this is so much fun, and we didn't even [laughs] there's so many things-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... we could talk about. Uh, but we end every On Purpose interview with a Final Five.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- JSJay Shetty
These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- JSJay Shetty
Uh, so Dr. K, these are your Final Five.
- SPSpeaker
Okay, let's do it.
- JSJay Shetty
Question number one is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Or given.
- SPSpeaker
Best advice I've ever heard or received or given. Um, can we go to the second one while I think-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... about that?
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] The second one's harder usually. What is the worst advice you ever heard, received, or given?
- SPSpeaker
The thing that is top of mind for me right now-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... is be yourself.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, that's, I agree.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
It's fully bad advice.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
I'm so glad you said that 'cause I was on tour earlier this year, and I literally said that on stage. I was like, "If anyone ever tells you to be yourself, it is the worst advice ever."
Episode duration: 2:01:54
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