The COMMON MYTHS About Relationships & How To ACTUALLY Find Love | Humble The Poet & Jay Shetty

Humble The Poet 0:00 You don't win love. You don't find love. The love is already there. I struggled in my last situation 'cause I could not receive love. It wasn't that there wasn't love there, it was me. I had my door closed. I had my sails closed. When we do that work, that by default will create a better relationship with ourselves, which will inform every single relationship we have around us. The bestselling author and host. The number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty 0:23 On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Now, one of the things I love about the show is sitting down with a friend who's an incredible thinker, a thought leader, a philosopher, a poet. Uh, it provides a very special conversation when I get to sit with someone that I hang out with a lot offline, but then we get to turn the cameras on and the recording devices on and do something online. I hope you get to hear that friendship, that brotherhood, in today's conversation. And I find there's something really special about sitting down with someone who has really interesting ideas, has taken the time to document them, and systematized them into a book. I'm speaking about one of my dearest friends, Humble The Poet, a Canadian-born rapper, spoken word artist, designer, poet, internationally bestselling author, and former elementary school teacher. What began as reciting spoken word poetry in coffee shops to impress girls evolved into creative adventures that has spanned the last 10 years, crossing genres, mediums, and oceans. His first two releases, Unlearn and Things Nobody Can Teach Us, have become international bestsellers. And today we're talking about his new book, How To Be Loved: Simple Truths for Going Easier on Yourself, Embracing Imperfection, and Loving Your Way to a Better Life. I want you to go and grab a copy of this book right now. Order it right now. Uh, we're putting the link in the captions and in the show notes, How To Be Loved by Humble The Poet. Humble, it is so great to have you here, man, officially. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 2:14 Yes, thank you so much for having me. You didn't, you have to include in my bio, uh, ping-pong frenemy.

Jay Shetty 2:19 Oh, yeah, yeah. Ping-pong frenemy. Yeah, I mean... Well, we shouldn't go there.

Humble The Poet 2:23 We shouldn't go [laughs]

Jay Shetty 2:23 We shouldn't go there. I mean, the only official game we've had, I won.

Humble The Poet 2:28 A- and that's why-

Jay Shetty 2:28 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 2:28 ... I was ping-pong frenemy. You won, you won that pair of very old headphones. That was the prize.

Jay Shetty 2:34 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 2:35 It was a birthday party, and our friend, uh, found a pair of headphones and made that the prize. And then in the first round you knocked me out.

Jay Shetty 2:42 No, it was... So when we play unofficially, Humble beats me in ping-pong all the time. Like, I don't think I've ever beaten you when we've been hanging out, ever. Like-

Humble The Poet 2:50 Yeah, but it doesn't count. You haven't beaten me.

Jay Shetty 2:52 It doesn't count, yeah. But then the official game-

Humble The Poet 2:54 You turned it on

Jay Shetty 2:54 ... I won. And then I gave the headphones away, uh, to someone who I felt deserved them more. I was lucky that day. I can't believe it. I was on some lucky streak.

Humble The Poet 3:02 Well, yeah, it was a party.

Jay Shetty 3:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 3:03 It was a party. I party harder than you, so.

Jay Shetty 3:06 Y- you're a little bit tipsy, so.

Humble The Poet 3:07 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 3:07 I, I don't drink, so I got away. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 3:09 Yeah, no, you, you have a few competitive advantages.

Jay Shetty 3:11 [laughs] I love it. But Humble, man, we've been friends for, like, I'm, like, four years now.

Humble The Poet 3:17 Yeah, maybe even longer.

Jay Shetty 3:17 I feel like since-

Humble The Poet 3:18 Yeah

Jay Shetty 3:18 ... since we started having our conversations.

Humble The Poet 3:20 Yeah. Yeah, completely.

Jay Shetty 3:21 And it's been beautiful to, like, just, you know, I think as two people in an industry where it's busy and we're doing so much, somehow I think we found a way to have these really meaningful conversations.

Humble The Poet 3:33 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 3:34 I remember I was at your house earlier this year, at your apartment earlier this year, and we were hanging out. And then the next day everyone was like, "Well, what time did Jay leave?" Or, "What happened?" Because everyone... I always leave early to go to sleep early, generally is, is what I do, and I was at your house till, like, 2:00 AM.

Humble The Poet 3:51 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 3:51 And everyone's like, "Wow, how did you get Jay to stay out till 2:00 AM?" And we weren't... All we did was have deep, meaningful, thoughtful conversation.

Humble The Poet 3:59 Completely. Completely.

Jay Shetty 4:00 It was... So you're one of the few people that I can actually do that with, so I cherish our friendship very deeply.

Humble The Poet 4:05 I, I mean, likewise.

Jay Shetty 4:06 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 4:06 As I said, this is the first conversation I'm not holding a notepad. I just sit here and try to pick your brain as much as I can, and try to learn as much as I can. And I appreciate you always make time for me.

Jay Shetty 4:15 Always, man.

Humble The Poet 4:15 You're amazing for that, man.

Jay Shetty 4:16 Always. But I'm so glad you wrote this book, bro, because you know I'm obsessed with love.

Humble The Poet 4:20 Yes.

Jay Shetty 4:20 My new book's about love.

Humble The Poet 4:21 Yes.

Jay Shetty 4:22 But I think when you're obsessed with something and you get deep into it, it's really interesting to hear from someone else who's obsessed with it and gotten really deep into it.

Humble The Poet 4:31 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 4:32 And I wanna talk to you about what we said in the intro about the idea of how you used to do spoken word to impress girls.

Humble The Poet 4:37 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 4:38 And I think the idea of impressing someone-

Humble The Poet 4:41 Yeah

Jay Shetty 4:41 ... is such a big part of how love starts.

Humble The Poet 4:44 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 4:44 Like, I can relate to that so much. Like, the, the extent I've gone through to impress women-

Humble The Poet 4:50 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 4:50 ... in my previous life, it's insane.

Jay Shetty 4:54 And walk me through, why do we try to impress people that we may be attracted to or maybe not even attracted to?

Humble The Poet 5:01 Yeah, I think, you know, I think for thousands of years we lived in smaller communities, and we only understand ourself in relation to everybody else. You know, you walk into your family, you know where you are in the hierarchy. And then we, you know, many of us, inclu- and only two generations ago, came from families in small villages. So it's like you find your definition and your value in relation to others. And in modern life, in these big metropolis cities, it's not as relevant. But that need to be seen, that need to be validated, is completely there. And I think that's why we have s- a lot of challenges in realizing love, is because we so, we spend so much time trying to feed our self-esteem, not realizing that love comes from self-respect.

Jay Shetty 5:38 Mm.

Humble The Poet 5:39 Which is way more internal. And it's completely, you know, you're absolutely right. Like, even me doing poetry back then, it was like I was writing about things as an artist that mattered to me, and I was exploring concepts, but my only motivation to share it was to get attention.

Jay Shetty 5:54 Mm.

Humble The Poet 5:54 And you start to feed off of that. And it gets really interesting now, 'cause we live in a world where that attention, there's a metric beside it. You can count your likes, you can count your comments, you can count your followers. So now it's like- The world subtly tells you who to be if that attention matters. Like, "Oh, I did a post. It didn't get en- enough engagement, so let's go ahead and, and post something else." And then, "Oh, this really did get, got a lot of engagement. Let me make five more things like that." And it's killing our ability to discover ourselves and our authentic selves, and instead it's making us live for display purposes, which is going to continually close pathways to love.

Jay Shetty 6:29 This is why I love talking to you. I'm loving this already. There's so many things that you said that I'm like, "Yes, I want to talk about this." Let's... I love what you just talked about, and I saw you post about this a few months ago, about the difference between self-esteem and self-respect.

Humble The Poet 6:41 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 6:42 And that really hit a nerve with me when you first posted about it.

Jay Shetty 6:46 Walk us through how you define them differently and why that's useful in this journey of to love.

Humble The Poet 6:52 So for me, self-esteem is external, self-respect is internal, and I feel like the ways we go about it don't have to be much different.

Jay Shetty 6:59 Mm.

Humble The Poet 7:00 Um, when you keep your promises to yourself, you know, you build self-respect. And I think either you're chasing one or the other. The more self-respect you develop, the less self-esteem you're gonna chase.

Jay Shetty 7:11 Mm.

Humble The Poet 7:11 The more self-esteem you chase, the less self-respect is gonna be in the room. They kind of can't hold hands. So for me, you start to realize that it's a relationship. It just depends on how you're gonna spend and, and devote that energy. The challenge with self-esteem and it being external is there's just way too many people with way too many opinions on who you can be.

Jay Shetty 7:31 Mm.

Humble The Poet 7:31 You know, like that Dita Von Teese, uh, quote, "You can be the juiciest peach in the world, there are just some people who don't like peaches."

Jay Shetty 7:37 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 7:38 You know? And that can have an impact on people. Uh, and a lot of people are negatively impacted by the comments on their social media, um, by how well they're received when people are looking at them or what have you. So what I'm realizing is as we focus on self-respect, to me, which, as I said, honoring your commitments, doing hard things, um, focusing on progress and not perfection, that's a really big one. Um, I think when we have these ideas of what we think love is, it's oftentimes not love. Attention, control, power, admiration, beauty, success. These things are all external things that we can receive from the world, and they feel like love and, and they give us a lot of immediate gratification. I, I refer to them as bootleg love. Like when you go to, you go to the outlet mall, get a fake Gucci belt.

Jay Shetty 8:25 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 8:26 Um, and, you know, you g- you get a little rush from it immediately, but you keep thirsting for more.

Jay Shetty 8:31 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 8:31 You know? Y- y- it puts you in further scarcity. So when we focus on that, it's a never ending journey, whereas when we develop more self-respect, we feel a level of peace. It's not instead of getting everything you want, you start to want less.

Jay Shetty 8:45 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 8:45 And I think for me, that's the really big difference, and self-respect can be literally developed through anything that you commit to do, and the more difficult, the better. Let's say do, do hard things. For me, it's a cold shower in the morning. And when we focus on progress, especially as we're entering a new year, it's really important to set intentions instead of expectations, 'cause oftentimes we say, "Oh, I want to lose 10 pounds." Now you suddenly have told yourself, "I'm not good enough as I am, and when I lose 10 pounds, magically I'm gonna feel better." Instead of doing that, 'cause you're, you're harming your relationship with yourself, focus on progress. "I want to have a healthier breakfast, and maybe my breakfast has 10 different elements to it. I'm gonna switch out one at a time." Or, "I want to wake up earlier." Let's say I'm waking up at noon every day and I want to get to 6:00 AM. You can't just jump from noon to 6:00. Let's focus on progress. Let's start with 11:45, slowly work our way down. Progress can be endless.

Jay Shetty 9:41 Mm.

Humble The Poet 9:42 You know? Whereas I think society, especially in capitalism, they need to sell us stuff to make us feel like we matter, and the message they keep sending us is chase perfection.

Jay Shetty 9:52 Mm.

Humble The Poet 9:52 And perfect doesn't exist, and perfect is the last place love would exist because the only way to develop a deep connection with somebody is through your vulnerabilities. If you are perfect, you can't be vulnerable.

Jay Shetty 10:02 Mm.

Humble The Poet 10:03 So for me, vulnerability comes through self-respect, being brave enough to admit, you know, where you're difficult to be with, what you struggle with, what your challenges are, and then s- that opens up someone else an opportunity to do the same, and then you connect on a deeper level.

Jay Shetty 10:17 Yeah. I want to reflect on some of the things that came to my mind as you were talking. It's interesting, isn't it? Like, we say we want love, but actually we want attention.

Humble The Poet 10:28 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:28 We say we want love, but actually we want validation.

Humble The Poet 10:32 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:32 We say we want love, but actually we just want compliments.

Humble The Poet 10:35 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:36 So we don't actually know what love is or want love because we're chasing it through these other forms of cheap adoration or cheap affection.

Humble The Poet 10:46 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:47 One of the things that hit me about what you just said about vulnerability and this pursuit of perfection when actually imperfection is at the core of love and relationships is I was coaching a CEO recently and we were working through some of their mental health challenges. It was really interesting to me because I was encouraging them to share that with their team.

Humble The Poet 11:12 Mm.

Jay Shetty 11:12 I was saying, "You should share the challenges you're going through because it will be a healthy thing to do." And they said to me, they said, "Jay, how can I share my challenges? I'm the strong one. I'm the brave one."

Humble The Poet 11:25 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:25 "I'm the one who has it all together." And I said to them, I said, "What's stronger than you telling them your truth?"

Humble The Poet 11:33 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:34 Like, what's braver than you being vulnerable with that person?

Humble The Poet 11:37 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:37 Like, there's nothing more strong. There's no greater act of courage.

Humble The Poet 11:40 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:40 And when they went and told their team, they followed through on the advice, the team's unanimous response was, "Us too."

Humble The Poet 11:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:49 Like they were going through-

Humble The Poet 11:50 Yeah

Jay Shetty 11:50 ... the same stuff.

Humble The Poet 11:51 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 11:52 And all of a sudden they felt connected. So I guess what I, what I love about what you're saying, when you talk about, like, not chasing perfection, when you talk about doing hard things, there was one more thing you said. There were three-

Humble The Poet 12:03 Honoring your commitments

Jay Shetty 12:04 ... honoring your commitments. So those three things that you mentioned- To me, that's actually what self-love is.

Humble The Poet 12:10 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 12:11 Like, we keep hearing self-love, and you've talked about self-respect-

Humble The Poet 12:13 Yeah

Jay Shetty 12:13 ... which I think is a really great-

Humble The Poet 12:16 Pathway to it, yeah

Jay Shetty 12:16 ... pivot and pathway.

Humble The Poet 12:17 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 12:18 But those three habits are really deeply important when we're alone-

Humble The Poet 12:22 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 12:23 ... and when we're single and when we're not in a relationship.

Jay Shetty 12:27 Let's talk about why doing hard things is so important in the pursuit of love.

Humble The Poet 12:35 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 12:35 Because I don't think those things... A lot of what you just mentioned, I'm like, "Is this a habits book?" Like, you're like-

Humble The Poet 12:40 Yeah

Jay Shetty 12:40 ... helping people with their day-to-day habits, but there's a connection there that I don't think people see.

Humble The Poet 12:45 Yeah. O- one of my favorite m- mantras for myself is, "An easy day at the gym was not a good day at the gym."

Jay Shetty 12:52 Mm.

Humble The Poet 12:53 Um, and I start to apply that to life. An easy day at life is not a good day. I think what we have in, in, in this society is we sell convenience, uh, and we sell comfort.

Jay Shetty 13:03 Mm.

Humble The Poet 13:03 And both of those don't inspire growth or evolution or for us to unlock a better version of ourselves. Um, so voluntarily doing hard things, you know, prepares us when hard things find us.

Jay Shetty 13:21 Mm.

Humble The Poet 13:21 You know? I've, I, I think for example, you know, when, you know, as an entrepreneur it's a very challenging job, but then when you're an entrepreneur, you understand that, hey, money's not guaranteed. I don't get a salary every two weeks. Um, nothing's promised to me. So then when you come across a situation where things shut down, layoffs, recession, what have you, you're better prepared. You know, life's gonna throw curve balls. What we can do when things are good is practice our swing. So for me, doing hard things is picking a challenge. And my personal, uh, equation is one foot in what I know, one foot in what's familiar, and one foot in what's unfamiliar and what's uncomfortable.

Jay Shetty 13:58 Mm.

Humble The Poet 13:58 So I'm not overdoing. If I wanna learn to swim, I don't jump into the ocean the first day. We start in the kiddie pool, and then we work our way up. And picking things voluntarily that are difficult, whatever it is, and understanding that even for us, you know, it took 10 years to learn how to read.

Jay Shetty 14:14 Mm.

Humble The Poet 14:14 There was a systematic program put in school for us to do it.

Jay Shetty 14:16 We forget that, Jay.

Humble The Poet 14:17 We forget that.

Jay Shetty 14:18 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 14:18 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 14:18 Wow.

Humble The Poet 14:19 And we didn't have, we didn't have self-esteem issues or confidence issues back then, being like, "Ah, I don't know the alphabet. I shouldn't even bother." Or when we were babies trying to learn how to sp- uh, walk, you know, we got up and we fell back down. We didn't give up and say, "It's not for me." But as adults, because we don't have somebody kinda loitering over us, we, we may start something and we're not okay with sucking at it in the beginning.

Jay Shetty 14:39 Mm.

Humble The Poet 14:39 Uh, we, we don't see it as fun. But, you know, I play a lot of video games. If I drop 90 bucks on a video game and it's too easy, then it wasn't worth it for me.

Jay Shetty 14:48 Mm.

Humble The Poet 14:48 You know? We need challenges. We need to, we need resistance. We need to push and pull. We need that tug of war, 'cause that's going to make us stronger. It's gonna make us more resilient. Sitting in the ice makes you resilient, helps you recalibrate your fight or flight.

Jay Shetty 15:01 Mm.

Humble The Poet 15:02 So now your fight or flight isn't triggered through an awkward conversation or an email or a text message or a bill that comes. You know, it gets back to where it needs to be, which is important. So I think for me it's recognizing that it's not chasing comfort, it's not chasing just simple stability, um, and it's not chasing convenience. It's being like, "Okay, there is a harder way of doing things. Let's do that for the sake of doing it," because when the difficulties of life find us, we're much more resilient and much more prepared.

Jay Shetty 15:28 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 15:28 And I think for me, that allows me to realize my value as an individual, what I'm capable of, and how I can spread that and be of service to other people, which to me is a massive language of love.

Jay Shetty 15:41 Wow. Yeah. And I mean, when I'm hearing you speak, it's like that getting comfortable in discomfort-

Humble The Poet 15:48 Yeah

Jay Shetty 15:48 ... is almost like the number one skill needed in life. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 15:52 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 15:52 Because I feel like most of, as you said, what society's trying to teach us, in your words, convenience and comfort, and it's trying to avoid discomfort.

Humble The Poet 16:04 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:04 Like, we're trying to avoid it. We're trying to dodge it. We're trying to hope that, how can I avoid any sort of pain, struggle, discomfort? And while I'm not, while you're not saying to invite it, but we've gotta get comfortable in that uncertainty and comfortable with that pain, and that applies to anything from dating through to breakups through to loving ourselves, of course-

Humble The Poet 16:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 16:27 ... through, through to the journey we're on. One of the things you say in the book that I wanted to pick out was, "Feeling left out and rejected brings up those ancient anxieties of danger."

Humble The Poet 16:40 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:41 And I think that's one of the biggest discomforts, is feeling left out and rejected.

Humble The Poet 16:47 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:47 Like, when you talk about being uncomfortable-

Humble The Poet 16:50 Yeah

Jay Shetty 16:50 ... when you go to an event and you feel like you'd rather lock yourself into a bathroom because you don't wanna be around anyone.

Humble The Poet 16:56 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 16:57 Or forget that. You didn't even get invited in the first place.

Humble The Poet 17:00 Yeah. Yeah.

Jay Shetty 17:00 And sometimes you get upset because you didn't get invited even if you didn't wanna go

Jay Shetty 17:04 there.

Humble The Poet 17:04 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 17:05 So talk to me through that sentence, "Feeling left out and rejected brings up those ancient anxieties of danger."

Humble The Poet 17:12 Again, if we were ostracized from our communities back, you know, generations ago, it actually meant our death.

Jay Shetty 17:19 Mm.

Humble The Poet 17:19 You know? And that's in our programming now, um, which makes us in modern life prioritize likability over everything.

Jay Shetty 17:27 Mm.

Humble The Poet 17:28 And the challenge with that is there's so many things that create pathways of love and allow us to realize love won't necessarily make us likable to everybody. Um, if you wanna s- establish boundaries, for example, establishing boundaries will reduce the amount of people that wanna be around you, 'cause so many people enjoy crossing boundaries or-

Jay Shetty 17:48 Mm

Humble The Poet 17:48 ... you know, find power in that or find significance in that. But it's important to establish boundaries. It's important to show your teeth. I have a chapter in the book called Love Is Showing Your Teeth. It's important to let people know if they've crossed a line. It's important to let people know if they've made, if they've hurt you. It's important to let people know, um, if they're doing things that you're not okay with. Because if you don't, you absorb it inside instead, and then you, you fall into this world and, of resentment, which to me I think is one of the darkest places we can be. And you can't- ... ex- express or realize love in this place of resentment.

Jay Shetty 18:19 Mm.

Humble The Poet 18:20 So our fears of not being likable, you know, as I said i- in the subtitle of this book, is going easy on yourself. This is in our programming. We want to be liked, we want to be accepted, and we are in a modern society which has given us scores for our likability and acceptance. But that will not necessarily help us realize more love, and we have to see the difference. Not everybody is going to like you, and that's okay. And focusing on that will allow us to build deeper connections with people that do matter.

Jay Shetty 18:50 Mm.

Humble The Poet 18:50 You know? Going back to this idea of the CEO and the vulnerability, you know, I was raised in a household that subtly told me to suck it up, be self-regulated. So now I also viewed vulnerability as a weakness. I viewed having a rom- romantic partner that complained as just being naggy and weak, not realizing that my inability to have empathy, you know, was because of the fortresses I made. I made a fortress to protect myself-

Jay Shetty 19:17 Mm-hmm

Humble The Poet 19:17 ... but really it was a prison.

Jay Shetty 19:18 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 19:19 And then when somebody came to me that I cared about with their problems, I wanted to instantly solve it. I thought that's what men do. Men solve problems.

Jay Shetty 19:26 Mm.

Humble The Poet 19:26 We're solution-oriented. But the truth, what I realized for myself was, no, they were sharing their pain, it was triggering my pain. I didn't want to feel my pain, so I wanted to shut them up.

Jay Shetty 19:36 Mm.

Humble The Poet 19:37 And the three ways I was trying to shut them up was either not speaking to them, trying to solve their problems, or, or saying something really stupid like, "Well, there's other people going through way worse than you. Like, have some perspective." And then slowly realizing through this journey that empathy is feeling their pain, not saying anything, just giving them a hug and, and being in that pain together. And for me, like, this, these are very recent realizations for me as I'm trying to figure out how to deepen my connection with human beings as well. And I don't hold it against anybody for being raised to think that vulnerability is a weakness, but you are absolutely right. The strongest thing you can do is be vulnerable and admit where you're having trouble. Um, that's ultimate strength.

Jay Shetty 20:21 Mm.

Humble The Poet 20:21 And, um, you know, I'm glad to hear that that story worked out for him.

Jay Shetty 20:25 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But, I mean,

Jay Shetty 20:27 you just said something, again, interesting, which I actually had noted down, was, uh... Where is this? Oh, yeah. You referenced the need to sit with your pain in order to experience love.

Humble The Poet 20:37 Yes.

Jay Shetty 20:38 I don't think we naturally put those thoughts together, and that's what I've always loved about what you do with ideas is I don't think we kind of... Like, when you hear that, you're like, "Well, I need to unpack that."

Humble The Poet 20:48 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 20:49 Because you wouldn't necessarily think those two things correlate.

Humble The Poet 20:52 The inspiration behind this entire journey was a, a, you know, a relationship that I was in that, that didn't run the course. And all I would do in, in, in isolation, especially during the pandemic, was beat myself up over it as if I had somehow failed. So there was a lot of reflecting and thinking about, you know, the woulda, coulda, shouldas, and sitting, not realizing the subconsciously. 'Cause whether we're aware of a trauma, whether we're aware of a discomfort, we feel it, and we're gonna feel... And then most often, going back to modern society, there are so many convenient options to suppress that temporarily. So for me, I was living that life. I was, if I felt anxious, I would go and ha- have a slice of pizza, or I would go and, um, you know, watch television or go on my phone. And then you start to realize that so often the only reason we get involved with somebody is 'cause we're outsourcing the antidote to our loneliness. Not realizing that loneliness isn't having people around, loneliness is a lack of connection. And, and that could c- contribute to why we have such a high divorce rate, because people are getting together, but they're not getting together, uh, as two individuals. They're getting together with these kind of romanticized ideas of, "You're my better half."

Jay Shetty 22:01 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:01 "You complete me."

Jay Shetty 22:02 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:03 Humans don't need completing.

Jay Shetty 22:04 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 22:05 Humans aren't half a person. And I think, but these are ideas that are sold to us. They're sold to us in media, they're sold to... You know, every single famous couple, the Ross and Rachels, they have to be people with very unhealthy attachment styles to be entertaining.

Jay Shetty 22:18 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 22:18 'Cause the most healthy relationships we know are not very eventful. They wouldn't make for entertaining television.

Jay Shetty 22:22 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:23 I don't, I don't think it's a conspiracy that these t- television shows exist. They're just entertaining us.

Jay Shetty 22:28 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 22:28 And I think realizing that, for me, having a relationship with yourself is being alone. Being alone isn't sitting in bed on your phone. Being alone is being absolutely alone, doing absolutely nothing, which for me is also a form of meditation.

Jay Shetty 22:45 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:45 And, um, for me, it's my favorite form of meditation because it's, it's a form that doesn't require you to ask, "Am I doing this right?"

Jay Shetty 22:53 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:53 'Cause there's no right way of doing nothing.

Jay Shetty 22:55 Mm.

Humble The Poet 22:57 Instantly you start to feel anxiety because you're not stimulated. You know, the dopamine's n- is not coming. And, but the longer you do that, the more grounded you become with yourself.

Jay Shetty 23:07 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 23:07 And now you're in a position to be in a relationship where you can serve. The book has love stories, and there's one love story about somebody I connected with, wanted to pursue. They explained to me they don't have time, and, and, and I was upset. And I was like, "Look, if you don't make time for people, then you're never gonna have anybody. Don't you get lonely?" And she goes, "I do get lonely." And then I said, "So what do you, what are you gonna do when you're lonely?" She goes, "I dance." She goes, "When I'm lonely, I dance, and then I connect with myself."

Jay Shetty 23:37 Wow, that's super mature. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 23:38 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 23:39 Yeah, yeah.

Humble The Poet 23:40 I- w- I was on the phone like-

Jay Shetty 23:41 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 23:42 "I guess I gotta, I guess I..."

Jay Shetty 23:44 I gotta get... [laughs]

Humble The Poet 23:44 Yeah. "I guess I better go dance too."

Jay Shetty 23:46 Yeah. You're like, "I like dancing too. Let's dance together." [laughs]

Humble The Poet 23:48 Yeah, but and I, I left her alone after that because, you know, she was very clear with her boundaries and what have you. And what you realize is we want connection. The, you know, the fast food version of connection, self-connection, would be self-pity.

Jay Shetty 24:02 Mm.

Humble The Poet 24:02 "Nobody understands what I'm going through except for me. Nobody's ever had their heart broken. I'm all by myself. I just wanna be able to complain about it." But something deep to actually create an authentic connection with just yourself-

Jay Shetty 24:12 Mm

Humble The Poet 24:12 ... can be dancing, to feel your body. How many of us, when is the last time we've looked at ourselves in the mirror? And looked at our body and were not critical, and looked at our body from a perspective of gratitude.

Jay Shetty 24:26 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 24:26 Like, how many of us have already chosen our favorite body part? Even though our body has been with us since day zero.

Jay Shetty 24:35 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 24:35 And even when we make poor choices, our body tries its best to adjust. We have bad posture, our body tries to adjust. We don't put good things inside our body, it tries its best to adjust. W- this relationship with ourselves, our physical body, can be the first step to creating an authentic pathway of love, which can then inform the relationships we can have with everybody else.

Jay Shetty 24:55 You know, this conversation is just, in a beautiful way as always, just I'm tr- connecting so many dots that are coming up, and I wanna talk about a few things. One thing that came up was this idea of what you're saying, ch- setting boundaries. And I think one of the challenges that we have with setting boundaries is we want to be perceived as nice.

Humble The Poet 25:16 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 25:17 And when we set a boundary, we think we're going to be perceived as unkind.

Humble The Poet 25:22 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 25:23 And so we'd rather not set the boundaries so that, again, someone likes me and thinks that I'm a nice person, but inside I'm going, "God, I wish I wasn't around this person. I wish I wasn't here. I wish I wasn't doing that." Why do you think so often, or

Jay Shetty 25:36 what are your thoughts about how we compromise our own values and our own boundaries in order to appear more nice and likable? Like, that seems to be the biggest disassociation from ourself.

Humble The Poet 25:51 Yeah. I, I, I think it's the short-term gratification versus the long-term.

Jay Shetty 25:55 Right.

Humble The Poet 25:55 Um, I think the short-term gratification, for me specifically, I can say I became someone that people came to with their problems. And I felt value that I was needed.

Jay Shetty 26:05 Mm.

Humble The Poet 26:05 And it took a therapist to help point out where she said, "Listen, the reason you actually want people to... You, you are receiving people is because it's such a one-sided conversation, that it gives you the impression that you have a relationship, but you're never vulnerable."

Jay Shetty 26:19 Mm.

Humble The Poet 26:19 "'Cause they're just telling you their problems. They don't even notice that they're not asking you about yours."

Jay Shetty 26:24 Mm.

Humble The Poet 26:25 "And you like that 'cause that helps, um, helps you avoid being vulnerable, which feels uncomfortable for you." But she goes, "W- in the long run, what you don't realize," and you said it, "it builds resentment."

Jay Shetty 26:34 Mm.

Humble The Poet 26:35 And there can't be love if there's resentment. So what happens is this, this feeling of I need to be needed, which again, if we think about how we were raised, a lot of us were raised to find our value when we're needed. A lot of us made these decisions and, and, and decided our pathway of life when we were kids-

Jay Shetty 26:51 Mm

Humble The Poet 26:51 ... when we were thinking very binary. It was either this or that, black and white. And as we became adults and we can see life a lot more complex, we never updated our policies. And so what happens is life is more complex, but we're looking at it through such a simple shade. And this idea is like, okay... And when we were kids too, whenever something negative happened, we absorbed it as if it was our fault.

Jay Shetty 27:10 Mm.

Humble The Poet 27:11 You know? I have a story in the book. My m- I, I once got sick and I vomited, um, all over my bathroom as a little child. And my mother was awa- awoken from that. She had work. She got upset with me, and I blamed myself for that. Not having context as an adult, realizing, wait, you know, she works the night shift. She's not a horrible person. You didn't mess up. It's just everybody can be cranky, and what have you. And now, you know, making jokes about my mom 'cause the grandmother version of my mom is completely sweet. She has time. She's not working anymore. No more survival mode. But me internalizing that story, that narrative stuck with me up until today. We've had conversations about gratitude versus guilt, you know. In my journey as an artist, crashing on people's couches, people giving me places to stay, hearing my mother's voice, "Don't be a mooch. Fill up their fridge full of groceries. Make sure they know. Even for, you know, the help that you've done with me in, in this journey, what can I give Jay? What can I give Jay?" And then questioning, is that authentic gratitude or am I just operating from a place of guilt?

Jay Shetty 28:11 Mm.

Humble The Poet 28:12 And if it's not authentic gratitude, then it's not being done with love.

Jay Shetty 28:15 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 28:15 And then if it's coming from a place of guilt, that's usually related to fear-

Jay Shetty 28:18 Mm

Humble The Poet 28:18 ... which is definitely not from a place of love.

Jay Shetty 28:21 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 28:21 And I think going through that journey I think is extremely important. So when we fear being unlikable, we're closing off an option and a pathway to realize love for some short-term peace from our anxiety.

Jay Shetty 28:34 Mm.

Humble The Poet 28:34 You know? It's like pleasure, like we're chasing pleasure to medicate our lack of peace.

Jay Shetty 28:38 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 28:38 Um, when the peace would come from establishing boundaries, there's gonna be an uncomfortable transition period, but you'll get to a point where the people who love you view your boundaries as an instruction manual on how to be with you and how to have a healthy relationship with you. Because what happens is, for the people who have boundaries and you respect their boundaries, they will stay in your lives.

Jay Shetty 28:59 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 28:59 You know? Instead of you just trying to avoid somebody who always tries to overstep your boundaries.

Jay Shetty 29:04 Yeah. I mean, what you just said there was so powerful. I was interviewing someone the other day-

Humble The Poet 29:10 Mm

Jay Shetty 29:10 ... and they asked me the question, they said, "Well, what's your working style?" So they're like, "What's y- how do you like to be communicated with?"

Humble The Poet 29:19 Mm.

Jay Shetty 29:19 "And how do you like to be informed of updates and things like that?"

Humble The Poet 29:24 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:24 And I was like, "This is a great interview question."

Humble The Poet 29:26 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:26 Like, for someone to ask me. I'm interviewing them-

Humble The Poet 29:28 Completely

Jay Shetty 29:29 ... but they're asking me that, and I got to tell them. And they were like, "What are your pet peeves when it comes to communicating?"

Humble The Poet 29:34 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:34 And so, like, I got to walk them through. What I realized was they made me feel really comfortable and confident with them because I was like, wow, this person's really mature and knows that I'm not perfect.

Humble The Poet 29:45 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:45 I'm not always gonna be available.

Humble The Poet 29:47 Mm.

Jay Shetty 29:48 They need to understand a few things about me to work well with me. What I, what was demanded of me, though, was self-awareness-

Humble The Poet 29:55 Mm

Jay Shetty 29:55 ... in order to infer that-

Humble The Poet 29:57 Yeah

Jay Shetty 29:57 ... to them.

Humble The Poet 29:58 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:58 And so what I find here is that what happens in relationships or in love is that we don't feel that way. We feel that person should be perfect. They should already understand me. I should understand them, and we're gonna do whatever it takes to love each other.

Humble The Poet 30:12 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 30:12 And the other problem is, even if you ask that question, chances are a lot of people don't have the self-awareness to share what their pet peeves are. So the girl who says to you, "Hey, I dance when I'm lonely," that's- High self-awareness

Humble The Poet 30:26 Yes

Jay Shetty 30:27 Right? Like that's, uh, the fact that there was an answer there that was satisfying to you and that almost left you speechless to some degree even when I-

Humble The Poet 30:35 Completely left me speechless. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 30:36 Yeah. It's like, oh, wow. So I find that there's two sides. One is our openness-

Humble The Poet 30:41 Yeah

Jay Shetty 30:41 ... that I'm going to get into a relationship where we're both not perfect.

Humble The Poet 30:45 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 30:46 The other is the other person having the knowledge of themselves.

Humble The Poet 30:51 Yes.

Jay Shetty 30:51 And it feels like we're lacking in both right now.

Humble The Poet 30:53 I think definitely, and I think one of the reasons is because of our ideas around love. It, we don't have to teach somebody that imperfection is, is okay in the world of love. Every single person we currently love, we could probably list out their imperfections.

Jay Shetty 31:09 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 31:09 And then the second question is, does, do any of those imperfections-

Jay Shetty 31:12 Right

Humble The Poet 31:12 ... disqualify them from your love?

Jay Shetty 31:15 Mm.

Humble The Poet 31:15 You know? Also, you know, the, the analogy that I always think about too is like the first time I held my baby niece. I had never met her before.

Jay Shetty 31:23 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 31:23 I had never had an interaction before, but just holding her filled me up with love.

Jay Shetty 31:27 Mm.

Humble The Poet 31:27 So you don't even need history. You don't even need interaction. So f- oftentimes we have this, this skewed idea that love is something you earn, love is something you win, love is something you qualify for, love is at the end of the rainbow, and I think these ideas motivate these types of actions where it's like, "I have to appear perfect." Another thing I realized about myself recently, um, and I think this is for a lot of men who are often seen as distant or avoidant, is we spend so much time on a date trying to win over the other person, charm them, make them, make them feel like we're, we're really worth it, that we spend no time looking at the other person to see, "Is this a good fit for me?"

Jay Shetty 32:07 Totally.

Humble The Poet 32:07 We get over their wall. We penetrate their fortress. We, we make them feel safe. Then once they, they communicate to us that they like us, then we begin this process-

Jay Shetty 32:17 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 32:18 ... of like, "Wait-

Jay Shetty 32:19 It's so true

Humble The Poet 32:20 ... are, are they for me?" And then also we are viewing a, a human being, and then also we, we get this realization subconsciously or consciously that to further connect with this person, I'm gonna have to be vulnerable.

Jay Shetty 32:32 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 32:32 And then that raises anxiety, and then we pull away. And I think often women, women find that confusing. They're like, "I thought he was into me." He was into the idea of you liking him without asking himself if, if you're a good fit. And I think before we enter any of these situations, we have to do that. And I know the activities and the practices for that will build self-awareness, and it really is going deeper than what we normally do.

Jay Shetty 32:57 Oh, that is so well explained. All right. So that is-

Humble The Poet 33:00 This is me, man. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 33:00 That... No, no, no, but that is so well explained because love bombing is such a big thing right now.

Humble The Poet 33:05 Yes, yes.

Jay Shetty 33:06 And I did that in my teens-

Humble The Poet 33:08 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:08 ... massively. Like, that's how I spent the majority of my teens-

Humble The Poet 33:10 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 33:10 ... where I, I would be interested in a girl only to win her over-

Humble The Poet 33:16 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:16 ... to then retreat as-

Humble The Poet 33:17 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:17 ... exactly like you said, so I can relate to that so deeply. How does... And generally, I don't know. I've, I've heard a lot of men admit to that, or at least men that I have open relationships with where people will say that. I don't know how much women do that. Like, I, I just haven't heard that, and I don't want to build gender stereotypes or anything. But I guess as the person in the relationship on the receiving end of that, how do you know? Because it's somewhat a mutual exchange, right?

Humble The Poet 33:46 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 33:46 So I'll give an example of what I mean, and, and I wanna unravel this with you because I think that's very common.

Humble The Poet 33:50 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 33:50 The amount of friends I have that are girls recently that have said that's happened to them-

Humble The Poet 33:54 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:54 ... numerous.

Humble The Poet 33:55 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 33:57 So what's happening is I'm trying to win you over, but you're allowing me to win you over. You're also not doing the checking as to whether I'm for real or questioning that.

Humble The Poet 34:10 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 34:11 So I guess what I'm asking is, if you're on the receiving end

Jay Shetty 34:14 of someone love bombing you-

Humble The Poet 34:15 Yeah

Jay Shetty 34:16 ... and trying to impress you and trying to win you over, what do you do in order to make sure that you are actually taking things slower? Because what ends up happening is you fall in love too fast. That person then walks away, and then you go, "Oh, but I thought we had something."

Humble The Poet 34:31 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 34:31 So how do you avoid that?

Humble The Poet 34:33 I think you have to be intentional with what you're looking for, okay? If I don't, you know, if I don't know you, I'm gonna love bomb you based off what I think your values are. You know, let's say, oh, I think based on the fact that she's wearing a, a pair of expensive shoes, I need to seem like I have a lot of money, so I'm gonna pull out the Rolex. I'm gonna pull out the nice car. That's what I think matters to her. I don't know.

Jay Shetty 34:54 Mm.

Humble The Poet 34:55 And maybe for her-

Jay Shetty 34:56 Maybe

Humble The Poet 34:56 ... she, you know, she's looking for the spark, you know, which I think is a whole other conversation in itself. I think the best thing to do is abandon this idea of the spark and, and, and instead actually ask yourself what do you want in a person. So the activity that, that I was required to do in my therapy was I had to relive my entire love life. I had to write it all down, and then when I read it, any time I felt warm or I felt some love, I had to highlight it, and that's how I began to figure out what I specifically want.

Jay Shetty 35:29 Mm.

Humble The Poet 35:29 I think generically everybody kind of wants the same things.

Jay Shetty 35:32 Well, everyone goes like, "Good-looking, good sense of humor." Like, everyone says the same thing.

Humble The Poet 35:36 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 35:36 I literally went on the streets a couple of weeks ago, or a coup- maybe a month ago now, and I was asking people, "What are the top three things you're looking for some-

Humble The Poet 35:43 Yeah

Jay Shetty 35:43 ... look for someone?" And they were like, "A nice smile, good sense of humor." And like, I was like, really? Like, literally-

Humble The Poet 35:49 Yeah

Jay Shetty 35:49 ... everyone said the same thing. So yeah, sorry, carry on. Yeah.

Humble The Poet 35:51 No, no, completely.

Jay Shetty 35:51 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 35:51 But, and, and, and again, I'm guilty of that as well, but the next question is you're t- where you're focused on the details and not the feelings. So the q- next question should be what does a nice smile make you feel? What do good looks make you feel? What does knowing somebody is rich make you feel? That's your, that's your actual list.

Jay Shetty 36:11 Mm, that's great.

Humble The Poet 36:12 I, you know, no one, like, "Oh, I want him to be rich." Why? "Well, that, that's gonna make me feel like I'm secure."

Jay Shetty 36:19 Mm.

Humble The Poet 36:19 You know, that makes me feel I'm taken care of. So what you want is not someone who's rich. You want someone that you know will take care of you.

Jay Shetty 36:25 Mm.

Humble The Poet 36:25 Now, there can be people who may not have the juiciest bank account, but their energy, their effort, their determination, you can just see it in their eyes. You can see it on their day-to-day activity. You can always put your money on that person. They're always gonna show up. That'll give, that'll, that'll scratch that same itch

Jay Shetty 36:39 Mm.

Humble The Poet 36:39 And I think when we get very specific with what we care about and, and how it makes us feel, now that love bombing just won't work.

Jay Shetty 36:48 Yes.

Humble The Poet 36:48 You know?

Jay Shetty 36:49 Yes.

Humble The Poet 36:49 Because they're, they're going based off of things that they think are kind of generic. And as I said, like, we have this generic idea of what beauty is, you know? But we- beauty isn't that.

Jay Shetty 36:59 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 36:59 You know, for some, for one, some person might be watching me right now thinking I'm super handsome. Somebody else may not, and that's completely okay. Everyone's allowed to have their own taste, but the feelings are what we're actually chasing. Even when we think about a person of the past, an ex, we don't miss them. We miss the way they made us feel.

Jay Shetty 37:15 Mm.

Humble The Poet 37:16 We can carry that feeling forward and require that as we get to know somebody.

Jay Shetty 37:21 Mm.

Humble The Poet 37:21 Can you establish all those feelings and, and, and those markers in a, in a first date? No. And I don't think you should.

Jay Shetty 37:27 Mm.

Humble The Poet 37:28 You know, I think it is important to be open to people. Give them about, give them that opportunity and see if they can elicit those feelings, and I don't think love bombing, someone can be clever enough to love bomb you through those feelings.

Jay Shetty 37:38 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 37:39 Because love bombing is not gonna tap into, uh, a pathway of love. It's gonna tap into this fast food version of it, the attention, the validation-

Jay Shetty 37:47 Mm-hmm

Humble The Poet 37:48 ... making you seem like you matter. Um, you know, I, I read one of these posts recently that said, "Listen, stop bragging that you were chosen over somebody else. Most likely you were chosen 'cause you have less boundaries."

Jay Shetty 37:57 Wow.

Humble The Poet 37:58 You know, so this isn't a brag-worthy thing. And again, our media, our songs, all the things, you know, making us seem like, you know, we should be competing for each other. All of this stuff, it informs what we think matters.

Jay Shetty 38:10 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 38:10 You know, we have this idea of the knight in shining armor and the damsel in distress. Like, I went deep to try to figure out where that... That came from real life. Back in feudal societies, the only social mobility, you know, a, a man had to, to increase his chances of, of finding a, a, a partner was to join the army.

Jay Shetty 38:29 Mm.

Humble The Poet 38:30 You know, 'cause if he grew up on a farm, you know, there wasn't access to education or anything. He had to join the army, potentially come back a hero.

Jay Shetty 38:36 Mm.

Humble The Poet 38:36 And now that he's a hero, he will have more, more opportunities in an arranged marriage society as well to choose from. So now it's like be chosen and be chased, and I think that, that, that dog and cat situation right now is really making us focus on external things. Whereas if we are grounded in who we are, develop a, a healthier relationship, initially it's gonna close us off to a lot of people who aren't on this journey of self-awareness. But in the long run, it'll allow us to be that very minority now who stay in healthy relationships throughout their life.

Jay Shetty 39:12 Wow, man. If you're listening right now or watching, I'm talking to Humble The Poet. The book is called How to Be Loved, uh, by Humble The Poet: Simple Truths for Going Easier on Yourself, Embracing Imperfection, and Loving Your Way to a Better Life. Make sure you go and order a copy while you're listening. Uh, this conversation's blowing my mind. It better be blowing yours, too. And I think there's just so many, you know, huge insights that, that I'm taking away from you, listening to you today because ultimately you're demanding a sense of vigilance from a person. I think we're all still living in that very basic sense of I just wanna be validated, I wanna be complimented, I wanna be appreciated. So as long as someone's doing that, we must be in love.

Humble The Poet 39:56 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 39:57 They must be kind. They must be nice, and that's too shallow. Like, it's too... It, it's not a healthy way of inferring whether someone feels good about you, and it's funny because it can be really intoxicating.

Humble The Poet 40:11 Yes.

Jay Shetty 40:11 Like, it can be really intoxicating that you lose all sight of reality, and you think, "Well, this must be love," or, "This must be the truth." I guess

Jay Shetty 40:21 how do people slow down the idea of falling in love when, like you said, it's sold as so important and special-

Humble The Poet 40:31 Yeah

Jay Shetty 40:31 ... and we're so desperate for it almost-

Humble The Poet 40:35 Yeah

Jay Shetty 40:35 ... right? Like, we're wired to just want it now. How do you kind of take your time, as you're saying? And I read a study that said it takes 200 hours to get to know someone.

Humble The Poet 40:47 Mm.

Jay Shetty 40:48 And when I saw that number, I thought, "Well, how many people in my adult life have I spent 200 hours with?"

Humble The Poet 40:56 Damn.

Jay Shetty 40:56 And I was thinking not many people have I spent 200 hours with.

Humble The Poet 41:00 Yeah. I don't even think we have 200 hours.

Jay Shetty 41:02 I don't think so either.

Humble The Poet 41:03 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 41:03 And so, you know, when you, when you start thinking about that, you're like, wow. And, and we're all trying to fall in love in, like, two months. I think the study said that men say, "I love you" after, like, three months, and women take maybe four to six months to say, "I love you."

Humble The Poet 41:18 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 41:19 But that's quick.

Humble The Poet 41:20 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 41:20 So how do you kinda slow this process down, and what do you do in that slowness? Because as me and you know, this isn't just about how many months you've been together.

Humble The Poet 41:28 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 41:29 It's, it's more than that.

Humble The Poet 41:30 Completely. I, I think the big realization that I have is chasing the delicious will, will never bring you around the nutritious, and I think that-

Jay Shetty 41:38 [laughs] I like that. Yeah

Humble The Poet 41:39 ... you know, and that's really what this is. So when when you, when you say the val- you know, the validation is addicting, it is. It's, it's salty french fries-

Jay Shetty 41:46 Yeah

Humble The Poet 41:46 ... and you can't just have one. But you, you do this long enough, you're gonna feel like crap.

Jay Shetty 41:51 Mm.

Humble The Poet 41:51 You know? And now if you've been eating french fries all day and now someone goes, "Here, here's a plate full of broccoli," it's going to be an adjustment. And, and that's what I'm saying here. You have to establish a healthy relationship with yourself-

Jay Shetty 42:03 Mm

Humble The Poet 42:03 ... or you will be incapable of having a healthy relationship with anybody else. I had a friend yesterday tell me, "If I break up with my boyfriend and he doesn't call me nine times panicking, then he doesn't love me 'cause he's not fighting for me." I was like, "First off, he's not fighting for you."

Jay Shetty 42:19 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 42:19 You know, the only reason he's calling you nine times, 'cause he is super anxious.

Jay Shetty 42:23 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 42:23 That's, he's trying to suppress anxiety. That's not, there's no love in this conversation at all. And what we have to understand is we have, again, the Bobbys and Whitneys, the Rosses and Rachels. All of these things that we see, you know, even our, including our parents. You know, our first models of love were those who raised us, and they were imperfect beings.

Jay Shetty 42:41 Mm.

Humble The Poet 42:42 You know? And now we often find ourselves attracted to what's familiar-

Jay Shetty 42:47 Mm

Humble The Poet 42:47 ... over what's actually healthy.

Jay Shetty 42:49 Mm.

Humble The Poet 42:49 You know? And if you're- ... parents, if your mom or your father was hard to impress, you're gonna find yourself being gravitated towards somebody who's hard to impress, you know? If you were a caregiver in the house and you want someone that you can take care of. And again, it- it's building this awareness. It's understanding that I can keep doing this. Again, I can keep eating fast food every single day, and it'll feel like sustenance, but it will take a toll on me.

Jay Shetty 43:12 Mm.

Humble The Poet 43:13 And all of this stuff will exhaust us, you know? Versus taking the long route, which is, "Hey, I need to establish my relationship with myself."

Jay Shetty 43:22 Mm.

Humble The Poet 43:22 "I need to actually have a clear definition of what I want in a partner." And the deeper I go with that, the more unique it is. I shouldn't be in a room full of five people and we all have the exact same wish list for a dream partner.

Jay Shetty 43:35 Mm.

Humble The Poet 43:35 It should be very specific based off our experiences, based off what we care about, and based off where we're headed in our lives. One of the analogies I use, especially for my last relationship that didn't work, is I don't have a bad thing to say about that person, but we weren't going where I needed to go in that relationship. And it's like if I gotta go to Boston and there's a beautiful private jet going to Hawaii, I can't get on that jet.

Jay Shetty 43:57 Mm.

Humble The Poet 43:57 You know? If there's another amazing limo going to Florida, I can't get on that. If the only tr- if the only vehicle going to Boston is a bike, I have to get on the bike.

Jay Shetty 44:05 Mm.

Humble The Poet 44:06 But the first question is, do I know where I'm going or where I want to go?

Jay Shetty 44:09 Mm.

Humble The Poet 44:09 And I think for everybody right now, if you feel alone, you cannot outsource that.

Jay Shetty 44:15 Mm.

Humble The Poet 44:15 You cannot address that on the outside. And now we do live in a world where, okay, you make the decision to get someone else to make you feel less lonely. You build a life together, you share a mortgage together, you have a bunch of kids together, and now you're just in that world. And then you, you know, you're doing external things to medicate from that as well. And the challenge with that is as this modern life gets more and more convenient, most of the things that we use to medicate ourselves turn into weapons against us as well.

Jay Shetty 44:41 Mm.

Humble The Poet 44:41 You know? It's a lot easier to get access to alcohol. It's a lot easier to get access to any substances or junk food, which are quick, easy, convenient, and cheap. So w- instead, let's focus on what's nutritious, and we all, everybody listening, knows what's nutritious for them. They know the people when they're around that fill them up with energy instead of the people that they're around that drain them.

Jay Shetty 45:03 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 45:03 They know the places. They know the activities. We're all aware of those. It's taking the long route because the long route lasts longer, you know? It takes longer to get there, but it'll last longer. And these short bits of like, I just need to feel like I matter to somebody because my entire life I didn't feel like it, that has to get addressed. And that has to get addressed through journal writing, potentially therapy, potentially coaching. But, and all of that is getting us out of black and white thinking and encouraging us to be more self-aware.

Jay Shetty 45:32 What I'm hearing is like there's a big difference between people that feel good for us and then people that are good for us.

Humble The Poet 45:43 Yes.

Jay Shetty 45:44 And we're so addicted and obsessed with what feels good-

Humble The Poet 45:48 Mm

Jay Shetty 45:49 ... that we're not able to focus on what is good because we're almost compelled to be like, "Well, this person feels great. They look great. They sound great. My friends think they're great. My parents think they're awesome. The world thinks really highly of them. They must be the right person."

Humble The Poet 46:08 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 46:08 Rather than what you're saying. And, and all I'm ke- all I keep hearing in everything you're saying is like there is just so much work to do individually and personally and simultaneously in being in a relationship. There's just so much reflection. There's reflecting on the way your parents loved you. There's reflecting on your exes. There's refle- which is what you've been doing through this whole book journey.

Humble The Poet 46:28 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 46:28 There's reflecting on like how you got here. There's reflecting on where you're going. Like there's just so much reflection and introspection required, and most people just wanna throw the towel in because it's exhausting. It can be hard. But I guess what we both agree on is that it's a ha- a lot harder to not do the work.

Humble The Poet 46:48 Yeah. It, it's the pain of the work or the pain of the regret.

Jay Shetty 46:50 Mm.

Humble The Poet 46:51 You know? It, it's one or the other. And I think also, you know, the subtitle says going easier on yourself. Look, nobody is weak. You know, if I open up a bag of salty potato chips and I give you one and you want, you're not weak for wanting another one.

Jay Shetty 47:05 Mm.

Humble The Poet 47:05 You know? And for people who eat really healthy, they understand that that's not having unhealthy food in the kitchen. That's leaving it at the grocery store.

Jay Shetty 47:11 Mm.

Humble The Poet 47:12 You know? And you do that long enough, you can start to change your taste and, you know. Personal story, you showed me your snack drawer, and you pointed to a bunch of things that were delicious, and then after trying them I was like, "Oh, this is all super healthy." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 47:25 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 47:26 His definition, his definition of delicious is way healthier than mine.

Jay Shetty 47:29 Well, that's 'cause my wife, yeah. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 47:30 Yeah. But, and, and, and, and I've seen that before 'cause we can actually change our taste, you know?

Jay Shetty 47:35 Mm.

Humble The Poet 47:36 Addiction, we all have addictions, you know? And there's, to go th- from a bad place to a better place, we have to travel through a worse place.

Jay Shetty 47:45 Mm.

Humble The Poet 47:46 And the, the, the multiple addictions we have, whether we're addicted to a person, whether we're addicted to social media, all of it falls under the exact same category of unintended rewards.

Jay Shetty 47:56 Mm.

Humble The Poet 47:56 I scroll through my phone, see a bunch of stuff that makes me feel insecure, see a bunch of news that heightens my anxiety. Oh, look, a cute puppy. Aw, it was all worth it.

Jay Shetty 48:05 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 48:06 You know? That's no different than gambling on a slot machine. You just keep pulling it, and then all of a sudden a reward comes. That's no different than being in an abusive relationship. The bad days are really bad, but the good days, we don't know when they're coming, but they feel euphoric.

Jay Shetty 48:17 Mm.

Humble The Poet 48:18 And getting ourselves out of that I think is really important. It's like if I'm like, "Ooh, I'm, I'm in the mood to have, to go to this fast food restaurant. I'm, I'm, I'm so in the mood to..." I go. I eat it. How long does the satisfaction from that actually last?

Jay Shetty 48:31 Mm.

Humble The Poet 48:31 And also, when things feel good, they're not, you know, our rollercoaster isn't going super high and super low, so it's hard to even pay attention to that. How is... You know, we don't notice when we're not feeling anxiety because it's not a feeling.

Jay Shetty 48:45 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 48:45 And I think we have to really be mindful of that because we're not in a world that, that is designed- Or encouraging us to make these healthy decisions because this world just needs us to, to run on fumes, contribute to its economy, work, work, work, work, work. Keep up with everybody else. If you're sleepy, have some caffeine. If you're too hyped up, have a Xanax. Take them both different times and it's like, just contribute. And being aware of ourselves means we would find a lot of, you know, we'll, we'll realize, and the reason the cover it says, says How to Be Loved with a D in parenthesis, is the only way to realize love is to be love.

Jay Shetty 49:24 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 49:25 Is to realize you are the source of love. And when you're the source of love, you're not gonna be going out and doing retail therapy. When you're the source of love, you're not gonna be, you know, traveling halfway across the city to take an Instagram photo to count your likes. When you realize you're a source of love and that you can give it to everybody, and it's a gift.

Jay Shetty 49:42 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 49:42 It's not a loan.

Jay Shetty 49:43 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 49:43 You're not giving it hoping it comes back. You're giving it 'cause you're overflowing with it. The same way you would give it to a baby. It doesn't need to be reciprocated. The more we realize that, the less we need it from the outside world. And a- as I said, nothing is designed around that. We just have to, again, keep this junk food out of our kitchen, keep it out of our homes, and not be hard or critical on ourselves when we falter or when we have a bad day. The, the last chapter of this book, I specifically say I am... All I'm doing, I am not a love guru. I, I'm, I'm a kid who, I am somebody who's desperately trying to understand this, 'cause I've made mistakes in my life. I'm the kid at the front of the class taking notes.

Jay Shetty 50:22 Mm.

Humble The Poet 50:22 And at the end of the day, all I'm telling you is the difference between french fries and broccoli. And while I'm telling you the difference, I'm eating some french fries and I'm eating some broccoli.

Jay Shetty 50:30 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 50:31 You know? [laughs]

Jay Shetty 50:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Humble The Poet 50:32 And that's important. I think, and, and, and for, for you and I, we both know this, being in, uh, being embraced in the wellness community, you know, over on this side of the ocean, everything's very linear.

Jay Shetty 50:43 Mm.

Humble The Poet 50:44 They're like, "Hey, I used to be really messed up, and then I learned all this stuff-

Jay Shetty 50:49 Mm

Humble The Poet 50:49 ... and now I'm awesome. And for three payments of $19.95, you could be awesome, too."

Jay Shetty 50:54 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 50:54 And I think for guys like us, we're more in the cycle.

Jay Shetty 50:57 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 50:57 And like, hey, I messed up. I figured out what the problem was. I learned some stuff. I'm sharing what I'm learning. I'm still struggling with stuff, but I'm gonna continue this journey.

Jay Shetty 51:06 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 51:06 And it's a cycle. I'm gonna have my winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Jay Shetty 51:09 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 51:09 And that's gonna be a constant thing, and I'm gonna be constantly working on it. Join me on that journey.

Jay Shetty 51:14 Mm.

Humble The Poet 51:15 And let's compare notes. Let's compare best practices. Um, and let's realize that we're not a l- 'cause we're critical when we think we're the only one.

Jay Shetty 51:23 Mm.

Humble The Poet 51:23 Unrelated to love, I remember finding, you know, finding an accountant and having so much anxiety 'cause I was an artist for so long and didn't do any taxes or anything. You know, he helped me out in an hour, and then told someone that story, realizing that they had the same anxiety, and told someone else, and they had that anxiety. There's a lot of anxiety that people have, and they, they feel shame-

Jay Shetty 51:42 Mm

Humble The Poet 51:42 ... and guilt that they're the only ones going through it. And I think the more we reveal this stuff, the more we have these conversations openly, you know? It may not get us a lot of likes on Instagram, um, and, and, and it may scare away some people who want, who have an idea of who they think we are. And, and for me, one of the biggest lessons I learned in the last year was more damaging than any criticism I've ever received were the compliments. 'Cause the compliments put me in a cage.

Jay Shetty 52:09 Mm.

Humble The Poet 52:10 It was one friend that said, "Yo, Humble, nothing ever bothers this guy. This guy's always cool. He's always calm." And then I wanted to live up to that.

Jay Shetty 52:17 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 52:18 And I almost crumbled with that facade.

Jay Shetty 52:20 Wow.

Humble The Poet 52:21 You know? And that became a, reputations themselves can, can, can become a prison. So we need to do our best to break out of those, knowing that half the time those reputations we create were there to protect us, and we don't realize now they're imprisoning us.

Jay Shetty 52:35 I mean, that's a whole nother level of deep. [laughs]

Humble The Poet 52:37 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 52:38 Like, yeah.

Humble The Poet 52:39 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 52:39 No, it's so true. It's so true. I, you know, I was just in the studio recording my Calm meditations.

Humble The Poet 52:45 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 52:45 And so we, once a month, I'm in the studio for, like, four or five days a week, four or five hours at a time, to do a month of content for, for my daily meditations on Calm. And me and the crew have a really good, like, uh, banter.

Humble The Poet 52:59 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 52:59 So there's a producer in the studio, there's a sound engineer in the studio, and there's two sound engineers, uh, remote. But it's the same team we work with every month, and I've worked with them for 12 months now, nearly. And it's, we have such great banter, and all we do is lay into each other. We're joking around, and then I'm teaching meditation at the same time.

Humble The Poet 53:18 Mm.

Jay Shetty 53:18 And I kinda set that culture from the beginning, where I was joking around with everyone, messing around with everyone, for that same reason that I don't wanna be perceived as a guru. And, and I'll often go out my way to talk about soccer or FIFA or whatever it may be-

Humble The Poet 53:33 Yeah

Jay Shetty 53:34 ... just because, under- and I love soccer and FIFA. Like, that's a real genuine love for me. But I'll do that in order to get away from this kind of pedestal, because what I've realized is everyone's a theist. Like, everyone's looking for God in their own way.

Humble The Poet 53:49 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 53:49 Whether your God is your football team or whether your God is your favorite restaurant or your God is a person.

Humble The Poet 53:55 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 53:55 And so everyone's looking for God in some way or the other, and we keep projecting God-like imagery onto people, and then they let us down. And everyone will let you down. There isn't anyone who'll live up to that God-like imagery. And then we almost make it like it's a fault in them-

Humble The Poet 54:10 Yeah

Jay Shetty 54:11 ... as opposed to realizing that it was a fault in a vision-

Humble The Poet 54:14 Yeah

Jay Shetty 54:14 ... that, that someone could be that way. It's hard to feel that pressure on yourself.

Humble The Poet 54:20 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:20 Like what you're saying, like, if Humble's always the calm, collected guy-

Humble The Poet 54:23 Yeah

Jay Shetty 54:23 ... that's like a God-like projection.

Humble The Poet 54:25 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:26 None of us are always calm. I'm definitely not always calm. Uh, I'm definitely not always, uh, you know, thoughtful and reflective. I c- I can be irrita- irritable and irritated. Uh, so yeah, I, I love that idea of breaking your own reputation for yourself.

Humble The Poet 54:45 And, and I think just

Humble The Poet 54:46 a reminder that it will not disqualify you from love.

Jay Shetty 54:49 Mm.

Humble The Poet 54:50 Um, there is a four-minute compilation video on YouTube of Beyoncé falling offstage.

Jay Shetty 54:55 Mm.

Humble The Poet 54:56 And I challenge anyone to watch it and think if it changes their love for her in any capacity. It doesn't.

Jay Shetty 55:01 If anything, it increases your love

Humble The Poet 55:03 It increases it. And, and, and again, going back to our, our village small tribe days, this was, this is also a survival tactic.

Jay Shetty 55:10 Mm.

Humble The Poet 55:10 It's you had to find the best hunter and start to emulate them and almost worship them because you would hunt like them-

Jay Shetty 55:17 Mm

Humble The Poet 55:17 ... and that would be good for the whole tribe. But not only would we start hunting like them, we would start dressing like them, walking like them, talking like them, you know? And that's spilled into our culture where it's like, I love the way LeBron James plays basketball. I love the way Steph Curry plays basketball, but now I'm also gonna drink whatever beverage he drinks.

Jay Shetty 55:34 Mm.

Humble The Poet 55:34 I'm also gonna wear the shoes he wears.

Jay Shetty 55:35 Mm.

Humble The Poet 55:36 And then also they're encouraged to not film their practice-

Jay Shetty 55:40 Mm

Humble The Poet 55:40 ... and just let us see them become superhuman on stage in front of us.

Jay Shetty 55:46 Mm.

Humble The Poet 55:46 We don't watch them to be good. We watch them to get better.

Jay Shetty 55:49 Mm.

Humble The Poet 55:50 So this also puts in this message that perfection is something that you want. But again, perfection is, is not real. These people aren't perfect. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. And that's important for us not to be perfect-

Jay Shetty 56:03 Mm

Humble The Poet 56:03 ... 'cause that's the only way we can actually be vulnerable and have these meaningful connections.

Jay Shetty 56:07 Mm.

Humble The Poet 56:07 And knowing, you know, as, and, and it's having these conversations, especially having conversations with people who are on social media that don't even have... They're not even public figures, and they still refer to the people.

Jay Shetty 56:20 Mm.

Humble The Poet 56:20 Like, "The people need, the people want to see where I'm going on vacation." And you're like, "Who is the people?" [laughs]

Jay Shetty 56:26 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 56:27 And the big, and the big thing I, I've been thinking about, you know, recently is this concept of, again, getting out of the black and white thinking. You know, there are rewards and punishments. Society and social media and your friends groups will reward certain behavior, and it can be subtle. And you can see that your parents growing up, they rewarded certain behavior. We have to realize that not receiving a reward is not the same as a punishment.

Jay Shetty 56:53 Mm.

Humble The Poet 56:54 You know? So when people say, "Society expects me to be beautiful," you may be right. I'm not gonna argue with that. Society, I can't tell someone what signals and cues they get. But what I can tell you is if you decide not to play the game, you won't be punished. If anything, you'll be left alone.

Jay Shetty 57:09 Mm.

Humble The Poet 57:09 You know? If I don't play social media the way it needs to get played, I may not grow, but they're not gonna blow up my phone-

Jay Shetty 57:16 Mm

Humble The Poet 57:16 ... you know, and, you know, and, and, and make it impossible for me to exist. I just may not get any more rewards.

Jay Shetty 57:22 Mm.

Humble The Poet 57:22 And I think that's important to understand that not getting a reward is not a punishment. Let's get out of that black and white thinking. And then again, we can be a little bit easier on ourselves, a little bit more liberated because the, maintaining these expectations, expectations are gonna only close more pathways to love, expectations from other people, expectations of ourselves. What we have to do is just have intentions, which is I wanna get better every day, you know?

Jay Shetty 57:47 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 57:47 And that progress is something that we can celebrate, breeds self-respect, and we can also do that with other people.

Jay Shetty 57:54 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 57:54 We can set intentions of what we want things to be, and those intentions will also include our boundaries.

Jay Shetty 57:59 Oh, man, so powerful. I wanna, I wanna talk about, we've talked a lot about, like, finding love within yourself, you know, being alone, finding that inner growth, that confidence. We've talked a lot about meeting the right person. How do you know whether to figure out if someone's right for you, knowing what you want in someone? I'm intrigued by, you know, when we have been in a relationship for a long time, and you were in a long relationship-

Humble The Poet 58:23 Yeah

Jay Shetty 58:23 ... that inspired you to write this book, and you find, as you said, you're going those separate ways. Like, you wanna go to Boston, private jet going to Hawaii. Sometimes we spend longer in a relationship trying to figure out whether it's going to last than we do in actually building it, making it last.

Humble The Poet 58:42 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 58:42 So we're questioning a relationship-

Humble The Poet 58:44 Mm

Jay Shetty 58:44 ... for longer than we're creating a relationship.

Humble The Poet 58:46 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 58:47 So if someone's in that phase of their life, what are some of the things that you thought about? What are some of the things you discovered in the writing of this book that you'd encourage them to reflect on or introspect on?

Humble The Poet 58:59 Without playing the blame game, let's always focus on where we can take responsibility-

Jay Shetty 59:03 Mm

Humble The Poet 59:03 ... 'cause that's where we'll have power. In any situation, you know, if somebody rear-ends my car, that's not my fault-

Jay Shetty 59:10 Mm

Humble The Poet 59:10 ... but it's still my responsibility.

Jay Shetty 59:12 Mm.

Humble The Poet 59:12 I gotta go to the mechanic. I gotta go handle insurance. And I think in our conflicts with people, we have to look at our responsibilities as well, and I think that's super important. In these situations, when we look at our responsibility, what we can start to focus on is love as the verb.

Jay Shetty 59:25 Mm.

Humble The Poet 59:26 Love through service. One of the simple things that I realized was like, okay, when I feel enthusiastic about somebody, I wanna share my world with them.

Jay Shetty 59:34 Mm.

Humble The Poet 59:34 That doesn't build a connection as much as me enthusiastically diving into their world.

Jay Shetty 59:39 So true, man.

Humble The Poet 59:40 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 59:40 So well said.

Humble The Poet 59:41 And this doesn't just apply to romantic relationships. This can be you and your grandkid.

Jay Shetty 59:44 Mm.

Humble The Poet 59:44 This can be you and your siblings. This can be you and a coworker. You know, these relationships, it's we make them about ourselves because we wanna find that value, but we'll gain more value and build stronger connections when we dive into the other person's world-

Jay Shetty 59:57 Mm-hmm

Humble The Poet 59:58 ... and start to see that. Now, for some people, communication, I think, you know, communication is key, you know? Like, everything needs to be a conversation. We need to become more aware as a couple as well about what we have expectations of because so often it's a template. Having a conversation with somebody yesterday, even, like, the definition of things. What's the definition of cheating? Everyone has different definitions, you know? And if somebody's like, "Oh, wait, well, it's physical," but then for somebody else it might be emotional.

Jay Shetty 1:00:25 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:00:26 You know? And that is something that, you know, these are uncomfortable conversations need to happen. For, for, for folks like us, we grew up around arranged marriages.

Jay Shetty 1:00:33 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:00:33 And I think the one thing that I always thought was cool about arranged marriages is they ask a lot of the inconvenient, uncomfortable questions.

Jay Shetty 1:00:39 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 1:00:40 They ask those up from the jump, you know? Family history, medical history, finances, all of this type of stuff. But I think all these uncomfortable conversations which we think, you know, will just kind of fall into place. Uh, Jordan Peterson talks about this. He goes, "Have a definition of what a made bed looks like."

Jay Shetty 1:00:56 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:00:56 "Have a definition of what, you know, the rules are at the breakfast table." You know, in- including yourself Recognizing the micro issues that can become bigger issues-

Jay Shetty 1:01:07 Yeah

Humble The Poet 1:01:07 ... and you address them. You nip them at the bud, you know? And I think those are really interesting things to do. Um, I love the Shirley Glass analogy too, which is walls and windows, which is when you're in a romantic relationship with somebody, there is a window between you. So first, acknowledge there is a window. So now let's not look at that other person as our possession. Let's look at them as someone who's opened a window to us, and we have, uh, access to them. And then we need to create a wall around us. 'Cause the moment somebody outside gets a better view of what's happening on the inside, that can be a really strong definition of infidelity.

Jay Shetty 1:01:40 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:01:41 You know, whether it's physical or not.

Jay Shetty 1:01:43 Wow.

Humble The Poet 1:01:43 So I think that's a really important thing to understand. This is not your person. This is somebody who's giving you access to them, and now you can con- continually strengthen that relationship. And I think the other one is love is a game, but the goal of the game is not to win. The goal of the game is to keep it fun so everybody keeps wanting to play. So treat it like a game, but treat it where the, the goal is for every... You want to keep everybody in the room wanting to play. And I think that's important because when we get into battles or disagreements, the disagreements turn into something else very quickly. And there's something called the do- uh, the bagel method or donut method, depending on what you like better.

Jay Shetty 1:02:21 [laughs] Donuts. Donuts.

Humble The Poet 1:02:21 You have, uh, donuts. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:02:23 Donuts. Donuts.

Humble The Poet 1:02:24 And you have the small circle, and you have the big circle. Whenever there's a disagreement, the small circle is where you should identify... And this is from the Gottman Institute. I'm not taking credit for this one. But the small circle is where you identify your non- your actual non-negotiables.

Jay Shetty 1:02:36 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:02:36 Me and you are gonna go to dinner. What are the actual non-negotiables? You're vegan. That's an actual non-negotiable. Now all the... Everything else becomes a lot clearer, or there might be three, four more things. Um, maybe had Mexican yesterday, so today we're not, we're not going for Mexican. Don't wanna have carbs, so I don't wanna do pasta or what have you. Doing that for yourself first prepares you to communicate to somebody else.

Jay Shetty 1:03:01 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:03:02 And I think that's really important. So often we expect people to just know us-

Jay Shetty 1:03:07 Mm

Humble The Poet 1:03:07 ... just understand us, read our minds. Dude, all we've been talking about is self-awareness, and it's an endless journey. We don't even know us.

Jay Shetty 1:03:15 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:03:16 I don't know me. How can I expect you to know me? And then when you do know me, through your observations of me externally, recognize that you're on my team, and you're telling me these things for the benefit of, of, of us.

Jay Shetty 1:03:28 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:03:28 When there's a problem, it should not be me versus the other person. It should be us versus the problem.

Jay Shetty 1:03:33 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:03:33 And the, the big idea in explaining all of this is realizing that love is fuel, not glue. Love doesn't keep us together. Love is what we use to work at it, and this applies to romantic relationships, our relationship with our coworkers, our friends, our family. We have to work at it. We sometimes feel like it's autopilot because especially, I know Brown boys and their moms, we get this unconditional love just for existing.

Jay Shetty 1:04:00 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 1:04:00 That can't be what we're looking for in our romantic relationships. There, there needs to be conditions, and then we need to stay... We, we need to be on our toes putting in energy and effort, you know? And I think that's really important where, you know, back to what, what I've learned from you through the Gita, you are only entitled to the labor.

Jay Shetty 1:04:18 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 1:04:19 And that labor in itself should be the reward-

Jay Shetty 1:04:21 Mm

Humble The Poet 1:04:21 ... not the outcome of that labor.

Jay Shetty 1:04:23 Mm-hmm.

Humble The Poet 1:04:23 And in these relationships saying, "I, I love you, and I want to serve you, and serving you is the point of reve-" And this is where the love is revealed.

Jay Shetty 1:04:34 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:04:34 You know? Love is, uh, going back to the original, you don't win love. You don't find love. The love is already there. You're doing the work. So the analogy I like to use is love is the breeze, and the work that we're doing is to open our sails. You know? I struggled in my last situation 'cause I could not receive love. It wasn't that there wasn't love there. It was my inability to open my sails because of the walls, the lack of vulnerability, my need to win in an argument, my need to, to be in control, my s- silly ideas that there might be something better out there. All of these ideas, I realized that it was me.

Jay Shetty 1:05:09 Mm.

Humble The Poet 1:05:09 I had my door closed. I had my sails closed to the breeze that was always there. When we do that work, and that by default will create a better relationship with ourselves, which will inform every single relationship we have around us.

Jay Shetty 1:05:22 Master class, man.

Humble The Poet 1:05:23 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:05:23 Master class. I want everyone to know, uh, when you open up this book, because you're gonna order it straight after this conversation if you haven't already, uh, there are chapters in here that will blow your mind. Uh, I wanna share some of them with you. We've talked about a lot of them today, but there's a lot we have not talked about. So we have... We, we discussed thi- oh, this one we did not talk about. Love and ego won't hold hands. Definitely go and read that chapter. Uh, chapter 18, envy pulls us away from love. Uh, definitely want you to go and check out that chapter. Uh, this one is, is one that really struck out to me. Uh, they can only love us for yesterday.

Humble The Poet 1:06:03 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:06:04 Uh, love is saying no. There are some phenomenal chapters in this book. Uh, I highly recommend it. The book is called How to Be Loved, uh, [laughs] uh: Simple Truths for Going Easier on Yourself, Embracing Imperfection, and Loving Your Way to a Better Life. Humble, this has been... I mean, th- we should record our conversations more often 'cause I'm like, this has even been one of those, like, it's been a really fun, like... What I love doing with you, which we've done today, which we do in real life all the time, is we, like, really unpack stuff.

Humble The Poet 1:06:35 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:06:36 And we kind of, like, critically analyze stuff, and we kind of try and, like, break down as much as we can-

Humble The Poet 1:06:41 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:06:41 ... to try and get to the core of what we're talking about. Is there something that

Jay Shetty 1:06:45 I haven't asked you about today or that you feel compelled to share with our community that's really on your heart that you wanna, uh, uh, pass forward?

Humble The Poet 1:06:52 I mean, as we were reading all the chapters, I want people to know every chapter is only two pages.

Jay Shetty 1:06:55 Yeah, yeah.

Humble The Poet 1:06:55 That's why there's so many chapters.

Jay Shetty 1:06:57 Yeah, yeah.

Humble The Poet 1:06:57 There's, there's over 60 chapters. Um, and, and the way we designed the book, and I would love for you to do it, you can open to any page, and you will find a quote that, that stands out immediately Um, that will give you that. So what does that say? The more we keep our word and act on our commitments, the more momentum we create and the better habits we can build. And, and that is talking about self-love. So all it is, is you can open this book to any page, you'll find something you love. Um, if you read that first chapter, you know, you'll definitely be in tears, as I was in tears writing it. Um, and if you finish this book, you're gonna walk away not considering love complicated. You, you know, love is simple. Not easy. I'm not saying love is easy. I'm saying love is simple. You know, this was a labor of love and a labor to love for me to write and, and I really, really, really appreciate you, you know, opening me up to your community, and all the help that you've done for me even behind the scenes with this, you know. I- it- it taught me... The journey of going through this has taught me a lot in terms of service, in terms of authentic love, and I'm super grateful for that. And thank you so much for having me, man.

Jay Shetty 1:07:57 Of course, brother. I highly recommend this book. As Humble said, it's one of those rare books that you can literally flip to any page and you're gonna find wisdom right there. And so if you're one of those people who needs it made really simple, really accessible, uh, to kind of shake you up, wake you up, you know, take your mind away from distractions, this book is beautifully created for that. I highly recommend this book. Uh, I'm gonna be picking it as one of my books of the month for my Genius community as well. Uh, please, please, please go support Humble. He's an awesome dude as well in real life. Uh, please go follow him on Instagram, on Twitter, on all forms of social media, and make sure that you tag me and Humble with your insights and your takeaways from this episode. I think we really got into some fascinating territory that I didn't even think we would, and I wanna know what your thoughts are on that, what your reflections are on that. So make sure you tag us both on Instagram with your biggest, biggest insights, and I can't wait for you to listen to another episode of On Purpose. Big shout out to Humble for turning up again. Humble was... I mean, I wanna end with this, because you were one of the first guests to ever come on the show. You were in the first couple of months-

Humble The Poet 1:09:08 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:09:08 ... when we launched. And that's really special for me, because when we started the podcast, and when you would have recorded with me, the podcast didn't even exist-

Humble The Poet 1:09:17 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:09:17 ... I don't think.

Humble The Poet 1:09:17 It didn't, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:09:18 And for everyone who believed in me to come on the show back then means the world to me. So the credit goes back to you, because-

Humble The Poet 1:09:24 I mean, I- I remember-

Jay Shetty 1:09:25 I had no-

Humble The Poet 1:09:25 ... when you asked me, I was like, "Me?"

Jay Shetty 1:09:27 [laughs]

Humble The Poet 1:09:27 "You want me on the podcast?" And it was, you know, it, it, it filled my heart. And yeah, it was definitely, you know, there, there was a little kind of a juxtaposition here, like I'm coming to talk to my friend, but this is also the biggest podcast in the world. And it's like the excitement of talking to Jay, but the, the anxiety around being on a podcast. It's, it's, it's just, it really tripped me out a lot, and I, and I appreci- as I said, I appreciate you having me, but I'm so happy and proud. I, I think what I want your audience to know is one of the reasons our conversations go so long is because you are so clear and purpose-driven with what you do that, so you don't, when we... LA is a city full of dreamers, and you are, you are, you're, you're mission-based. So you don't tell me your ambitions, you tell me your mission. And then I watch the mission come to life. And, you know, with most people, you know, your goals should be clear, your strategies can be negotiable. And I think, you know, when you mentioned this podcast or when you mentioned, um, a million of the other things that you, that you're doing, to watch you speak about it, to watch it come to life, and to watch it grow, and to watch it become like in everybody's... People quote you all the time to me, not knowing we know each other. I think recently in an episode you mentioned my name, my phone blows up. And it becomes, and, but it, it just makes me so proud, because this is a, this is purpose-driven, but it takes work. And you have an amazing team helping you do it, and you're consistent with it. And good things happen to people who stick with it. So just like congratulation with this. For me, b- it's being full circle, being, being one of the first episodes and me being here now, seeing all the changes that you do, has been, it's just, it fills my heart.

Jay Shetty 1:11:08 Yeah.

Humble The Poet 1:11:09 That, that, that also lets me know where love exists.

Jay Shetty 1:11:12 Thank you, brother.

Humble The Poet 1:11:12 And I'm so inspired by that.

Jay Shetty 1:11:13 Well, and, and as your friend, and also as someone who, you know, doesn't like to falsely glorify and just pump people up for the sake of it, 'cause I don't see the value in that, in the same way as I don't see the value in criticizing people for no reason-

Humble The Poet 1:11:26 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:11:27 You crushed today, man. Like everything that you shared, there were so many great messages, and I honestly haven't like thought this fast and reflected on so many things this much in a long time. And so you have this unique ability to get me in the zone really quickly too, and I value that friendship so much, man. It's such a rare intellectual pleasure and joy as well that comes through it.

Humble The Poet 1:11:48 Yeah, no, it's, uh, again, it's always fun, man.

Jay Shetty 1:11:49 So thank you, brother.

Humble The Poet 1:11:50 I wish I, you know, I'm glad this is recorded, so I don't need the notepad.

Jay Shetty 1:11:52 Yeah. [laughs] Whoa, everyone else is gonna need a notepad.

Humble The Poet 1:11:55 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:11:55 Uh, but thank you, Humble. Uh, again, everyone, the book is called How to Be Love. Uh, go and grab your copy right now, and thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.