Charlamagne Tha God: How To Break The Habit Of Lying To Yourself

Charlamagne Tha God 0:00 I wanna wake up more happy than depressed. I wanna enjoy life. I'm not the final form of myself. I don't know what that's gonna be. He's one of the most influential voices in morning radio. Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club.

Speaker 0:13 Charlamagne tha God.

Charlamagne Tha God 0:14 [record scratches] I had no idea who I was. There was this character that had been created named Charlamagne. I'm like, "I don't know who this person is." At some point, I remember saying to myself, "Well, what's wrong with me that I thought it was okay?" [gentle music]

Jay Shetty 0:30 Hey, everyone. I've got some huge news to share with you. In the last 90 days, 79.4% of our audience came from viewers and listeners that are not subscribed to this channel. There's research that shows that if you want to create a habit, make it easy to access. By hitting the subscribe button, you're creating a habit of learning how to be happier, healthier, and more healed. This would also mean the absolute world to me and help us make better, bigger, brighter content for you and the world. Subscribe right now.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05 The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

Speaker 1:08 Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty 1:09 The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:13 Why have you built up such a animosity towards small talk?

Charlamagne Tha God 1:17 Oh, man.

Jay Shetty 1:18 Like, where does that come from?

Charlamagne Tha God 1:19 Well, number one, I hate small talk, you know, just on the literal level, right? When somebody sees you and they try to, you know, make conversation, and they're not really talking about anything, and it's just like, yo, you and this person are in this unique moment in time where y'all get to share space and nobody is saying anything. That is annoying to me, and it's annoying to the point where I'm like, I would rather just tell the person, like, "Yo, we don't have to do this."

Jay Shetty 1:43 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:44 Like, we can be on our phones. We could be reading a book. We can sit here in silence. Like, you don't have to try, you know, to make conversation. But then on a, a, a, a more macro level, I feel like we're having too much small talk, meaning we're having too many micro conversations. We're taking these micros and making them n- macros. Like, the things that people, you know, get online and discuss and debate about and argue about over and over and over and over in the bigger scheme of things mean nothing, and that's why things just come and go in this era. Every day you get online, and, you know, it looks like there's a conversation that's the biggest thing in the world. Wait three hours. Wait four hours. Wait 12 hours. It'll be completely gone, and it'll be like, "Well, damn, I thought everybody was so concerned about this, you know, two, two days ago." So I just have a, a, a problem with everything being so macro that shouldn't be nowadays.

Jay Shetty 2:36 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 2:37 And, and the things that we should be discussing, like the big macro conversations, we have a way of making those so micro, and that's the background noise. That's why even, like, you know, on Breakfast Club or on my podcast Brilliant Idiots, when we do discuss things, right, that might be rooted in pop culture, I'm always trying to see, like, what's the bigger-

Jay Shetty 2:56 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 2:56 ... conversation that we can be having behind this? It can't just be that th- y'all think this person is a terrible person, or that was a bad tweet. Like, what's the psychology, or what's the thing that we can, you know, discuss that people are gonna actually learn from?

Jay Shetty 3:10 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 3:11 That's what I wanna, I wanna do.

Jay Shetty 3:12 And how do you break that cycle? Let's say you bump into someone that you haven't seen for a bit, and I think a lot of people struggle with this.

Charlamagne Tha God 3:18 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 3:18 See them at a party, an event, in the corridor, and you go, "Hey, how's it going? Oh, yeah, good. Yeah, cool." And you know you're not listening. You know there's no real thing.

Jay Shetty 3:27 How do you break that if you can? So one o- example is you say, "Look, we don't have to do this."

Charlamagne Tha God 3:31 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 3:31 But how do you break it in a positive sense? Like, how ... Even people with their friends, with their family, you're at a family dinner, and everyone's talking about whatever. How do you actually break that and elevate that? Like, what, what's a healthy way?

Charlamagne Tha God 3:42 Tell them. Be honest about-

Jay Shetty 3:44 Call it out

Charlamagne Tha God 3:44 ... what you're feeling in that moment. Be like, "Yo, we ain't talking about nothing right now."

Jay Shetty 3:47 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 3:48 I'll be like, "Yo, well, who's gonna start the conversation? Throw something on the table."

Jay Shetty 3:52 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 3:52 Like, literally. That's what this book is. This book is literally just a series of topics-

Jay Shetty 3:56 Mm-hmm

Charlamagne Tha God 3:56 ... that I feel like, you know, you could just throw in at a lunch.

Jay Shetty 3:59 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 3:59 Throw in at a dinner table, you know. Throw in if you're just sitting around on a plane with somebody and you want to have a conversation, but you can't. Like, we make this a lot more difficult than we need to, and a- and all it takes is for somebody to break the ice. That's all you're literally waiting for, and you're sitting at a ... You know-

Jay Shetty 4:15 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 4:15 ... you're sitting around with somebody. You're just like, "I wanna talk, but I just don't know what to say." And you're thinking, "Should I bother this person? Should I not bother this person? Does this person wanna be bothered? Does this person wanna talk?" Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Maybe that's the question, right? You can ask them like, "Yo, you feel like having a conversation?" If that person says no, respect that.

Jay Shetty 4:33 Yes.

Charlamagne Tha God 4:33 Don't ask them that hoping that they say yes, but if they say no, you're still gonna force them to have the-

Jay Shetty 4:39 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 4:39 ... the conversation. Like, sometimes you should just ask a person like, "Yo, do you ... You got time to talk?"

Jay Shetty 4:44 Yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 4:44 Like, how often do you get that, Jay?

Jay Shetty 4:46 Never.

Charlamagne Tha God 4:47 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 4:47 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 4:47 People just run up to you, and they just throw they stuff on you all the time instead of saying, "Yo, Jay, you got time to speak right now?" And if you say, "Not at the moment," they're offended. You may not want to offend them, so you take time to have this-

Jay Shetty 5:00 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 5:00 ... meaningless conversation, this small talk. You're just telling them yeah just because you don't want to offend them, but then you're not even really paying attention.

Jay Shetty 5:08 You know me too well. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 5:09 So, so nobody's doing a- we're not doing each other any favors by doing that.

Jay Shetty 5:12 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 5:12 So just be honest about what you're feeling-

Jay Shetty 5:13 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 5:14 ... in that moment.

Jay Shetty 5:14 And yeah, and I feel like the reason, you pointed out there, the reason why so many of us are struggling to be honest with people is because people are offended by honesty even if it's genuine and even if it's thoughtful.

Charlamagne Tha God 5:26 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 5:26 Like you just said, like, if I asked you, I was like, "Hey, Charlamagne, can you talk about this?" And you were like, "Jay, I don't have time right now." Because of this, this, and this, or whatever, I'm in between something. As a respectful person back, I'm gonna be like, "I understand that." I actually had someone I messaged this morning. I'd messaged someone inviting them to an event, and they didn't get back to me. And they messaged me this morning and were just like, "Jay, I'm so sorry. I was, like, getting ready for the Met, and my outfit went wrong, and then, like, I had to figure this out, and it's been crazy, and it all worked out. But I wanted you to know, you know I always respond to you." And I was like, "Yeah, I wasn't offended at all. I respect that, and thank you for explaining."

Charlamagne Tha God 6:00 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 6:00 And it turned out. But a lot of the times I feel we're scared of being honest because we're scared the other person's gonna turn around and go, "Oh, you never get back to me. Oh, you think you're too important for me." We are scared of offending people.

Charlamagne Tha God 6:11 That's right.

Jay Shetty 6:11 How can we all

Jay Shetty 6:12 stop being so offended? Because I feel like anything offends anyone these days.

Charlamagne Tha God 6:16 That's, that's a multi-layered answer, right?

Jay Shetty 6:18 Yes.

Charlamagne Tha God 6:19 'Cause number one, I think we have to stop being people pleasers.

Jay Shetty 6:21 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 6:22 And I think that, you know, if you grow up in a certain environment, you've had certain things, you know, happen to you. Like my therapist always told me ... Like, I know exactly why I'm a people pleaser, right? And I, and, and I talk about it in the book. I'm a people-

Jay Shetty 6:33 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 6:33 ... pleaser because, you know, of, of abuse that I suffered at the age of eight, right? So me not wanting that young lady to touch me anymore turned into her calling me, uh, ugly and saying I had a big nose. So in order for her to stop doing that, I would continue to let her, you know, t- touch on me. So it's like you don't realize how that carries on into adulthood to where you just become this people pleaser w- be- you don't wanna let anybody down. Because if you feel like you let them down, then they're gonna start speaking ill about you and doing things that hurt your feelings, so you just continue to do what's best for them, sacrificing your own peace.

Jay Shetty 7:09 Mm. Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 7:10 And we can't do that.

Jay Shetty 7:11 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 7:11 You just gotta set boundaries for yourself and be like, "Yo, I'm not gonna be a people pleaser in any way, shape, or form." And m- man, honestly, if my boundaries, you know, cause somebody to feel offended, then that's the whole point of having the boundary in the first place. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 7:26 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 7:26 I gotta have a boundary from this person to begin with.

Jay Shetty 7:30 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 7:30 'Cause, uh, you're upset with me because I'm placing a boundary for my peace of mind?

Jay Shetty 7:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 7:35 Nah, I don't need you in my life to begin with.

Jay Shetty 7:37 Yeah. How, how early ... Well,

Jay Shetty 7:39 when were you ready to revisit that eight-year-old self? Like, when did you feel comfortable to even reflect back on that in therapy? Because I imagine that, or you can tell me, when you were eight, did you just block it out in the next few years? And then when did you go back to it and say, "Oh, actually, that's where a lot of it started"?

Charlamagne Tha God 7:57 Uh, I was watching a episode of Oprah Winfrey, and Tyler Perry was on there. And Tyler Perry was, you know, crying about the abuse that he experienced from a woman in his family. And I think I was in my 20s, and I remember saying to myself, like, "What's wrong with him?"

Jay Shetty 8:11 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 8:11 Like, "Why is he, you know, upset about that?" And then when ... At, at some point, I remember saying to myself, "Well, what's wrong with me that I thought it was okay?" But then you kinda suppress it again, 'cause I wasn't going to therapy in my 20s. But then when I started going to therapy in, like, my, my late, like, mid-30s, that's when I started to unpack a whole lot of that stuff. 'Cause, you know, you go to therapy for one thing. You go to therapy 'cause you dealing with, you think you're dealing with anxiety and depression. Then you start peeling back all of these different layers, and you start realizing all of this other trauma, you know, that you've experienced. And, you know, that was, that was one of those things. Like, you know, being a people pleaser, not setting proper boundaries because of that moment that happened to me, you know, when I was eight years old and carried on throughout my whole, whole adult life until I finally realized, like, oh, this is why I don't like letting people down. This is why I do things, you know, for people even when I don't want to. This is why even if I'm not happy necessarily about doing something, I just go along to do it because I don't wanna upset or offend that person or cause that person to be, you know, looking at me in, in, in, in a, in a negative way. So I would say, like, mid-30s is when I really started un-

Jay Shetty 9:23 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 9:24 ... unpacking it. So it's probably been, like, the last 10 years of really unpacking it.

Jay Shetty 9:28 And when you were eight, how long did that abuse last? Like, how, how recurring was it and ...

Charlamagne Tha God 9:33 I don't know, man, because ... And I, I even mention it in the book. It wa- it ... I s- I suppressed so much-

Jay Shetty 9:40 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 9:40 ... abuse that I experienced when I was young, that it wasn't even that one person, [laughs] you know? But you just su- you suppress it because in a lot of ways it becomes the norm. Like, I remember being young, like 9, 10, 11 years old, having conversations with other young men I grew up around, and we were all talking about older women we was dealing with, and we thought we was lying to each other.

Jay Shetty 10:05 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 10:05 But now when you look back on it, it was just all a bunch of young kids getting abused. But when you're a young man, you don't look at it like that.

Jay Shetty 10:11 Yeah, of course.

Charlamagne Tha God 10:11 When you're a young man, you're just like, "Oh, I'm getting action early, you know?"

Jay Shetty 10:13 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 10:13 "I'm getting action early, and I'm getting action with older women early." So you don't look at it like that-

Jay Shetty 10:18 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 10:18 ... until you get older and realize how, man, how a lot of that impacts you, you know, uh, like mentally and emotionally.

Jay Shetty 10:25 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:26 What were some of the ways that you think that impacted you? And it's interesting. I love what you said there. Like, when you're young, you actually see that as, like, ego, bravado-

Charlamagne Tha God 10:33 Mm

Jay Shetty 10:33 ... arrogance, like it's cool. What were the things that you started to extrapolate through therapy and the work you did where you were like, "Oh, that's the kind of impact that it's had in my real life, in my real adult life"?

Charlamagne Tha God 10:44 The, the biggest one for me is, is the people pleasing aspect.

Jay Shetty 10:47 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 10:47 That's literally the biggest one, like not having no boundaries. And when I did try to set boundaries with, with, with, with one of the women in particular, her, you know, getting in my head psychologically, calling me ugly and saying I got a big nose and all of this other stuff.

Jay Shetty 11:02 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 11:02 So for me, the biggest, you know, issue was the fact that I just did not know how to set proper boundaries. And when I did set them, it was like, uh, it, it wasn't the brick house. It was the straw house, you know? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 11:14 Yeah. The straw house.

Charlamagne Tha God 11:15 You could just blow it [laughs] you could just blow it away. So I never really set any proper boundaries. It wasn't until I started unpacking a lot of that stuff that I realized, like, no, I'm gonna set my boundary, and I'm not gonna be upset at, you know, any bad, big, bad wolf that's, that's mad that they can't blow my, blow my house down.

Jay Shetty 11:33 Yeah. What I find interesting especially is I think we all developed a peacemaker, people pleaser personality type. ... through different reasons, how have you found

Jay Shetty 11:44 yourself not being a people pleaser with your therapist? Because I find a lot of people end up playing that role-

Charlamagne Tha God 11:49 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 11:50 ... where they can't be honest with-

Charlamagne Tha God 11:52 Word

Jay Shetty 11:52 ... their therapist because we want our therapist to like us and say, "Well done," like, "Good work," [laughs] you know, like, "Oh, you really..." So how did you find yourself getting that ability? 'Cause I think a lot of people listening and watching may be going to therapy, they may be trying to turn to help, but actually they find themselves playing that same role with their therapist.

Charlamagne Tha God 12:10 Man, I got a new therapist, you know, uh, this past year, and, and, uh, my first therapist, I might've been lying to her probably 50, 60% of the time.

Jay Shetty 12:23 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 12:23 Just because there were so many things that I thought I wanted to share but I wasn't.

Jay Shetty 12:30 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 12:30 And it wasn't until earlier this year, you know, having a, a... I went, me and my wife went away on this nice little spiritual retreat for a weekend, and, you know, we was in- indulging in plant-based medicines, you know, um, i- ayahuasca in particular. And, um, one of the things that came forth for me was literally, "Stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to other people." And so much came up in that moment, you know, so much, you know, like I said, abuse that I experienced as a child, all of that type of stuff, and that's when I was like, "Oh, I've been, I've been telling half-truths. I haven't been being completely honest." Like, I've been telling, you know, just enough of a, of, of a story to get just enough back. But that's not how you, you know, properly heal anything. Like, you gotta deal with it all or-

Jay Shetty 13:23 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 13:23 ... you know, don't even, don't even, don't even try.

Jay Shetty 13:26 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 13:26 And so for me, I feel like, you know, I probably was lying to, like, my first therapist for, like, I would literally probably say half of the time.

Jay Shetty 13:33 Mm. And do you think we do that because we're actually scared of having to address-

Charlamagne Tha God 13:38 100%

Jay Shetty 13:38 ... is that the reason?

Charlamagne Tha God 13:39 100%.

Jay Shetty 13:40 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 13:40 Like, it's, it's still fear, it's still insecurity that we're not willing to share-

Jay Shetty 13:45 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 13:45 ... with anyone. Like, even that night that I was, you know, that, that, that, that first ... Well, that was the second night of the journey on ayahuasca.

Jay Shetty 13:53 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 13:53 Like, me and my wife been together 26 years, and I was sharing things with her that I never had shared with anybody.

Jay Shetty 14:01 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 14:01 And that felt so, so, so, so freeing.

Jay Shetty 14:05 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 14:05 And even in that moment I'm like, "I don't think there's anybody else I trust to share these things with."

Jay Shetty 14:10 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 14:11 Not even a, a therapist. No matter how good the therapist is, no matter how, you know, great the therapist is, like, this individual that I've shared m- majority of my life with is the only person I feel comfortable, you know, putting all that on the table for.

Jay Shetty 14:27 Yeah. I think that's a really interesting point because I think the words honesty and vulnerability have somewhat been exploited in and of themselves in this idea that if you're honest, everyone has to know everything.

Charlamagne Tha God 14:41 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 14:41 Like, you have to just put it all out there. And what you just said is actually, even with my therapist, they're not gonna get the 100% version of me because my wife, my partner, who's been with me for over 20 years now-

Charlamagne Tha God 14:53 26 years. Yeah

Jay Shetty 14:54 ... it's like that person not only deserves it, but we've built up enough trust and there's earned respect where we both can share that.

Jay Shetty 15:02 What's been your take on, on the internet, like oversharing, under-sharing, over-telling, under-telling? Because I feel like there was a point in time where it was like, well, if you're vulnerable you better say everything to everyone, right?

Charlamagne Tha God 15:13 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 15:13 Like that's what vulnerability is.

Charlamagne Tha God 15:15 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 15:15 And I think there was, like, this false pressure that you had to share all your business with everyone.

Charlamagne Tha God 15:21 Yeah, I think on the internet it's, uh, a lot of people crying out for help who probably, not probably, who need to be in therapy actually talking to somebody, and there's a whole lot of people just lying. But that's what I mean when I say, you know, stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to other people. Every single day people wake up and just volunteer lies for no reason. And I'm not saying lies have to be negative. Like, they just lie about their life, they lie about who they are, they lie about what they do, and it's like nobody asked you for that [laughs] right? Like, nobody. So you're inviting all of this negative energy into your life. You're inviting all of this opinion and all of this critique that's literally going to have real world consequences.

Jay Shetty 16:01 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 16:01 'Cause that's the stuff that's gonna give you anxiety. That's the stuff that's gonna, you know, cause you to have bouts of depression, and you're, y- you're gonna be sitting there dealing with all of this stuff for s- a, a farce you created. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 16:13 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 16:13 Like, what is the, the, the point of that? So it's like for me, man, we really all just have to stop volunteering-

Jay Shetty 16:20 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 16:21 ... you know, the, the lies we tell ourselves to others.

Jay Shetty 16:25 Yeah. What led you towards plant medicine as a method of healing, as a method of reflection? Like, what, what made you go down that route? 'Cause you've done therapy for years.

Charlamagne Tha God 16:33 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:33 You've talked about it. You're a big ambassador for men- mental health. What was the opening there?

Charlamagne Tha God 16:39 I mean, it was just something I wanted to try, and then they always say, you know, you don't, you don't do it unless it, it's calling you. And so, you know, just reading about it and, you know, seeing, you know, what other people's take on it was. Like, two things that really attracted me was everybody that did it was telling me like, "Yo, I saw God."

Jay Shetty 16:56 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 16:57 Like, I knew people who were atheists, like, like Neil Brennan was a atheist and he did it and now he's, like, a believer and, you know? And I was like, whoa. And I've, I've always had faith and I've always been a believer, so I just wanted to kind of see, like, I wanna see-

Jay Shetty 17:10 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 17:11 ... you know, see, see more of that. And I think, um, people saying how it detaches you from your ego.

Jay Shetty 17:18 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 17:19 Like, I thought that was very powerful because that's something that we all try to do every day, but they was like, "No, it feels like somebody literally takes your ego and just rips it away from you," and I wanted to know what that felt like. And man, I absolutely-

Jay Shetty 17:33 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 17:33 ... abso- overstand [laughs] -

Jay Shetty 17:35 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 17:35 ... what it, what it felt like, um, especially that, that, that second night.

Jay Shetty 17:40 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 17:40 Yep.

Jay Shetty 17:41 Where did you go for it? Where, where did you try it out?

Charlamagne Tha God 17:43 I was in, I was in California

Jay Shetty 17:44 Okay, okay. In California

Charlamagne Tha God 17:46 Yeah, I was in California

Jay Shetty 17:46 Okay, great, great

Charlamagne Tha God 17:46 Yeah

Jay Shetty 17:46 So you didn't go too far?

Charlamagne Tha God 17:47 No, no, no

Jay Shetty 17:48 Yeah, 'cause I've heard of ... I've had friends go out to, like, Costa Rica and then-

Charlamagne Tha God 17:51 Nah

Jay Shetty 17:52 ... Ibiza. You went local-

Charlamagne Tha God 17:53 Nah, one-

Jay Shetty 17:53 So you made it easy

Charlamagne Tha God 17:54 Yeah, a shaman I talked to-

Jay Shetty 17:55 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 17:55 ... was like, "Why even go..." I think it w- ... I don't know if it was Peru or Costa Rica. It was somewhere. I forgot where it was, but he was just like, "That's a jungle."

Jay Shetty 18:01 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:01 He was like, "You don't wanna have that kind of experience in a jungle." I mean, he wasn't knocking anybody who did.

Jay Shetty 18:05 Yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:06 He just like, "For you, on your first time, I just don't, you know-

Jay Shetty 18:09 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 18:09 ... recommend that." So it was just kinda like divine alignment. Like, it was one of those things, like, it had been calling me for the past, I would say, five or six years.

Jay Shetty 18:16 Wow.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:17 And then, like, the opportunity just presented itself-

Jay Shetty 18:20 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 18:20 ... you know, with some, with some, some people with some really great energy.

Jay Shetty 18:24 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:24 And I was like, "Yeah, why not?"

Jay Shetty 18:26 Ah, that's beautiful.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:27 And it j- just all lined up. It was one of those things it was like, "Oh, I- I'm actually free this weekend."

Jay Shetty 18:31 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:32 M- m- ... The wife wanted to do it. We went to do it.

Jay Shetty 18:34 Oh,

Jay Shetty 18:35 that's beautiful.

Charlamagne Tha God 18:35 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 18:35 Uh, what did you ... What have you found has been the hardest thing for you to be honest with yourself about?

Charlamagne Tha God 18:41 Everything.

Jay Shetty 18:41 Out of every- Everything?

Charlamagne Tha God 18:42 [laughs] Everything. Yo, it's so easy for us to get caught up in lying to ourselves 'cause we do it to protect ourselves-

Jay Shetty 18:48 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 18:48 ... in a lotta way, right? So, like, it might be a person that you genuinely have love for, like, genuinely, just as a, on a human level, like, you love this person, and, like, you know, this person might have a talent or a skill set that, you know, you wanna help amplify, like, provide a opportunity for. But you know as well as I do that, you know, character ... Talent sometimes will take people where character can't sustain them.

Jay Shetty 19:15 Mm, mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 19:15 So even though this ... Y- you see this person's talent-

Jay Shetty 19:17 Mm-hmm

Charlamagne Tha God 19:18 ... you know, once they get in a certain position, you realize their character isn't going to be able, you know, to keep them there. But you will constantly lie to yourself about this person's character over and over-

Jay Shetty 19:31 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 19:31 ... and over and over, and then you wonder why things aren't working out. And literally, it will affect everything that you're doing. Like, let's just say it's a team, and you put this person as part of the team, and this person is causing problems with the rest of the team, and you see it, but you're making excuses for it, you know? A- and it's like ... Or even a friend that's ... You might have been friends with a person for a long, long, long time, and, you know, y'all have very deep, intimate conversations, so you know this person differently than a lotta other people know them, so you get a soft spot, you know, in your heart for said individual. So when you're hearing everybody else talk about how terrible this person is, [laughs] you're lying to yourself about it. And you're like, "No, y'all just don't understand this person." Like, but it's like, no, the reality is they are a terrible person.

Jay Shetty 20:15 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 20:15 And they need to do more work, and they need to really, you know, figure themselves out. So, you know, the biggest thing, um, yeah, it's just y- y- we, we constantly ... We lie to ourselves about everything. You might, you might look in the mirror and know you need to lose 20 pounds. Like, you might put a shirt on and know it don't quite fit right, but you'll pull on it and tug it and, you know, "How does this look?" And, you know, somebody like, "Oh, it looks a'ight. It looks good." And you're like, "Yeah, it does." And then you get on Instagram, and then you get humbled-

Jay Shetty 20:42 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 20:42 ... 'cause it's a bunch of people that don't know you at all who are willing to tell you the truth about how you look. And then you lie to yourself again, and you say to yourself, "Oh, they just hatin'." You knew that was whack when you put it on.

Jay Shetty 20:53 Yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 20:53 You knew you had no right putting that shirt on before you put it on, but you decided to do it anyway. So I just feel like we ... I think every single moment of our lives is a exercise in being honest-

Jay Shetty 21:08 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 21:08 ... with ourselves first and foremost, and then, then the rest of the world.

Jay Shetty 21:12 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:12 And then choosing who to share that honesty with.

Jay Shetty 21:15 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:15 'Cause sometimes people aren't lying. It's just none of your business.

Jay Shetty 21:18 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:18 And I think that's something that people forget too, especially in this world of oversharing. I have to constantly remind people that especially in this era of the internet, it ... I'm like, when, when you talking about celebrities, you don't know any of these people.

Jay Shetty 21:32 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:32 I don't care what they post on social. I don't care what you hear in their music. You genuinely do not know any of these individuals. Stop lying to yourself like you do.

Jay Shetty 21:44 In, in, in what

Jay Shetty 21:45 sense? Because I'm, I'm thinking of something, but in what sense do you mean, like, we don't know them or how, how that applies to us? You think we're commentating on a life that we don't know about? Is that what-

Charlamagne Tha God 21:52 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

Jay Shetty 21:52 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:52 People ... Yo, people pass these judgments.

Jay Shetty 21:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 21:55 Like, yo, you'll, you'll see whole psychoanalysts about people-

Jay Shetty 22:00 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 22:00 ... right? And it's like, how did you come to that conclusion? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 22:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:05 Like, like literally-

Jay Shetty 22:06 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 22:06 ... you're breaking down a person's whole pa- ... Oh, they're a narcissist, and they're egotistical, and they're out for this, and they're ... I'm like, how do you know based off a tweet?

Jay Shetty 22:15 Yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:15 How do you know based off one conversation that they had? You don't know this person.

Jay Shetty 22:20 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:20 This person has lived, you know, 30-plus years, 40-plus years, whatever it is. You, you, you do not spend every waking moment with this individual. How do we come to these full-blown conclusions about people that we don't know? I had somebody get mad at me the other day 'cause I told them, "I don't know this person personally."

Jay Shetty 22:36 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:37 We were talking about a, the, a artist, and I was like, "I don't know that person personally." That, that ... Now, that, that person I was talking to did.

Jay Shetty 22:45 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:45 But I ... So I understand how they felt.

Jay Shetty 22:47 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 22:48 But I don't have that same-

Jay Shetty 22:49 Feeling towards them, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 22:50 ... personal connection or feelings toward this individual because I don't have-

Jay Shetty 22:54 You don't know them, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 22:54 ... a personal connection with them. And I ... And when it comes to public figures, a lotta times it, it makes you more objective.

Jay Shetty 23:01 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 23:01 'Cause you don't have any bias. 'Cause anybody that you actually have a connection with, you're gonna have a natural bias toward them.

Jay Shetty 23:08 100%.

Charlamagne Tha God 23:08 That's another thing we lie to each other about. We lie to each other like we're so honest and so objective when we all have our biases for people, we all have our biases for places, we all have our biases for things, and that's okay.

Jay Shetty 23:21 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 23:21 And if you can address that and it, and, and say, "Yeah, I know I got a bias," then you could actually have a honest conversation about whatever it is you're talking about or look at things, you know, from a honest perspective. If you can't even be honest about your biases, then you starting off from, from, from a lie.

Jay Shetty 23:36 Yeah. I often find it's this observer mindset that we're missing where it's like, okay, we're having a conversation right now, but can I actually ... allow myself to look at it from this perspective. If I can't do that, like, if I can't see, oh, I'm currently displaying ego and the other person is currently displaying defensiveness, if I can't see what I'm displaying and what someone else is, and I'm only seeing what they're displaying, then I'm not really observing. I can't be objective.

Charlamagne Tha God 24:03 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 24:04 And, and I find that that's-

Charlamagne Tha God 24:05 Absolutely

Jay Shetty 24:05 ... exactly what's missing where, and I c- I can testify to what you just said, whether it's inaccurate guest lists at people's wedding that are printed in the papers-

Charlamagne Tha God 24:15 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 24:15 ... or whether it's inaccurate, "Oh, I know," the news saying, "Oh, they're gonna get a divorce-

Charlamagne Tha God 24:20 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 24:20 ... or their kids hate them," or whatever else it is.

Charlamagne Tha God 24:23 How do you know this?

Jay Shetty 24:23 Yeah, I can testify [laughs] to having know- knowing people going, none of that's true. And, and it's f- and it goes back to the point you started with, which is this idea of we get so lost commentating on everything and everyone else that we know nothing about, that we don't have time and energy to work on what's going on inside here.

Charlamagne Tha God 24:43 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 24:43 And, and I find it remarkable that we spend our lives trying to solve, psychoanalyze, entertain ourselves by someone else's problems rather than fixing our own.

Charlamagne Tha God 24:55 Well, that, we, we do that on purpose.

Jay Shetty 24:57 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 24:57 Because if we can talk about everybody else, then we can avoid that hard, painful-

Jay Shetty 25:03 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 25:03 ... excruciating work it takes to deal with our own BS. If I, if I'm, if I can look at everyone else, I can avoid looking in that mirror all day long.

Jay Shetty 25:12 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 25:12 I'm, I'm too busy sightseeing other people and commentating on other people, so I never have to look in the mirror, you know, at, at, at what it is that I need to fix.

Jay Shetty 25:21 Yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 25:21 And you, you said something that's interesting-

Jay Shetty 25:23 Right

Charlamagne Tha God 25:23 ... too, man, and that's why, that's why this era we're in is, is so difficult, and I think even, you know, our positions as, as media personalities because, you know, I, I remember when I used to work for Wendy Williams, she used to always say to me, "You either gonna be of the people or of the industry." But it's almost impossible when you're in the business because you're gonna actually meet people, and you're gonna develop relationships. And I think a lot of times we have a, a, a different perspective of things because we're kinda in it. Like, I've literally been with individuals, couples, watching them love on each other, watching them kiss on each other, and then it'll be, like, breaking news s- they're getting a divorce. They hate each other.

Jay Shetty 26:06 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 26:06 [laughs] Like-

Jay Shetty 26:07 Yeah, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 26:08 ... they're apart. And I'm like, "This is a mind fuck." Like-

Jay Shetty 26:12 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 26:12 ... 'cause y- I'm, I'm, I'm like, whoa. Like, and, and it puts so much in perspective, and not even just that. Like, us as individuals, you'll see things about yourself, and you're like, "That's not remotely true."

Jay Shetty 26:25 Yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 26:25 Like, that's not even accurate at all, and everybody around you will be mad, and everybody around you will be upset, and you'll be pissed off too, but then you gotta s- really say to yourself, "What are you gonna do?"

Jay Shetty 26:36 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 26:36 I'm not go- I refuse to go on the defensive-

Jay Shetty 26:39 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 26:39 ... and start explaining to myself to a bunch of people who never even took the time-

Jay Shetty 26:43 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 26:43 ... to learn the truth anyway.

Jay Shetty 26:44 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 26:45 If you, if you didn't, you never took the time to learn the truth, so you would rather just put this out there, you know, print this, say these things, not care if you're accurate, you know, n- not, not care if there's any falsehoods. You just whatever. So why would I take the time to explain the truth to you?

Jay Shetty 27:01 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 27:02 Now I'm get- now, now, now, now not only am I validating what you've said, uh, to, to a certain extent, or not, not what you said but validating you-

Jay Shetty 27:10 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 27:10 ... and your platform. Now I'm actually giving you more content. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 27:14 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 27:14 I'm not doing that-

Jay Shetty 27:15 Yeah, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 27:16 ... at all.

Jay Shetty 27:16 Yeah, for sure. For sure. I was gonna go back to the personal again with you because I feel like

Jay Shetty 27:21 a big turning point in your book that you talk about that I can't wait for people to dive into is this moment where you realize that your father was cheating on your mom.

Charlamagne Tha God 27:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 27:29 And, like, that is, like, a really big moment for you at that point because you're, like, I think 17 years old.

Charlamagne Tha God 27:35 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 27:36 And, and you're learning about this, and naturally you feel... Like, tell me how you felt, like, in that moment because it, it almost feels like the first time you discovered that something's a lie.

Charlamagne Tha God 27:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 27:45 Like, in a big way, I mean. Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 27:47 That was a very macro conversation, you know, because I had made up my mind in that moment that me and my pops couldn't have no small talk-

Jay Shetty 27:57 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 27:57 ... about this situation. 'Cause, you know, we live in a small town, so you're hearing it constantly, right? And you're, you're driving by, you know, this house, and you're seeing his, his truck out there, and, you know, you're fully aware of all of the different lies that he's, that my, that he's told my mom. Like, "Oh, I'm just, I'm over there doing work," or, "Oh, that's my secretary," all this other stuff, right? So finally, you know, just deciding to have the macro conversation and say, "Yo, I, you, you out here cheating on Mom. What you're doing is foul." And my dad was like, "Yo, you only got one girlfriend. You know, one day you gonna understand." Like, he l- that's what, that was his reply to me, and that, that messed me up for a while because that's my hero. Like, s- still to this day, I love my dad. Like, my dad, I fully understand, you know, the totality of my father as a man, and as I've become a man myself at 45 years old, I overstand, you know, everything that, you know, he, he, he went through. And so when he said that to me, I felt like I had to, um, live up to his expectations. So that's when it became a thing of, oh, let me show him that I, I can get a roster. I don't have to be, you know, committed to, to one person. And yo, that lasted for a while. Not, not a while, but l- but too long for my, my liking, right? And so I remember later on, years down the line, my dad saying to me, you know, the worst thing that he ever did was cause my mother to leave him and telling [laughs] me that I always had it right. 'Cause he, you know, I'm with the same woman, right, for 26 years. So he was, like, telling me I always had it right, and I'm like- Damn. That's why you shouldn't always listen to adults, bro.

Jay Shetty 29:37 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 29:37 Like [laughs]

Jay Shetty 29:38 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 29:38 Like just because you love a person-

Jay Shetty 29:40 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 29:40 ... and they're older than you, and they got more experiences than you, don't mean that they're always right.

Jay Shetty 29:45 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 29:46 But I give my father so much grace because, you know, one of the first breakth- the first breakthrough I ever had in therapy, I mean, the thing that led me to tears was just realizing that my father used to discipline me for things that he never taught me. And now I even take it a step further and say my father used to discipline me for things that he never taught me, but also for things that he never learned himself.

Jay Shetty 30:06 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 30:06 So a lot of his, his, his, his, uh, his, his, his raising of me was ra- he was raising me through fear-

Jay Shetty 30:12 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 30:12 ... and not love.

Jay Shetty 30:14 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 30:14 Right? So 'cause he just didn't want me to make the same mistakes that he made. He was terrified of me going down, you know, the same path that he went down, and I ended up going down that path anyway. Like, even o- o- down to, you know, the mental health journey. Like, when I wrote my second book, you know, Shook: When Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me, when I wrote that, I was all the way discombobulated. I had no idea whether I was coming or going 'cause I had just started going to therapy, and I had just started peeling back a lot of those layers. So I was just raw. Like, I had, I had no idea who I was. There was this character that had been created named Charlamagne. I'm like, "I don't know who this person is." Then I'm dealing with Lenard myself. I don't know who this person is. So I was just all over the place, and I literally just put it all in that book and had, uh, Dr. Ish Major do clinical correlations to the things that I was talking about. But he, my father had read that book, and I, I talk about this story in the book, but he, he had read that book, and then that same week I had a cousin who had completed suicide, and he had a- attempted to complete suicide, like, four other times, and the fourth time he completed it. I think he was, like, 25 years old. So my dad was triggered by a lot of that stuff.

Jay Shetty 31:24 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 31:24 He was triggered by a lot of the stuff I wrote in my book, and he was definitely triggered by my cousin completing suicide. So my father calls me, and he tells me, um, you know, he read the book, talking about my cousin a little bit, and he goes, "Man, you know, I, I tried to commit suicide 30-plus years ago, but I didn't because of, you know, your, your older sister and, and you."

Jay Shetty 31:42 Wow.

Charlamagne Tha God 31:42 And he was like, "You know, I was on two to three medications." No, uh, no, he was actually on 10, 10 to 12 medications, and he was going to therapy two and three times a week dealing with his own mental health issues, and so much so that the state of South Carolina just started giving him a check, and that's what they used to call it, a, a, a crazy check. So I remember asking my mom, like, "Yo, you know, do you know Dad was going through all of this?" And she was like, "I just thought he was playing crazy to get a check."

Jay Shetty 32:06 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 32:06 So just think about that. Like, think about if he was able to just express himself and have those conversations with us as a family back then, how that would've saved me, you know, so much grief when I was dealing with panic attacks and stuff as a child and thinking something was, you know, you know, w- wrong with me. And, um, uh, j- just all of that makes me give my father-

Jay Shetty 32:29 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 32:29 ... a whole lot of grace. He's just a man who was just trying to do his best, you know-

Jay Shetty 32:34 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 32:34 ... with, with what he had and the, the, the knowledge he had at the time. So I don't, I don't hold... I, I held a lot of that against him for a long, long, long, long time.

Jay Shetty 32:44 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 32:44 But it was in that moment in twen- 2018 when he told me everything he was dealing with, I don't know why, it just clicked, like, my dad just a man.

Jay Shetty 32:52 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 32:52 [laughs] Like, he just a man.

Jay Shetty 32:54 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 32:55 Just like I'm a man. Like, who am I to not give him the same grace I want?

Jay Shetty 32:59 Totally.

Jay Shetty 33:00 What's allowed you to have that, Charlamagne, to be able to zoom out and have that context and that grace? Because I think when we're analyzing these things and you kind of connect the dots, you're like, "Oh, yeah, my dad treated me like that. That's why I became like that."

Charlamagne Tha God 33:13 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 33:13 "That's why I made that mistake." And you can spend so much time in this very linear back-and-forth journey of that was the past. That's how it connects to the present. That's how it impacted my life.

Charlamagne Tha God 33:22 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 33:23 But you're almost looking at it from a bird's-eye view, looking down going, "Oh, that makes sense, that my dad went through..." And then you can, like, give grace. You can have... What was the key in therapy and in your personal work that shifted it from being this linear thing to being a bird's-eye view of the situation?

Charlamagne Tha God 33:40 I honestly think I've always had that as a child. Like, always. Like, I've always had a bird's-eye view of things. Like, I've always felt in tune to something, to something else.

Jay Shetty 33:51 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 33:51 Like, there, there was always, like, this voice in my head or this spirit that was, you know, moving me in certain directions or causing me to see certain things. Sometimes I would see things I wasn't supposed to see.

Jay Shetty 34:04 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 34:04 You know? Um, literally and figuratively, right? And I, I've always had these visions, and I just... I remember my dad always telling me when I was a child, "If you don't change your, your ways, you gonna end up in jail, dead, or broke under the tree."

Jay Shetty 34:18 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 34:18 And a lot of people hear that but don't actually learn that and apply that. For some reason, I was able, at a young age, to actually start seeing people-

Jay Shetty 34:27 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 34:27 ... that I love go to jail, like, for prison sentences, and I was going to jail. And, you know, I saw people around me that were actually getting killed, and I saw older cousins who I used to look up to, they, they all sitting under the tree kinda like, like not doing much with theyselves. And I'm like, "Oh, that's not gonna be me."

Jay Shetty 34:44 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 34:44 And I, I literally could see, all right, everything I do today directly is gonna impact what happens to me tomorrow, so I need to start doing what I need to do today. It's like, yo, if I, you know, continue to eat like this, I'm gonna be fat-

Jay Shetty 34:57 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 34:57 ... in the future, right? Like, if I don't read this book, you know, my, my, my knowledge is gonna be limited in the future. So I've always, you know, by the grace of God, just tended to have, like, a, a, a bird's-eye view of things. Like, my third eye is, has been open for quite a long time, like, to the point even when I think about, like, me and my wife had a, a nonprofit back in the day. Well, we thought it was a nonprofit. When we set it up, it was a non- We set it up as a nonprofit, but we never went through the proper channels to make it a nonprofit.

Jay Shetty 35:29 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 35:29 It just sounded like, oh, we gonna set this up. You know, it was one of those things. And so we had a pr- It was called Third Eye Awareness. Like, literally, that's what it was called. Uh, even when, like, the first tattoo I ever got- ... was Wolverine from the X-Men, 'cause I love Wolverine, right? Like, I love the X-Men. I'm a big comic book guy. But back then, I got the tattoo when I was, like, 17 years old. This is when tattoos were illegal in South Carolina. I got the tattoo because the thing that attracted me towards Wolverine was his healing powers.

Jay Shetty 35:55 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 35:56 And so the tattoo I got on my arm is Wolverine holding a microphone in his hand, because I thought rap was gonna be what changed my life. But lo and behold, it was these type of microphones-

Jay Shetty 36:06 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 36:07 ... that changed my life. And you know, now my, I feel like my, my purpose in life is to not only continue to, to, to, to heal myself, but to continue to help as many other people-

Jay Shetty 36:18 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 36:18 ... you know, get on their, get on their healing journey.

Jay Shetty 36:21 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 36:21 So I was 16, 17 years old thinking about stuff like this.

Jay Shetty 36:25 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 36:25 And you, you ... And at 16, 17 you get a tattoo like that, and in your mind you're explaining it perfectly.

Jay Shetty 36:30 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 36:30 I'm like, "Yo, I'm attracted to Wolverine 'cause of his healing powers."

Jay Shetty 36:33 And then rap symbols.

Charlamagne Tha God 36:34 And, and then the rap, the microphone. But now you ... I'm 45 about to be 46, I'm looking at it like, "Oh, I understand what that was now." And that was another revelation that came to me, um, you know, when I, when I went on my ayahuasca journey, was like, yo, nothing had been wasted.

Jay Shetty 36:51 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 36:51 Literally nothing. There is absolutely nothing that has happened to me in my life, whether you wanna label it good, bad, you know, ugly, pretty, whatever it was, nothing has gone to waste in my life. Every single thing has a purpose, and had a purpose, and has gotten me to this point. And I think, man, when you look at things through that lens, it just kinda, like, shapes, it shapes your understanding of, of trauma and, you know, why so-called bad things happen in a, in a different way. I don't look at it as good or bad. It was just, like, one process of life that gets you to this point.

Jay Shetty 37:32 I think you just

Jay Shetty 37:33 nailed something so powerful then. I, I, I wanna emphasize it for people, because I think we go through this loop where we say, "Oh, now I get it."

Charlamagne Tha God 37:40 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 37:41 "Everything else, I was wrong. I wasted time. Now I get it." And then a few years later we go, "Oh, no, no, no. I just wasted the last few years. Now I get it." And we constantly have this belief that we have to neglect and reject our past in order to establish our present.

Charlamagne Tha God 37:57 Mm.

Jay Shetty 37:57 We feel like we have to constantly say our past was a waste of time in order to establish that our present is now us doing the right thing.

Charlamagne Tha God 38:04 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 38:05 And I actually fully agree with you, and completely disagree with that. Because what you're doing is you're negating all of the lessons, all of the wisdom, all of the learning, all of the growth that actually got you to that point.

Charlamagne Tha God 38:17 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 38:18 And then you're also negating the fact that all the skills you learned during that time, all the habits, they could still be useful. But because you're writing off that time, you're writing off all of that growth.

Charlamagne Tha God 38:28 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 38:29 And, and I've been saying that to so many people lately, even when people are like, "Jay, I think I'm wasting my time. I'm trying to find a new job. I wanna do something I'm passionate about," or, "Jay, like, the last few years I just wasted them being anxious. Now I'm confident." It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, you need to remember that, because that's how you got here. And by the way, life is gonna give you those scenarios again, and you're gonna need to remember this, because next time it will be a familiar-

Charlamagne Tha God 38:52 Absolutely

Jay Shetty 38:52 ... right? It'll be like a familiar feeling of, "Oh, I've been there."

Charlamagne Tha God 38:55 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 38:55 "I know how to deal with this."

Charlamagne Tha God 38:57 That's why when you ... even when you're talking to, you know, young people in the field and they'll say things to you like, "Well, what if I, you know, leave New York and go to Atlanta and things don't work in Atlanta?" I'm like-

Jay Shetty 39:09 Okay

Charlamagne Tha God 39:09 ... okay. [laughs] Like, and?

Jay Shetty 39:12 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 39:12 Like, yeah, g- what do you mean if things don't work? 'Cause what you're going to realize-

Jay Shetty 39:17 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 39:17 ... later on in life is regardless of what happened when you was there, it worked.

Jay Shetty 39:22 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 39:22 I don't care if you went down there and you worked there for six months and got fired. There's going to be something you pick up in those six months. There's gonna be somebody you meet in those six months. It might just be a time in your life that you actually enjoy-

Jay Shetty 39:34 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 39:34 ... and you need that. You might just need to be in a different environment-

Jay Shetty 39:37 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 39:37 ... you know, for a little while. But there's gonna be something you pick up within those six months that's gonna make you realize, like, it worked. I think, you know, we have these extremes when it comes to work. I, I could l- easily look back at my radio career and be like, "I got fired four times. So those was four times things didn't work." That is a complete lie. Every single one of those situations I got fired from I had the time of my life.

Jay Shetty 40:00 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 40:00 And I learned so much from, and I met people that are still, you know, my friends to this day. So I wouldn't trade any of that for the world.

Jay Shetty 40:10 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:10 Like, like, uh, for, for all I know, how do we know what we're doing now is working?

Jay Shetty 40:13 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:14 We don't. This just, this is just what we're doing in the moment.

Jay Shetty 40:17 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:17 I know it's working for now.

Jay Shetty 40:18 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:19 But who's to, who's to say this is what we're gonna be doing when we're 50 years old?

Jay Shetty 40:23 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:23 Who's to say this is what we're gonna be doing when we're 60? We might be still trying to hold on to Breakfast Club and On Purpose. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 40:29 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:29 And God is like, "I need you to move."

Jay Shetty 40:32 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:32 And He might even still let you keep it.

Jay Shetty 40:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:34 But you'll be sitting here unhappy-

Jay Shetty 40:36 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 40:36 ... depressed, angry, like, "Oh, why isn't things moving the way I want them to move?" It's because He, God asked you to move a long time ago, but you-

Jay Shetty 40:45 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 40:45 ... didn't want to, 'cause you're still trying to make this work.

Jay Shetty 40:47 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:47 And

Charlamagne Tha God 40:48 it's not working no more. Just because something is successful doesn't mean that it's working.

Jay Shetty 40:53 Totally.

Charlamagne Tha God 40:54 You know?

Jay Shetty 40:54 Totally. That's such a good point. That is such a good point, and, uh, it reminds me, there's this beautiful story that the Buddha used to tell about a person who's on a journey. And they're on this journey, and they come across an obstacle, and the first obstacle is this fast-flowing river. So they realize, "I need to build a raft."

Charlamagne Tha God 41:10 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 41:10 So they get the bamboo, they get the rope, they tie it up. They build themself an oar, and then they paddle with all their strength and they get to the other side. And then they think, "This raft saved my life."

Charlamagne Tha God 41:20 Mm.

Jay Shetty 41:20 "I'm gonna take it wherever I go." So they strap it to their back and they carry on walking. And then the Buddha says that just like us, this person gets to another challenge, and the challenge is not a fast-flowing river this time. It's a tall wooded forest with trees dotted at every other step.

Charlamagne Tha God 41:35 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 41:36 So now the person's trying to walk through, and the raft keep getting stuck. And they're trying to maneuver, and they're trying to get through, and the raft is getting chipped. The raft is blocking them from walking through, and the Buddha says the person has two choices. They either hold onto the raft and they struggle to get through, or they put it down and they walk on freely.

Charlamagne Tha God 41:53 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 41:54 And it's the same thing, point that you're making right now.

Charlamagne Tha God 41:56 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 41:56 This idea of like what are you holding onto that you believe made you successful-

Charlamagne Tha God 42:02 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 42:02 ... but is actually stopping you from breaking through the next challenge. And if you keep holding onto it, you're just gonna hurt your hands, gonna hurt your back. You're never gonna walk through. And I agree, success is probably the greatest prison because the feeling of success is so intoxicating that you think, "I'm just gonna keep doing this like a drug 'cause it makes me feel good."

Charlamagne Tha God 42:22 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 42:22 But actually I may not be actually feeling healthy, well, feeling like I'm moving in my best self. And I've seen that even in my, in my career. I remember when I first started my work, we grew based on videos I made on Facebook.

Charlamagne Tha God 42:38 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 42:38 And today, eight years on, I don't make those videos anymore.

Charlamagne Tha God 42:40 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 42:41 Facebook is not our core platform anymore.

Charlamagne Tha God 42:43 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 42:43 We had to move on and evolve, and I've seen that time and time again, whether it's been a YouTube platform or whatever it is, and I think we get tied to platforms. We get tied to algorithms. We get tied to patterns. We get tied to all these things, and then eventually we become a prisoner of the pattern.

Charlamagne Tha God 42:59 Oof.

Jay Shetty 43:00 And get, become a prisoner of the algorithm. And, and letting it go is hard. And, and what you're saying right now, like recognizing that what you're doing right now may be something you have to let go of is a healthy thought.

Charlamagne Tha God 43:12 Man, I'm living proof. I, I talk about that-

Jay Shetty 43:14 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 43:14 ... in the book, you know, Get Honest or Die Lying, um, Why Small Talk Sucks.

Jay Shetty 43:17 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 43:17 Shameless plug. But I talk about that in the book-

Jay Shetty 43:19 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 43:19 ... because 2016, that's where I was at with it. You know, I'm, I'm six years in on The Breakfast Club. I'm having more success than I ever imagined. I'm making more money than I ever imagined. Like, you know, I, I put out my first book, Black Privilege. It's a instant New York Times bestseller. Like we, we, we moving. Like things are great. Things are fantastic, but I'm not happy.

Jay Shetty 43:45 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 43:45 And the reason I'm not happy, 'cause I'm still dealing with this anxiety. I'm still dealing with, you know, this depression, and I'm starting to feel like, you know, I'm becoming a caricature-

Jay Shetty 43:56 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 43:56 ... of, of, of, of myself to a, to a, to a certain extent.

Jay Shetty 44:00 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 44:00 And it was like when I s- when I, I made the decision to start going to therapy, number one, but then you start going to therapy and you start saying to yourself like, "All right, this has gotten me to this point. What is going to get me to-

Jay Shetty 44:16 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 44:16 ... that next level of life?" I wasn't thinking about career or anything like that. I said, "What's gonna get me to that next level of life?" Because I wanna enjoy-

Jay Shetty 44:24 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 44:25 ... life.

Jay Shetty 44:26 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 44:26 I wanna wake up more happy than depressed, you know? I wanna, you know, wake up feeling, you know, more secure about myself than imposter syndrome.

Jay Shetty 44:36 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 44:36 Like, what's going to get me to that? And what got me to that was letting go of just what I felt like people wanted from me.

Jay Shetty 44:46 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 44:46 And that's another reason the comments and stuff are so dangerous because you can put things out there and immediately get real time feedback and, you know, this is, this is 2018, right? Or 2016, 2017, you know, or prior to that it was 2010 to 2016. Things weren't as, weren't that toxic-

Jay Shetty 45:06 Yeah, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 45:06 ... on social media, so you could kinda get like some real world criticism and you would see these things that, you know, I guess people like about you, so you would constantly feed them more of that. Or you got publications saying, "Oh, Charlamagne is the hip hop Howard Stern." You're like, "Well, what does that mean?"

Jay Shetty 45:21 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 45:21 So you start giving them more of the wild, you know, crazy antics. But for all I know, they could have meant that because of, you know, uh, uh, the introspective interviews-

Jay Shetty 45:30 Yeah, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 45:30 ... that, that, that, that get done on Breakfast Club as well. But I wasn't seeing that aspect of it.

Jay Shetty 45:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 45:34 I was just seeing the rah-rah, the wildness. And so for me, just personally and professionally, I just was not happy and I had to-

Jay Shetty 45:42 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 45:42 ... you know, let that go. So-

Jay Shetty 45:44 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 45:44 ... that was the most freeing thing for me.

Jay Shetty 45:48 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 45:48 Because when I did that, I experienced way [laughs] more. I wouldn't be here sitting with you-

Jay Shetty 45:55 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 45:55 ... you know, having the success that I've had if I hadn't have let, let that raft go.

Jay Shetty 45:59 Oh, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 46:00 And, and there, there was also a period where, you know, because of this cancel culture era you live in, you be deathly ashamed to see some of the stuff that you, you know, used to do. You're not a, you're not necessarily ashamed of it. You're more so afraid of, "Oh, they're gonna use this against me," whatever, whatever.

Jay Shetty 46:19 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 46:19 But guess what? You can't care about that.

Jay Shetty 46:20 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 46:20 And the reason you can't care about that, because if you really have faith in a higher power, if you really trust, you know, God, the God, you have to know that every single moment that you were in, you were the person you needed to be for that moment.

Jay Shetty 46:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 46:34 Because it's just a journey and it's a process, and eventually you become who you're supposed to be. And even the version, you're looking at me right now.

Jay Shetty 46:42 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 46:43 I'm not the final form of myself. I don't know what that's gonna be. Nobody does. But I know that I'm on the journey, and I'm gonna keep walking.

Jay Shetty 46:50 Yeah. One thing I wanted to pick your brain about was this idea, you kind of alluded to it there. It's this, we have this rhetoric on social media which is like we want people to be more empathetic and compassionate and kind. We want people to, when they share their vulnerable mental health journey, that we all have gotta listen and be attentive. But then when sometimes we see someone with a mental health challenge make them act different, we're the first ones to point out that they're an idiot, they're a loser, there's something wrong with them. There's ... I'll, I'll give you an example of what I mean by this. Like, uh, Tom Holland talked about this when he came on the show. He was talking about how, you know, he's always been seen as Spider-Man and this cool kid and all the rest of it, and then when he started talking about his mental health, or actually, no, when he just announced that he'd given up alcohol and he was sober- All the news was like, he was saying this, he was saying all the news was like, "Oh, Tom Holland, the happy-go-lucky kid wasn't actually, he was depressed," and it was like, and they, they made it a whole thing. And he was like, "No, I just gave up alcohol. I wasn't like an alcoholic."

Charlamagne Tha God 47:48 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 47:48 "I just didn't wanna drink anymore." And so all of a sudden it was like twisted the other way where it was like, "Oh, the kid that you think is happy isn't, he's depressed," or the kid, he's got mental health or whatever it may be. And it wasn't in the kind, compassionate way. It was more like a, "Well, look, you didn't see this." So I find it like the way we react to certain things, it's almost like we're being hypocrites in and of ourself, 'cause at one point we're saying we should care for people who have this, but then we're willing to point it out. How have you kind of seen that navigate when you see the worst forms of what mental health can do to people versus someone maybe not displaying the worst mental illness externally, but is just talking about it? Does that make sense?

Charlamagne Tha God 48:30 Yeah, I don't know how anybody can diagnose someone just by watching them through the media.

Jay Shetty 48:36 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 48:36 Like, you know, uh-

Jay Shetty 48:38 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 48:38 ... i- if, if that's the case, we're all dealing with mental health issues.

Jay Shetty 48:40 100%.

Charlamagne Tha God 48:41 Some people just shitty people, and that's the other thing. Like, and, and by the way, we say two things can be true. No, multiple things can be true at one time. Like, you, you used the example of Tom Holland. Why can't he be the happy-go-lucky kid? Who said he's not? But that's the only version of him you had in your mind.

Jay Shetty 48:59 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 48:59 So now when you see another version that doesn't fit your expectation, you're upset with him?

Jay Shetty 49:04 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:04 The happy go lucky kid is not so happy anymore. That's life. You na- you show me a human that's one emotion all the time. It's just that when you're a public figure, we get these, uh, it's like these, these freeze frames.

Jay Shetty 49:18 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:18 So Tom Holland happy. You know? This person crazy. Like, it's just free- like literally freeze frame. This person always mad, angry. It's these freeze frames of people. That's not the whole totality of a person.

Jay Shetty 49:30 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:30 Like that's actually kind of insane for us to even-

Jay Shetty 49:32 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 49:33 ... think about it like that.

Jay Shetty 49:34 Yeah, it's a good point.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:34 Like, like, like, like if e- even if you watch Jay Shetty on purpose, you have a, a thought, a perception of Jay Shetty in your head, or you got a perception of Charlamagne in your head based off something you may have seen. That's your fault.

Jay Shetty 49:47 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:47 If that's the one thing you saw [laughs] and you came to a whole diagnosis about an individual.

Jay Shetty 49:54 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 49:54 So, you know, even when you talk about people having empathy, that goes into what I'm saying now. We might want to. Every, all, everybody, all of these humans might wake up every day saying to themselves, "We're gonna be empathetic today, and we're gonna be caring", and all of that stuff, until something happens to somebody that you don't like.

Jay Shetty 50:15 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 50:15 And then that, all that goes out the window. I tend to f- see that people have more empathy and sympathy, and they're more caring towards people they actually like.

Jay Shetty 50:25 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 50:26 It's really a popularity contest, but nobody wants to admit that.

Jay Shetty 50:29 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 50:29 We're not looking, we're not being consistent about any of these things.

Jay Shetty 50:33 That's true.

Charlamagne Tha God 50:33 We're not being consistent with how we deal with people. There can be two people that come out in the news today with the same situation, and then, and based off if we like the individual or not, we'll give that person a whole lot of grace and come to that person's defense. But if it's somebody that we don't like or somebody social media tells us we shouldn't like, oh, we gonna bury them. We want them out of here. We want them gone. That's not consistent.

Jay Shetty 50:56 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 50:56 And that means you're lying to yourself, and that means that you're not the person you say that you are, because you should be giving both those individuals the same amount of grace, but you're not, because we're all hypocrites, and that's fine. We're, we're all, we're everything. Like, everything that we pin on other people, we are all those things and more. We just gotta make sure that we're not, um, projecting-

Jay Shetty 51:20 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 51:20 ... onto others.

Jay Shetty 51:21 Facts. Wow. That's powerful, man. Yeah, that's ... And I, and it's true. All of us are, right? We all have bias.

Charlamagne Tha God 51:26 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 51:26 We all have the natural human tendency to be empathetic to people we like, and, and, and we're all that way and, but we've got to be able to see that.

Charlamagne Tha God 51:34 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 51:34 Because if we can see that, then it's something that we can, like you said, we don't project.

Charlamagne Tha God 51:39 That's right.

Jay Shetty 51:39 Otherwise, we live in our tiny, we were talking about this earlier, like we live in this righteous mind, as Jonathan Haidt calls it. Like this idea of like my way is righteous.

Charlamagne Tha God 51:49 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 51:50 And I believe the way I live and the way I think is the only way and the right way, and that's where it goes wrong-

Charlamagne Tha God 51:55 Yes

Jay Shetty 51:55 ... because the truth is, if everyone thinks like that, now you've just got a, you know, eight billion righteous ways.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:02 We, we even have to watch how we, uh, express that language, right? Because we all do it. We'll say things like, "Man, the way you're seeing that is strange."

Jay Shetty 52:10 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 52:11 Like, or the way, I, I, "I can't believe you're seeing things that way." Why? 'Cause they're not seeing it the way you are?

Jay Shetty 52:17 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:17 Like, there, like there's, there's, there's probably nothing wrong with the way that individual is seeing it.

Jay Shetty 52:22 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:22 But the r- but because you think they should see it the way you are seeing it, you're upset with that person.

Jay Shetty 52:28 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:28 Or you might have had the expectation, I know I can call this person, 'cause we love, we love confirmation bias, right?

Jay Shetty 52:34 Yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 52:34 So I, I know that I can call this person, because this person is gonna agree with me.

Jay Shetty 52:39 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:39 And then when you pick up the phone and call that person or text that person and realize that person has a different opinion, now you arguing back and forth with that person-

Jay Shetty 52:46 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 52:47 ... trying to get them to see things the way you see things.

Jay Shetty 52:49 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:49 It's like, no, let them see it the way they wanna see it.

Jay Shetty 52:52 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:52 Like, one of the hardest things to do is to get, is to step into somebody else's shoes.

Jay Shetty 52:57 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 52:57 One of the hardest things to do is to see things from the perspective of other people. I literally fight myself to do that.

Jay Shetty 53:05 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 53:05 And some people might say, "Oh, he's being a contrarian." No, I'm just literally, I've literally taken the time to step out of myself, step into that person's shoes, see how they see it, and I can understand where they're coming from.

Jay Shetty 53:18 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 53:19 What's wrong with that?

Jay Shetty 53:20 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 53:20 I don't see any [laughs] I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm not saying that person is right or that person is wrong. I'm just simply saying, I can see where that person's coming from. Like I said, multiple things can be true at once. I can think a person's wrong and still see where they're coming from.

Jay Shetty 53:34 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 53:34 I can think a person's right But still see where they're wrong at in their argument as well. I think that's very hard for humans to do, and I don't know why.

Jay Shetty 53:42 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, talking about calls, you talk about in the book the call that you get from Kanye.

Charlamagne Tha God 53:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 53:47 That, and that call, like, I ... Walk us through how that applies to what you're saying here, where you're trying to see things through his perspective, but then you're also like, "But I know Pete and we're friends." You know?

Charlamagne Tha God 53:56 Yeah. His perspective was I'm Black, he's Black. We both from hip hop culture, he's from hip hop culture. Pete Davidson is this white kid from Staten Island who does comedy. He's younger than us 'cause we are, we're in our 40s. He's younger than us, you know. His, uh, e- ex-wife is now out here dating Pete. I'm gonna call Charlamagne 'cause I need Charlamagne to start, you know, siding with me against Pete Davidson, and he should because he's Black and of the culture, as, as Kanye says. And it's like, no, Pete Davidson is my friend. I can care l- if he's Black, I can care if he's white. I can care what race he is. I don't care what age he is. That's somebody that I met when he was 16 years old when we was all doing, you know, Guy Code together, and we developed a real friendship and a, a real bond. I know his mother. Like, I me and, me and his mom talk. We check on each other. I've been to his mom's house. You don't sit in somebody's mom's house and eat food with, eat food with them and, and, and c- call that person a friend and then turn around and do snake shit like that. Pete's been to my house. He's been around my kids. He's been around my wife. I know him. You're not going to call me and get me to turn on my friend and try to, you know, say because we're Black and we're of the culture. It's like, no, right is right, wrong is wrong. And as I told him, you know, a- and I had to quote Snoop Dogg from, from the 1990s, "You mad, don't be mad at the, don't, don't be mad at the, uh, the, the player. Hate the game because your girl chose him." You know, I didn't say girl. I used some other language. I used the language Snoop used. But your girl chose him, and she's a grown woman making her own decisions. Y'all not together no more. So for me it's like, you're not gonna call me and, and, and try to guilt trip me, you know, using b- using Blackness and, and hip hop to go against somebody I consider a friend. Because if I considered you a friend like that, Kanye, nobody could make me do that to you as well.

Jay Shetty 55:51 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 55:51 You know? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 55:52 Yeah. Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 55:53 So, so, so it's really that, that simple with me. I don't have, uh, you know, I don't have flexible morals-

Jay Shetty 55:59 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 55:59 ... and values when it comes to people that I love and, and when it comes to people that I consider actual friends and consider actual family. That's why, you know, betrayal hurts so much.

Jay Shetty 56:10 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:10 That's why when you realize that, you know, certain people's character gets revealed when they don't get what they want from you.

Jay Shetty 56:15 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:16 Like, that's some, that's another realization that I've been-

Jay Shetty 56:18 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 56:18 ... you know, having a lot lately.

Jay Shetty 56:19 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:19 It's just like, I don't know. I, uh, that person wasn't necessarily my friend like I thought they were.

Jay Shetty 56:26 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:26 They were my friend based on what opportunity was being provided-

Jay Shetty 56:31 Yes

Charlamagne Tha God 56:31 ... at the time.

Jay Shetty 56:32 Yes.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:33 Right? And so it's like, it's sad, but you do realize some of that stuff is transactional. That's why I say I'm not mad at being used, just don't, just don't misuse me. And when things don't go your way, don't all of a sudden start, you know, kicking my back in just-

Jay Shetty 56:50 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 56:50 ... because things don't go your way.

Jay Shetty 56:52 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 56:52 'Cause I'm not gonna do that to you other than, you know ... No, I'm lying. I would do that to you.

Jay Shetty 56:56 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 56:56 Meaning that when I'm around my people, I'm definitely gonna be like, that person is so [censored] up. That person is such a ... Like, I cannot believe that that individual did such and such. But guess what? I can believe it, 'cause I understand humans.

Jay Shetty 57:09 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 57:09 So I give that, I give all of those type of, uh, you know, humans grace. But, you know, it does ... It's, it's very disappointing when a, you're more solid to a person than they would be with you.

Jay Shetty 57:20 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 57:20 'Cause if I embrace you and I say you my friend, if I say I rock with you, I'm, I'm, I'm, we gonna ride till the wheels fall off.

Jay Shetty 57:27 Yeah, yeah. Totally. And, and I find it's an interesting one because it's like, it's, it's almost like also it's the, it's only the peop- ... The only people that attack you are the people who, you know, wanted to do something with you, but it didn't happen.

Charlamagne Tha God 57:39 Yes.

Jay Shetty 57:39 Right? What you're saying about changing morals, like, I find, like, people attack you when they're like, "Oh, I wanna do a podcast with you but you didn't wanna make it happen, so now I'm gonna find a way to attack you. It didn't work out."

Charlamagne Tha God 57:48 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 57:48 And, and it's interesting 'cause you go, oh, well then it wasn't ever a collaboration and it wasn't of high character. It was an opportunity.

Charlamagne Tha God 57:55 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 57:55 Now that the opportunity's lost, now you have a different view of the situation. And, and I love that point you made about how that's why I think opportunities going well or not going well r- shows how someone responds to it.

Charlamagne Tha God 58:09 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 58:09 Right? Like, when there's a yes or a no, someone who actually responds well to a no, and a healthy no, again, obviously in a, in a way that is communicated effectively. Someone who responds in a positive way to a rejection or a no or a closed door-

Charlamagne Tha God 58:25 Oof

Jay Shetty 58:25 ... that person, you should keep them around forever. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 58:28 Yo, yo-

Jay Shetty 58:29 Like, like

Charlamagne Tha God 58:29 ... man, Jay, you hitting it on the head so crazy.

Jay Shetty 58:32 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 58:32 Pause. It's like, do you remem- y- like, you, you know, you ever met somebody who's so talented and you say to yourself, "Why isn't this person here?"

Jay Shetty 58:42 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 58:43 Like, why isn't this person doing X, Y, and Z? 'Cause they're so talented.

Jay Shetty 58:48 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 58:48 And then when you start to, like, get in business with them and you go down the path with them and you start to, you know, be around them, you realize exactly-

Jay Shetty 58:58 Yeah. Wow

Charlamagne Tha God 58:58 ... why they haven't gotten to [laughs] where-

Jay Shetty 59:00 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 59:00 ... they need to be.

Jay Shetty 59:01 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 59:01 'Cause once again, my, my, my good friend Marvet Britto always says this, "Talent will take you where character can't sustain you."

Jay Shetty 59:08 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 59:08 So you start to see, like, this person is not really a hard worker, or this person really is a, is a, is a gossip. Like, this person just likes to talk about everybody else instead of focusing on what they should be focusing on. They're so worried about what everybody else is doing and trying to shoot down what everybody else is doing, and you're trying to tell them, like, "Don't worry about that." 'Cause, you know, listen, sometimes jealousy and envy, it's natural, right? But don't focus on-

Jay Shetty 59:32 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 59:32 ... what's going right for everybody else 'cause you don't know what's going on in their lives. They might be ... looking like on, on the f- on, on the, on the surface like they're winning and things are great, but they might be going home crying every night.

Jay Shetty 59:42 For sure.

Charlamagne Tha God 59:42 Like, don't worry about that. You focus on you. But you see that they can't do that. And when things don't go their way, oh, they become the most, they c- they become the worst people.

Jay Shetty 59:51 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 59:51 Everybody's the enemy. Everybody's a terrible person. All of these people are out to get me. Nobody's looking out for me. And you realize, like, that's exactly why-

Jay Shetty 1:00:01 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:01 ... you're not where you're supposed to be.

Jay Shetty 1:00:03 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:03 I've had so many doors closed on me.

Jay Shetty 1:00:05 Wow.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:05 I've heard so ... I've, I've gotten way more nos, you know, than yeses in my life. I never was bitter about any of those nos, 'cause I truly believe in God.

Jay Shetty 1:00:14 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:15 And so-

Jay Shetty 1:00:15 Me too

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:16 ... whatever God has for me will absolutely, positively be for me. We love saying that-

Jay Shetty 1:00:22 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:22 ... but we don't mean it.

Jay Shetty 1:00:23 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:24 We don't mean it.

Jay Shetty 1:00:24 Yeah, that's true.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:25 'Cause when things don't go right for you, guess what you say? "Why, God?"

Jay Shetty 1:00:28 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:28 "Why is this thing not happening for me?"

Jay Shetty 1:00:30 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:30 'Cause I don't want it to at the moment.

Jay Shetty 1:00:32 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:32 Do you trust me or not?

Jay Shetty 1:00:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:34 If you don't trust me, I'll be sitting here waiting until you do.

Jay Shetty 1:00:38 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:38 And guess what? If you never do, God bless.

Jay Shetty 1:00:41 Yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:42 Literally.

Jay Shetty 1:00:42 I believe that, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:43 Straight up. God'll be sitting right there. I, I, I can bless you at any moment, but-

Jay Shetty 1:00:47 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:47 ... not until you ready.

Jay Shetty 1:00:49 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:49 You don't trust me anyway.

Jay Shetty 1:00:50 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:00:50 So until you find that trust in me, good, good luck.

Jay Shetty 1:00:54 Yeah. Yeah, I respect you for that in this ... I mean, you're always like this off- uh, online and offline, but in the book, I really feel like you get honest with us, but you're a- about your own pain and trauma.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:06 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 1:01:06 But you also get honest with us about just, you know, you're just, right now you're just spitting facts. Like, it's just reality. It's just the way it is. And I think one of the things you talk about is this desire to, like, you wanna also make a joke when you can. Like, you wanna make it funny.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:17 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 1:01:17 You wanna be able to let it, you know, let it kind of live in that world. When have

Jay Shetty 1:01:22 you found it that it works, and when have you found that that doesn't work? Like, when you're trying to make something into being funny or silly or kinda lightening the mood, when have you seen that be effective and ineffective?

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:32 Probably quite often, like, to be honest with you.

Jay Shetty 1:01:34 Which one? Which way? Like, ineffective or effective?

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:36 I mean, I think it works both ways both times, right?

Jay Shetty 1:01:38 Yeah. Okay. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:38 'Cause, 'cause, [laughs] 'cause if, like, say you do it, if you're in a room full of people, somebody's gonna laugh, but then the person you might be trying to make laugh does not want to laugh-

Jay Shetty 1:01:49 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:49 ... in that moment, so they're the one that's upset. Now you're really in your head, like-

Jay Shetty 1:01:53 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:53 ... "I was just trying to make this person laugh."

Jay Shetty 1:01:55 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:01:55 "I was just trying to do something good." So now you really, like, trying to get this person to just have ... You know, you're trying to put better energy on this person. Reality is you should just leave that person alone-

Jay Shetty 1:02:06 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:06 ... in that moment. Everything does not require a joke. I have not learned that.

Jay Shetty 1:02:10 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:11 I may not ever. I may not ever, you know-

Jay Shetty 1:02:14 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:14 ... learn that. I really may not. Like, I just feel like I like to be around people who don't take things too serious, even when things are serious, 'cause I don't feel like you can, you know, make really good, sound decisions when things are too serious because emotions are too high.

Jay Shetty 1:02:29 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:30 Like, sometimes you gotta, like, let's laugh about it. Let's joke about it. Let's really, really, really lighten the room, and then let's, like, sit down and try to, like, figure it out. Like, if you are sitting around a whole bunch of people and everybody's angry, and everybody's upset, everybody's mad, you just got a team that's about to make a poor decision.

Jay Shetty 1:02:48 Wow.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:48 Somebody on the team-

Jay Shetty 1:02:50 Wow

Charlamagne Tha God 1:02:50 ... gotta just be like, "Whoa. Yo. Everybody relax here." Somebody gotta be the rational one in the room, and most of the time the rational one in the room is the person that's not ... They're taking it serious-

Jay Shetty 1:03:03 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:03 ... but they're just not taking it serious in the way that you wanna take it serious. 'Cause I'm the type of person, I'm like, "What can I do?"

Jay Shetty 1:03:09 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:10 Like, there's certain situations that you hear about, certain situations you, you, you are confronted with in the moment, and you realize, like, there's really nothing we can do about this except for let it play out.

Jay Shetty 1:03:20 Yeah. Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:21 So while we letting it play out, let's-

Jay Shetty 1:03:23 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:24 ... let's, let's laugh. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:03:25 Yeah. Yeah. [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:25 You know what I'm saying?

Jay Shetty 1:03:26 Yeah, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:27 Let's, let's crack some jokes. You ever seen that movie, um, uh, Don't Look Up?

Jay Shetty 1:03:31 Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's it.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:34 You see how they handled the end of the world?

Jay Shetty 1:03:35 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:36 That's how ... Like, I'm talking about the Leonardo DiCap- DiCaprio's character-

Jay Shetty 1:03:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:39 ... when they were all at dinner.

Jay Shetty 1:03:40 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:40 And they were still pouring drinks, and they were eating. They knew the inevitable was happening.

Jay Shetty 1:03:45 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:46 They knew there was nothing they could do to stop it. They spent the whole beginning of the movie-

Jay Shetty 1:03:51 Yeah, trying to stop it

Charlamagne Tha God 1:03:52 ... trying to stop it, and they real- They, they accepted fate in that moment, and they decided, "I'm going out like this."

Jay Shetty 1:04:00 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:04:00 'Cause they knew there was nothing they could do about it. And I know that that's a movie and it, it, it's probably easier said than done, but that's what I, that's what I strive for.

Jay Shetty 1:04:09 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:04:09 Like, even in the face of adversity, even when it seems like, you know, Chicken Little, the sky is falling, everything's burning down around you. You're like Xzibit in that video where he, where he's just walking and everything's burning down, and all this bad stuff is happening behind him, but he's just rapping and moving, rapping and moving.

Jay Shetty 1:04:26 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:04:26 It's just like, yo, that's how I feel. Like, I wanna, you know, constantly live my life, and that's the kind of people I wanna, you know, be around.

Jay Shetty 1:04:34 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:04:34 People that keep me in that space.

Jay Shetty 1:04:35 Yeah. For sure. Last question I wanna ask you, Charlamagne, before we wrap up is ... And it, it's interesting 'cause it relates to what you just said of you wanna be around those people. How

Jay Shetty 1:04:44 do we find belonging in a world we don't agree with but stop ourselves from only being friends with people we agree with? Right?

Charlamagne Tha God 1:04:52 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 1:04:52 It's like, because right now we look at belonging as, like, if we agree, then I find belonging. But we both know from what you're saying in the book, from what you're saying right now, from what you say on your podcast, from what you say on your show, it's like, but you are very comfortable sitting down, having uncomfortable, awkward conversations with people who people wouldn't place you with.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05:13 That's right.

Jay Shetty 1:05:14 From completely different backgrounds, different walks of life, different schools of thought, and you find that to be a very important thing to do.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05:20 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 1:05:21 So how do we find belonging in a way that we're not just creating little echo chambers and little confirmation bias schools where we just all just say what we think, and we all double-click on and go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing. That thing."? How, how do we create a culture where, which you're doing through your work, through your book- How do you actually do that in your life? Because I think we all like to be around people who agree with us

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05:42 I don't even know if you realize it, but as you was talking, you referred to, you referred to that stuff as little.

Jay Shetty 1:05:47 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05:47 And that's exactly what it is. It's small. That's why, that's why it's literally called Why Small Talk Sucks. You, you, macro conversations are big conversations that you can have with anybody.

Jay Shetty 1:05:59 Mm-hmm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:05:59 Like, when you put yourself in those small boxes, right? When you confine yourself to just-

Jay Shetty 1:06:06 Oh, yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:06:07 ... speaking with the people that you agree with-

Jay Shetty 1:06:08 Yeah. Wow

Charlamagne Tha God 1:06:08 ... when you confine yourself to just being in those echo chambers, those rooms are so small.

Jay Shetty 1:06:13 I just found out. Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:06:14 They just seem big because of social media, but that's not how the world works. Yo, there's really, there's really not too many people that are gonna see the world exactly the way you see it. So that can't be true. All of y'all are lying to each other because y'all just love the community of each other. Y'all are really a bunch of people who need, you know, support from each other, and y'all wanna have a friend group just like all humans do, so y'all are all just going along to get along with each other. So y'all make this imaginary rule book, this imaginary playbook, and y'all have this, uh, imaginary rhetoric that everybody has to say, and if you don't see things like this, if you don't say things like this, then you can't be in this club no more. This club is this big. Like, this c- that club is so, so, so, so small. So in order to just, like, understand that you live in a world that you are going to disagree with people, like I said earlier, I can think you're right, but still not necessarily agree with you. I can understand where you're coming from, but still think you're, you're wrong. Like, I don't understand why we just can't sit down and have more conversations with people and realize this surface that I saw of this individual or this perception of this individual that I had in my head, if you sit down and actually have a conversation with them, and, like, listen to the whole totality of everything that they may be saying or experience ... Y- you'll never be able to experience the whole totality of a person, but you'll get closer to what you thought. If you just sit down and have a conversation with them, you'll realize, like, oh, what they're saying isn't necessarily that bad or-

Jay Shetty 1:07:55 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 1:07:55 ... oh, I understand why they see things that way. I disagree with them, but I understand it, and I respect their right to think that. We spend so much time trying to change people's minds-

Jay Shetty 1:08:06 Mm

Charlamagne Tha God 1:08:06 ... because we're trying to make ourselves comfortable.

Jay Shetty 1:08:08 Mm. So true.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:08:09 We talk about all of this growth that we wanna have as humans, and we talk about how, you know, and, uh, and, uh, we, we like being uncomfortable because when we're uncomfortable, it, it, it's making us grow. We know that we're evolving. We really don't like growing, and we really don't like being uncomfortable. We get to a certain point, and we all need to admit this. We get to a certain point where we're very comfortable.

Jay Shetty 1:08:30 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:08:30 And we don't want anything disrupting this comfort. So to have new conversations and to talk to people that we may not necessarily agree with, oh, man, that scares us to death.

Jay Shetty 1:08:43 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:08:43 That scares us to death, but I would say you should be more afraid of not growing. You should be more afraid of thinking that I've gotten to a certain point and I'm fine and cool here. The world is a beautiful place, Jay. Humans are beautiful people. Like, why would you not wanna experience everything that God created? Because a lot of these things that we've learned, that's not necessarily of God. It's just the things that we've picked up in this world. Some people have picked up things that are different from us, but sometimes when you sit down and you listen to that person, and that person shares their experiences, or that person, you know, tells you what they've been through that's gotten them to that, you know, point in life, it can be eye-opening.

Jay Shetty 1:09:31 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:09:31 And it's been very eye-opening for me throughout my life. Like, my best relationships in life have come through me having conversations with people that I necessar- that I, I, that I didn't have anything in common with. One of the greatest, you know, gifts my mother ever gave me, she was, she, she was a English teacher growing up in South Carolina, like when I was growing up in South Carolina. She told me, "Read things that don't pertain to you."

Jay Shetty 1:09:53 Great advice.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:09:53 So I'm in the library. I'm reading everything from UFOs, you know, Sasquatch, to Judy Blume and Beverly Clearly, to the point where I'm like, "This woman Judy Blume is a phenomenal storyteller." So I love Judy Blume the same way I love Scarface, the same way I love Jay-Z, the same way I love Ghostface. She's that level of storyteller to me. And now, because of that love of somebody like Judy Blume and me expressing that, she's somebody I actually call a friend. She's actually somebody that I, you know, have gone down to Florida and, you know, kicked it with her and her husband George, me and my wife. Like, I've been to her bookstore and her movie theater. Like, we was just in, together in New York a couple weeks ago. Like, that, that comes from being open to other people, other experiences, and just listening to each other, and that's really what, you know, Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks is really all about. It's really about us, you know, getting to listen to each other. That's why I end every chapter by saying, "Let's discuss," 'cause I want us to have conversations. I'm opening up conversation. I don't want you just to talk to the people that you agree with every day. Tear down the walls of that echo chamber and realize how big the world is. The world is infinite. That's what I want people to get, you know, you know, from th- from this book.

Jay Shetty 1:11:10 Yeah, and just the way you reacted to that, I could tell how deep the topic is for you. It took me a second, but when you said, "Oh, the way I said it was little," and then you were like, "Oh, it's actually small talk," like it applies. That showed me just how deep this is running through your veins-

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11:22 Absolutely

Jay Shetty 1:11:22 ... 'cause you picked up on that, and it's like, yeah, I was saying, yeah, these little groups, and these little echo chambers, and these little kind of like, you know, text threads or message threads, whatever we have that-

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11:32 Language is important, Jay

Jay Shetty 1:11:33 ... just gets smaller and smaller and smaller. What's, last question, what's the

Jay Shetty 1:11:36 hardest, hardest conversation you've had to have with your kids so far? So far, or the most honest conversation I'd say, not hardest. The most honest conversation

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11:44 Oh, man. That, that's ... Listen, I got a 15-year-old, a eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and a two-year-old, all girls. So I haven't had it yet. They're all hard. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:11:56 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11:56 Like, like they're all difficult.

Jay Shetty 1:11:58 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:11:58 Okay? Every single one, especially, you know, the, my, my 15-year-old, 'cause she's a sophomore in high school now, and you know, they're dealing with things that we never even thought of dealing with. Like, literally. Like, you know ... And we're dealing with adults that we never thought of dealing with, and these kids are smart.

Jay Shetty 1:12:18 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:12:18 Like my ... You know, I, I, m- I remember during COVID, my daughter came to me, and she came to me and my wife, and she was like, she was in tears and she was just like, "Y'all, I'm overwhelmed. Like, I'm overwhelmed. Like, this is driving me crazy. You know, my grades are slipping." I'm like, I gave her a hug, I'm like, "We are in a unprecedented time right now. Like, we're literally at home. I'm at home doing work. You're doing pottery class on the kitchen floor. Do you think I give a damn if your grades slip at a moment like this? Like, I don't care about any of that." But what made me proud in that moment was she had the language because, you know, she's, she's, she's been to therapy, not 'cause anything's necessarily wrong. I'm just, I'm just realizing that we're in a unprecedented time. Like, they-

Jay Shetty 1:13:05 Yeah

Charlamagne Tha God 1:13:05 ... these kids deal with things that we don't have to deal with, so I want them, I want her to have the tools and the language early, 'cause I'm just a person still going through it myself. Her mom is a person still going through it herself, so I want her to sit down and, you know, talk to experts. So but just the fact she had the language. So when you say difficult conversations, honestly, the difficult conversations come from me having to check my ego as a parent.

Jay Shetty 1:13:31 Mm.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:13:31 'Cause I'm 45, and I believe this little 15-year-old doesn't know anything yet.

Jay Shetty 1:13:37 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:13:38 She knows a whole lot, and she can, she's teaching me, you know, a whole lot, right? There's some things that change. There's some things that stay the same in this world, but there's a whole lot that has changed, and I think that, you know, we, um, we, we sometimes are too stubborn to, to, to realize that. And so yeah, I guess to answer your question, every day is a difficult conversation.

Jay Shetty 1:14:00 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:00 I got four ... Jay, I got four girls.

Jay Shetty 1:14:02 I know, yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:02 Every day is a difficult conversation.

Jay Shetty 1:14:04 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:04 Like, I'm dealing with a different set of emotions every single day.

Jay Shetty 1:14:09 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:09 The biggest thing for me is to stay centered and sane and, you know, not let my emotions get the best of me. Like, that's one of the biggest conversations me and my wife constantly have. Like [laughs] we get together-

Jay Shetty 1:14:21 [laughs]

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:21 ... in our little prayer circles and huddle together like, "We are doing the best we can."

Jay Shetty 1:14:26 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:26 I, I literally ... It's so funny. I told her this yesterday. I was like, "Yo, you know, we've been together 26 years, and we've experienced so many different levels of life together." And so what I said to her, I was like, "Yo, the other th- w- we've, we've real- we also realize 26 years go by fast, so regardless of how stressed out we get because of these children, [laughs] let's enjoy the moment."

Jay Shetty 1:14:52 Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:14:52 Like, literally, let's just enjoy the moment. We are doing the best we can. There is no manual that comes with this. You don't wanna take everything you learned from your parents because you realize they didn't have all of the proper tools and they didn't necessarily, you know, instill the right things in us, at least fr- fr- from a, a man's perspective. My mom I, I felt was phenomenal, but my, my ... at least from a man's perspective, you know, I, I didn't have that. So we're just all doing the best we can, so let's just give each other some grace, man, and like, and, and enjoy this ride called, called adulthood.

Jay Shetty 1:15:24 [laughs] Absolutely. Everyone, the book is called Get Honest or Die Lying-

Charlamagne Tha God 1:15:28 Yes, sir

Jay Shetty 1:15:28 ... You Can Get It Right Now: Why Small Talk Sucks. Charlamagne tha God, this is the book that I want you to get. Discuss it with your friends. Dissect it. Allow it to infuse into reality. I've been really, really happy that this book's out because I spent last Christmas in London, which is what I usually do, and I started to find that even friends I've had for a couple of decades, I found that we were becoming less and less honest with each other.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:15:53 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:15:53 And I was feeling really disconnected when I was back at Christmas, and I was trying to figure out what it was. I was like, "Wait a minute. Is it 'cause I left eight years ago and I've been living in the States? Is it because of this? Is it this?" And I realized it was honesty. And so I started to create conversations in my friends group that were uncomfortable, and when I saw that you'd written this book, I was so moved by it because I was like, "That was ex- the exact issue that I felt I was moving further away from the people I was closest to because we were all now just playing a role, and everyone was playing their part-

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:27 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 1:16:28 ... but there was no longer a get honest conversation. It was all small talk." And so I really hope that this conversation inspires people to get closer to the people you already think you're close to-

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:37 That's right

Jay Shetty 1:16:37 ... and understand the people that you're far away from.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:41 That's right.

Jay Shetty 1:16:41 And so the book is called Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:45 That's right.

Jay Shetty 1:16:45 You can grab it right now. We'll put it in the comments in the link in the caption. Charlamagne, thank you so much again, man.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:50 Jay, thank you, man.

Jay Shetty 1:16:50 As always, I appreciate these conversations.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:52 Nah, I appreciate you.

Jay Shetty 1:16:53 Anytime, man.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:54 We always have macro conversations-

Jay Shetty 1:16:55 Yes

Charlamagne Tha God 1:16:55 ... on air, off air, and I mean, just what you've built with this platform On Purpose, it is so necessary, man.

Jay Shetty 1:17:01 Thank you.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:17:01 Like, you know, you- everybody's having these conversations about mindfulness and, you know, wellness, and we're all just trying to be the best versions of ourselves. Something like this didn't exist five years ago. Just like those conversations that people are having now weren't necessarily as loud as they were, you know, as lo- as loud five years ago as they are now. And your platform On Purpose is a big, big, big, huge part of that, so thank you for your service, brother.

Jay Shetty 1:17:27 Thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate you, man.

Charlamagne Tha God 1:17:27 Absolutely.

Jay Shetty 1:17:28 Thank you. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.

Speaker 1:17:51 Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, "I like this enough for other people to see it."