HOLLYWOOD Executive: Success Was NOT What I Thought It Would Be! | Ari Emanuel

Ari Emanuel 0:00 When you're on the field, kill the other dude. When you're not on the field, you don't have to kill the other dude. But when you're on the field, you want to win. You just have to realize when you're not on the field. The problem is I think people don't realize when they're not on the field. The bestselling author and host.

Cameo 0:12 The number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty 0:15 On Purpose with Jay Shetty. If you could say that these are the couple of the biggest changes you've seen in the last three decades, uh, in this industry, in the world, that you're most astounded by because I think we're getting used to change. I think for... I didn't grow up with a phone. Like, I, I got my first phone when I was 13 or 14, and it was a Sony Ericsson, like, brick with a little antenna.

Ari Emanuel 0:37 Uh-huh. Yeah, a flip phone.

Jay Shetty 0:38 I- I... Yeah, it was one of those... Yeah, one of those old flip phones. Sony Ericsson, had a little, you know, antenna on top of it. My mom had one of the big, like, chunky brick-style phones. But I feel like we're getting so used to

Jay Shetty 0:50 change being so rapid-

Ari Emanuel 0:51 Mm

Jay Shetty 0:51 ... that we actually don't spot patterns. If you've spotted any patterns over the last three decades, what would you say they are?

Ari Emanuel 0:56 I don't know if there's patterns, you know, uh, uh, but I think you have to look at them in different sectors, whether it be tech, whether it be the entertainment business. The one pattern I do see, change is happening a lot faster. So the pickup the phone probably took seven years. The speed of adaption, the one big change, it's just now happening very quickly, and that just lets people... You, you better be really comfortable in the uncomfortable and change.

Jay Shetty 1:26 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 1:26 And that's a mindset. That's a process to get to. Th- that's what you have to realize it's ha- And all this is gonna happen a lot quicker now.

Jay Shetty 1:35 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 1:36 Which is, I don't think it's good or bad. It just is what it is.

Jay Shetty 1:39 Yeah. I love what you just said there. So my entire show, I just went on a world tour, and the entire show was based on the premise of getting the audience to sit in discomfort. So I would literally bring up random audience members, and one of them was locked in a box on stage for 15 minutes alone without any sound. We had other audience members come up and have to do tasks that were uncomfortable. I love the idea of getting comfortable-

Ari Emanuel 2:02 You, you better breathe through it.

Jay Shetty 2:03 You better breathe through it. Exactly.

Ari Emanuel 2:03 Yeah, that's the only way to do it. I mean-

Jay Shetty 2:05 I was gonna ask you, like, how have you trained your mind to be comfortable with discomfort?

Ari Emanuel 2:10 I, I'm not sure any of us are really comfortable with ourselves as we mature and kind of get into... I said this to a client today. I said, "There was a period of time I just didn't want anybody to find out that I really wasn't that bright." And it was, you know, I was scared, right? And w- that I think goes back to my childhood and being dyslexic and not believing that, you know, I'm okay. I'm not stupid, right? Uh, in my family, stupid was a, the d- definition, and smart with the... But I started fasting, and once you start doing it, it's not comfortable. And I just started telling, you know, start that little voice. No, I'm not giving in to that little voice. No, I'm getting up even though I don't want to get up. And then it's that conversation you're constantly ha- is that... Somebody said, "My constant negotiation with myself." And now it's if I'm... You know, I meditate for 20 minutes every day. It's not easy sitting there for 20 minutes. You, your toe itches. Something, a- and you gotta get through it, and it's just, oh, I'm gonna do a cold bath for five minutes every day. That's not fun.

Jay Shetty 3:18 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 3:18 Y- and it's just teaching your body, no, you can get through this. I'm not listening to that voice. I'm just breathing through it. I'm just getting through it. And it's been probably 15 years of, uh, of that, and it translates into business because then, okay, we're taking over IMG. I'm gonna move to London for four months. Kids and the family's gonna be on the East Coast for the summer, and it's gonna be brutal. And yeah, you can do that. And, or at the UFC. Uh, any of these new tasks that you take on 'cause you're telling yourself a story that whether it's gonna be good or bad, that's not the truth. You have to just realize that thing's not the truth, and you just have to go through it. Yeah, it's not gonna be easy.

Jay Shetty 4:01 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 4:01 So what? Who cares? Like, yes, that's part of the process. That's actually part of the interesting thing that we're all doing.

Jay Shetty 4:08 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 4:09 So.

Jay Shetty 4:09 Yeah. No, I love that because-

Ari Emanuel 4:11 It did start, though, with-

Jay Shetty 4:12 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 4:12 ... not eating.

Jay Shetty 4:13 Yeah. Interesting.

Ari Emanuel 4:14 The, the, you know, the... When I started learning about what fasting does or eating windows do to your body and autophagy and et cetera, et cetera, that then got your mind, okay, I can do this. And then you just start building on that.

Jay Shetty 4:29 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 4:30 I probably am past the point of health, emotionally healthy. But yes, I'm way past it.

Jay Shetty 4:34 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 4:35 But, uh, yeah.

Jay Shetty 4:36 No, but I love that because that's super practical, right? Like, that's not an ethereal concept. The idea is you are able to put yourself through things that you didn't want to do-

Ari Emanuel 4:46 Nope

Jay Shetty 4:46 ... but that were actually good for you. And I find that that's-

Ari Emanuel 4:49 Well, I, I hope they're good for you. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 4:50 Yeah, you hope they're... Yeah, you're hoping. But the idea that most of what we don't want to do that we choose to do is actually what he- helps us get ahead in life.

Ari Emanuel 4:59 I say, said this to my kids. You know, success is a lot of the things we're talking about. One of it is, and that goes to kind of putting yourself, is showing up. Like, there's a voice saying, "You mean I gotta get on that plane for 16 hours? I gotta just go have a lunch, and I gotta fly back from China? I don't wanna do that." Okay, it said I don't wanna do it, that little voice. I'm doing it.

Jay Shetty 5:19 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 5:20 And, and learning to say, "Oh, that's the voice. No, I'm, I'm getting on the plane." And showing up, kind of going through it, yeah, that's, that's part of growing up and being successful. A lot of people are too lazy to fight that voice, and over time, when you get older, and I'm a lot older than you, you don't want to fight the voice. And all the things I do now is I think because as you get older, that voice takes over more and more. It's easy. No, don't get up at 5:00 and work out. No, don't do this. No... I do it. I don't care. As soon as, as soon as that voice turns on, I say, "I'm, I'm doing this."

Jay Shetty 5:56 Yeah, it's really interesting you say that because I feel like a lot of people say they can't hear their inner voice, and it's because that inner voice was so-

Ari Emanuel 6:02 They're just not listening

Jay Shetty 6:03 ... it was so loud when we were younger.

Ari Emanuel 6:04 Yes.

Jay Shetty 6:05 But it gets quieter and quieter and quieter because the other voice, we kept listening to it And it got louder and louder and louder

Ari Emanuel 6:10 Louder and louder. Yeah

Jay Shetty 6:12 And so now we're having to unlearn that loud voice and, and reframe-

Ari Emanuel 6:16 And for me it was, for me it started with, um, fasting periods.

Jay Shetty 6:20 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 6:20 You know, I do the 24, and I do 16, and sometimes a 48 or 60.

Jay Shetty 6:24 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 6:24 And, and it's then kind of evolved into multiple things to keep it exercised that I can not listen to the voice.

Jay Shetty 6:31 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you need friends who push you too. I remember a few years ago, you know, whether it was skydiving or whether it was cold plunges, as you mentioned there, it's like you need to be surrounded by a community. I just, literally I've got some friends from London staying with me right now this week, and I took them to do a cold plunge with me. You know, every day we've been doing a hike every morning. We've been doing infrared saunas every-

Ari Emanuel 6:50 And they, they don't do that

Jay Shetty 6:51 ... they don't do that. They, they've never done it before, and it was just interesting-

Ari Emanuel 6:54 How did they do on their cold plunge?

Jay Shetty 6:55 They did really well, and they were saying that because we were... I was like trying to coach them through it and helping them breathe. So on their first time they did the first one, one of them did four minutes-

Ari Emanuel 7:04 That's incredible

Jay Shetty 7:04 ... and the other did three on their first time.

Ari Emanuel 7:06 That's incredible.

Jay Shetty 7:06 And it was ama-

Ari Emanuel 7:07 It's, yeah

Jay Shetty 7:08 ... amazing

Ari Emanuel 7:08 You just have to get past the first minute.

Jay Shetty 7:09 Exactly. Exactly. So it was a brilliant result. But it was that idea of your community of people around you.

Ari Emanuel 7:15 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 7:15 When you were... I love what you just said there, that you were scared at one point in your life of being figured out-

Ari Emanuel 7:22 Yeah

Jay Shetty 7:22 ... as not being so smart, and you said that came from your childhood and yeah, you had ADHD, dyslexia from, from what I've researched. Walk me through how that idea stays even after you're starting to see success, because I think people believe that when you become successful, when you close your big deal, when you build a company, that some of that goes away.

Ari Emanuel 7:43 You know Arnold Schwarzenegger, did you see that documentary?

Jay Shetty 7:46 Uh, which one? The Game Changers?

Ari Emanuel 7:47 The, the most recent one that he did.

Jay Shetty 7:49 No. Not Game Changers

Ari Emanuel 7:49 Just about him kind of growing up and bodybuilding and, you know-

Jay Shetty 7:51 I don't think so. I don't think I saw that one.

Ari Emanuel 7:52 So he talks about, you know, he won Mr. Olympia, and everybody was telling him how great his body was, right? And they're all looking like, "Oh my God." In his head he was saying, "This is wrong. That's wrong. This is wrong." And you're like, nobody would've said that to him.

Jay Shetty 8:12 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 8:12 You know, some people say it's your inner voice, your shadow. My, my shrink used to tell me it's your shadow. Maybe people were thinking I was successful. I was thinking about that kid that couldn't read, and that during Passover didn't want to read the questions because I, and 'cause I was the youngest and going into that sewing, I- that's why I hate Passover now.

Jay Shetty 8:30 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 8:30 The anxiety I had when I was a kid. And so it's just kind of upbringing.

Jay Shetty 8:35 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 8:35 Um, I'm no longer dealing with those issues. It's not like I'm beating my chest, "Oh, I'm successful," but I'm comfortable and it's that in a good way drove me like I'm gonna prove everybody wrong and, you know, any bully comes up to me, yep, we're gonna get in a fight. Anybody calls me stupid, yep, we're gonna get in a fight. Phys- you know, that's when I was young and it's just held over and then there's the point in time where you say, "Okay, I'm not doing this anymore." I'm, I, I'm, I, I have to deal with these crazy stupid thought- yes, you're successful. Yes, it's okay. Nothing's take- being taken away from you. And so that just came with age, a lot of shrinks and, uh, uh, a lot of, uh, other therapies that-

Jay Shetty 9:21 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 9:21 ... we'll get

Ari Emanuel 9:22 into later. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 9:22 Yeah. Yeah. No, no, but I think it's really important because I think there's two things there. One is that it doesn't go away on its own.

Ari Emanuel 9:28 No.

Jay Shetty 9:28 Revenge is not the solution or proving someone wrong.

Ari Emanuel 9:31 No, no, kind of, um, I would say-

Jay Shetty 9:32 It's a good way to start

Ari Emanuel 9:33 ... n- revenge and, um, I would say anger-

Jay Shetty 9:37 Mm

Ari Emanuel 9:37 ... got you to a certain point.

Jay Shetty 9:39 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 9:39 You- after you get to a certain point, if you stay with anger and, and resentment and, and fear, you, you only can get to a certain point in s- in your life. And once you make the transition that you know something, that's never gonna get me over the hump and you have to get b- go a little deeper-

Jay Shetty 9:59 Mm-hmm

Ari Emanuel 9:59 ... and that's scary, um, and takes work. When you know, when you sit in yoga, I don't know what it is, it just opens up things to come to you-

Jay Shetty 10:06 Mm

Ari Emanuel 10:06 ... and the process to come to you.

Jay Shetty 10:08 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 10:08 And that's what happened at, you know, um, I don't know when it, when it really happened, uh, probably 12, 15 years ago that I was on this journey to kind of find out I don't want to be that guy that's somebody says something, I go to code red nine. That's not healthy. That, that's way too much energy.

Jay Shetty 10:29 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 10:30 It's emotional energy that you know is exhausting.

Jay Shetty 10:33 Absolutely. And, and that's what it is. It's exhausting, it's draining, and it takes away from that creative energy-

Ari Emanuel 10:38 Yeah

Jay Shetty 10:38 ... the spark that's actually pushing you forward.

Ari Emanuel 10:39 To let things in that actually need to come in that then you can see the world differently and like wait a second, like you're not seeing it through those eyes.

Jay Shetty 10:47 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 10:48 You're seeing it through a different like wait a second, what about this? What about that? And you, you can be creative. That's a better place to be.

Jay Shetty 10:53 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I wanted to ask you as well, I mean you probably get asked this all the time, but I think it's important context setting for everyone who's listening. The idea of like sitting in the discomfort as you were talking about it, my wife and I are huge Entourage fans, and I can imagine that it's cool but uncomfortable to have your image displayed in a certain way that has pros and cons and, and how it's been-

Ari Emanuel 11:18 That was, that, there was-

Jay Shetty 11:19 And-

Ari Emanuel 11:19 There was aspects to that character 100% true.

Jay Shetty 11:22 [laughs] Which ones?

Ari Emanuel 11:24 You know, I w- I was very aggressive and you know, when we started the business we couldn't compete on price 'cause commissions were commissions. There was five other big players in the, and we just had to one, be more creative.

Jay Shetty 11:39 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 11:40 Two, more aggressive, um, and uh, and fight. So yeah, that was true to form. I mean, not all of it, but in the surrounding, yes. Um, I don't know what Entourage would be now that character though. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 11:54 Yeah. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 11:56 So, um, yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:57 Yeah. And what would, what was stuff where you were like, "That's definitely not me"? Like what, were there anything-

Ari Emanuel 12:01 Well, I don't know. I-

Jay Shetty 12:02 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 12:02 ... to be candid, that, that show gave me anxiety.

Jay Shetty 12:04 Yeah, I can imag- that's what I'm saying. I can imagine.

Ari Emanuel 12:06 Yeah, it gave me a lot of anxiety to wa- so I didn't watch a lot.

Jay Shetty 12:09 Right.

Ari Emanuel 12:10 And uh, people now watch it, I mean, during-

Jay Shetty 12:12 We watched it in the pandemic. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 12:15 ... the pandemic I got a lot of calls from- Guys I know that had kids, and the kids started watching, kids in college started watching. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I, I didn't see that episode. I, you know, I did watch the episode, which I never did. I think he started to use a squirt gun on people.

Jay Shetty 12:30 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 12:31 I didn't see that. I mean, I did see that, but I didn't do that.

Jay Shetty 12:33 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 12:34 Um, you know, that's the one-

Jay Shetty 12:36 Yeah, it's good to know you didn't use a squirt gun.

Ari Emanuel 12:37 Yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 12:37 Yeah, that's, that's important. How have you harnessed or how has your aggression matured in business? Because the reason why I raise that is because I think, you know, we, we kinda swing in pendulums in the world. So if you think about business back then and how we viewed Wall Street, and even when I was growing up, like, the dream was to be an investment banker. That's what everyone was becoming in London, and that was the big goal when I was a kid. And so-

Ari Emanuel 13:03 Did you want to become one?

Jay Shetty 13:04 I wanted to become one without knowing what it was.

Ari Emanuel 13:06 Was, right, right.

Jay Shetty 13:07 Yeah, right? Like, you know, that, that's what happens, and I went to Cass Business School and did management science, and I was training to go off into the corporate world because that's what I thought you had to do.

Ari Emanuel 13:15 Don't you remember when you were growing up, the objective was how big the stack was?

Jay Shetty 13:19 Yes.

Ari Emanuel 13:20 I never had that objective.

Jay Shetty 13:21 No, same.

Ari Emanuel 13:22 For whatever reason, my parents didn't ... That was not the objective. It was to do well in the world and-

Jay Shetty 13:26 Mm-hmm

Ari Emanuel 13:27 ... make the world a better place, all that stuff.

Jay Shetty 13:28 Absolutely.

Ari Emanuel 13:28 And I think a lot of my friends, that was, uh, how big is the stack?

Jay Shetty 13:32 Totally. Same, same for me. It was ... I, I didn't grow up with a lot. My parents didn't have a lot, but they always gave in charity. They helped the community.

Ari Emanuel 13:39 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 13:39 My mom did a ton of community work, and then I obviously met monks when I was 18 years old, so, like, that became... My paradigm shifted massively, and I was always far more creative than, than anything else, and that's

Jay Shetty 13:50 what I enjoyed. But I guess the question I'm asking is, I think we've gone from that very aggressive, very competitive, brash, harsh energy, and then we swing to this pendulum where everyone's like, "Well, no, you just gotta be fully, like, empathetic and vulnerable-

Ari Emanuel 14:03 No

Jay Shetty 14:03 ... and compassionate." I'm like, so how do... Yeah, so-

Ari Emanuel 14:05 Here's what it is

Jay Shetty 14:05 ... what is the middle-ground balance? Because the answer's always somewhere in the middle.

Ari Emanuel 14:08 Here's, here's, uh, somebody, a really smart person, I won't say who, told me. You have to know, and this only comes with time and maturity, when you're on the field. When you're on the field, kill the other dude. When you're not on the field, you don't have to kill the other dude. For you, it's gotta be a good deal. For me, it's gotta be a good deal, et cetera. But when you're on the field, you wanna win. You just have to realize when you're not on the field.

Jay Shetty 14:34 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 14:35 The problem is, I think people don't realize when they're not on the field.

Jay Shetty 14:39 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 14:40 And that has come over time. Like, when am I on the field? Okay, when I'm on the field, I'm playing to win. When I'm not on the field, I can be in a different mindset. That shift for me, going to fear, anger, da, da, da, I always thought I was on the field, and for a long time-

Jay Shetty 14:58 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 14:58 ... to get the company where I want it, I was always on the field.

Jay Shetty 15:01 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 15:02 Now I don't have to be on the field all the time, and that not being on the field enables you to think properly and, and just let things in and, and grow. That gets you to other things that all of a sudden affect the field in a different way. You, you have different moves. It's, it's probably how great players, as they get older, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, they y- their bodies are not the same, but they're better players-

Jay Shetty 15:28 Mm-hmm

Ari Emanuel 15:29 ... because they just know how to do it differently. So when I'm not on the field, I'm not on the field. When I'm on the field, I'm playing pretty hard.

Jay Shetty 15:36 Yeah. That's a, that's a really unique insight. I like that because I feel like that's also what challenges people in their personal relationships because not only are people not on and off the field in business, they don't know how to switch it off when they go home.

Ari Emanuel 15:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 15:49 And so your wife and your kids or your husband or your partner or whoever it may be ends up getting that same treatment as you do at work because you haven't reached that maturity level of knowing how to s- And it's not as easy as a light switch.

Ari Emanuel 16:00 Oh, no.

Jay Shetty 16:00 Like, it's not just, oh, I'm work hat off, work hat on. It doesn't work like that.

Ari Emanuel 16:05 No. And your partner, depending on what they do, you might be off the field, they might be on the field.

Jay Shetty 16:09 They wanna be on the field. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 16:10 Like, 'cause they're going through their thing. It's just like, that's what it is.

Jay Shetty 16:13 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 16:14 So.

Jay Shetty 16:14 Yeah, we just, I just got back from tour, and we went to Bali for a couple of weeks just to relax with me and my wife, and it's so funny 'cause she's actually-

Ari Emanuel 16:20 What does she do?

Jay Shetty 16:21 She's a vegan chef and recipe developer and, yeah, incredible with, knows everything about Ayurveda and herbs and nutrition, and sh- she's made me very healthy compared to what I used to be. But, but she's on the field right now 'cause her, her career's booming. She's doing incredibly well, and it's so fun to watch, and it's so funny 'cause I was like, "Yeah, we're going to Bali." And she's like, "You know what? I think we're going there for a bit long." And I was like, that was me. Like, I used to say that like five years ago and-

Ari Emanuel 16:44 And so it's just like-

Jay Shetty 16:44 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 16:44 ... okay, it's not only your life.

Jay Shetty 16:46 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 16:47 You have two people.

Jay Shetty 16:47 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 16:47 And you just have to navigate, oh, I'm not on the field here. Okay, I gotta think about this. Maybe-

Jay Shetty 16:52 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 16:52 ... even though I wanna be there three weeks, maybe it's only a week and a half.

Jay Shetty 16:55 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 16:56 And I'll just be off the field

Ari Emanuel 16:57 here. I'll figure out what to do.

Jay Shetty 16:58 Yeah, yeah. And, and I think it's hard because I think, yeah, we struggle when you've done ... For, for other people too, when you've said things when you're on the field, it's hard for the person, especially in business, for now to view you differently when you're off the field. It's as much of a-

Ari Emanuel 17:15 Every marriage, every relationship, every personal situation changes after 10 years.

Jay Shetty 17:19 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 17:20 I was, I'm not the same person I was from '95 to 2005. I'm not the same person from 2005 to 2015. I'm definitely not the same person from '15 now. And yeah, people's viewpoints of me is probably what it was in '97, '98, nine- And let me just say something. That guy was not ... I mean, he was a good guy, but he was always on the field, and he was ashamed, nervous, angry fighter. Not that I'm not aspects of those things, working on them, but-

Jay Shetty 17:48 Yeah, yeah, that changes. It's hard.

Ari Emanuel 17:49 And when they come into your relationship, they have all this, now they can read everything, see everything, and like, "Oh, that's the guy."

Jay Shetty 17:57 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 17:57 Or not.

Jay Shetty 17:58 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 17:58 That's why I'm doing this, dude. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 18:00 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 18:01 I'm such a gentle-

Jay Shetty 18:02 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 18:03 ... nice, hugging... [laughs]

Jay Shetty 18:05 Well, no, I, I, the reason why I also enjoy these conversations is because I think I struggle with that in perception too, where I- I feel people believe that someone who is mindful or meditative has to be a certain way at all times. And-

Ari Emanuel 18:18 Do you know when you're on the field?

Jay Shetty 18:19 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I, and I... That's why I love that piece of advice, is you, you said it in a way that I think makes it so easy to think about, and that's why I really appreciate it. And that's exactly what it is for me. Like, and, and my team knows that. They, they can see that when I'm in the zone and I'm not, or when I'm wearing my home kit or away kit. Like-

Ari Emanuel 18:35 Right

Jay Shetty 18:35 ... however you put it, like-

Ari Emanuel 18:36 Yes

Jay Shetty 18:37 ... I, I totally-

Ari Emanuel 18:37 I like that. Home kit, away kit

Jay Shetty 18:38 ... yeah, home jersey, away jersey.

Ari Emanuel 18:39 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 18:39 Right? Like, and I can, I can feel that, and I think that you have to know that. But I think the idea is that we like to simplify people because it makes it easier for us to-

Ari Emanuel 18:51 But if you're going after the stack, and that's the goal-

Jay Shetty 18:55 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 18:55 ... right, which is, like, crazy, like-

Jay Shetty 18:57 Agreed

Ari Emanuel 18:58 ... it's so arbitrary, the stack. You're always on the field.

Jay Shetty 19:01 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 19:02 What you don't realize is you can be happy at whatever the level the stack is.

Jay Shetty 19:07 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 19:08 There's just a different way to think about it, and you will get to a very big stack by figuring out this first.

Jay Shetty 19:14 Right.

Ari Emanuel 19:15 If when you're [laughs] on the field or when you're off the field.

Jay Shetty 19:17 Absolutely. And, and I think that's the difference. I wanted to ask you the difference in success and happiness or success and contentment because you've... It sounds like you've worked on both and tried to be conscious of both. What, how have you seen the difference, and, and how do you work on them differently?

Ari Emanuel 19:33 I was never content before.

Jay Shetty 19:35 Hmm.

Ari Emanuel 19:35 Probably the first 20 years of business, I mean, I was just... I was gonna prove everybody wrong. I was gonna prove to myself I wasn't stupid. I was, "Ah, da, da, da, da," and I was just running hard. When I say this word, that doesn't mean that I'm not in business. I'm content, and, uh, all the things I thought about that I wanted to accomplish and how I saw the world kind of played out. I'm a really lucky guy. I'm comfortable that I'm not stupid, and I got a lot more I want to accomplish because I want to accomplish it, not to get the stack any bigger.

Jay Shetty 20:08 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 20:09 And I'm happy doing that. That's a completely different place from the first 20 years, where I had no idea. I just... I thought about the stack and what success was in such a different way than I think about it now.

Jay Shetty 20:25 And do you think everyone... There's that brilliant quote from Jim Carrey where he said that everyone should become rich and famous and achieve everything they ever wanted just to realize that it's not the point. Do you think that there is something-

Ari Emanuel 20:37 [laughs] I didn't... He said that?

Jay Shetty 20:38 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 20:38 Oh, that's genius.

Jay Shetty 20:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 20:39 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 20:39 It's, uh... I love that statement because I feel like there's some-

Ari Emanuel 20:42 I love that statement

Jay Shetty 20:43 ... there's something about pursuing success as you see it, which may not be a perfect definition-

Ari Emanuel 20:47 Right

Jay Shetty 20:47 ... experiencing some success, and then going, "Well, wait a minute. This wasn't it." And I feel like because you always hear successful people say, "Oh, it isn't it," but it's almost like I think-

Ari Emanuel 20:55 Oh, I'm happy where I am.

Jay Shetty 20:56 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 20:56 I'm, I'm really c-

Jay Shetty 20:57 Yeah. No, no, I... Yeah

Ari Emanuel 20:58 ... I'm, I'm, I'm so glad that it played out. Those statements are actually accurate. You know? Like, it's enabled me now to kinda, when I started this 12 years or whatever-

Jay Shetty 21:09 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 21:09 ... to get to this place. I'm not sure I would've ever gotten to it.

Jay Shetty 21:13 Yeah, with a different mindset.

Ari Emanuel 21:14 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 21:14 Yeah. And in '95, you had a big accident, right? Like, there was something that really woke you up.

Ari Emanuel 21:18 It was '90... It was '93.

Jay Shetty 21:20 '93.

Ari Emanuel 21:21 I was working at ICM. There was a breakfast place called Kate Mantilini's. I was walking down Wilshire. It was about three blocks away. Coming back, and I... A- and just sitting on the curb, I said to myself, I was going to the breakfast, like, "Wow, you know, I gotta move back from this curb. These [laughs] cars could hit you." And I was not in the street. Cut to I'm walking back from breakfast in the crosswalk right outside of where the ICM building was, and a flatbed truck didn't see me, took a left onto Wilshire, hit my left side. 9:00 in the morning, Friday. Guess what happens? Your life changes. You're like, "Life's not a dress rehearsal." Was laying in there. I just wiggled my fingers and toes. I said, "Okay, I'm not crippled." Kind of my... I was outside my body screaming. I was laying there w- watching myself scream. And then I just said to myself, "Life's not a dress rehearsal." I did a rehab 'cause I couldn't bend my leg, and then I did the surgery on my leg, and then I did another rehab. So that was 18 months of hell. And then I said, "What do you wanna do?" And I definitely didn't wanna be at ICM. You know, what was the, what was the phrase I used to hear when I was at ICM back in the '90s? It was like, "I cover myself." That's what it stood for. So there was no-

Jay Shetty 22:34 Hmm

Ari Emanuel 22:35 ... camaraderie, culture, anything. And so me and three other guys decided to start when I could be healthy, and the... And we kinda get it in '95. On my birthday, March 29th, we let loose. So... And that, that was the catalyst to say, "Life's not a dress rehearsal. You better get to what you wanna get to." And that kinda thesis is the, at the 20-year mark, changing how I look at life, and am I still gonna be that angry guy, and, you know, all the different routes we all take in our lives to get to where the end is, so.

Jay Shetty 23:10 Yeah. Did you try and change certain aspects of the culture based on that statement that you built, or did you find that-

Ari Emanuel 23:21 I just wanted to treat people well, you know, inside and share clients and communicate better. And there was a guy by the name of Phil Raskin, the first employee, and, uh, they fired him. In the Israeli army, you don't let anybody stay. You, you know, you, you take... You, you go get the bodies. So I said, "You're hired." Now, we had no money. We were not making any money, and I said, "We're hiring you if they're firing you." And how we treat people was kind of the crucial thing different about how we did things, um, I think one of them. And, uh, I think it's progressed. I don't know if it's perfect now. You'll, you'll have to ask the guys-

Jay Shetty 24:02 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 24:02 ... running the agency right now,

Ari Emanuel 24:03 but I think overall I hope people feel that way.

Jay Shetty 24:06 What was it like building something from scratch when there wasn't any money? Because I feel like it's easy to look at you now and every... You know, it's, it-

Ari Emanuel 24:11 Well, it was two years.

Jay Shetty 24:13 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 24:13 And-

Jay Shetty 24:14 No salary 'cause you're out on your own. There's-

Ari Emanuel 24:16 Well, we were being... We were, we were in a tussle with ICM over ... commissions, and, uh, 'cause we couldn't take the commissions 'cause they said they deserved it, 'cause we're under contract. Uh, this whole, like... And they were gonna sue us for certain things, and um, and so we had no money. I mean, we new things we had money, but, um, a lot of stuff was old stuff. About a year, year and a half, two years in, we settled. I might be getting dates wrong, but right around then, and then we had money. And, and in that period of time, the world changed. Mike Ovitz left the business, who was the god, and Ron Meyer, um, Bill Haber, and then, uh, Gavin Polone left this company, UTA. Um, and a lot of shifting happened, and we had put on... We had taken a couple people from, um, CA, uh, Marty Adelmann, and, and we put on a bunch of TV shows that were successful, and we had money because of those, because they were going into syndication and packages. And so it was like free agency in baseball. We have money, and people are, like, shifting, what are they doing? And we were home. We got, you know, with just timing, and we were in the right place at the right time.

Jay Shetty 25:23 What was the hardest thing you had to do in those two years?

Ari Emanuel 25:25 You just had to work, you know, with nobody-

Jay Shetty 25:27 Just putting the time in.

Ari Emanuel 25:28 Just putting the time in.

Jay Shetty 25:29 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 25:29 And you were doing 17-hour, 18-hour days. Wife was pregnant at the time, my ex-wife, with our eldest. Um, and, uh, keep on building, and how are we gonna do it? And, you know, the five of us, I think Marty had joined, and then two and a half years in, Patrick Whitesell had joined, and just kind of how we keep on progressing and, and doing it. Like, with no... None of us had ever done it before. We were all, as my father would say in, in Yiddish, we were all pishers, you know, the small nothings, and so we just figured it out.

Jay Shetty 26:04 It's good being there. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 26:04 But, but, but, you know, it wasn't like, oh, we went from no money to, uh.

Jay Shetty 26:08 Yeah, yeah, of course.

Ari Emanuel 26:09 It was nothing.

Jay Shetty 26:10 Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 26:11 [laughs] And it was ha- we were happy.

Jay Shetty 26:13 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 26:14 We were really happy 'cause we were, in our own heads, it was h- it was successful.

Jay Shetty 26:19 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 26:19 And it was hard, but we had fun.

Jay Shetty 26:21 Yeah, absolutely.

Ari Emanuel 26:22 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 26:22 Absolutely. Yeah, while I was a student and before I ever started doing things online, I, I used to do events in my local area in London, and, like, 10 people would show up every week to hear me speak about spirituality, psychology, human behavior, and I loved it. I did it for 10 years before-

Ari Emanuel 26:40 So wait a second.

Jay Shetty 26:40 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 26:41 You, you went to school to possibly be a, a banker.

Jay Shetty 26:43 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 26:44 And then what wa-

Ari Emanuel 26:45 Not that this we're gonna reverse the in- interview now.

Jay Shetty 26:46 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 26:47 What was the transition to like, "Oh, I don't wanna do this"? What happened in your mind or, or, or life event?

Jay Shetty 26:52 So I think life event, that I met a monk, and I'd never met a monk-

Ari Emanuel 26:57 Where?

Jay Shetty 26:57 ... before. At school. So they, they would come and we'd have speakers come in, whether it be CEOs or-

Ari Emanuel 27:01 Right

Jay Shetty 27:01 ... athletes or celebrities or former alumni, or whatever it may be, and one day a monk was invited to speak at, at a small college session, and some of my friends were getting-

Ari Emanuel 27:10 A business session?

Jay Shetty 27:11 No, no, no, not a business session.

Ari Emanuel 27:12 Just a general.

Jay Shetty 27:12 Just, just a general, like, yeah. And I was invited to go because some of my friends were getting into meditation at the time. This is early, like, we're talking about, like, 2006, 2007. So we were doing that, and it was... And, and my friends were, were kind of getting into that space, so they were telling me to come along, and I was like, "Yeah, I'll go if we go to a bar afterwards." Like, that's the kind of guy I was growing up. And so I went along to this-

Ari Emanuel 27:31 And you weren't married at the time?

Jay Shetty 27:32 I w- No, no, I'm 18 years old.

Ari Emanuel 27:34 Okay, yeah.

Jay Shetty 27:34 I'm 18 years old. I'm, I'm, you know-

Ari Emanuel 27:35 Yeah

Jay Shetty 27:35 ... about to start college, around that time.

Ari Emanuel 27:37 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 27:37 And so I, I go to this event, and I hear this monk speak, and I'm kind of there going, "Okay, when are we gonna leave?" Like, "Who cares about this stuff? What, how does this benefit my life?" And I actually walked away feeling completely just reflective because this monk was saying that the greatest gift was to use your skills in the service of others. Like, he was saying that whatever you've been given, use that to-

Ari Emanuel 27:58 That was his main theme

Jay Shetty 27:59 ... that was his main theme, to improve other people's lives, and it was like I'd never heard that from anyone before at 18. And I realized that when I was 18, I'd met people who were rich and famous and beautiful and powerful.

Ari Emanuel 28:08 And you thought that was, that, that-

Jay Shetty 28:09 And I was like-

Ari Emanuel 28:09 ... that was the stack.

Jay Shetty 28:10 Yeah, but I was like, "This is... This guy seems happy. He seems content. He has something that-"

Ari Emanuel 28:16 At what point in the lecture did that, like, hit you? Because at one point you were saying, "Let's go get some beers."

Jay Shetty 28:21 Yeah, at the beginning, I was kind of like, "Okay, what is he gonna say when he came out?" And, you know, he's dressed in robes, and he, he was from India, and like, you know, I'm a kid in London. Like, you know, there's nothing externally attractive about him. And then as he spoke, like, as I actually listened to him, I was just mesmerized, and so I said to him, "I just want to follow you around." So I ended up following him around for the rest of that week. He was doing events in London, homes and different things, and then at temples. And then I started visiting him in my summer and Christmas vacations in India.

Ari Emanuel 28:49 Wow.

Jay Shetty 28:50 And then when I graduated from college, I went and actually lived with him as a monk for, for three years in India and the UK. And so I-

Ari Emanuel 28:57 And what did your parents say?

Jay Shetty 28:58 They were, like, completely, like-

Ari Emanuel 29:00 Yeah, they went-

Jay Shetty 29:00 ... scared and worried and like-

Ari Emanuel 29:01 They were like, "What, what's going on with our son?"

Jay Shetty 29:02 Yeah, and all of our friends and family were, "He's been brainwashed." It was, it was, like, it's really interesting because, and I, and I'll talk to this about perception. It's really interesting because everyone now is kind of like, "Oh, Jay, you're just, you know, this is a good story." And I'm like, "Dude, when I chose to become a monk, it was not a good story." People thought it was the dumbest idea of all time. Like-

Ari Emanuel 29:18 Yeah

Jay Shetty 29:18 ... it was like career suicide.

Ari Emanuel 29:20 Like, w- this poor kid-

Jay Shetty 29:21 It was, it was like, you've been brainwashed.

Ari Emanuel 29:22 What, what happened?

Jay Shetty 29:22 Like, what happened to this kid who got a first class honors degree at university, straight As? You know, like, what is going on here? And all of a sudden I'm taking this path that-

Ari Emanuel 29:30 Your parents must have freaked out.

Jay Shetty 29:31 My parents freaked out, and my extended family freaked out even more, which made my parents freak out more.

Ari Emanuel 29:36 They came from India?

Jay Shetty 29:37 Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 29:38 So that upbringing and that-

Jay Shetty 29:41 Going back that way?

Ari Emanuel 29:42 Oh my God.

Jay Shetty 29:43 Yeah, exactly. So, and, but I felt called. I started listening to my inner voice when I was 14 years old, and it's been so loud ever since. I don't know any other way to go, and so for me, it was so, so loud. And so that was the shift in my trajectory where-

Ari Emanuel 29:57 So you come out after three years. What happens?

Jay Shetty 29:58 I c- I, I hoped I'd do it forever, uh, and that... I really thought I was gonna do it for the rest of my life. It did not work out. I was-

Ari Emanuel 30:04 And so what was... Why, why-

Jay Shetty 30:05 Couple of things. One thing was, like, it's super tough on your health to live communally. Like, when you're living potentially sometimes with 30 people in a room, 100 people in a room, people wake up at different times. You're being woken up by everyone. The common cold, you're sharing baths, showers. Like, you know, like, the spaces-

Ari Emanuel 30:19 Just life, yeah

Jay Shetty 30:20 ... like, everything's communal in that space. It's hard on my, it was hard on my immune system to live in that way. Of course, I'm a kid from London. Like, I didn't grow up with lots of comforts, but it was definitely more comfortable than a monastery. And then on top of all of that, I just had this- honest transparency, and that's what monk teachings are meant to do. It's meant to make you self-aware. And my self-awareness was I'm quite independent, I'm quite a rebel. Like, I like doing things my way, and I feel-

Ari Emanuel 30:45 This is not that

Jay Shetty 30:45 ... this is not that. I feel like I wanna share what I've learned in this cool, accessible, relevant way-

Ari Emanuel 30:51 Where the world is

Jay Shetty 30:51 ... yeah, where the world is, which is the world I come from, and if I stay here, then I'm actually gonna be pretending to be someone I'm not. And so I said, "I'm gonna go back and, you know, be myself."

Ari Emanuel 31:00 That's a, that's a, that's a big, that's a big thought.

Jay Shetty 31:02 It was. It was, and I had no idea what that meant then, but I just know that it was loud and that it was real and that I wanted-

Ari Emanuel 31:08 It had, it had to, it had to happen

Jay Shetty 31:09 ... it had to happen. It was... You know, I think it's, it's funny. Your, your brother said this about you. He said, uh, he said this in his, in his book, Brother's Manual, "The speed, danger, and risk that make other people nervous make guys like Ari serene." And, and it's, and I wanna dive into that with you, but for me, that's what it was, that-

Ari Emanuel 31:27 You didn't know where it was, but you knew you had to be on that road

Jay Shetty 31:29 ... yes, and, and I don't know how to stop myself. I can't pretend to myself is, is where I've always been. Like, I have to be all of myself and I'm ... And when decisions are against the grain and no one agrees, chances are I'm on the right path. And so even when I came back, then I had the opposite, where everyone around me was like, "You wasted three years. Look at everyone around you. They've got jobs now."

Ari Emanuel 31:52 What are they saying now?

Jay Shetty 31:53 Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously it changes now. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 31:56 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 31:57 Obviously it changes-

Ari Emanuel 31:58 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:58 ... now, but, but it's, anyway-

Ari Emanuel 32:00 Isn't it, isn't it un-

Jay Shetty 32:00 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 32:00 ... I, I had this, uh, I sent this, uh, email out to the company. You know, most people think success is this.

Jay Shetty 32:07 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 32:08 That's success.

Jay Shetty 32:09 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 32:09 And that, you just, it's your journey.

Jay Shetty 32:10 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 32:11 And it just, you don't know where it's still going, but it's probably gonna go this way, and then it's gonna go that, you know.

Jay Shetty 32:16 Yeah. How have, how have you had the courage, going back on that same point, how have you had the courage to be open to speed, danger, and risk when other people thought... Especially what, what I think we don't recognize is as you become more successful, as you make bigger decisions, it's not that just more doors open. Sometimes there's even more doubt, because now people are like, "Can he, can he get the next one right?"

Ari Emanuel 32:37 Most people don't wanna risk it all.

Jay Shetty 32:39 Correct. So-

Ari Emanuel 32:39 Once you get to something like, "Why would I risk that?"

Jay Shetty 32:41 Correct.

Ari Emanuel 32:42 Like, why do that? You're, it's gonna be on a perfect glide path.

Jay Shetty 32:45 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 32:45 So I've said this before in certain interviews. I don't remember exactly which one. When you're in a class, and you're figuring out where to sit in the class because you think you've psychologically figured out if you, I sit here, the teacher won't call on you to read, and you're so anxious, and you're so nervous, and you're so f- afraid. It's not like I don't get anxious about-

Jay Shetty 33:07 Of course

Ari Emanuel 33:08 ... big deals. I mean, I got really sick doing the UFC deal. Uh, moving IM- moving to London, not great for four months when we took over, right? Yeah, so what? Uh, you know, I'm not nervous about those things. I don't know why. It's just my upbringing, uh, you know, things I went through that I could get over. So working hard, doing all the th- showing up, you know, getting on that plane for the lunch in China and then flying back after the lunch. That's kind of how I operate my life. I don't know how, uh, what my mom fed me or did, and my dad. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not worried about the hard work, and all of it takes hard work-

Jay Shetty 33:53 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 33:53 ... as you know. And I'm not trying to prove to anybody what... I'm not letting their definition of success, not success, what I should do, what I shouldn't do, dictate what I wanna do. Like you, I got my own ideas about what I wanna do. I just keep on following them. Hopefully, I keep on getting in tune with my voices. Definitely li- l- listening to people in my life that I trust. But then, you know, it's like, okay, it's time to bet, like we just did with WWE and doing something new, and here's what we're gonna do.

Ari Emanuel 34:25 Yeah, those are not easy decisions and-

Jay Shetty 34:27 Yeah, it's, it's really interesting because even, uh, just-

Ari Emanuel 34:30 But I'm very comfortable in the uncomfortable.

Jay Shetty 34:32 Yes.

Ari Emanuel 34:32 I'm really comfortable in the uncomfortable. I think when most people don't like uncomfortable conversations, don't like to be uncomfortable in business, don't like that, I do enjoy that a lot. I like awkward. I'm comfortable in awkward. I like just saying what it is. I do not care. You can like me, not like me. I was never one of the cool guys. I'm good.

Jay Shetty 34:57 [laughs] I, I, I think it was so funny 'cause, uh, the, Mike Milken was sitting in your seat yesterday, just here, and, and it was interesting because there's this shared experience of there's a healed sense of self-worth, but then there's this embracing our own insignificance. Like you just said-

Ari Emanuel 35:16 Yes, yes. Yeah

Jay Shetty 35:16 ... like, you're like, "We're, I'm also insignificant." And it's really interesting because everyone who's kind of has a settled mind-

Ari Emanuel 35:22 I'm not sure people get to the second one.

Jay Shetty 35:25 Not a l-

Ari Emanuel 35:25 But, but we need to.

Jay Shetty 35:26 Oh. Why do you think we don't get there?

Ari Emanuel 35:28 I've had this conversation with many people, this concept of legacy, and once you actually believe it, not just say it-

Jay Shetty 35:36 Mm-hmm

Ari Emanuel 35:36 ... I mean, legac- I mean, presidents have legacies, I guess. Some entertainers have legacies. Sports stars have legacies. Businesspeople, no legac- no, they don't have legacies. And once you get to that point and comfortable in that point, this whole concept that what's my legacy, which is a jerk-off conversation, you can move past a lot of this stuff.

Jay Shetty 35:58 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 35:59 You know, when we, we're sitting there, what's my legacy?

Jay Shetty 36:01 Yeah, yeah. It's a bad question, I agree.

Ari Emanuel 36:02 It's a bad question. Like, that-

Jay Shetty 36:04 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 36:04 ... that's why you're doing it?

Jay Shetty 36:05 Yeah, I agree.

Ari Emanuel 36:06 Oh my God.

Jay Shetty 36:07 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 36:07 That's crazy.

Jay Shetty 36:08 Yeah. It's, I... Do you know what? I think it comes from, I think we never get to embrace our own insignificance because we're scared of where it leads to low self-esteem, so there's that angle. But the deep-

Ari Emanuel 36:18 That definitely I don't have

Ari Emanuel 36:19 that.

Jay Shetty 36:19 Yes, exact-

Ari Emanuel 36:19 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 36:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. But the deeper angle, which is what you're raising, is that I think as humans, we're so addicted to immortality because at least from a spiritual point of view, our consciousness and energy is immortal, and there's such a addiction to immortality and longevity that we have that for us to live after we die, we think the only way-

Ari Emanuel 36:38 All right. So here's my thought process about that-

Jay Shetty 36:40 Go for it

Ari Emanuel 36:40 ... 'cause people, 'cause I mean, I am a crazy health nut.

Jay Shetty 36:43 Yeah, I know you are.

Ari Emanuel 36:43 I mean, I do some crazy stuff.

Jay Shetty 36:44 Yeah. Yeah, and I'm into it too, so let's, yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 36:46 Okay, I'm really, really crazy.

Jay Shetty 36:47 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 36:47 But for me It's not about living forever, it's about being healthy while I live.

Jay Shetty 36:54 Same.

Ari Emanuel 36:55 Right?

Jay Shetty 36:55 Agreed.

Ari Emanuel 36:56 As long as I am ... Uh, because I see people that are older-

Jay Shetty 36:59 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 37:00 ... that are prisoners in their bodies-

Jay Shetty 37:02 Mm-hmm

Ari Emanuel 37:02 ... as when they get to their 60s, 70s, 80s. I'm not doing that.

Jay Shetty 37:06 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 37:06 The best thing that could happen is, "It's over," would be incredible, and you die in your sleep. Like, it's over. But until that point in time, I'm playing golf, I'm going on hikes, I'm surfing, I'm doing my thing. This whole thing about this whole world of, um ... And I hack.

Jay Shetty 37:26 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 37:26 I hack myself to do that, but it's not for, to live forever. And so that's the objective.

Jay Shetty 37:32 Yes. Yeah. No, I get that, and I, and I'm t- totally aligned with that. I feel the same way. Like, I don't think it's, it, there's no-

Ari Emanuel 37:38 What's the craziest thing you do for your health?

Jay Shetty 37:40 I mean, I, I, I've been recent- Because I'm still young, there's certain things that people don't recommend yet, and so, like, I've been talking to people about, like, stem cell treatments and things like that. I don't know if you've done any stem cell therapy or anything like that.

Ari Emanuel 37:50 No.

Jay Shetty 37:50 But okay. So I haven't done any of it either, but everyone's always like, "Yeah, you're too young to start these, these kinds of things right now." But I'd say the, the craziest thing I do right now is, same as you, like the fasting, the cold plunging, the infrared saunas, the, the deep rest and sleep. The meditation has been a part of my life for 17, 18 years.

Ari Emanuel 38:04 You gotta push steel.

Jay Shetty 38:05 Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 38:07 You got, you got, you gotta do weights.

Jay Shetty 38:08 I had to stop that last year for a ... I, I had, I had, I had surgery, so-

Ari Emanuel 38:11 Oh, right

Jay Shetty 38:11 ... I had to stop, but yes, I usually do weight training.

Ari Emanuel 38:13 You, you have to do that. You have to do stuff for your kinda CO2, your oxygen-

Jay Shetty 38:18 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 38:18 ... your ability. How old are you now?

Jay Shetty 38:20 35.

Ari Emanuel 38:20 Yeah, so you're right at the ... Right if you do now, right?

Jay Shetty 38:22 Yeah, this is the time, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 38:23 You gotta reduce as much as you can your inflammation. You gotta have gut health.

Jay Shetty 38:27 Yes. This is exactly it.

Ari Emanuel 38:28 And then you have to figure out how to balance your glucose.

Jay Shetty 38:32 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 38:33 If you can do those things-

Jay Shetty 38:34 Yep

Ari Emanuel 38:35 ... you have 35% chance of getting to the objective of one night you just don't wake up.

Jay Shetty 38:41 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 38:42 Right.

Jay Shetty 38:42 Are you plant-based as well? Or you, you try to be plant-based?

Ari Emanuel 38:44 Here's what it is-

Jay Shetty 38:45 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 38:45 ... 'cause I'm 62.

Jay Shetty 38:46 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 38:46 Okay?

Jay Shetty 38:46 Wow.

Ari Emanuel 38:47 So I was a lectin-free vegan following Dr. Gundry's, who got me, when I had my thyroid problem, really healthy. The problem is now, 'cause I do push a lot of steel, I do do heavy cardio, I do do a lot of that stuff, I have to have some protein in my diet.

Jay Shetty 39:04 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 39:05 So I have moved up to probably very healthy, you know, grass-fed, grass finish, no corn in it, um, all the stuff that causes inflammation. I have moved up into probably three or four days of, of meat.

Jay Shetty 39:18 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 39:19 And then the rest, um-

Jay Shetty 39:20 Got it

Ari Emanuel 39:20 ...

Ari Emanuel 39:21 um, lectin-free, uh, vegan.

Jay Shetty 39:23 Yeah. What's the craziest therapy you've done? You mentioned earlier there were some different strange therapies.

Ari Emanuel 39:27 Well, I, I do-

Jay Shetty 39:27 What was the ... Yeah

Ari Emanuel 39:28 ... I, you know, I take helmets, uh, from Thailand and from the UK every morning. I do light therapy every morning after the cold plunge. I mean, if I, if I showed you the list now-

Jay Shetty 39:39 Yeah. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 39:40 ... you'd be like, or you, you've, you've lost the plot, Ari, right?

Jay Shetty 39:43 No, I love it.

Ari Emanuel 39:44 And, uh [laughs]

Jay Shetty 39:44 That's why you look that good.

Ari Emanuel 39:44 Here's what, here's what happens, though.

Jay Shetty 39:46 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 39:46 As I go down all these paths, I always call my brother Zeke.

Jay Shetty 39:50 Yep.

Ari Emanuel 39:51 And I only have the following question, and then he has to do the work, and I do work, too. I said, "Okay, uh, can it kill me? Can it injure me or hurt me?" If the answer comes back no, I do it. So I started on m- they're, you know, they're live microbes. They're microscopic, you can't see 'em. I drink 'em every morning now. I've gotten to a place where I, I, I do that. I worked with this guy, um, uh, from, from Duke as I read an article about him. And people are lookin' like, "What are you doing?" Like, they're... And I, and I say the great line to 'em, and see, watch their facial expression. I said, "Well, they don't colonize in your system."

Jay Shetty 40:24 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 40:24 And you know, you, they, they, you can see them like-

Jay Shetty 40:27 Yeah, yeah

Ari Emanuel 40:27 ... their eyes are...

Jay Shetty 40:27 Yeah. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 40:28 And so this goes to, like, all right, I'm not l- I'm just gonna try these things as long as it can't hurt me. Um, the list is-

Jay Shetty 40:36 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 40:36 ... vast. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 40:36 Yeah, yeah. It's great. No, it's great. I, I think it's ... I mean, this is where, this is where the world's heading, and I think everyone's looking for solutions and, and looking for ways, so.

Ari Emanuel 40:44 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 40:44 I love hearing about it from you, and it's, and it's great, and it shows, right? I feel like you, you seem really vibrant, energetic, and, and I think that's the key, right? It's vitality, I think.

Ari Emanuel 40:52 Well, but the back is not turned into a mouse that's hunched over. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 40:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Ari Emanuel 40:57 Have you ever seen those?

Jay Shetty 40:58 Absolutely.

Ari Emanuel 40:59 That, that, that, that scares me.

Jay Shetty 41:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 41:02 I will do anything not to ... 'Cause then it's not, you're gonna be a prisoner in your body.

Jay Shetty 41:06 Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a powerful statement.

Ari Emanuel 41:08 That's, that's, that's un-

Jay Shetty 41:09 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 41:09 ... that's not, that's not where you wanna be in life.

Jay Shetty 41:11 Yeah. Talking about athletic bodies, you, you talked about what you did with the WWE there. I remember when you first got involved with the UFC-

Ari Emanuel 41:18 Yeah

Jay Shetty 41:18 ... there was a lot of, like, doubt as to how big it could get, I believe-

Ari Emanuel 41:22 Right

Jay Shetty 41:22 ... or there was, there was a bit of skepticism. How do you, how do you ... When you're making a decision that's big money, big risk, and danger, going back to that point, but then everyone else is like, "Ugh, this is a lot of risk. This is like, don't know if it's gonna work out," but then you're like, "No, I, I know where this is gonna go,"

Jay Shetty 41:37 how do you f- how have you found that confidence, I guess?

Ari Emanuel 41:38 Well, the first thing that, I mean, the first thing that I do, I mean, I'm assuming you do it, anybody successful do it, I read a lot.

Jay Shetty 41:44 Yep. Same, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 41:45 And I, I, I ask a lot of questions, too. Once I read an article, if I understand it, don't understand it, I want the, I s- I call the person or I call the person in the article. And that happened early on, how we started the firm. Like, you know, we were in the representation business, and then I said, "Well, we have all this business. I wanna buy something that we own." I thought sports was going someplace that with increased distribution it was gonna be more valuable. And so it was a, like, there's not many sports you can own.

Jay Shetty 42:10 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 42:10 I was already in business with the UFC.

Jay Shetty 42:12 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 42:13 We did all the work about where we could take the economics internationally, sponsoring. It was an easy bet.

Jay Shetty 42:19 [laughs] And it worked out.

Ari Emanuel 42:20 Well-

Jay Shetty 42:21 It's working out. [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 42:22 Well, the, the world changed on me-

Jay Shetty 42:24 Yeah, yeah

Ari Emanuel 42:24 ... at the time for the, like, Fox sold to Disney, so those two buyers are out. Donald Trump wouldn't let AT&T buy Time Warner, so those two buyers are out, and the rest of the T- they didn't, nobody else wanted it at the time 'cause they had already had too much s- so it was nerve-wracking for a while, um, but then the world changed.

Jay Shetty 42:43 Yeah. It's fascinating to me because I think that everyone in their micro universe or any universe is always having to make tough decisions that a lot of people around them don't understand, whether someone listening to this right now is trying to start a new health regime, whether someone's trying to-

Ari Emanuel 42:58 Well, there's not a, a pill.

Jay Shetty 43:00 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 43:00 In anything we do, as we now know- There's not like... 'Cause I don't know about you, people come to me, "So, so what's the one thing?" One thing?

Jay Shetty 43:08 There is no one thing.

Ari Emanuel 43:08 I, I, I do 17 things. Like, and it's grown from 10.

Jay Shetty 43:12 Yep.

Ari Emanuel 43:13 There's not just the-

Jay Shetty 43:13 Yeah, I don't like being asked the one thing at all, yeah

Ari Emanuel 43:15 ... one thing. It doesn't work.

Jay Shetty 43:16 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why, that's why the questions I'm asking you, I'm fascinated by the, the, the thought process-

Ari Emanuel 43:22 Well, 'cause to be-

Jay Shetty 43:23 ... behind this, yeah

Ari Emanuel 43:23 ... you, you're just- you're- w- in our lives, we're just gathering information, gathering thought process, gathering, gathering perspectives-

Jay Shetty 43:31 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 43:31 ... and then we go hunting for things that we wanna do and where we think the world's going, and then once you get to that point, like, okay, you talk to a lot of people. You have to, for me, talk to investors, et cetera, and then you're, then you launch. And then there's, I think, and I might get this story wrong, Disney, when they bought Cap Cities, which had ESPN, they valued ESPN at zero at the time, and at the... and when it came out, it was the most valuable asset. Again, success.

Jay Shetty 44:01 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 44:02 [laughs] Right?

Jay Shetty 44:02 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 44:03 Who knows?

Jay Shetty 44:03 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 44:04 You know, you can do all the work you can do, and then all of a sudden...

Jay Shetty 44:07 Get into the pool, the water's warm.

Ari Emanuel 44:09 Dude, you gotta start swimming.

Jay Shetty 44:10 [laughs] Yeah. And that, and that's what I think. I think there is so much pressure around making the right decision as opposed to making your decision right, right? Like, as in you've- I think a lot of people spend a lot of time-

Ari Emanuel 44:21 Yes

Jay Shetty 44:21 ... going, "Is this the right decision? Is this the right thing to-

Ari Emanuel 44:23 Yeah

Jay Shetty 44:23 ... invest in?" I'm like, "Well, make the decision and then make it right."

Ari Emanuel 44:26 It's just the way we started it. How many people, uh, uh, can handle change and fear the u- I mean, you just have to be comfortable in the uncomfortable and-

Jay Shetty 44:34 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What have you seen... You've worked with talent. I know you still do in, in, in some intimate ways still.

Ari Emanuel 44:41 I, I work with a lot of talent. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 44:42 Okay, you still do. All right. I've heard you say, but I, I was like, I was thinking there's-

Ari Emanuel 44:45 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 44:45 You- most of... But you're working with the business as well as much as-

Ari Emanuel 44:49 Yeah. I mean, yeah

Jay Shetty 44:49 ... Yeah, exactly.

Ari Emanuel 44:50 There's... Yeah.

Jay Shetty 44:50 So when you're working with talent, what have you seen has been the... Because I think it was interesting. I was saying when I was young, everyone wanted to be an investment banker. Now we know in America, most people wanna be influencers, creators, some- something to do with-

Ari Emanuel 45:00 Yeah

Jay Shetty 45:01 ... YouTube or... What, what have you seen have been the best choices that talent have made long term for their successful careers, or what are some of the mistakes people have made?

Ari Emanuel 45:11 I, I think most talent now realizes

Ari Emanuel 45:15 they're the S, and it's kinda moving towards them. And, and a lot of them are starting to try and figure out, like, okay, what does that mean? Can I own other businesses? Can I get equity? Whether it be Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, these people, right? And I think that's been at that level. We're gonna go through a whole iteration right now with AI that is gonna, I think... I, and I don't know what it's gonna do, but it's gonna transfer one more time, um, our business, I think in a good way, in that I think people are gonna have more free time than ever. They're gonna want movies. They're gonna want entertainment. They're gonna need more. I think they're... we're gonna go down to a permanent four-day workweek. Governments are gonna need it for full employment, and that means the weekend is starting on Thursday night.

Jay Shetty 46:00 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 46:01 And that means that's three days where people need personal interaction.

Jay Shetty 46:05 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 46:05 And so the value proposition, especially as distribution changes, you're gonna go to six Wi-Fi. You, you're now seeing more distribution, Rumble picking up shows, Roku. I mean, it's just expanding and expanding. Our job is to create a place where our talent can create, really for the first time, even more exponentially become their own brands and own businesses and do things that they... Not just a movie, not just a tele- other things. And we'll be successful for them, and they'll be successful as long as we can create this kind of per- perfect architecture. And we're not perfect at it yet, but we're getting better at it, and those are the clients that we wanna be in business, and across podcast, all, all the different things.

Jay Shetty 46:50 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 46:50 Um, and that's the hardest thing that we're trying to build now in this transition, but that's where I think the world is going.

Jay Shetty 46:56 Interesting. Four-day workweeks.

Ari Emanuel 46:58 I think that's-

Jay Shetty 46:59 Yeah, yeah

Ari Emanuel 46:59 ... that, I think, I think-

Jay Shetty 46:59 Even if it's unofficial.

Ari Emanuel 47:01 I, I, I, I don't know. Governments, I think, because of AI, o- and I'm saying probably in two, three, four years, for full employment, and they're gonna need it for social non-unrest. You're gonna have... And you know, you have COVID, and that's almost a four-day workweek now 'cause people don't go into the office on Fridays.

Jay Shetty 47:17 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 47:19 That means Thursday night, what are you doing?

Jay Shetty 47:22 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 47:23 Well, I'm in the entertainment. That, that's the, that's the objective.

Jay Shetty 47:26 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 47:27 And, uh, so that's what we have been building, like events, Madrid Open, Barrett Jackson, art show, et cetera, and that's where I think the world's go- sporting events, et cetera. So I think entertainment's gonna become more valuable than it's ever become. I don't think it's as, will be as disrupted by AI. Um, there'll be some disruption in it.

Jay Shetty 47:48 Yeah. It's, uh, it's incredible to think about that because, yeah, I think people are only looking for more alternatives and options, especially for that human connection point-

Ari Emanuel 47:56 Yeah

Jay Shetty 47:56 ... you were talking about. How have you found it as a leader to have that, where you've gone from everyone being in an office in an agency to then people working from home? Like, how have you navigated that to continue that, like, creativity and spark?

Ari Emanuel 48:07 Well, listen, we have... You know, we've, we, we had done this a long time ago. We just restarted. We did a, we did a, a, a, a book club, not the way we used to do with, on r- with Rick Rubin on his new book. We do... We had a

Ari Emanuel 48:21 lecture on, on antisemitism. We're trying to get people in groups talking about big issues to kinda keep the company together from, you know, we're in, I don't know, 37 countries-

Jay Shetty 48:32 Mm

Ari Emanuel 48:32 ... so that people get to... There's a communal pl- and they... We're gonna start a big retreat again, which we hadn't done in a lot of years 'cause of COVID. So that's the way we foresee doing that.

Jay Shetty 48:41 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and, and I think that that's... I, I-

Ari Emanuel 48:44 That just k- keeps, hopefully-

Jay Shetty 48:46 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 48:46 ... and we just have to keep on working on how we keep that connection, um, ongoing in the company.

Jay Shetty 48:52 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 48:52 'Cause, you know, 'cause you do want, if you... The architecture, right? You do want the licensing group talking to the motion picture group talking to the online, on location group to create an experience, and you want all those pieces. And, and the outside world and the clients is asking for it too.

Jay Shetty 49:07 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 49:08 So that's where we have to-

Jay Shetty 49:09 Yeah, I worked with so many organizations Before and during mainly the pandemic, and then even after. And the transitions I've seen are incredible because whether a company was growing rapidly... So while I was working with Zoom, they were having the best success as a company financially, but it was like they had to scale, like, what was a small organization really quickly.

Ari Emanuel 49:30 Overnight, yeah.

Jay Shetty 49:31 And so, like, the burnout that comes with that is really, really hard. And then you had other organizations, obviously, like travel, entertainment, live entertainment-

Ari Emanuel 49:37 Down

Jay Shetty 49:37 ... down, struggling with that and handling morale. And so it's really interesting to see how they both bounce back because it was hard either way, and it's really fa-

Ari Emanuel 49:45 Oh.

Jay Shetty 49:45 You always think, "Oh, they're successful. They don't..." It's hard. Success is hard.

Ari Emanuel 49:48 I promise you it's hard for them now.

Jay Shetty 49:49 Yeah, of course it is.

Ari Emanuel 49:50 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 49:50 Of course it is. It's, it's so complicated and-

Ari Emanuel 49:53 It's really complicated now.

Jay Shetty 49:53 Yeah, success is hard and failure is hard.

Ari Emanuel 49:55 Running a business, I don't... Any one of them-

Jay Shetty 49:59 Yeah. Yeah, yeah

Ari Emanuel 50:00 ... brutal.

Jay Shetty 50:01 Yeah. What, what have been some of your-

Ari Emanuel 50:02 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 50:02 What have, what, what would you say the last few years has been one of, like, your biggest misses or your biggest failures that, uh, you look back and go, "That taught me a lot"?

Ari Emanuel 50:12 Well, I'll say, I'll say the following 'cause it was a success, and it was only success because I thought we had to, like, shut everything down, and Dana White at the UFC said to me, "Uh-uh. We're not shutting down." I got scared, and he, like, slapped me across the face. He said, "No, we're going." And then he said,

Ari Emanuel 50:28 "Get me an island."

Jay Shetty 50:28 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 50:29 And, you know, I was like, "You know, my brother's a doctor. He's telling me what, the world's gonna..." I'm like... And he was like, "Mm-mm. We're..." And he was just driving that train. And so we got him an island, and he did everything else and, and, um, you know, kind of just reminded me like, yeah, it's, it's, it's nerve-wracking, but don't be scared.

Jay Shetty 50:50 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 50:50 And he was, like, amazing.

Jay Shetty 50:52 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 50:53 And I was, like, on the other side of that fence.

Jay Shetty 50:54 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 50:55 And I said, you know, and that's why I have a great part- he's an incredible partner.

Jay Shetty 50:58 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 50:58 But I, I for the first time got really scared.

Jay Shetty 51:01 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 51:02 And he just said, "No, y- we just have to go, and we're gonna take all the heat for it," and there was a lot of heat against him, and but we did it. If we didn't have that, the whole company would've been tanked.

Jay Shetty 51:12 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 51:13 Because we needed the ESPN deal to continue to go. We needed to put on fights. And his, his courage, like, dragging me along was incredible.

Jay Shetty 51:21 The industry today, I feel like cancel-culture, he- cult- like, it's got, it's got hotter basically because there's more people to cancel. There's more things that people are sensitive or care about or believe in and values. Like, how do, how do you as a talent agent think about artists going through that? Because I'm sure you've seen over the years just... So I coach a lot of people in the music business, actors, like, sportspeople. I coach so many people in the industry and-

Ari Emanuel 51:45 Don't jump in the water because

Ari Emanuel 51:47 most people wanna respond.

Jay Shetty 51:48 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 51:49 The news cycle's so fast. Unless you've committed murder and something, whatever, let it go. T- the thought process is, "I gotta jump in and respond." Then it just, the story just continues. The news cycle, I s- used to say it's like one day. It, it's less than a half a day now.

Jay Shetty 52:10 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:10 And if you just get out of this emotional mindset that you have to respond and they have to know and... Really? Nobody's even... Like, it's over. Don't respond. And that's kind of, I think, the hardest thing for any artist.

Jay Shetty 52:24 Yeah. How have you, how have you worked with s- because I'm guessing you, you almost by job have to become a coach sometimes to the people you work with.

Ari Emanuel 52:31 No, this is my, this is my, this is my line though.

Jay Shetty 52:33 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:33 Like, w- why are you responding?

Jay Shetty 52:35 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:35 Don't. Like, they want you to respond 'cause then they keep on getting the click.

Jay Shetty 52:38 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:39 Thank God I'm not on social media.

Jay Shetty 52:40 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:41 I, I won't do it.

Jay Shetty 52:41 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 52:43 I won't. I mean, I get it, you know.

Jay Shetty 52:45 Yeah, yeah. Of course.

Ari Emanuel 52:45 Sometimes my kids send it to me.

Jay Shetty 52:47 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 52:47 My wife sends it to me. I don't look at it.

Jay Shetty 52:49 Yeah. What, what's something that you're trying to immerse into your children? Like, I mean, you were just, your son was just calling you-

Ari Emanuel 52:56 Yeah, yeah

Jay Shetty 52:56 ... and just talking. Like, what's, what's something that you feel you really want them to know and learn at the stages they are in their life right now?

Ari Emanuel 53:04 I just ho- I think they get it. It was so funny. My, my youngest son is now training. He goes to Michigan. He's working up at Apple right now, at Apple Maps, and he's decided, comes out of his, he's going into his junior year. He's tra- he's training for a triathlon, a m- a junior. What I loved about him is he did the work, and what I mean by did the work, and it was, like, shocking hearing. I was just l- such a proud father. He talked about how you run better and how the people in Kenya run better 'cause they're on their toes, and he'd done it, all this research about it, and he started doing it. First three weeks was brutal on his legs, but he's gotten faster. On the bike, "I have, have to do it in a box, Dad. Here's what, uh..." And I, I ride and do epoxy training and all this stuff. And I said, "You're right. It does." And he has not stopped training. You know, he's 21 years old, and you know, I remember how I was at 21 years old.

Jay Shetty 53:57 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 53:57 I wouldn't have been doing that. But his work about how to get better, he swam double the length this time. He's got a month left, and just the amount of work he's put into it, the thought process behind it, the research he did, I'm like, I mean, I, you couldn't be prouder. And all of them,

Ari Emanuel 54:15 I just try and teach them one thing. You gotta work hard, and you gotta show up. The results you're not gonna control. If you do those things, and there's many other things that we all can, you know, the list, but those are kind of it. You work really hard. You show up. Outcomes you can't control. That's what you want.

Jay Shetty 54:35 Good advice. I love that. It's... Ari, it's been such a joy talking to you today.

Ari Emanuel 54:39 Thank you. I've-

Jay Shetty 54:40 You've been, you've been such a... Like, it's been such a treat just, like, I feel like we've been playing tennis-

Ari Emanuel 54:44 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 54:44 ... uh, or pickleball, uh, or-

Ari Emanuel 54:46 Who's, I gotta, I gotta promote my wife.

Jay Shetty 54:47 Yeah, yeah. Or that's what it is. Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 54:48 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:48 Or paddle.

Ari Emanuel 54:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 54:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:49 And it's, uh... I was gonna say, I need a pair of those.

Ari Emanuel 54:52 I will just send you-

Jay Shetty 54:52 I want one of those. Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 54:53 You s-

Jay Shetty 54:53 I'll just, yeah

Ari Emanuel 54:53 ... you'll send me the shoe size and everything. We'll get them to you.

Jay Shetty 54:55 Yeah, I want one of those too.

Ari Emanuel 54:56 Okay.

Jay Shetty 54:56 They look great.

Ari Emanuel 54:56 But you have to wear it on the podcast so she gets a little-

Jay Shetty 54:59 I, I will ha-

Ari Emanuel 54:59 She gets a little bit of kind of love from you.

Jay Shetty 55:01 I... Those are awesome.

Ari Emanuel 55:02 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 55:03 And I love the-

Ari Emanuel 55:03 They're in multiple colors

Jay Shetty 55:04 ... I love New Balance too, so that's great.

Ari Emanuel 55:05 They're in multiple colors.

Jay Shetty 55:06 Okay. I'm gonna send-

Ari Emanuel 55:07 And we actually have these in, in sh- in shoes too now.

Jay Shetty 55:09 Okay. What I, what I want both.

Ari Emanuel 55:10 She's got... I'm gonna send them all to you.

Jay Shetty 55:11 Yeah. I want it, I want it all.

Ari Emanuel 55:12 Okay.

Jay Shetty 55:12 They look great. They look great. It looks, it looks great on you too. Um-

Ari Emanuel 55:15 Thank you for doing this

Jay Shetty 55:16 ... I will. But we end every show with a final five. These have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum, so it's super tight.

Ari Emanuel 55:21 Oh, God.

Jay Shetty 55:22 It's the fast fire. So-

Ari Emanuel 55:23 I better, I better, I better sit up for this.

Jay Shetty 55:24 Yes. Ari, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Ari Emanuel 55:29 Know when you're on the field.

Jay Shetty 55:30 The second question is, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Ari Emanuel 55:34 I don't know if it was advice, but why would you do that?

Jay Shetty 55:37 Hmm.

Ari Emanuel 55:37 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 55:37 Interesting. Interesting. Uh, third question, what's something that you're trying to unlearn?

Ari Emanuel 55:43 Being angry.

Jay Shetty 55:44 That sounds hard.

Ari Emanuel 55:45 It's hard.

Jay Shetty 55:46 How hard is it? Let's, let's talk about that for a second-

Ari Emanuel 55:48 You know-

Jay Shetty 55:48 ... 'cause that's quite a powerful answer

Ari Emanuel 55:49 ... I'll tell you what it is. It's, you know, I, I know when it pops up. Like all of a sudden... When somebody used to call me stupid in school, it was game on, and that thesis where somebody treats me as if I'm not smart or they trying to pull something on me, I just, I just go to a very dark, sick place. And I've worked very hard now not to go there, to handle it differently, not that I'm not going to be like, "Huh? What? You think I'm stupid?" Like, by doing that, you're t- you're acting as if I don't know what's going on here. And so, um, and they're pulling one over me and they... A- and for whatever reason, the minute I feel like somebody's trying to-

Jay Shetty 56:37 Yeah, take advantage of you

Ari Emanuel 56:37 ... take advantage of me. Right.

Jay Shetty 56:38 Yeah, yeah. I get that.

Ari Emanuel 56:39 Yeah. And so that is a lot of work.

Jay Shetty 56:41 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 56:41 [laughs] That is a

Ari Emanuel 56:43 constant work, and when I feel it coming on, okay, that's your shadow. Whatever the phrase is, that's your s- v- m- you know, that's the work I have to do, and I don't always do it, Ari.

Jay Shetty 56:53 Especially those childhood ones.

Ari Emanuel 56:54 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 56:55 It's hard.

Ari Emanuel 56:55 And so, no, but when somebody in business does that to me, recently I kind of like, I, I went to the bad place. I couldn't control it, and that, that, I'm, that- that's what I'm trying to work on.

Jay Shetty 57:05 Yeah. What's been helping you work on that? Is it-

Ari Emanuel 57:06 Just kind of like recognizing it. Once I recognize it-

Jay Shetty 57:09 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 57:10 ... I can breathe through it, and I can get to the other side of it.

Jay Shetty 57:13 Mm.

Ari Emanuel 57:13 But in the moment, sometimes...

Jay Shetty 57:16 Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I f- I feel like, I feel like, uh, uh, for me as well, I feel like your partners and your family often see the worst of you.

Ari Emanuel 57:22 Oh, God, yeah.

Jay Shetty 57:23 And I, I always look at that, almost like, "How, what does my wife see?"

Ari Emanuel 57:26 And the problem is-

Jay Shetty 57:26 You know?

Ari Emanuel 57:26 ... you do things that are so not smart.

Jay Shetty 57:28 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 57:29 And it's, it, you know, it's, it's just not good.

Jay Shetty 57:32 Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 57:33 But it's a g- that, that n-

Jay Shetty 57:33 And then you regret it afterwards and-

Ari Emanuel 57:35 Oh, I'm not sure I regret it, but it's just like-

Jay Shetty 57:37 Yeah

Ari Emanuel 57:37 ... "Really? You had to do that? You're 62, and you had to do that? You, you had to say that? You had to, like, make calls and try and kill..." No, I'm not doing that.

Jay Shetty 57:44 Yeah. All right. Two more questions. The fourth question is, uh, what's something that you used to value that you don't longer, no longer value?

Ari Emanuel 57:51 Well, I o- I, I, I thought it was about the stack.

Jay Shetty 57:53 Hmm. Hmm.

Ari Emanuel 57:54 Now, maybe [laughs] somebody's gonna say, "He's got the stack now."

Jay Shetty 57:57 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 57:58 Yeah. But I never had... I didn't have the stack at the beginning, and I didn't va- I mean, I don't... I, I, that was never the end game.

Jay Shetty 58:05 What is the end game now?

Ari Emanuel 58:06 I am really happily married. I love my kids. They're in great shape. Um, I'm comfortable in who I am. I'm, I'm, I'm happy that I have to constantly work at it now, and I'm actually in a good place to work, and I understand the work I have to do, which makes it even better.

Jay Shetty 58:26 All right. Fifth and final question. We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.

Ari Emanuel 58:29 Yo, these are longer than one sentence. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 58:30 I know, because, because you keep giving good answers. You keep giving good answers. I can't help it.

Ari Emanuel 58:35 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 58:35 You gave a really interesting answer. I was like, "If I don't dive into this, my audience is gonna get mad at me."

Ari Emanuel 58:41 Oh, okay.

Jay Shetty 58:41 They're gonna be like, "Jay, why didn't you... "

Ari Emanuel 58:43 Okay.

Jay Shetty 58:43 You know. I listen to my, my... This is what they're saying in the comment section.

Ari Emanuel 58:45 I love you listening to your voice.

Jay Shetty 58:46 Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 58:46 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 58:46 They're, they're telling me.

Ari Emanuel 58:47 Yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 58:47 They'd be like, "Jay, he just told you like something amazing. Why didn't you... " Uh, fifth and final question, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? It could be anything about any, any type of law.

Ari Emanuel 58:58 Don't be hypocritical. If your whole thing is, "Stay out of my life," okay, "Stay out of my life on guns. Stay out of my life on COVID," just stay consistent. And that's the hardest thing because there's the shade of gray.

Jay Shetty 59:10 Mm-hmm.

Ari Emanuel 59:10 Right? I just want consistency without, like, the issue of money.

Jay Shetty 59:15 Hmm.

Ari Emanuel 59:16 The affirmative action issue is, you know, oh, it's sports and, and legacy people or family, you know, kind of heritage that got into the school. Well, that's about money. Like, oh, yeah, the sports make them money, and the, the people that went there and their kids, th- they pay, give a lot of money. Like, okay, we all get it. Like, just stay consistent with when we decide to pass a law, like, that it is then across the board, and the money doesn't get into it and all those other things. That, that's the thing. I just look at these-

Jay Shetty 59:42 No, no, no

Ari Emanuel 59:42 ... I just look at these things, I'm like, "The hypocrisy of-

Jay Shetty 59:45 Hmm

Ari Emanuel 59:45 ... of, of..." And, and I'm, I'm hypocritical.

Jay Shetty 59:48 All of us. Yeah, yeah.

Ari Emanuel 59:49 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 59:49 It's hard, but it's-

Ari Emanuel 59:50 I am hypocritical. I understand it. I wish that we could figure out a law of that consistency, whatever we decide, so that it's like, okay, if, if, if, if really what you're saying here, and we take it out across all these other issues, here's what it would mean. And so everybody gets... I don't know what, what that law would be.

Jay Shetty 1:00:07 No, the essence of the answer's great. I, I love the idea of being consistent and removing hypocrisy. And, and the challenge is we-

Ari Emanuel 1:00:13 And money

Jay Shetty 1:00:14 ... yeah, and we all have it.

Ari Emanuel 1:00:15 Oh.

Jay Shetty 1:00:15 Like, we, we all, like, we'll fight to death for this thing, and then, but actually, you know, if you-

Ari Emanuel 1:00:20 Uh, don't, please don't say all my, uh, apocryphal things that I have done on air.

Jay Shetty 1:00:25 [laughs]

Ari Emanuel 1:00:25 Right? So.

Jay Shetty 1:00:26 We all have. Yeah.

Ari Emanuel 1:00:26 Well, thank you very much.

Jay Shetty 1:00:27 Great answer. All right. Thank you so much.

Ari Emanuel 1:00:28 I lo- I love...

Jay Shetty 1:00:29 Thank you. I'm glad. And I love, so-

Ari Emanuel 1:00:31 Well, I'm gonna send you these. I better get a case.

Jay Shetty 1:00:32 Well, we'll send-

Ari Emanuel 1:00:33 Okay. Perfect

Jay Shetty 1:00:33 ... we're gonna send you a whole case. Thank you, Ari. Appreciate- If you loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Mate on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

Cameo 1:00:46 Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a, a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable