Everybody Dies, But Not Everyone Lives - 5 Life Lessons People Learn Too Late... | Jay Shetty

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 I'm sure a lot of people listening to this, watching it right now, will be thinking, "Hey, good for you, mate. You went off to be a monk. Uh, you went to India. You ... Uh, and we, we'll explore your story there for sure. But I'm busy. You know, I've got my kids to take care of. I'm holding down two jobs. You know, I don't have time to think like a monk." And so if somebody is skeptical and is thinking that at the moment, what would you say to them?

Jay Shetty 0:30 First of all, I'd say if that's how you feel, then you are completely entitled to your opinion, and I respect it. Uh, I, I genuinely have no desire to wanna convince anyone to try a new thing out or a new method that they have very little time for or don't feel the space for. But even if there's a glimpse of an opening in your mind, even if there's a tiny little bit of curiosity where you're like, "I know I don't have time, but I, I think there could be something in this," well, well then, this is what I'd say to you. I'd say that we will continue to create the life that we currently have with the current set of thoughts, wisdom, beliefs, and ideas that we have. And if we're happy on that path, if you could fast-forward your life in 10, 20, 30 years' time, and you'd be satisfied with getting the life that you have right now, then that's great. But if like the majority of people that I know and that I speak to and that I connect with online, the majority of us would look and go, "No, I really want a changed life. I want to be with my kids, but I wanna change how I am with them. I want to be at work, but I want to be more present at work. I want to improve the quality of my life," then I'd say that it's so important that we learn and open up our minds to alternative thoughts. I'll give you an example. There was this great study that MIT did on people's minds' openness and their ability to be creative and innovative, and they looked at two types of people. One person was surrounded by people who all knew the same people, right? Kind of like our normal lives. And the other person was surrounded by lots of people who didn't know each other. And they did the study around who is more creative, more innovative, and has a bigger impact in the workplace, in their professional life, and then a little bit into their personal life as well. And what they found was that those people who knew people who knew each other who knew them back lived in what was known as echo chambers. They were rarely exposed to ideas that improved their way of living or their professional performance. But people who were exposed to ideas that had no connection with other people in their life were able to be more creative, have better ideas, have more purpose, have more meaning in life. So often we become closed in our little spaces around what we hear, what we know about, and we're not exposed to this new sense of ideas, and that's what I would encourage, is just approach it with a tiny bit of curiosity. That's all you need.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:01 Yeah. So beautifully put. I, I absolutely wholeheartedly agree with that, support that. I think, I think the tools in your book frankly will help anyone. There's tools in there that are gonna help me. There's tools in there that will help someone in a different role, a different state of life. Because I think there's a lot of universal themes there. Uh, and I really wanna explore and talk about some practical things throughout this conversation, Jay. But, you know, I'm, I'm interested that many people have a crisis

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:33 in their life from time to time. It might be a, I don't know, midlife crisis, a quarter-life crisis, and, you know, they may go away for a weekend. They may go and buy a new car. But you had a form of crisis, and you went off to be a monk in India, right? So I'd love to understand what happened there. You know, what led you to that? Um, because I think to a lot of people, I wouldn't say it was, it's extreme, but it's going all in, right? And, um, it, it's fantastic because I don't think, until I met you, I don't think I've ever met a monk before.

Jay Shetty 4:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:09 So, you know, maybe you could expand on what happened there.

Jay Shetty 4:12 Yeah, absolutely. And I was gonna say something wrong with it from your earlier question of, you know, the real premise or the real foundation of this book is that you don't need to live like a monk to think like a monk. What I've done is I've taken the lessons and the principles and all the teachings that I had and made them really relevant and practical for modern life. So you don't have to go and do the journey that I did in order to learn some of these. Now, my journey was definitely from a place of curiosity, and it started off not with a sense of pain or stress or pressure in my personal life because I was fairly young at the time, and of course I'd been exposed to the different things you do growing up in a family and normal challenges growing up. But really what it was for me is I was surrounded by a lot of friends that were older than me, and my friends were sometimes two years older, some of them were five years older. Some of them were getting married. Some of them had great jobs. Some of them were making good money. And it's really interesting that they were really honest with me, and they would open up and say to me, "Jay, you know what? I've g- I've got this perfect partner. I've got this perfect job. I've got this perfect situation, but I'm still not happy." And I'd be sitting there as a young teenager going, "How can you not be happy? I mean, you know, you've got a beautiful partner. You're making good money. You drive a nice car. You have a nice home. How is it that you're not satisfied?" And it was so interesting to me to be exposed to a group of people that I thought had it all, but felt like they didn't have anything. And then when I was invited to hear a monk speak, and I was fascinated at the time by hearing CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes. My two first books that I ever read were David Beckham's autobiography and Dwayne The Rock Johnson r- autobiography when he was still in the WWF and the WWE. And, and I was fascinated by rags to riches stories and people who went from nothing to something. And then I was invited to hear a monk speak, and I genuinely had this complete dismissive demeanor about what monks could teach me, and my approach was, "Well, what am I gonna learn from a monk? How to sit still? What has a monk even achieved?" And so when I went to hear this monk speak, I went there with no expectations. But the amazing thing is that I found that someone who had nothing actually had everything. He had contentment. He had satisfaction. He exuded it, and when he spoke, he spoke with such compassion and empathy, and I thought, "I've never heard any of my friends speak like this. I've never experienced someone have this." And now when I reflect back, I realize very clearly that when I was 18, I'd met people who were rich, I'd met people who were beautiful and stunning and attractive, I'd met people who were famous and successful, I'd met people who were really smart and intellectual, but I don't think I'd ever met anyone who was truly happy. And even if you reflect on your own life, anyone who's listening or watching right now, just think about it for a moment. Who in your life would you genuinely say you believe is content and happy and joyful? I'm guessing you could probably count them on your hand, and for me, that monk was the first person that I met that really exuded that, and I wanted to learn more. So for me, it wasn't about being in a major life crisis. It wasn't about things not working out. It was from the perspective of learning through the challenges of my friends, who were thankfully so honest with me, that helped me question what I thought life was all about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:50 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Jay, because, you know, as you, you, as you sort of describe that, I think many of us, I know I have throughout my life, um, looked at various parameters of success. You know, when, when you're a kid growing up, you know, what you're surrounded by influences so much of what you think is possible in the world, and I've... You know, I've said this before, and as a, as a, as a sort of fellow, um, Indian sort of s- the child of an Indian immigrant family in the UK, uh, [laughs] you know, you know the certain pressures and the certain expectations that often come with that. And, you know, if I'm honest, I've often reflected back on this, and I say to people, you know, because being a doctor is deemed, you know, by society as a successful career choice. What I say to people, "You know what?" They say, "Well, you're so lucky. You're so this," and I am lucky, but really I, I was influenced by my childhood. I was influenced by my upbringing because all my parents' friends were doctors. So all the adults I knew pretty much growing up, apart from my schoolteachers, were doctors. So therefore it was an... You know, for me, it was a natural progression to then become a doctor. But I will tell you this. Um, as I become more in tune with what makes people happy, with what makes me happy, honestly, if I look around in the medical profession, I see a lot of unhappy people. I see a lot of people doing what they thought they should do, what society has told them is gonna make them happy, what their parents had told them is gonna make them happy. Um, and they're doing it, and they may be making reasonable money, and as you say, have the house and have the car, but often underneath that, there's a feeling of discontentment. And, you know, I, I've been realizing this in my probably 30s, late 30s, but you, I guess, would you... In some ways to experience that, I think you were in your teens, right? Is it-

Jay Shetty 9:55 I'm 18- I was 18 years old when I first had that interaction I just explained.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:59 Yeah, because, I mean, I wonder if you sort of think back and that is clearly a significant fork in the road for you because had you not-- Do you ever think back-

Jay Shetty 10:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:09 "What would have happened had I not gone to that talk?"

Jay Shetty 10:13 I've thought about that a lot.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:14 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 10:15 And, and I think we should. I think we should reflect on life like that. It really makes you grateful, and I always look back at that day as a very humbling day because, you know, I went there with my egotistic, arrogant 18-year-old nature of, "What am I gonna learn from this guy?" And then obviously that becomes the best [laughs] decision of my life. And so life's humbling in that way, right? Like, I don't look back at that day and go, "Oh, I made the best decision, and I'm such an amazing person." I look back and go, "Wow, I was so, so arrogant and did not realize how much I could learn from this individual." And it- it's almost like this ironic moment. But I think about it all the time. I think if I didn't go that day or I didn't meet monks or I didn't meet people who were trying to live on a higher frequency or a higher vibration, I believe that I would have ended up chasing all the normal things that I was chasing in terms of stability, security. I probably would have had a comfortable job and done just okay, and, you know, life would have been fine. But I really feel that the life I get to live today, which is a life of service and purpose and meaning, is what I would have missed out on. And there are so many times in my life where I wonder what life would have been like, and, and I'm just grateful that I met the right people at the right time. And this is really what this book is about, that the reason why I called it Think Like a Monk and the reason why I've gone into the depth around the wisdom and the practices that I have is we don't realize how much we're not experiencing in life. Like you said, we all grow up in this bubble. Like, if you grew up in where I grew up, North London, it's a very specific bubble. And then if you grew up in England, it's a very specific bubble. And then if you grew up in the United States, in New York or LA, it's a bubble. And we live in these bubbles, and the challenge with a bubble is that you never really understand if there's something out there that could change your experience of life. And for me- It's so random to have met a monk at 18. Like you said, you'd- you've never, you know, experienced or met a monk before, and I'm, I'm not a monk anymore, so you still haven't met a monk. We have to find, Rangan, [laughs] someone for you to meet. But, but you know, it's that point of just what is it in the world that we haven't experienced that could expand our mind and take us on a different journey? And I think that's the goal, is you may not need a monk in your life, but who or what or which idea is it in your life that you haven't yet let in?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:41 Yeah. And I think what you speak to there is the importance of staying curious-

Jay Shetty 12:47 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:48 ... and keeping somewhat of an open mind. And I think that is something that we see across society now that I think is becoming in- incredibly problematic, where people are stuck in their little silos and, you know, they don't look beyond that. They're very quick to judge other people who have a different view. They're very quick to sort of shut people down unless it fits with their narrative. And I think really what I'm hearing from you is staying curious, staying open-minded, looking, listening to other people's ideas. It's like you said at the start, right?

Jay Shetty 13:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:24 You're not trying to persuade anyone to do anything, but if you're a bit curious, maybe there's an idea that someone's gonna hear throughout this conversation that just sparks something for, for them. Very much like I guess you had, uh, when you were 18. Uh, Jay, the, I think one of the first times I came across you was a few years back. I heard you on an interview. So I can't remember what the interview was, but I remember l- being really impacted by what you said and thinking, "Who is this guy? I mean, this is pretty incredible what I heard." And it was, it wasn't

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:54 one of your videos. Uh, you were talking a lot about, I think, identity, and I think it was something about, it really got me thinking about what is my identity. I guess I was on a journey then anyway since I lost my father about, what, seven years ago now. I think that was the, one of the significant moments in my life that got me to start questioning everything, thinking about, "Well, who am I?" You know, "Am I living my life or am I living somebody else's life?" I think you expressed it so beautifully, but then when I read your book, I think you start off very early on with identity. So I wonder if you could expand on identity. What is it and why do you think many of us need to spend a bit of time thinking about it?

Jay Shetty 14:42 Yeah. So I, I think I know exactly which interview you're talking about and, and what I say in it. The, the monks start with identity and at the root of the issue because a lot of what we experience in the world today, as you know, and, and I know how holistic you are in the way you advise your patients. When you were speaking on my podcast, I was so impressed by you and how you're able to tie in so many psychological and natural practices and relational exercises that can improve people's health and wellbeing overall. I remember you talking about encouraging your clients to see more friends as a way of, uh, changing the way they feel. And I was thinking, "Wow, this person's got so many great ideas." And the reason is because, Rangan, you also have that monk mindset of you go to the root of the issue. It's really easy to just say, "Oh, well, just take two of these a day," or, "Try this," or, you know, "Maybe you need to do this." But when you think about it from the root perspective, where do our challenges arise? And our challenges arise by how we see ourself. And what I believe Rangan's referring to is there's this quote that I begin my book with and that I've shared in interviews for the last few years, and it's from a writer named Charles Horton Cooley who wrote this in the 1900s. And what he said is that-- Sorry, I think it's in the 1800s, at the end of the 1800s, towards the 1900s. And he said, and, and bear with me, and you've got to really listen closely to this. So what he said that, "The challenge today is I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am." Now, just let that blow your mind for a moment. I will explain it, I promise. "I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am," which means we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. So I'll break it down. If I think Rangan thinks I'm smart, I'll say I feel smart, but if I think Rangan thinks I'm not smart, then I'll say I'm not smart. And so the challenge is that we're basing how we feel about ourselves on what we think someone thinks of us. And, and the greatest challenge with that is, how do you have any idea if what you think someone thinks about you is even true and whether that's even the best place to start? So that's where our identity struggles. We start pursuing things in life because we think other people value them. It's almost like, let's think of the most playground version of this. If-- I remember wearing Hi-Tec shoes from BHS to the playground, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:19 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 17:19 I remember my mom, because my parents didn't buy me Nike, uh, trainers, uh, or Adidas trainers, which I always wanted. You know, we didn't come from that background. I d- I couldn't, couldn't afford them, and my parents didn't want t- me to have them. So I'd walk in with my Hi-Tec trainers from BHS. They were about 10 quid or whatever they were.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:35 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 17:36 And, and, and you know, to me, it didn't make a difference. I didn't really know at that time whether Hi-Tec was good or bad. They were just trainers that my parents bought me. Now, everyone, the cool kid at school had the latest Nike trainers. All of a sudden, I start thinking that he's now surrounded by everyone. Everyone's talking about his trainers. Everyone's giving him adoration. Everyone's giving him respect. Everyone's talking about his trainers. So now I think that if I want to have that same experience and love from people, that I need to get that, not realizing that I may be able to get deeper love from people- By being kind and compassionate, that I may actually be able to build a real relationship with people if I'm loving and, and considerate and empathetic. And it's so crazy how your life can become about pursuing something, and that's why Jim Carrey puts it best, and I'm paraphrasing. He says, you know, everyone in the world should achieve everything they've ever wanted and accomplish everything they've ever pursued just to realize that it's not the point. Now, that doesn't mean the monk mindset is not about not pursuing your goals. It's actually about pursuing your truest goals, your truest self, and your most authentic aligned goals. So it's not about not having goals. It's about making sure that your goals are actually yours.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:56 Yeah. A- and, you know, I get shivers when you say that Cooley quote.

Jay Shetty 19:01 Oh, me too, man.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:02 And act- and, and I think I've had a, I've had a flashback. I think... I can't say for sure where I was when I heard that interview, but I think I was on a train from Manchester to London, or London back to Manchester, and I think I pressed pause, and I think I wrote it in my notes. I think, I'm pretty sure I wrote it, and I, I rewound it. I played it again. I thought, "Hold on. I've got the first part-

Jay Shetty 19:24 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:25 "... the s- the second part. What, what's that third part?" And I really had to sit with it for a while, and I would urge people, if they need to, press pause right now-

Jay Shetty 19:34 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:34 ... listen to it, and really think about it. And I think, you know, it's really interesting, you know, hearing that, and I reflect on my children who I know you had a, a very brief lovely conversation with just before we started. I might put that in at the end of the podcast maybe.

Jay Shetty 19:50 Please do. It was beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:51 [laughs] But I, I think about this as they go through school, and, you know, they start to see what other people have got and, you know, um, we, my wife and I, we're very keen to try and not put value on those things because I know I also had experiences like that when I'd see, "Oh, God, man, they're wearing those things. I wanna wear those 'cause if I wear them, I'm gonna be happy." Uh, I saw a, maybe a year ago or so, I saw a Gary Vaynerchuk video online when he was, um, telling someone at one of his conferences, he was, you know, he, he was talking about a BMW, and he basically said to the guy in his, in, in, you know, in, in his inimitable way, which is wonderful, um, that, "I think you own a BMW because of what other people will think of you when you drive that BMW." And the guy literally, you know, in, in that clip, he just sort of sat with it, and he, he said, "Yeah, I do." I mean, it's what it symbolized is to, to people around

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:53 him. And again, I'm not having a go at anyone who, who might be doing that. You know, we all do things at, at, at times to get that, um, that validation or what we think is the validation from people around them. But I think what you're trying to get at is, how do we find our own identity? How do we live our own lives? So, so Jay, how do we do that? If we've spent a lifetime living someone else's life, how do we in our 30s or our 20s or our 40s or our 50s, how do we just decide, "Oh, I'm gonna start finding out what my life is"?

Jay Shetty 21:28 Yes. Absolutely. And, and, and I love the tone you're sharing this in, Rangan, because my tone's the same. Like, you know, I'm not, I'm not coming at this from a point of view of, you know, we're wasting our lives, or I've got it figured out. Like, I, I don't want to make this about you not getting your goals or not having pursuits or not wanting to become something because I want to do all those things too. But it's about why you're doing it, and it's also about making sure they're truly motivated by your inner desire, right? Like, that's the point. It's like, if you want to drive a BMW, drive a BMW because that's the car you love. Don't drive it because you think. Uh, if you want to be a doctor, become a doctor because you think that's how you're gonna serve humanity, not because you think people will be impressed. If you want to go to Harvard or Princeton or Oxford or Cambridge, go there because you really want to study how to solve the world's problems, not because you think it looks good on your resume, right? That's the point that we're going after. So thank you, Rangan, for, like, recentering that, that tonal piece, and I, I appreciate it. But so where do we start? One of my favorite ways to start is looking at what we value, and values are a very intangible word. And so there's a very easy way to figure out what you value. There's two things you have to look at. You look at how you spend your money. The most painful thing you can possi- possibly do, go through your bank statement and look at where your money is being spent. That is what you value. The other thing that we spend, just like we spend money, is how we spend our time. Those are the two most perfect ways to see what you currently value. Your value isn't what's in your head, isn't what's in your heart, it isn't what's in your mind. It's how you spend your money and how you spend your time. And so just to give you an overview, and I share this in the book, that research was done on how we spend our time, and the research showed that we spend thirty-three years in bed, right? Thirty-three years of our life in bed. And seven years of that is spent trying to sleep, not even sleeping, right? We spend one year and four months exercising. Across our whole lives, these are, by the way. We spend more than three years on vacation. Uh, and we spend a bunch of days trying to get ready, and we spend a bunch of time, you know, standing in lines and queues, and so much of our time just gets spent. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: Where am I currently spending my time, and where do I want to spend it? Now, studies also show that people-- Everyone has to go to work, so this isn't about what you do for work. People who had more meaningful, purposeful lives and were healthier, wealthier, and wise invested their time in education over entertainment. And Rangan, your, your audience is lucky because they get education and entertainment in one place. But, but that's the goal, right? Like, that's the goal. That you're creating an opportunity for people to find education. The, the smartest, the wealthiest, the most healthiest, the wisest people in the world are reading books, watching documentaries, taking courses, listening to podcasts, learning to better themselves. And so that's the first place to start. The second place, when we look at that value audit, is I want you to write down three things that you're currently pursuing in life. It might be a promotion, it might be a new home, whatever it is, whatever it is that you are currently pursuing. And then I want you to ask this question, "Is that your desire and your dream, or is it coming from something outside of you? Is it coming from a pressure of a family member? Is it coming from an expectation because your friend just bought something? Where is that desire truly coming from?" And the third and final question you want to ask yourself is, "Do I still want to pursue that or do I want to change how I pursue it or do I not want to pursue it at all?" And if you go through that three-step questioning process, you'll get to the truth of what you truly want to pursue and stop yourselves from building a sandcastle which the waves of time will eventually wash away.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:40 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 25:40 And so that's what we get lost doing. We get lost building castles that we don't even want to live in.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:45 Yeah. It, it's so profound and, you know, I, I really think that there's something unique about the times in which we live now. There really is this dissatisfaction, this lack of contentment. You know, you put it so beautifully at the start of this conversation. I don't know if you've seen the documentary Minimalism-

Jay Shetty 26:07 I haven't actually, no

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:08 ... um, or not, which, yeah, I think you'd absolutely love it. I, I really, really enjoy it. I've seen it a couple times. I've watched it with my kids again recently. But again, it's these two guys in their 30s who, you know, they've got success by society's definition. They've got the job, they're earning good money, you know, but there's a hole inside. There's a, a feeling of, "Is this all there is to life?" And so I, I really think you're, you're tapping on something that is, that is really out there at the moment and really, if people can get their heads around this, I think it can transform their own lives, but also transform the lives of the people around them, which I think is really, really exciting. Now, you called it a value audit. Now, I thought that word was really interesting because I have been sort of... I, I had, I had sort of nearly three weeks off social media until two days ago. Like, I, I didn't post. I went off that. I made a thing of it. And I found that I- I found it a lot easier to go inward in my life. It was just one thing to switch off a bit of noise for me. But I, I'm, I'm not saying everyone has to do this. It's just something I personally find useful and I also like to-- I think it's a nice example to set to people that you can do it, uh, if you want to. But what was really interesting is I've been doing a values exercise with myself. I've been trying to write down five core values that I want to live my life by, and it really struck me that a lot of people, and I probably include myself in this, have got an idea of what we think our values are, but unless we actually go and audit the process of what are we spending our time and money doing, we have no idea if we really are living those values. So I really like the term audit because it's not your perception of how you think you're actually spending your money or spending your time, it's the reality of it. And, and I think it's something that I haven't done it and I think, I think I'm gonna do it. I think I'm gonna actually see, uh,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:09 is it aligned with what you say you stand for? Are you actually spending time like that? So is this a common thing, do you think, for people that they have a, there's a, there is a gap between their desired values and their actual values?

Jay Shetty 28:23 I genuinely believe, first of all, Rangan, thank you for sharing that too, and I, I genuinely believe that people are well-intentioned and want to do good in the world. I believe that. I believe that people have a good heart, they're smarter than we think they are, they want to do good in the world, and they want to put out good energy. But you're exactly right that that intention needs to be converted and transferred into real behavior, and this is where you'll find, you know, you'll hear a friend or someone you know say, "Oh, you know, I really value loyalty and, and I really don't like gossip," and then you find out that that person was gossiping about you. And how does that feel? It, it completely feels like someone's broken your trust. And so often the way we see ourselves or want to see ourselves is amplified compared to how we actually behave. So we'll spot something, and there's a, there's a beautiful story that I share in the book, and, and there's lots of these across the book, uh, but there's these, there's these old ancient Indian and Zen stories, and there's this story of the evil king that goes to meet a good king. So the evil king goes to the, the castle, the quarters of the good king, and the good king, being a good king, invites the evil king inside for some dinner. They sit down. The servers bring out the plates. The plates are placed in front of the evil king and the good king, and they're just about to eat, and as just about as they're about to eat, the evil king switches the plates. And, and the good king goes, "What's going on? Like, is that some ceremony in your time? Like, look, why are we doing this?" And the evil king goes, "Well, I don't know. You might have poisoned my food. You, you might be trying to kill me. You might have poisoned it." And the good king just bursts out laughing. He's just like, "Really? Like, come on. This-- Like, I've invited you over for dinner. Like, this is my team. Like, you know, whatever it is. Like, let, let's start eating right now." And just about as he's about to eat- The evil king swaps it back again, and the good king goes, "Well, now what then?" And he goes, "Well, I don't know. You might be double bluffing me." And that night, the evil king doesn't eat. The good king happily eats his plate. The point is that so often we think we don't have some of the mistakes that we make, but we see them in everyone else. We see those mistakes in other people, so we'll say, "Oh, this person's not doing this right," or, "I don't like the way he or she talked to that person." But if we really do an audit on ourselves, we'll realize that we have a lot of those same challenges and feelings that we may think others have. And so for me, it's sometimes a really scary and daunting task to do that values audit, but it truly, truly is a, a beautiful process that we all need to go through to really realign our map and get our compass right and start moving in the right direction.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:16 I mean, is it the sort of thing that people do once, or is it the sort of thing that people should revisit? And I guess, you know, if I was to ask you, when was the last time you did that exercise on yourself?

Jay Shetty 31:29 Yeah, great question. So I'd say that you have to revisit like gardening. If you look at your garden outside, and I can see a bit, I can see a light-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:37 You can

Jay Shetty 31:37 ... little glimpse of Rangan's garden.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:39 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 31:39 Uh, but if, if you have a garden, how often do you have to garden? Maybe you mow the lawn, I don't know, once a week, once a month. I don't know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:46 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:46 ... you know, whatever, whatever you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:48 Well, yeah, I'd say once a week probably.

Jay Shetty 31:49 Once a week. Once-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:49 I li- I like a nice, you know, short-ish lawn. I don't like it when it gets too long, so.

Jay Shetty 31:54 [laughs] There you go. Once a week. And so I'd say that you have to treat this exercise like gardening because when you do a values audit, what you're really doing is gardening your values, and what that means is you're pulling out the weeds and you're planting new seeds. That's really the activity that's happening here. You're planting seeds in your mind, values that are good values, that are gonna grow into fruits and trees and give shade to others and help other people. Or if you don't garden once a month, let's say Rangan leaves his... He doesn't bother for the last six months during COVID, he just lets it be there. What's gonna happen? That garden's gonna be full of weeds. It's gonna be full of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:34 Yeah

Jay Shetty 32:34 ... stuff that he doesn't want there, right? It, it might attract bugs or other things that are there that he doesn't want, and that's what happens with our values, that after a while our values start to attract dust. They start to attract, uh, being covered over by so many other desires. So I would say it's a regular habit. I'd say that I do a refining values and intention exercise on myself about three times a week. I used to do it every day, but probably about three times a week, and I'm not saying anyone has to do it that often. I do it that often because I feel I live a life that is constantly moving, constantly challenging, and I'm presented with a lot of options and opportunities that I never imagined I'd have. And so I have to really train my mind to, to focus on these value audits. But I also know that every year I spend two or three year- two or three weeks and I go back to the monastery in India and I spend time in the ashram with monks. And so I feel this is both an activity that happens weekly or monthly. I'd say once a month. I, I'd say the best way is to treat it like your, um, accounts and your taxes. Look at it every month. Look at your bank statement every month, and then once a year when you have to do your taxes and you're going through that tax return and getting it all right, you kind of do a deep dive on it. So I'd say if everyone-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:48 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:48 ... could spend three days a year, five days a year going really deep, and then one hour a month, a couple of hours a month, that would be a great way to build it into your practice.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:58 If someone was to come up to you and say, "I don't know what my purpose is. Can you help me?" What would you say to them?

Jay Shetty 34:05 So Rangan, I think that's a fantastic question because the first thing I'd say is that I believe there is definitely a pressure to pursue your purpose, and I think sometimes the pressure to find your purpose actually paralyzes you in the process and in the pursuit. And so I think when we are guiding people or talking about purpose, we have to have very thoughtful and mindful conversations around it. Now, if someone comes up to me and says, "Jay, I don't know what my purpose is. Can you help me?" As you just put there, I would focus on the definition of purpose that comes from the Sanskrit term dharma. In my first book, Think Like a Monk, I talk about this concept of dharma, which has many different definitions, but one of my favorite definitions that it has is eternal purpose or eternal duty. It means something that you're naturally inclined to do, something you have proclivities and propensities for, and I think both you and I love the Japanese ikigai-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:09 Yeah

Jay Shetty 35:09 ... the reason for being, why we live, and dharma and ikigai have a lot in common. And so I always tell people, "Look, purpose is this big, scary word that needs to be simplified." And so my first simplification is let's see if we can discover four things. The first is what you're passionate about, what you're really interested in, and if you're like, "Jay, I don't know what I'm passionate about. I don't know what I'm interested in," we go to the root and we say, "Well, what are you curious about? What is it that you think intrigues you even if you're not passionate about it yet, if that's a strong word?" The second thing I'd say is what are you naturally good at? What do you already have expertise or skills in that you aren't even aware of or you're not even conscious of? So many of us have so many talents, so many hidden gifts, but we keep placing them on the back burner. The third thing I'd ask is, is there a pain in the world that you want to solve? Is there a problem in the world that you feel really calls to you? Some people don't find their purpose through their passion. They find it through their pain. They find it through a stress they want to alleviate in the world, a challenge they want to remove from the world. And then the fourth and final one is, as Ikigai says is, uh, can I get paid for it? And that's a, that's a, that's a fourth and final consideration because I don't think purpose has to be something you have to get paid for. It can be something we dedicate our weekends, our evenings, our vacations to as well. And so the way I define it is that your passion makes you happy, and when you use your passion in the service of others, that's a purpose because it makes them happy. So how can you use your gifts and your talents and the things you love to improve the lives of others? That's what purpose really is, and now we're not looking at it as this big word. We're actually looking at it as this broken-up equation of, what am I passionate about? What am I excelling at? What problem do I want to solve? And then if I can, how can I get paid for it?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:21 How does your morning routine, which I think we spoke about the first time you came on my show, how does that help you tap into your purpose or I guess continually refine your purpose? Because I think there's something really powerful in what you do each morning that many of us can learn from.

Jay Shetty 37:46 So my morning routine is made up of four key habits, and these four habits I have in the form of an acronym called TIME, T-I-M-E. And I know you're a fan of, of acronyms and things that are memorable-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:01 Yeah

Jay Shetty 38:01 ... and, and easy to share as well, and I know we, we have that in common. And so I've always loved your work and reading your books too. And so TIME, the T stands for thankfulness. I start my day with thankfulness and gratitude, and the way I do that, Rangan, is I have a little Post-it Note next to my bed that says, "What are you grateful for?" And so the first thing I see in the morning is this Post-it Note that says, "What are you grateful for?" It's a question back at me. Uh, I remember when I used to have, uh, not a bedside table. I'd have it on my ceiling. I'd have it on my bedside wall. And what I love about that is you can write down any question you want. Uh, this comes from the idea that we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day, and studies show that 80% of them are negative and repetitive. Now, that's quite scary to look at, and the truth is you can't control 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day, but you can control the first thought of the day and the last thought of the day. And so for me, when I wake up to that Post-it Note, I am training myself to make the first thought of the day a grateful one, a thankful one. The I in my acronym stands for intention or insight, and I try and set my intention for the day. Uh, usually my intention is I want to be of service. I want to be able to give love. I want to express love. I want to be an ambassador of purpose and compassion in my life, in my day, and then there could be a more specific intention. Like today it's like, "Well, I hope I get to share energy with Rangan. I know Rangan's been going through a lot of personal things today. I hope that my energy, he's choosing to spend time with me. I hope that that can serve him, serve his community." And so I'm setting a really powerful intention. Uh, the M, T-I-M. M is for meditation. I meditate every morning. I do three types of meditation, which is what I was trained in as a monk. It's meditations I teach. It's breathwork for the body, visualization for the mind, and mantra for the heart or soul. And so I do my three techniques. What I find is really what I'm trying to do is, in the morning is align my body and mind because what I find is, Rangan, we usually wake up in the morning, and our body is ahead of our mind. How many times, anyone who's listening or watching, have you ever felt where your body's running around but your mind is just still in bed? Or you experience the opposite. You wake up, and your mind is racing trying to do everything-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:37 Yeah

Jay Shetty 40:37 ... but your body is feeling exhausted. And so for me, breathwork brings my body and mind together. Visualization allows me to visualize the day. What am I gonna do? How am I gonna show up? Who are the people that I'm gonna meet? What kind of energy are we going to exchange? And then the mantra or sound meditation is the repetition of sacred sounds, affirmations that again become my internal dialogue. And then E is exercise, movement. At the moment I've been hiking. Uh, I've been doing a 45-minute to an hour hike every day to get some really good-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:08 Wow

Jay Shetty 41:09 ... cardio in, to get my heart rate, uh, moving. And so that's my morning routine pretty much five days a week. It's probably a couple of days a week that I'm a bit more flexible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:18 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Um, I also am a huge fan of morning routines. I think the way you start the day really sets the, I guess the dial on the compass for what's gonna happen that day. You mention all these beautiful words like intention and integrating or aligning your body and mind. I think these are really beautiful concepts for people to think about. For that single parent who feels that they're out of control and they're rushed off their feet, and they hear that and they are thinking, "Jay, hey, all right for you, buddy. Maybe you've got a life that allows you to devote that kind of time to yourself each morning. I don't have that time," what do you say to them?

Jay Shetty 42:09 The first thing I'd say is I think that's a really fair point. I, uh, am very grateful for having the, uh, the time I spent as a monk and the training I received early on in my life that has made me made certain choi- choices. And at the same time, I'm not a parent yet, so just to point that out to everyone that, you know, I don't think I'm gonna be able to keep up with this exact morning routine when I have kids, and I don't assume that I'll be able to keep it throughout at all. And my wife and I often talk about that when the topic of kids comes up. I, I think the first thing I'd say is you may not be able to do all of those. And you may not even be able to do any of those, but I'd ask yourself one question. What's the one thing I can do today that is for me? As a parent, you're probably doing a million things a day that are for your kids, maybe for your partner. If you're a single parent, then maybe you're taking care of a family member. Maybe you've got busy work schedules. What's the one thing you can do today that's truly for yourself? It could be as simple as I'm gonna sit and have my cup of coffee. I'm gonna sit and have my cup of tea. I'm gonna make sure that I listen to an episode of Rangan's, uh, podcast. Like, what is that one thing I can do today that is truly for myself? Because what we're really talking about here, Rangan, is the point of a morning routine isn't to have a perfect morning routine or to have a perfect setup. The reason for having a morning routine is to create some certainty in an otherwise uncertain day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:44 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 43:45 That is the reason for a morning routine. It's saying, "I know that something is going to be foundational in a day that is going to be full of chaos. I'm gonna bring some sense of control into a day that will not have control."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:59 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 43:59 And that could be as simple as one thing you do that sets you into a positive, healthy rhythm of the direction you want your day to go in. And so it can be as simple as, uh, I have my... Uh, I'm the chief purpose officer at Calm, and every day on Calm, I do a seven-minute meditation, and it's aimed at anyone who has no more than seven minutes a day to get an insight, to be grateful, to breathe. And literally in seven minutes, I guide you through my, my own morning pr- routine, which is two to three hours, I teach within seven minutes. And so I think there are lots of simple tools and techniques today that can give you the same benefit without the same amount of time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:42 Yeah. I mean, I love that, Jay. I really appreciate how you shared that. I appreciate your honesty. You mentioned when you have kids, you're not sure you'll be able to keep up with it. I think most people would agree with you. Although, you know, I've been a father for 12 years now, I have a pretty diligent morning routine that I have learned over time, I'm a better person, I'm a better father, I'm a better human being, frankly, when I do that. So I, I do think there are ways to create those routines even when you are a parent. So if and when that happens, we can probably talk about that at, at that point. [laughs] I can certainly share some of my experiences.

Jay Shetty 45:19 I'll be coming to you for tips. I'll be coming to you for tips, Rangan, for sure. For sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:24 The, the reason I started off, Jay, talking about purpose and morning routines is because the new book, 8 Rules of Love, which is such a good read. I, I, I struggle to see how anyone would read it and not learn insights about themselves, let alone their relationships, insights about themselves. And we won't have time to go into all the rules, but rule one I thought was really, really powerful. Let yourself be alone. And when you first hear that, you can interpret that in many different ways. But this idea of solitude being a foundational practice that we need to better ourselves and to better our relationships, I think it's really, really powerful. In fact, you write in the book that solitude is the beginning of love. What do you mean by that?

Jay Shetty 46:22 So I think it's obvious, Rangan, but we also don't always think about this, but life starts on our own, right? Like, we are born on our own, unless you're born as, uh, uh, a set of twins and then, and then you don't have that. But a lot of us start our lives alone. We spend time alone. I think even today, talking about kids, I have a lot of nieces and nephews and friends' children and everything, and I've found that parents have found that when their kids are entertaining themselves, it's great to leave them alone. Let the child entertain themselves. Let the f- child explore. Let them be curious. It's, it's beautiful to see how a child can be so self-satisfied. Often we feel we have to entertain the children-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:04 Yeah

Jay Shetty 47:04 ... and keep them entertained, but sometimes kids can do that for themselves, and it's a beautiful thing, but it's something we lose as we grow older. And I think it comes from the idea, Rangan, that most of us inherently believe that being lonely or being alone is a negative thing, and I think this comes from our training in society and at school. For example, if you were the kid at school who ate alone, you were called a loner. If no one came to your birthday party, you were unpopular. If you go to a wedding and you don't have a plus-one, people say, "Oh, poor you." Like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:41 Yeah

Jay Shetty 47:41 ... "Are you okay?" And so we constantly look at people who are not paired up with someone as less than. This amazing research study with college students found that they asked college students to rank how they thought their happiness would change if they were in a serious relationship or if they weren't in the next five years. College students said that they believed that if they got married or if they got into a committed relationship in the next five years, that their happiness would be a 8 out of 10. That's what they predicted. And they predicted that if they didn't get into a relationship, if they stayed single five years after they graduated, their happiness would be a 3 out of 10. So those were their predictions. They thought, "If we get into a relationship, we'll be an 8 out of 10. If we don't get into a relationship, we'll be at a 3 out of 10." The reality is they tracked and spoke to the ones who stayed single, their happiness was at a 7 out of 10. The point being that people were much happier being single than they thought in their mind, which means we have a mental construct around how being alone is a negative thing. And so- Solitude is the beginning of love, going back to your question, because in solitude you learn to love yourself, and when you learn to love yourself, you apply that same process when you learn to love someone else. When you learn to love yourself, you learn to love the parts of you that are seemingly unlovable. When you learn to love yourself, you get to learn yourself despite all your flaws and mistakes. When you learn to love yourself, you learn to love the truth of who you are. And by the way, when you fall in love with someone else, you're gonna apply that same process back on them. You're gonna have to learn to love them despite their flaws and mistakes, and their regrets and their challenges. But if you've not done that for yourself, you will really struggle to do that for someone else. And so solitude gives you the time, it gives you the space, it gives you the capsule, like the vehicle of figuring yourself out so that when you finally meet someone, you're actually able to much more quickly understand, are we operating at the same vibration, the same frequency, or actually is this person not right for me? And so I think you actually save yourself a lot of energy in the long term. I hope that answers your question.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:14 Yeah. No, it, it does, and it, it just makes me think that this is one of the major problems out there, isn't, isn't it, at the moment, Jay, where a lot of us don't actually spend any time with ourselves. You know, you mentioned your morning routine and how you take a bit of time to prime yourself for the day, to set your intention, to at least control that first thought. Whereas for many people, their experience of life is that there is no routine. They jump straight into emails or conflict or problems. And so the way they're showing up in that relationship, it- there's, there's never been any sort of intentional time to sort of think about how you're gonna show up. You just show up and you think, "Oh, my relationship's not working." Maybe it isn't working, or maybe you haven't taken the time to do something to, you know, enable it to work or at least enable it to function a little bit better. The other thought that came up for me, Jay, is that a lot of people, and I've got friends like this, who jump from relationship to relationship. You know, when one relationship ends, and I'm talking about a love relationship here, um, you know, they can't be alone. They don't want to be alone, and so they look to fill that hole straight away, and I think this is something you write about as well in the book about if you are at the end of a relationship or there's been a breakup, don't rush in. Take time to kind of observe. You know, see

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:45 what happened, reflect, heal. You talk about emotional injuries and physical injuries. It's, it's really beautiful. Maybe you could speak to some of those concepts a little bit.

Jay Shetty 51:54 Yeah. I mean, Rangan, I, I love the point you just made right now about the idea that so many of the challenges we have in relationships are potentially challenges we actually have within ourselves. I think if everyone who's listening or watching could just reflect for a second, and it might just be in reflecting on the last 24 hours. When you say something to your partner that you later regret, how many of you, in all honesty, and I'll raise my hand too, how many of you said something because of your own insecurity or your own trigger? How many of us say something we don't mean because of some lack of meaning within ourselves? How many of us say things that hurt someone else because of some hurt we're going through that day? How many of us reflect our stress onto our partner? Now, you're not-- And this is where we go wrong, Rangan. I'm gonna give a personal example of, of how I went through this. I live a high-performance, productive, efficient, purposeful life. I have for quite a few years now. What that means is I am constantly dealing with also high levels of stress and monitoring and managing them in, in high doses. What that also means is that if, if uncontrolled or if not communicated effectively, there are times when I can be snappier and more irritated-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:20 Yeah

Jay Shetty 53:20 ... at my wife because she's the person that I'm around all the time. And what I started to realize, Rangan, was I was becoming someone I didn't want to be, because when it came to the person I love most in this world, who's my wife, I was being irritable, I was being snappy, I was, I was releasing my stress, not in a angry, loud, shouty way. That's not who I am. But, but even if it was passive-aggressive, it could be silent or subtle-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:46 Mm

Jay Shetty 53:46 ... but it was still not healthy. And I started to look at that and I think, "Wait a minute, if I'm trying to be a good person, if I believe I'm a good person, why am I acting in ways that are not aligned with myself?" And I think everyone can relate to that. When you've had the stress of your day, or your boss is giving you a hard time, or the kids haven't been well-behaved today or whatever it may be, and now you and your partner are the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:10 Yeah

Jay Shetty 54:10 ... ones sharing all that stress. And I started to realize a couple of things. The first thing was managing stress was as important as managing my relationship, and that's the point you've just raised. You think the challenge is in your relationship. Chances are the challenge is in how you manage stress.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:31 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:31 When I've meditated effectively, when I've rested and slept my eight hours, seven to nine hours a day, when I've set my intention, I am less likely to be bothered by the levels of stress. And the second point that I understood was that I'm not going to be able to perfectly manage stress all the time because I'm not perfect. I'm human. But I can communicate that to my wife ahead of time. So I'll give you an example. I'm traveling for the next couple of weeks, or I'm getting ready to travel, and I'm not with my wife right now. She's in London, uh, because she has some family, uh, someone's not well in her family, and if we were together, what I'd be saying to my wife is, "Hey, I just want you to know the next couple of weeks are gonna be stressful for me. So if you find me kind of frantically running around or hectic, just know that I'm gonna be experiencing a bit of stress. If you want my undivided attention, just let me know and I'll be there for you. But I just want to preempt the fact that, that I'm, I'm gonna be slightly more stressed out next week, so if I'm not as present, if I'm not the same as I usually am, just don't take it personally. It's not about you, it's me." And I think saying that and communicating that ahead of the time just saves the other person from having so many other feelings about what's going on. Uh, and, and then you can actually deal with it better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:01 Yeah. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about in this conversation was communication because, you know, weaved throughout your entire book, uh, for me at least, is this idea that you have to be able to communicate effectively. As you just mentioned, none of us are perfect, right? No matter how well we're doing in our work or whatever we're doing and, you know, home life or professional life, you know, we all get stressed from time to time, and here's the irony, which you just sort of highlighted. Often we take out those stresses on the people closest to us, which if you look from the outside, it's rather bizarre, isn't it? Why would we take out our stress on the people we love the most? And my current view on this is because I think in some ways they're our safe space. We kind of, we feel, "Ah, you know, I don't have to perform at the moment. I'm in my safe space where I can just say it like it is." But in some ways it's disrespectful because we're doing it to that person we love the most. So I really appreciate you sharing that. And the other point there, Jay, for me was, you know, it's so beautiful that you've got to that point now where you can say that to your wife in advance because if you don't say that as, as you just highlighted, you get into these situations where because it's not been expressed or you don't care about me, you know, this is going on. And, you know, these little niggles become bigger and bigger and bigger like a snowball. So how do we learn, because I'm sure as you've expressed that example, people will be going, "Yeah, I've done that before. I've done that before. Oh yeah, I can remember that time when my partner did that to me." And I think this speaks to solitude again. How do we learn how to regulate our emotions and when to say these things in advance of things blowing up?

Jay Shetty 58:00 Yeah. Great, great question, and, and I'm really enjoying this conversation because of how, how raw and real it is, and I'm really appreciating your reflection on it as well. I was just thinking that the people that come first in our lives experience the worst of us because they're our first opening of expression of how we feel. The reason why you perfectly brilliantly linked it back to solitude there is because when you take time out to reflect on what's happening in the next seven days, if you found an 30 minutes block on s- every Sunday, and you looked at your week ahead and you looked at what's gonna stress me out, what's easy, what's hard, when are my gaps, when am I free, you're going to have a much more bird's-eye view of your life which you can now explain and communicate with your partner. So for example, Radhi and me will often go up to each other on Sunday, and Radhi will come up to me and say, "Oh, by the way, Jay, on Wednesday I'm going for a workout in the evening, and on Friday I'm seeing the girls." And I'll be like, "Okay, great. Wednesday I'm gonna take out time for solitude, and Friday I'm gonna see the guys." Now we've had that communication, we don't get to Wednesday and all of a sudden she goes, "Oh, you were expecting to have dinner with me? Oh, sorry, babe. I've, I've already set up a, a, a gym, I'm going to the gym tonight." Or we get to Friday and I'm like, "Oh, I planned a date night for us," and she's like, "Oh, sorry, the girls told me they were going out." And now you're dealing with conflict in the moment. So solitude gives you the space to actually reflect a week in advance and say, "What do I need to communicate with my partner? What do I need to communicate with my teammate? What do I need to communicate with my husband, my wife," whoever they are, to say, "This is kind of what it looks like. This is what I'm thinking about. Shall we plan a date night?" Often I'll say to Radhi, "You know what, Radhi? For the next four nights I've just got work things every night, but, but Saturday and Sunday, shall we go away for the weekend? Should we, should we go and, you know, should we do this for the weekend? I've thought about that." And I think what often happens, Rangan, is that we're waiting till the moment to communicate, and another mistake we make is we communicate what we want but we don't communicate why we want it. So for example, if you say to your partner, "You know what? I just need some time on Wednesday night to be alone." If you told your partner you just wanted to be alone, your partner, the first thing that goes through their mind is, "They don't want to spend time with me. Did I do something wrong? Uh, w- what's going on? Are they, do they need space?" So you ask for space or you ask for time or time alone, and you never explained why you needed it. Now if you said to your partner, "You know what? I've got a really big presentation coming up on Friday, so Thursday night- I just need to be in the zone, I just need to be focused, and I just need to be ready. Now all of a sudden they have context.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:02 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:01:03 And I think so many of us communicate what we need, but not why we need it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:08 Yeah. If someone's listening, Jay, and saying, "You know, Jay, I get you. I do this work on myself, I meditate, I have solitude, I'm patient and caring with my partner, but they always seem to be mega stressed. And no matter how much I change, they're not changing." How would you advise them to approach their relationship?

Jay Shetty 1:01:40 Yeah, the first thing I'd say is that people don't change for other people, they change for themselves.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:48 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:01:48 And I think this is something that we keep getting wrong in relationships. We think that people will change for us. We think that if we change, someone else will change back. We think of love as that exchange, when we don't realize that anyone who changes a habit or a practice changes it for themselves. Now, I will say that, for example, like, if you are setting a good example when it comes to taking care of yourself, chances are it rubs off on your partner. I know that with me and Radhi. So Radhi's always been very dedicated to her workouts for her mental wellbeing and her physical wellbeing, and when we got married, I was someone who was very focused on my mental wellbeing with mindfulness and meditation, but I wasn't necessarily someone who loved working out. I played sports when I was growing up, and that was my workout, and as I got older, I kind of got lazier. Now, when I would see my wife be dedicated, she would not negotiate with her morning workouts, at the beginning of our relationship, it used to play on my insecurities. I used to say, "Oh yeah, well, I'm working hard and you'll get time to go to the gym," or I'd say, "Oh, I don't even have time to go to the gym," because it would affect my ego. And then I started to realize, well, it upsets me because I'm not even willing to make that time for myself because of how important it is. And so without her even knowing, she was inspiring me to work out more, and today, working out and my physical health has become such a top priority, and it's not because she forced me to go or told me to go, it's because she set a good example. Now, let's say you're setting a good example, but your partner's stressed and they're not doing certain things. I think one of the first things I'd say is we usually like to tell our partners what to do, and we might say to them, "Oh, you need to listen to that podcast with Rangan and Jay," and they're like, "No, I don't," right? Like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:36 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:03:36 ... "I don't want to do that." Uh, or someone says, "Oh, you need to start doing this breathwork that I learned from so and so teacher," and then the partner's like, "Well, I don't want to learn from that person." I think what we don't realize is we've got to help that person take the next step in their journey, not the next step in our journey, and the next step in their journey could be introducing them to books, teachers, podcasts that appeal to them. One of the things I often tell people is the reason why I sit down with so many different people on my podcast is because I believe that personal growth and self-development is so broad. And so-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:15 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:04:15 ... you know, just in the last month, like, Lewis Hamilton came on this week, and I know that so many people who are Formula 1 fans were learning about purpose through Lewis Hamilton, or a couple of weeks ago Kevin Hart was on the show. Now, you know, Kevin Hart's a comedian, he's known to make people laugh, but people came and they-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:32 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:04:32 ... learned about the man behind the movies. And so to me, people's entryway into growth and into creating less stress in their lives is not always going to come through the same route that it came for you. So the first thing I'd say is find out what inspires them, find out what it is that helps and supports them, what are their things. And if you really love them, you know what they connect with. The second thing I'd say is help them work on their stress, not work on your relationship. You want them to change how they are with you, but actually what's stopping them being their best with you is that they're not being their best selves for themself. And so let's figure out the root of their stress and sit with them, talk to them, understand them. Don't go up to them and say, "You're always stressed out. What's wrong with you? Our life is great. I'm good to you." That will put them on the defensive. You want to go up to them and say a few things, and this is really beautiful. This is from, uh, a study that was done in schools about how to give effective feedback in a way that doesn't defeat someone. Uh, I use this in my company, I use this in my relationship, I use it everywhere, because it's not just for students at a university. It literally applies anywhere. They found that there were three key things you had to say. The first thing you had to say is that we have really high standards here. Now, you can't say that in a relationship, so how would you translate that? You would translate that to be like, "I know that we have something really special here. I know that there's-- I know that we value each other." You're, you're acknowledging the fact that underlying all this stress there is a deeper, real relationship. "I know that we have a real relationship, I know that we have a special bond, I know we've committed many years to each other." You're setting the standard of what we have. The second thing you say is, "I trust we can live up to that standard. I trust you can get there." People need to hear and feel, so it's like, "I know you're going through stress right now, but I know you don't want to feel it, and I know that you can get beyond this stress." And the third is, "Let's figure out how to get there together."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:50 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:06:50 "What do you need? How can I support you? How, how can we go through this together?" And I think so often in relationships, it's, it's so funny, Rangan, so often in relationships people actually feel more alone- Because they don't feel their partner has the time to see them, to understand them, to hear them, and they feel like they're fighting that battle all alone, even when they sleep right next to someone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:16 As a doctor, one of the things that frustrates me is that everything around health, whe- let's say working out, for example, tends to be around, you know, punishing yourself-

Jay Shetty 1:07:27 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:27 ... and pushing yourself and suffering. And so we start to associate things that are good for us as being difficult-

Jay Shetty 1:07:36 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:36 ... and as being punishing. But actually, all the tools in your book are gonna be good for everyone, they're really gonna help people. But I would actually say that they're fun and, and if I just speak to my own experience over the last seven years of really, again, since my dad died, diving into personal growth. Not because it was like, "Oh, Dad's not here, now I'm gonna do some personal growth." No. It was just in the trauma of Dad's death, in the sort of emptiness I felt afterwards, that's where I went. I-

Jay Shetty 1:08:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:08 ... I d- I sort of needed that pain on one level to then get me to start asking questions. But I love the process-

Jay Shetty 1:08:16 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:16 ... of getting to know myself better. I love doing these audits. I love trying to figure out my values. I, I like potentially almost getting addicted to it. Like it feels good.

Jay Shetty 1:08:26 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:26 And then you start to, I feel, you start to switch off from the, the, the noise around you, and you really start to become tuned in-

Jay Shetty 1:08:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:35 ... to who you are and what makes you, what makes you tick.

Jay Shetty 1:08:38 Learning about ourselves is actually the most fun thing in the world. It's the most enjoyable thing in the world. When you find out about a new way that your mind works and how this value's gonna unlock this opportunity in your life, uh, Rangan, spot on. It's, it's such a exciting thing to do. And, and I would encourage you to make it fun. So I have, I, I'll tell you an example of some of the fun activities that I love in the book. So one of my favorite ones is I sometimes set my ch- set self the challenge of not comparing, not complaining, and not criticizing. And the way I like to do this test is I keep a jar of, uh, Post-It notes. Of every time I compare, complain, or criticize, I'll, I'll put it in there, and then I have another jar of every time I'm collaborative, uh, supportive to others, and grateful. And what I love doing is almost doing a competition with myself, because I love being competitive too, I love engaging that in a competition with myself of how c- often can I make sure. So what you find is the first day you realize, "Oh no, I, I complained 10 times today." The second day you're like, "Oh, I only did seven times today." And the third day you're like, "I only did four." And the fourth day you're like, "Oh, only once." And then on the weekend you binge complain again [laughs] and it all goes up again. But the point is that you make it fun and enjoyable because what you understand is that you are not your criticism. You are not these negative thoughts. You are not these negative beliefs. They've just become conditioned and habits, just as your garden is not weeds. And what happens is we start thinking that we are our pain. We start thinking that we are stress, right? We say things like, "I am just a stressful person," right? "I am just a negative person." And the truth is you're not. You're just going through a negative space and time. You've just adopted a negative habit or a negative thought, but you are not a negative person. It's just in the same way as you are not unhealthy. You've just adopted unhealthy habits. And I think when you start making that disconnect between you and the habits you have, you start to realize, "Oh, if I change the habits, I naturally change." But you are separate from that, so never get into that, never get into that rhetoric with yourself of, "I am a negative person," or, "I am a failure," or, "I am a loser," or whatever it may be.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:00 Yeah. I, I think it's so important that, Jay, that our thoughts are important, our words are important, and I think many people, once you become tuned into it, when, when you start to identify where you're using negative self-talk, it, it becomes so easy to identify in everyone around you. You know, it's, it's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about, both for myself personally, for bringing up my children. It's something we talk about a lot at the dinner table about how we're saying things, because words are powerful. You know, words become thoughts, right? And they, they, they sort of can... You know, you mention those things. People often do think that they are their pain, they are their feelings, without realizing that these things are transient, they come and go, and you are actually separate from that. But if you define yourself by that, it becomes very hard to change. Um, you know, you mentioned, you know, I, I guess a lot of words that people who have a victim mindset, um, may say. Right? And I want to explore this because I, I want to be super clear. I think one thing I love about your approach, um, and certainly the approach that I, I sort of try and take, is one of compassion. It's not one of judgment of other people. It's understanding if someone behaves in a certain way, there's probably conditioning or reasons that has led to that. So when I say victim mindset, I, I really don't mean that in a demeaning way. I mean that in a, a lot

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:31 of people say, "Oh, this always happens to me. Oh, God, you know, I n- I never get that promotion," right? And so the way we think and the way we talk, how influential is our childhoods, um, and, you know, what can we do about it if we've spent a lifetime practicing that?

Jay Shetty 1:12:52 Yeah. What, what a great, what a great way of, uh, guiding this conversation into, because y- I think you're spot on that the, the words we use create all of our reality, right? We, we all experience that. We know that. And there's a few things that I wanna touch on here, actually. One is the understanding. There's a Harvard study that I refer to in my book, and it's called the emotional list or list of emotions, but I call it emotional vocabulary. And what I've realized is that we all have a very limited emotional vocabulary. For example, if you ask someone how things are going, there's literally five words that we use more often than anything else. Okay, good, bad, fine, hmm. So someone goes, "How's your day going?" "Okay." "How's your week been?" "Good." "Is everything going well?" "Hmm." Right? It's [laughs] like literally, like those are our responses.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:13:49 And what this Harvard emotional vocabulary list does is that it shows you that inside every word that you say, there are so many more meanings. So let's take the word sad, for example. And what it does is it shows you other feelings of sadness that help you better pinpoint how you actually feel. So the question then is, do you feel sad or do you feel offended? Do you feel upset? Do you feel disappointed? Do you feel irritated? Do you feel, uh, like you've been let down? The challenge is that we don't diagnose how we feel effectively, therefore we can't articulate and communicate to the people we love effectively about how we feel, and therefore we don't get what we expect from others. And so we almost create... And Rangan, you probably see this all the time. Imagine someone tries to diagnose their health condition without seeing a doctor. It becomes really, really challenging. And the challenging with the mind is sometimes you have to diagnose your own feelings because you can't just walk in to a doctor's office and expect them to do it, because it's a little more intangible. So we have to get much better at understanding and articulating ourselves and diagnosing our challenges and what we experience. But when you spoke about childhood there, I thought that was a really important point because literally there are so many studies sh- that show that our belief in ourselves, our desire for love, our understanding of ourselves is formed in our childhood. So recently I recorded an episode about the psychological concept of the three attachment styles. Well, there are four, but the three prominent attachment styles that people experience in relationships. And they are avoidant, secure, and anxious. So all of us either have an avoidant relationship, uh, attachment style, we have a secure attachment style, or we have an anxious attachment style, and I'll explain what they are. If your parents were avoidant of you, if they didn't give you attention, if they didn't give you presence and intimacy, then you often will crave that from your partner. So what you want from your partner is exactly what you did or didn't receive from your parents. So sometimes you receive something from your parents, and now you demand it from your partner, and sometimes you didn't receive something from your parents, and you demand that from your partner. The secure attachment style is when your parents or one of your parents or a father or mother figure in your life gave you substantial amounts of love so you feel secure, so you trust your partner naturally. And the third and final, it's anxious. That's when your parents were kind of there, kind of not there, kind of let you down, sometimes were there. You were confused about their love approach to you, and therefore now you have this anxiousness around your partner, and you're not sure whether they love you or not. Now, notice how all of that comes from our conditioning at childhood, and so the first step we have to do is we have to be aware of this, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:00 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:17:00 No one's ever been taught about this in school. I saw so many negative pa- patterns that I'd adopted from my childhood that I was projecting into my relationship. And by the way, I don't blame my parents or anyone's parents for any of this. I think the point is no one ever knows how to be a parent and what they're doing, and everyone makes mistakes, so this isn't about questioning your parents or being bitter towards them. It's about developing the emotional skills your parents didn't have, and that first of all requires awareness. Are you even aware of what patterns you've adopted from your parents that you like or don't like? Do you behave in certain irrational ways? And when you think about it, you're like, "That's exactly how my dad used to talk to me," or, "That's exactly how my mom used to talk to me." I often talk about a positive thing. So I love surprises. I love surprises, like from, for gifts and birthdays and, and events. And the reason is my mom always surprised me with the toy I most wanted on my birthday every year growing up. So when I met my wife, without explaining this to her, I expected her to know that, and she would never surprise me because it wasn't in her parental background. So I used to feel on my birthdays when we first met that she didn't love me. And I know this sounds crazy, but it's literally true. It's like I literally felt like she didn't care about me. But that's because I never understood why I like surprises, where that came from, and I never communicated that to her.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:31 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:18:31 Does that make sense, Rangan?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:34 Hey, more sense than you, you, [laughs] you would know, for sure. I mean, you know, I, I can think back to my own relationship and think to all kinds of ways that actually... And I, I, I recently spoke to Esther Perel on the show and-

Jay Shetty 1:18:47 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:48 ... you know, really sort of opened up about a lot of those things. Um, and I think the thing I'm, I'm sort of-- I'm hearing from you telling that story, and when I think about my own relationship, it's that we often have expectations because we're used to things a certain way. So we think that's the norm. But of course, someone else has got their own idea of what is normal. And- You know, we, we, we've, we've explored this ourselves, and I think, um, as your communication gets better, as you learn, as you said, to have a vocabulary around these things, as you learn to be able to articulate them, suddenly there's understanding on both sides, and a lot of that friction no longer arises because you can communicate. And I guess now your wife will go, "Oh, you know, Jay likes gifts."

Jay Shetty 1:19:38 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:38 You know, even though that's not my thing, for example, it's kind of like, oh, maybe I'll get him a gi- because that's how he experiences love. You know?

Jay Shetty 1:19:46 My wife organized two surprise parties for me in the last two years [laughs] and, and she got me both times. Like, she, she organized these two incredible... And, and that's what it is, Rangan. Like, that's what it is, is that we're just... You know, in every relationship you have the ability to set the level of joy you expect and the level of pain you'll accept. But the problem is that we never tell the other person [laughs] what that expectation and what that acceptance level is, and we never communicate that, and we expect them to be mind readers and expect them to know. And that's really where all of relationships go wrong, with our parents, our children, our spouses, our partners, that there is no communication on what we expect and what we're willing to accept. And, and that creates so many issues that you then think you broke up over something big, when actually you broke up over words and definitions. Uh, one of the ones I like to talk about is the definition of love. When... Think about the first time you said, "I love you," to someone, Rangan. Like, think about the first time you said it to someone, and everyone who's listening and watching, think about the first time you told someone you loved them. What did you mean? Did you mean, "I really like you"? Did you mean, "I hope we can spend the night together"? Did you mean, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you"? I'm guessing that you meant different things at different times. And now think about when someone says, "I love you," back to you. Have you ever asked them what they meant by that? Because chances are you projected your belief onto the word love even when someone said, "I love you," back. So if you said, "I love you," and you were thinking, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you," and that person said, "I love you," you projected that they were saying they want to spend the rest of their lives with you as well, but actually what they were saying was they just want to spend the night with you. And now all of a sudden you're in this complete, uh, misalignment of values. And, and we end up in those scenarios because families define words differently, people define words differently, and different words mean different things to different people at different times. And so you really have to understand how that person described even being clean and tidy and organized. Everyone has a different definition. Like, this, you know, my room may seem clean to some people, and my room may seem chaotic to some people, because everyone has a different definition of what clean and chaotic is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:14 Yeah. Very powerful. And, you know, certainly the, the contentment that my wife and I feel in our relationship has improved dramatically since communication got better. Uh, and so, you know, really interesting, you know, one of the most amazing things since getting married has been getting to know my wife's family, who are just amazing, incredible. And the more time you spend with them, the more you understand how they... my wife has got her characteristics.

Jay Shetty 1:22:45 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:45 She's like, "Oh, of course. That's how you've been brought up. I wasn't brought up like that."

Jay Shetty 1:22:50 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:50 "I had a completely different upbringing. So my idea of what is normal is completely different from yours, and if we both go through life in our own heads thinking this is normal, well, of course there's gonna be blowups and friction because they are, they both are normal, but they're different normals to different people." Um, you know, you've, as you, as you sort of talk about relationship, you, uh, reminded me of a moment in your book where you spoke about your relationship with your now wife when you first started dating her. And, um, I think you took her out to, I think you saved up.

Jay Shetty 1:23:28 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:29 Um, well, you can, you can share that actually, what, what happened. And I'll, I tell you, the reason why it, it, I, it made me stop and laugh is because it reminded me, although they were different scenarios, I remember when I first met, uh, my now wife, when I f- when I went out, you know, when I was just dating her for a few months, um, I remember, like, so I'd played in bands for a few years, and I, at the time, one of my, uh, solo EP- EPs was being sold in HMV in Manchester and had a couple of shows. And I think when we first started dating she came along, and then I can't remember when, but a few weeks or a few months into it I said, you know, "Hey, babe, I've, I've got the show tonight. Do you wanna, you know, do you fancy coming along?" And she's like, "No, I'm good, thanks."

Jay Shetty 1:24:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:11 I was like, "Oh, are you sure? Are you sure you don't want to come?" She's like, "Yeah, I'm all right, actually. There's something on telly I want to watch tonight," or some- something which was, you know, for my ego at that time, back in the day, I was like, "Oh, why doesn't she want to come?" You know, "Does she not like me?" You know, what, what... You know, it was really interesting, but I think that drew me more towards her, 'cause I thought, "I've never had that before."

Jay Shetty 1:24:33 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:34 Like, that was, I think that made me more attracted to her, is, like, "Oh, she's not bothered about that stuff." And I, I actually genuinely do, would say now that's one of the best things about her, that kind of stuff. She does not give two hoots. She likes me and loves me for who I am underneath, and not for the kind of, you know, not 'cause, you know, I'm on telly or I've, you know, whatever-

Jay Shetty 1:24:55 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:55 ... with these books or whatever. You know, she's not bothered about that stuff at all, and it's the best thing ever.

Jay Shetty 1:25:01 Yeah. And, and that's such a, you know, it's such a blessing to have that in your life, Rangan, because, you know, you meet people at different times, and people meet the love of their life at different times, and it can get really challenging. I... You reminded me of an interview that I think I refer to even in the book of- Uh, Robert Downey Jr., and I think he's at Cambridge University, and they're doing a Q&A with him, and they're like, "You know, what does it feel like to be Iron Man and, you know, be this incredible movie star in The Avengers?" And he's like, "Yeah, you know, when I come home, and I open the door back from work, it's not like my fi- kids and my family are like, 'Oh my God, it's Iron Man, what's go-'" You know, he's just, [laughs] he's just like, "My wife's like, 'Can you, can you take the, uh, trash out and, you know, do my, uh...'"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:37 [laughs] Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:25:38 And, and it's almost like that reality check. And, and yeah, for my wife, i- in, in similar what you were saying, you know, for us, it was this understanding that I had believed that the romance that I saw in the movies was what romance and love was about. Because again, how many of us are, our beliefs are set by movies, media, and music? So many of our beliefs and what we expect in a relationship are based on a false show. And if you think about it, movies always end with happily ever after, where the wedding just happened. So it's almost like you see nothing after the wedding. And the funny thing is that after the wedding is exactly what life is about. [laughs] Like, that's where life actually starts. Like, this, life didn't start when you started dating. But movies end with happily ever after, and they don't tell the story. And so we all have this honeymoon, happily ever after version of love, and I had that too. So my first date with my wife, I thought, "Oh, you know, she'll wanna go to a fancy restaurant, you know, she'll probably want to dress up. She'll want to do this," because that's what I thought from nowhere. Like, she'd given me no indication of that. And so again, no checking of expectation, no checking of communication, just complete me on autopilot. And so I booked, I got this reservation at this fancy restaurant, and I'll never forget the name. It's called La Canda Locatelli, and it's like this really posh restaurant in London. It's like David Beckham goes there and that kind of thing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:04 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:27:05 And so I'd saved up to take my wife to this restaurant, and she... It was the worst date we've ever been on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:11 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:27:11 And it was our first date, and she was just like, "You could have walked me down Tesco's, like the food aisle at Tesco's, and I would've been happier." She loves, she loves, um, she loves going shopping for food, so any sort of Tesco's or Whole Foods or Waitrose or whatever that, she, she loves it. And so, and it was so interesting to me to think, I was like, "Well, I put all this effort in," and that's what happens. You start thinking, your ego goes, "Well, you put all this effort in. She doesn't appreciate it." And actually realize, no, it's just, you know, me speaking to her in a language she doesn't understand. And, and this part's the biggest part about how media, and I've gotta share this story. So [smacks lips] Rangan, do you remember how much-- Do you remember any guidance on how much you spent on your engagement ring? Because this is really, like, profound for me, but do you remember anything when you proposed to your wife?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:55 Do you know what? Yeah, I d- You know what? I can't remember an exact amount, but I, I remember thinking, "Oh, how much are you meant to?"

Jay Shetty 1:28:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:02 And I thought, "Really? That much? That's the..." Like, I can't remember what happened in the end, but-

Jay Shetty 1:28:06 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:07 I, yeah, but, but I know that's out there, isn't it?

Jay Shetty 1:28:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:09 There's a, there's a rule by society on what you should do.

Jay Shetty 1:28:12 Yeah, so I... So, so that was the thing. So I remember wanting to propose to my now wife, and I remember speaking to a bunch of my guy mates who were proposed or were married. And they all said, "You spend two months' salary on your engagement ring." I was like, "That sounds like a lot." I had the same reaction as you. And I was like, "Okay, that's what you have to spend." So I remember spending two months' salary on my engagement ring for my wife. I, I didn't make a ton at the time, and I worked, uh, in a corporate job, and so I did that. And then when I started sharing more ideas and stuff, I really started looking into that. And this is the craziest thing. I found a De Beers commercial in, from 1991, and in that commercial, it's a black and white commercial, I don't know why, but it was chosen to be black and white. And in that commercial, a man proposes to a woman with a diamond engagement ring. It's a De Beers commercial. And at the end of it, it says this. Catch this. This is what it says. It says, "The diamond engagement ring. How else could two months' salary last forever?" And I was sitting there going, "Are you kidding me?" That that was literally the tagline in a commercial, and so many men took it seriously that by the time I proposed, that was 1991, I proposed in 2014. And so it's like from 1991 to 2014, it became a rule, when actually it was just a tagline in an advert. Just showing you the power of media's ability to implant an in... And really, that's Inception at its best. If you've never seen the movie Inception, check it out.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:52 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:29:53 But that is literally Inception at its best, that that idea was planted in our mind in 1991, and in 2014, I'm still operating by that idea, and I don't even know where it's come from. That's the power of an idea, and, and that's why it's so important that we plant powerful ideas into our mind that are useful to us.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:11 Uh, and that's the, the, the value and, and how powerful, um, stories are, and narrative. Even stories that we tell ourselves. So that then starts off as maybe the idea of one advertising executive in a company somewhere who gets, is getting paid to do this commercial, does it, and then it becomes a reality for millions of people around the world, who are then are stressed out trying to think, "Oh, if I'm gonna be a real man, I have to spend two months' salary on this ring."

Jay Shetty 1:30:41 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:41 And it's, it's, it goes back to everything you're talking about. It's about identity, it's about stories, it's about how can we start creating the stories that are gonna start to help us n- you know, gonna nourish us and feed us, rather than the ones that are gonna keep us trapped and, and imprisoned. And I think there's two things I think your book really... Like, when I think about it big picture, what it offers, I mean, there's so many things, but the two themes I always think about are, one, awareness. I think- Every single chapter people are gonna start thinking, and it's just start gonna ... Because you, you shared so many lovely stories as well in it, which I, I think really brings it to life. People are gonna start to see their own life in them, and I think you're gonna help bring awareness to people. And of course, without awareness there can be no change. Awareness is that first step. Um, and often awareness is all you need, I find sometimes. And of course, there are lots of practices you can do to help.

Jay Shetty 1:31:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:38 But sometimes just being aware means, "Oh, I can change that now," because I know where that's coming from.

Jay Shetty 1:31:43 Totally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:44 But the other thing I think your book offers people is freedom, because you, you get true inner peace and mental freedom to live the life that you want to, not the life that other people, um, have set out for you, or an advertising exec has sort of implanted as an idea. And then, you know, if we, we sort of start to go in some of these practical tools, you mentioned some exercises already.

Jay Shetty 1:32:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:10 You mentioned gratitude, and gratitude has come up, uh, on the show before. But what I loved about your take on it was, was, if I remember the chapter rightly, you said, "Gratitude is a daily practice. That's the easy part. I want you to be grateful in every aspect of your life." And I love that, and I've been sitting with that idea for the last week or so. I wonder if you could expand on it, Jay.

Jay Shetty 1:32:34 Yeah, beautiful. I'm, I'm really glad, um, you're asking me about gratitude. Before we do that, though, you sparked another thought. Do you mind if I kind of go back-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:42 I-

Jay Shetty 1:32:42 If you're okay with it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:43 ... go, go where you wanna go, man

Jay Shetty 1:32:44 ... you're, you're sparking so many great thoughts in my mind. I c- I can't ignore them. Uh, this is such a, you're such a great interviewer. It's so much fun. Like, w- I, I really feel like you've just, we've gone in so many directions that I didn't even plan, so thank you so much. But, uh, when, when you were talking about the stories we tell ourselves, I think that's so important because there's a, there's a great study that I talk about in the book by Amy Wrzesniewski from the Yale, uh, University. And what they found is that they tried to find a career that they felt people may find not sharing a positive story around, and they found that hospital cleaners or hospital workers potentially have one of the toughest jobs. And Rangan, you're a doctor and, you know, I'm sure you've seen people having to do that work, and it's a tough job. And so they asked hospital workers how they define their jobs, and the majority of them defined it as low skilled, defined it as, um, you know, insignificant, defined it as just a way to pay the bills, and that their job wasn't useful or their job wasn't important, and their role was basically described like the personnel manual. But then they asked another set of hospital workers, the same people who do the same jobs, different people who did the same jobs, and they said, "How do you feel about your jobs?" And these people had completely different views. They felt they were healers. They felt they were caretakers. They felt that they were able to transform the energy of the actual hospital. They felt that they were carers for the people there. And what they found is that these same people, sorry, different people who did the same job were telling themselves a different story, and therefore they saw their role as integral to the healing of the patient. And because they saw their role as integral to the healing of the patient, they found the work that they did to be extremely meaningful. And that's crazy to think about it, that different people doing the same job could say different things about the same work. They're doing the same exact thing daily, but someone thinks it's meaningless and the other thinks it's so meaningful. And this was a term by Yale that was called the, called, was called job crafting, the ability to assign meaning where you see it, and all of a sudden your life becomes meaningful. So if you're sitting in a job right now that you hate, or if you've got a boss that you really don't like, or if you're in a relationship that you don't wanna be in, if you can't leave for whatever reason right now because of COVID or lockdown or whatever it is, financial difficulties, if you can't leave and you really want to, one of the things I recommend you do is called job crafting from the Yale School of Management. That you start asking yourself, "Where can I find meaning in this? What can I learn? What can I adopt? What is this trying to teach me?" And that's actually where gratitude can be applied to every place because you start going, "There is some value in this." I remember when I wanted to leave my corporate job and I wanted to live my passion and do what I do today, but I'm so grateful I was at my corporate job because I learned so much there that is so useful to me now. And we find it very easy to be grateful when things are going our way, but we find it very difficult to be grateful when things are not going our way. But what we have to learn to realize, which is a really hard lesson to realize, is that things are always going your way if you're moving in the right direction. Things are not gonna always look like they're going your way, and they could still be going your way. We've all seen curses turn into gifts and gifts turn into curses, but the problem is, Rangan, this is the challenge, we have a projector up here of what we want life to look like, and then we have the reality of what life actually looks like. So there's this big discrepancy. And so sometimes you're actually going in the right direction, but because it doesn't look like your picture and your image of what it should look like, you work less, you become lazier, you become complacent, you try less harder because you're like, "This doesn't look like the right direction." But you'll get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagined it, if you keep going, if you keep pushing, if you keep learning. And that's what it means to be grateful in all areas of your life, is trying to, even in the toughest moment, even in a challenging situation, not gratitude like, "Oh, I'm so thankful to you for causing me the pain." That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is saying to yourself, "Where is there meaning in this?" Where is the lesson in this so I don't repeat this again? If I can be grateful in this challenging situation, and I can experience gratitude at all times, then I'm always going to be coming at things from a positive space and positive energy

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:27 I do want to get to rule four shortly, your partner is your guru, because I think a few of the things you just mentioned really speak to that. But before we do, I want to jump right to the end of the book because I wasn't expecting this part in the book. It, it really took me by surprise and I, I literally loved it. Would you mind if I read a few lines from-

Jay Shetty 1:37:49 Sure

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:49 ... chapter eight-

Jay Shetty 1:37:49 Sure, sure, sure

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:49 ... from rule eight, which is love again and again. "We want love in our lives, and we naturally assume it should take the form of romantic love, but it's a misconception that the only love in your life is between you and your partner, your family, and your friends. It's a misconception that life is meant to be a love story between you and one other person. That love is just a stepping stone. Having a partner isn't the end goal. It's practice for something bigger, something life-changing, a form of love that is even more expansive and rewarding than romantic love." Ajay, I've underlined that in your book. This is pretty profound, that that love with our partner might be a stepping stone to something bigger. What do you mean by that?

Jay Shetty 1:38:50 Yeah. I ... This was actually a revelation that deeply came to me. It's an idea that I understood before writing the book, but it's a revelation that came through the process of writing the book.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:03 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:39:03 And that's why I love, like, obsessing over ... This book took two to three years to put together, and it's ... I love obsessing about ideas for that long because you plant the seed and then they grow into something surprising-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:15 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:39:15 ... by the end of it. I was really looking, Rangan, at the greatest love stories of all time, and the greatest acts of love of all time. And I started to realize that most the stories we would consider the greatest stories of all time, like Romeo and Juliet, are myths. They're not real. They're fiction, right? It's completely made up. And not, no one really benefited from that love story. Like, it, it ends badly, and it doesn't really help anyone, or it doesn't improve anyone's life. And so I started to look at what were the love stories that improved people's lives, and I realized the challenge is we'd put romantic love on such a pedestal that even if people had beautiful relationships with their children, with their parents, with their colleagues, with their teams, maybe even with their country. You know, when you look at what Martin Luther King Jr. did for the world, that was love.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:19 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:40:19 That was an act of love. That was a love story, but we don't present it that way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:24 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:40:24 But that was a love story. If not, then what else was it where someone was willing to sacrifice their life for, for the benefit of others? And we have countless examples of that in history, where people have gone above and beyond to help other people. And so I started to realize that the greatest acts of love are not just romantic. They can be parental. They can be brotherly. They can be friends. They can be leadership. And I think we limit love to one person and maybe a couple of hours a day. We say, "I'm gonna go to work, and that's not a place of love. I'm gonna come home, and I'm gonna love my family." And when we live in that way, we limit love. There's a beautiful story. I love Zen stories, and in this Zen story, the teacher asks the student a question. And everyone who's listening can pretend they're the student. The teacher says, "If you could give $100 to one person or give $1 each to 100 people, which one would you do?" And the student says, "You know, I don't, can't really, doesn't really matter. I'm, you know, pretty, I'm not sure. I have no idea. What, which one would it be?" The teacher says that although it's wonderful if we can give $100 to one person and it will change their life, they said the right answer is to choose to give $1 each to 100 people. And the student said, "Why?" And the teacher replies, "Two reasons. The first is you get to impact 100 people. The second is you get to practice loving and giving 100 times." And I love that idea because it's the idea of you only get better at love, and you only get better at giving, and you only get better at compassion the more you extend and practice that love. And so for some people, that may be their school. And, uh, a good way to think about it is, let's say ... Now, Rangan, how many children do you have?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:34 Two.

Jay Shetty 1:42:35 Two. So you have two children, and I'm guessing you, you love your two children, obviously.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:41 I do.

Jay Shetty 1:42:42 How much would you say you love them? If I asked you to quantify how much do you love them, how much would you say you love them?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:47 Oh, man. How much? Um, first of all, I feel it's almost impossible with-

Jay Shetty 1:42:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:58 ... words to describe-

Jay Shetty 1:43:01 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:01 ... the love that I have for my children. I can't imagine there's anything I wouldn't do for them. I feel all the love that exists inside the world, times it by infinity, and that's how much I love my children.

Jay Shetty 1:43:13 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:13 That's my attempt-

Jay Shetty 1:43:14 I love that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:14 ... in the English language-

Jay Shetty 1:43:16 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:16 ... [laughs] to say how much I love them

Jay Shetty 1:43:19 I love that, and that's so beautiful. And I think, I think any parent would agree with you. So now let's take that. It's a lot of love you have for them, right? So think about how this actually plays out in real life. If you love your children and you want them to have a great childhood, you have to love their school and their friends, because they're gonna grow up around those people. So in order to care for your children, you have to care for their school. In order to care for your children, you have to care for their school, and in order to care for the school, you have to care for the area you live in. And when you care for the area you live in, you have to care about your town, you have to care about your city, you have to care about your country, you have to care about the world. And so I'm not saying everyone has to go out there and do something for the world, but what I'm saying is that if we deeply love our children that much, our love has to extend beyond them in order to protect them and the world they grow up in and live in. And I think that's what I'm trying to get at in Love Again and Again, is that we need to practice loving again and again, and the more we can expand our radius of love and our radius of care, the more our love is truly justified and true. But if it's limited by those two people, it actually ends up being a disservice to them as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:32 Yeah. Uh, I mean, what you're talking about is something I feel I've only really got my head round in the past few years. I feel we- one of the first things we have to do, and you do talk about this i- in- in your latest book, you almost have to undo some of the myths you've absorbed growing up. You know, in many ways the word love, at least the way that many of us understand it, is quite a limiting word. You know, I don't know about you, Jay, I even try and practice this on social media. If someone's ever leaving a, a narky comment or, you know, maybe disagreeing but you can see in a very triggered way disagreeing, it's now, like, can you choose love as your first approach here instead of getting triggered back? And it's not always easy, of course, but can you practice, "Oh, I wonder what they're going through. I wonder why they're feeling so upset at the moment." And I think you speak about this in the, in the introduction. You say, "Love is a daily effort. I want to develop the habit of love with you in this book." Right? So it's kind of a habit, it's a practice. You're, I guess, talking about entry points in. The entry point in for many people will be, "I want a better relationship with my partner. Let me pick up Jay's book to help me with my communication, help me with certain practices I can do with them." But actually that's just the entry point, 'cause you will end up, if you follow that path, ex- you know, expressing that love and compassion ideally to everyone, but certainly you'll widen out that circle of love and compassion, which can only be a good thing. I also think this section is really powerful because there's a lot of people, Jay, who are either single, maybe not by choice. But many people these days are single by choice. They're like, "No, you know what? I've tried a lo- I don't want it. I'm happy being by myself."

Jay Shetty 1:46:30 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:30 But this chapter, I believe, and this rule makes it very inclusive. It's like, yeah, 'cause a lot of the time when we talk about relationships, people who are intentionally single feel left out. You know?

Jay Shetty 1:46:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:43 That's, that's not relevant to me. But I think-

Jay Shetty 1:46:46 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:46 ... it's, it's really beautiful how you put that section in, because I think it will help single people feel very much included in the conversation around love.

Jay Shetty 1:46:56 Yeah. I think so many people feel inadequate or incomplete because they don't have romantic love, and that's like you saying that you- your love for your wife is greater than your love for your kids. Now, I'm sure you'd say, "Well, they're different. They don't even compare or compete." But in the hierarchy of our psychology, we are putting, as a society, romantic love on the pedestal. And again, like, like you said, my book is aimed at helping people find romantic love, keep romantic love, and let go of the challenges that come with breakups and heartbreak. But at the same time, I had to get to this point in the last chapter because I think we all want to live in a world where we're surrounded by more love, more kindness, more compassion, more empathy, more understanding. And I also want people to experience more love by expressing it. I think we think of love as something we have to receive, something that we hope for, that we wish for, that's gonna come to us. But love is actually experienced. If I say to you, Rangan, "I am loving this conversation," I am experiencing love just by saying that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:10 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:48:10 ... because I'm feeling it inside. Now, you may also feel that and say, "Jay, I'm loving it too," and that's great. But even if you don't say it back, I still get to experience love by saying, "I'm loving this conversation." And so I think we again limit love to being something someone has to give us, rather than it being something that we can experience by expressing it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:32 Yeah. And I think there's a fear sometimes, isn't there, to express these things, whether it's to our partner, to our friends. I think we touched on this the first time we spoke on my podcast about how important it is to express gratitude. And sometimes we can feel it, but just when we go that, that extra step and tell someone, "Hey, you know what? I really appreciate what you did there. That was really quite powerful." I mean, on that, Jay, I kind of feel, and you're probably uniquely positioned to answer this in many ways because of your, I guess, your Indian family background. You grew up in the UK. You now live in LA. So you've, you've got a whole mix of different cultural kind of exposures within you, right? And I- You know, Brits are known for their stiff upper lips and, you know, traditionally, and, you know, a lot of Brits have struggled with this concept of, you know, expressing gratitude or telling your friends how much they mean to you. You know, it's, I'm sure you'll know this, it's not a very British thing to do. What is your take on that? Do you think it's changing, and have you noticed a difference in how people approach that in America?

Jay Shetty 1:49:49 Yeah, so I, I'll be honest and say that one of the things I love about being with my friends back at home, all my best friends in London, and I was just there for the holidays, and I spent a ton of time with, with the lads. Uh, and it was, one of the best things is our love is shown by how deeply we can banter with each other, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:06 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:50:06 Like [laughs] as- the, the deeper you can cuss someone and diss someone, the more you love them and the more you can take it back, and I love that. Like, to me, that's so much fun, and me and my guy friends do it all the time when I'm back in London. I would say that my feelings about how I wanna live are less impacted by Indian, British, or American culture, and they're most impacted by my monk life. And the reason I say that is because I think in every country you can find lots of different people, lots of different identities, lots of different cultures, but the way I live is, is what I learned as a monk. And for me, the idea that someone could die at any given time makes every relationship in my life that much more important. And I don't know about you and anyone li- who's listening, but I don't want to regret the last thing I said to someone, and I don't want to regret the last thing they heard from me, and so I live that way. And with everyone in my life, I want the last thing they heard from me to be like, "I love you. You matter to me. You're important to me." That doesn't mean I'm saying that 24 hours a day, but it does mean that if we've had a meaningful interaction, I want them to know that because I would hate to live with the fact. I had a friend many, many years ago who had the worst argument with his dad after... They didn't argue often, but they had a really bad argument, and they didn't speak for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of weeks later, his father passed away. He wasn't old. He wasn't in hospital. He wasn't-- that wasn't the, the natural course of events. No one saw it coming. And my friend held onto that pain for so many years because he hated that the last conversation he had with his dad, who he loved completely-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:04 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:52:04 ... was an argument. And so to me, it's not about whether we're British or American or Indian. It's, it's looking at life through the lens of reality, and I think as Brits, we are very good at being realistic. Well, there's nothing more realistic than death and loss. And so living with that ideology and living with that understanding, we, we actually get to love people a lot more deeply. And, and the other thing I'd say is that I d- I also want people to know how amazing they are while they're alive. I think we celebrate people too late. I think too many people in this world are celebrated far too late. And you know, I, I had the fortune of interviewing Kobe Bryant a few years ago-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:49 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 1:52:49 ... literally two months before he passed away, three months maybe before he passed away. I had no idea. Of course, no one did. And, and I think about that int- whenever I- I always get asked this question like, "Which interview would you love to redo?" Or, "Which interview, like, would you do, wish you could do again?" And I'm like, "That one," because had I have known, and it's like, but we should always know that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:10 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:53:10 This, this, you know, and it's not a morbid way of living. It's actually a more magical way of living 'cause you're like, "This is such a special moment."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:18 Yeah. I, I, I completely agree. Thank you for sharing that, Jay. Very, very powerful. I think there's a, I don't want to get the quote wrong. I'm pretty sure there's a stoic phrase to do with when you kiss your kids good night, imagine it's the last time you're gonna see them.

Jay Shetty 1:53:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:39 Something like that. Please forgive me if I've got that quote slightly wrong, but that's certainly what I remember from it, and it's actually quite triggering for people sometimes when they hear that. And I've thought a lot about it, and I really like it actually, and I think it really speaks to what you've just said. And I do think about this when I'm kissing my kids good night. It's so easy to rush it, go, "Oh, I've got work to do. You know, I just need to put them to bed so I can get and do my emails." And again, I'm human, so I do fall into that trap, but I try and remind myself-

Jay Shetty 1:54:11 Of course. So do I

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:12 Yeah. It's a, it's a nice reminder to go, "Hey, you know what? What if?" And it's not, it's, as you say, it's not morbid. It's just trying to help you be more present to appreciate that moment. And you know, it really has extra poignancy at the moment for me, um, because in the past few weeks I have gone through some really challenging times, which I shared with you just before we spoke. And you know, my mum, who w- who for many years my brother and I have helped to care for, this is why we live where we do, we live nearby, Mum was admitted to hospital, uh, around Christmas, and she was seriously unwell to the point where, you know, for a few days we thought that was it, thought Mum's dying, and I couldn't stop crying for days, and I went through a sort of grief process. Now Mum has miraculously recovered. She's back home with a load of challenges, but every time I leave Mum, you know, every time I'm there and I say goodbye, I remember- Three weeks ago, Rangan, you thought you were never gonna have another conversation with your mother again. I would have given my right arm back then. So even if mom's frustrated or she's asking for a lot and I've got other stuff on, so far I've been really proud of myself and been like, "Okay, I've been patient. I've been smiling. I've been calm." And I thought, "You would've given everything for this three weeks ago. You thought you were never gonna have a conversation with your mom again." And, you know, Dad died 10 years ago. I th- I started to imagine, what's life gonna be like with no parents? So when you speak about love like that, when you talk about make these interactions as if they were gonna be, as if they're the last time you're gonna have those interactions, I think it's really powerful, and I don't think it's morbid at all. I think, as you say, it does make our day-to-day life much more magical.

Jay Shetty 1:56:14 Yeah. No, really well said, and it's not me- And if it is an, if it is anxiety-inducing for people, I do understand that, and I empathize with that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:23 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:56:24 And that's where I think we're talking about this subtle spot where it's like you're not thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna lose them. Oh, my God, I need to tell them I love them." Like, that's not the mood. It's what you said so, so wonderfully, was like, "I wanna be fully present with this person because I love them." And something you were talking about earlier, I think, Rangan, I, I've learned something. I've moved and lived in so many different cities at this point in my life. I've lived in Mumbai. I've lived in London. I've lived in New York. I've, I li- now live in LA. And I've had to make a lot of new friends at so many different stages in my life. Obviously, some of my best friends of all time, my best man at my wedding, everyone's back in London, and I still talk to my best friend probably three times a week, uh, back in London, and we figure out the time difference. But I've had to make so many new friends along the journey that I've learned to just w- to say how I feel. I've literally had to say to people as an adult, "Hey, I think we'd really connect. Let's spend more time together," or, "You know what? I, I think we'd make really good friends. Like, shall we connect more?" And it's like it sounds so stupid when you're looking at it from a childish view of like, "Oh, Jay, you sound desperate." And I'm like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57:28 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:57:29 ... "Well, I am. For connection, I am. Like, I, I want real human life connection, and if that makes me look like a loser and desperate, hey, I'll take it." Because I'd rather live my life having really beautiful relationships with people than live my life pretending like I'm too cool for that or I'm too good for that and I'm too important for that and then missing them when they're gone. And I think sometimes we're just living in this false safety. We're actually scared of being open with people. And again, I'm compassionate, I'm compassionate to people who struggle to show love because we struggle to show love because we're scared of losing that person.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:58:10 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:58:10 That's what it is. It's not that we're trying to act cool or we think we're better. It's because we're actually scared, "If I really open up to this person and I'm vulnerable with them, and then they're not here anymore, I'm gonna feel really all over the place." And so I get that. It also comes from a self-preservation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:58:30 Yeah. Has your wife read this book yet?

Jay Shetty 1:58:37 So my wife st- My wife just finished reading Think Like a Monk, I believe. It's been two-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:58:41 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:58:41 ... years now [laughs] since the book's been out, and, uh, she's read bits of it. She's read bits of it, not all of it. She's, I always say my wife is the number one supporter of who I am but the least subscriber and listener to what I do. But she told me recently, 'cause she's been in London because of her family and I've been in LA, she literally just started listening to my podcast, and she's [laughs] she, she's, she's been telling me how much she's enjoying it, which is, which is actually really nice after... We've been married for seven years. The podcast is three and a half, no, four years old this year, and it's funny when after four years she's started listening to it. She's like, "This is really good. I get it now why people" ... I'm like, "You're s- you're hilarious." Uh, it's, it's humbling and adorable at the same time. It's beautiful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:26 I think that's a really interesting point there, Jay, where... Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel, so please do take a moment to press Subscribe, hit the notification bell, and now back to the conversation. A lot of relationships, I think, fall into traps when we think we have to have the same passions, we have to do the same things together, you know. You could potentially expect your partner, your wife, to listen because it's a podcast that's loved by millions all over the world. It's helping so many people. And you could potentially be offended that h- how come all these other people who I don't know are listening, but my dear wife is not? And I'm not sure if this is in the book or whether I heard you say this in another conversation a few years ago, but I think you said one year after you got married, you got a good break in your work life, like a really good break, and you got the impression that your wife wasn't that happy about it. I wonder if you could explain that situation because, like, it really speaks to what you just said about your podcast and your first [laughs] book, which, and your wife not reading them or not listening, because I think it gets us into a lot of trouble in our relationships when we feel our partner has to do and love the same things as us.

Jay Shetty 2:00:54 Yeah. I, I'm so glad you brought this up because it's something people struggle with, and I wanna tell you my example. I also wanna tell you about a client I worked with, uh, because I've been doing so much relationship coaching over the last few years, hence, hence this book as well. Uh, but yeah, with my, my wife and I, you know, when... I, I wanna go back a bit more. When I met my wife, when we first started dating, which is nearly 10 years ago now, I- I didn't have a job I didn't have any money. Actually, I was in 18,000 pounds worth of debt because of my student loan. I was getting turned down and was turned down by about 40 companies. This is when I'm dating my wife, and she knows all of this is going on. My, my wife comes from a, you know, a wonderful family, and she's dating a guy who has just been a monk for three years, doesn't have any job prospects, has no money, and is in debt, and doesn't know what to do because 40 companies have said no. And my wife chose to be with that guy [laughs] . And I like to remind myself, I like to remind others, I like to remind friends and family of that because a lot of the time today people will be like, "Oh, Radhi, you're so lucky, like, to be with Jay." And I'm like, "No, no, no, you don't understand. I'm lucky because she chose to be me, be with me when all I had to offer was myself." And I'm almost getting teary because it's so, it's so real because my, yeah, my wife chose to be with me when all I had to offer was myself, and she backed that guy. And so when I look at it now, and when I think back to that, when I first started to experience success in my career, I would almost metaphorically hold up my trophies and metaphorically hold up my achievements to her and say, "We should be celebrating this. Look what I did. Look what I achieved. Look what I-- Look where I got to." Like, "Let's, let's celebrate how amazing I am and what I've done," and she wouldn't respond to that. Like, that wouldn't-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:03:03 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 2:03:03 ... bring her alive. And often I'd sit there and I'd think, "Well, maybe she doesn't, she doesn't care about me. She doesn't love me. She's not celebrating me. She doesn't read my stuff. She doesn't listen to me." And I started to realize that I wanted my wife to love me for what I achieved when she loved me for who I was. And now when I ask you that question logically, do you want to be loved for your achievements or do you want to be loved for your character? Which one do you want? It's so obvious. It's so glaringly obvious, but I think we want to be loved. Our ego, actually, that's what it is. Our ego-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:03:43 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:03:43 ... wants to be loved for our achievements, but our heart wants to be loved for our characters. And when our ego overtakes our heart, the ego demands that respect and adoration when all the heart wants is true affection for who you are. And I saw this play out with one of my clients who's a speaker and an author as well, and he was saying to me that, he goes, "Jay, when I go and speak on stage, I have so many women who are attracted to me, who, who want to get to know me, who adore me, who respect me, who compliment me, who, who think I'm incredible." And he goes, "When I go home, my wife doesn't even care about that." And so I went through this same process with him where I was like, "Do you want to be loved for your performance, or do you want to be loved as a person?" And I think when he sat with that, he realized that there will always be people who love his performance, but they may not love him as a person. But someone who loves you as a person, it doesn't matter whether they love your performance or not because they're with you for the right reasons. They're with you for the deepest truths of who you are. And so to me, that was a big revelation, and it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:06 Mm

Jay Shetty 2:05:06 ... saved so much stress and anxiety that I had because now I take pride in the fact that I'm with someone who has my back no matter what happens.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:15 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:05:15 Whether this stays, goes away, whether I'm relevant, irrelevant, insignificant, significant, my wife doesn't care about that stuff. Isn't, isn't that love? [laughs] Like, isn't that what we really want?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:28 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:05:28 Sorry for getting emotional. I that's, I don't think I've ever got emotional in an interview. You just really, like, we're not even in the same room, uh, and, and you fully, fully got me [laughs] . I was, like, literally on the verge of tears there, but yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:41 It's, i- it's powerful, Jay. Um, there, there's so many elements of that I could echo with, resonate with. Um, you know, you, you, you wrote about this in the book and you said you are lucky that she fell in love with you when you had nothing, right? And you've just beautifully, you know, explained and elaborated on that. But let's flip it. Let's flip it to someone who's listening or watching right now who's, who's got success, who's got a, a good job, earning good money, got a nice house, got the societal metrics of success, but is single. Perhaps they worked so hard they neglected to nourish important relationships. You know, we know this is very, very common. People get stuck into work. They're trying to get up that career ladder, and the price they often pay is that they don't, you know, create meaningful relationships. So for that person who wasn't lucky enough, let's say, like you to meet your wife when you literally had nothing, you had minus 18,000 nothing, um, and they go, "Yeah, but now I don't know if when I meet someone they want me because of my position and my money and my salary," how would you help them find [laughs] someone who loves them for who they are, not for what they are?

Jay Shetty 2:07:10 Yeah, yeah. There's a hidden rule in the book that isn't one of the eight rules, but it's, it-- That's why I call it a hidden rule because it's, it's really powerful, but, uh, I put it inside one of the chapters, and it's called- You attract what you use to impress. What I mean by that is whatever you use to impress someone, that's what you're going to attract into your life. So if you're someone that flaunts your wealth, it's likely that you'll attract someone who comes to you for your wealth. I had a client who was saying to me, "Jay, every woman I date is just into me for my money and what I have." And I said, "Well, can you take a look in the mirror?" And they were, like, drenched in designer clothing [laughs] had the biggest designer bag, like. And I was like, "Well, what do you expect?" Like, you're showing that part of yourself. Now, I'm not saying you're not allowed to love fashion or you're not allowed-- I love fashion, I love brands. You're allowed to ni- like nice things. But I said, "If that's the things you talk about when you're on a date, if that's the things you reference, if you're always talking about how much you made last month and the amazing, expensive trip you went on, or you order a fancy bottle of champagne or wine or whatever it may be to the table, like, what message do you think-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:33 Mm

Jay Shetty 2:08:33 ... you're sending?" Now, you may say, "Jay, I'm just trying to show I'm confident," or, "I'm trying to show I'm able," but you have to get really clear on how you show confidence and how you show ability. And I think that what we have to understand is if that we use those very, uh, if we use those very physical ways of attracting someone, it's very likely that you're gonna bring that person closer. I think another thing I'd say to them is, what are the values that you have and what are the values of someone you want to be with, and where are you gonna pi- find a person of equal value? Often I find you find people of equal value through people you know of equal value. You know someone who knows you deeply, who loves you. My sister was, uh, our wing person for me and my wife, 'cause my sister was really good friends with my wife, and my sister's one of my best friends. My sister is a person of value. She's the one who was the wing person between me and my wife, so I trust her. What's a project of value? Maybe there's a project at work, maybe there's a project in your community, maybe there's a project you can take on that's of similar value. Uh, and what's fi- thirdly, what's a place of similar value? Is it a charity? Is it a passion that you have? Is it a sport you love? You're gonna meet people in places of similar value, projects of similar value, and with people of similar value. And I think often we-- the problem is we value ourselves based on our achievements, and so we flaunt them, attracting the wrong people, only to regret it. And so it's better to present yourself as you are and present yourself with who you are in order to, to attract someone to it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:22 Would you recommend people start off with a particular daily practice as a way of getting good and developing the skill before they can start applying it, let's say, to, you know, aspects of their life that maybe aren't going as well as they want to, where they have to reframe things? I mean, what has been your experience in trying to teach people about gratitude and how they should start that process?

Jay Shetty 2:10:46 Yeah. So you always develop your muscles in the training center and in the gym. You don't go out and develop your muscles on game day, right? Like, no one gets thrown out-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:54 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:10:54 ... onto the pitch and says, "Oh, yeah, go and play a World Cup final and you'll figure out how strong you are." You would never do that. You, you train in the gym, you prepare, you get ready, and then you go. You don't go, "I want to learn how to run. Maybe I should run in the marathon next year," right? You don't-- That's not how it works. And so Rangan is absolutely right, that it starts in small bouts. So I want to get more practical, because me and Rangan have spoken about a lot of concepts today. Uh, when we talk about practicing thankfulness or gratitude, and I talk about four habits in the book, one of them, one of the key daily habits or daily practices is thankfulness. Now, thankfulness isn't just about feeling. Thankfulness isn't just about thinking. It's actually about expressing. So when Rangan messaged me a few weeks back and he told me that he'd been reading my book, he-- I sent him an early copy because he was gonna interview me on the podcast, and he sent me that message, I was, I was so grateful to him, like, genuinely, because he was expressing gratitude to me, and that's the amazing thing. Instead of just feeling gratitude, let's say Rangan felt it, but he didn't say it to me. If he didn't say it to me, he would have not had the experience A, of sharing it, B, of receiving my gratitude back to him, and our relationship deepening based on that simple message he sent me. And so gratitude becomes more powerful when you express it daily. So every day ask yourself, "Who's a person that you want to express gratitude to and go and tell them?" Secondly, "What's a place that you're grateful for and spend more time in that place," and, "What's a project that you're grateful for in your life?" And if you write these down every single day before you go to bed, who's a person I'm grateful for and why, what's a place that I'm grateful for and why, and right now it may not be a place you can go to. It may be a place that you visited and you're so grateful you got to go there before COVID. And the third thing is-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:39 Mm

Jay Shetty 2:12:39 ... a project in your life. And so when you express gratitude, make sure that it's specific. So I'll give you an example. Let's say Rangan throws a party with his wife this weekend at their home, and their friends come over. And one of his friends-- Uh, Rangan, give me two friends' names in your life, and we'll pick on them for a bit.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:58 Uh, okay. Uh, [laughs] I'll say Jeremy.

Jay Shetty 2:13:00 Jeremy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:01 'Cause I know he'll b- I know he'll be listening.

Jay Shetty 2:13:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:03 Um, uh, you know what? I'll go Gareth.

Jay Shetty 2:13:06 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:06 My buddy who-

Jay Shetty 2:13:07 Gareth and Jeremy

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:07 ... who's really who- Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:13:08 Gareth-- So let's say Gareth and Jeremy, and again, uh, I'm, I'm just gonna add a disclaimer. None of this reflects Gareth and Jeremy in real life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:14 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 2:13:15 Uh, but let's say Gareth and Jeremy come to this party that, uh, Rangan and his wife throw, and it's just, um, you know, just a gathering to get people together. The next morning, Rangan wakes up. He doesn't look at his first thing in the morning, his phone. That's not what Rangan does. Rangan looks at his phone about three hours later, uh, after he's exercised, meditated, spent time with his kids, and then he looks at his phone- And he sees these two messages from Gareth and Jeremy. Gareth, uh, sorry about this, but here we go. So Gareth has messaged him saying, "Thanks, mate. It was great." Right? That was Gareth's message. And Jeremy's message was, "Rangan, thank you so much. Like, you and your wife just threw an amazing party, and I loved all the games we played. Your kids are adorable and, oh, by the way, you know, you know that food? How did, how did you both make that? The food was amazing. Thank you so much. Uh, thank you for, uh, letting us have this moment together." So those are two messages. A or B, which one do you think causes Rangan more joy? Now, Rangan's a grateful person, so he'll be grateful to both of them, but he's more likely, and honestly all of us are, going to be more grateful to the, to Jeremy in that scenario because he's gone into more depth and been specific about what he actually liked and learned. And because of that, he's now going to attract more love and gratitude back from Rangan as well. So that's why expressing gratitude is actually the key, and if we can express gratitude to people, places, and projects, we start to develop more gratitude in our life, and that's something we can do daily. And it can be an email, it can be a voice note, it can be a text, it could be a video call, but it can be as simple as just a text message. But specific gratitude is scientifically shown to be better for you and better for the other person.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:14:59 Yeah. I mean, Jay, thanks so much for sharing that because, you know, gratitude gets spoken about a lot these days, but I think that specificity piece, I think that example beautifully demonstrates just... I can feel it, the difference. You know, you can, you can feel it viscerally as you, as you hear it. It, it does something different. And I remember so clearly, I think I left you a voi- uh, a WhatsApp voice message because I was literally... I was thinking, "Oh, he's probably asleep now, but he won't have his phone on at night." You know, there's that bit of insecurity at first.

Jay Shetty 2:15:32 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:15:32 And I thought, "No, just express the damn gratitude." You know? You, you know, I think the, the Rangan of a few years ago possibly wouldn't have done it out of insecurity or will this be taken the right way or the wrong way or whatever. But the, the, I would say the person I am today, having done a lot of the work and having practiced a lot of these tools, um, you know, there is s- if, not only did, I'm, as you're sharing, does it feel good for you to get it, but it feels nice to share. I s- I'm, I'm doing a lot of voice notes these days.

Jay Shetty 2:16:03 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:03 I'm finding I'm going to WhatsApp, pressing the, the mic. In fact, someone told me during lockdown that you can actually press it and flip it up. Uh-

Jay Shetty 2:16:11 Oh

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:11 ... which is my friend Jody. Thanks, Jody. I didn't know you could do that. They said you can talk without actually holding it. So-

Jay Shetty 2:16:15 I didn't know that either. I hold it. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:17 [laughs] No, you don't.

Jay Shetty 2:16:17 Thank you, Jody. Thank you so much.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:18 That was... Yeah. That, that's actually Jeremy's wife. So, so it's all coming.

Jay Shetty 2:16:22 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:22 It's, it's bringing it back together for those guys. But you know, I, I find it's really... So I'm a vocal kind of person. I like talking, and sometimes I find it hard to express-

Jay Shetty 2:16:32 Same

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:33 ... what I want to on a text message.

Jay Shetty 2:16:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:34 So I'll just do a WhatsApp voice message. And, um-

Jay Shetty 2:16:37 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:37 ... yeah, I think gratitude's super powerful. One thing I'm gonna add. Well, I'll ask you actually, do you do your gratitude practice by yourself? Or do you also do it with your wife?

Jay Shetty 2:16:48 So I do my gratitude practice by myself, but then the expression may lead to me expressing it to my wife if she's the person that day that I'm being grateful for. Now, I'm probably grateful to my wife every day, and so I express gratitude to her every day. Uh, but I really find spending some time by myself to figure out my mind first. It's almost like if you're both trying to solve a problem together, you can help each other, but one person can sometimes take shortcuts because the other person kind of carries the weight. And it's really important to really be clear about who you're grateful for. You can do it with your partner, of course, but make sure one of you are not kind of relying on the other person to come up with all the answers and do all the hard work when it really needs to be a personal feeling. So you know, yeah, for me it's... For me, I feel gratitude is the easiest gift you can give someone and the easiest gift for someone to receive, especially when it's genuine and specific. Uh, and Rangan, I would encourage you, not just with me, but with anyone, you know, it was so genuine and specific that, you know, I recommend you continue to do that, uh, sharing of gratitude as you saw. And you said it's visceral. It is. It, it boosts your mood when you're grateful to someone-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:17:57 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:17:57 ... in a specific way, and then you feel their love back.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:00 Do, do you feel or do you think, as I do, that many people have got hang-ups and insecurities, and therefore, to do what I did, to actually express gratitude to someone, they're fearful about doing it?

Jay Shetty 2:18:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:16 Because insecurity is... I think we all face insecurities, right?

Jay Shetty 2:18:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:21 And how would you help someone who says, "Hey, Jay, look, I wanna do that. Like, I'd love to tell my work colleague that, you know, she was so helpful to me yesterday and she got me out of this jam and helped me do something, but, you know, what, will it come across wrong? I, I don't really know. You know, what will they think?" I mean, what would you say to someone like that?

Jay Shetty 2:18:40 Yeah, I think you are right. I think some of our insecurity comes from, sometimes our insecurity can come from our ego, which is blocking our gratitude. So the ego says, "Well, I don't want to recognize that someone else is doing something good because it makes me feel inferior." That's one of the ways that our ego can block us from gratitude. Uh, and I believe in some traditions and in some circles I've heard ego being translated to eliminate gratitude out, right? It's like eliminate, E-G-O. So you know, you can, you can kind of lose gratitude through ego because you think, "Oh, if I tell them that they're good, then that means I'm not good," which is not true at all. Uh, the other way the insecurity comes in gratitude is like, "Oh, well, what if they think I'm just trying to, uh, I'm just trying to, like, get close to them, or I'm just trying to say something nice for the sake of it, or I'm just lying or pretending. Like, what if they think I'm just trying to, uh, suck up to them," right? Like, m- is that the reason? And so sometimes we hold back how we feel. What I'd say to you is, I'd say that expressing gratitude, if genuine, if from the heart, and if well explained and thought out, should always be shared even when you feel uncomfortable. Because when it's shared from that place, you've already got the benefits of feeling grateful. And then if that person does or doesn't react in the way you expect them to, and by the way, there shouldn't be a need for them to react because you're just thanking them for what they've already done. You're not thanking them for what they're about to do. You're thanking them for what they've already done. So now if they respond [laughs] in an ungrateful way, you haven't lost your gratitude 'cause you're grateful for what they did in the past, not what they did in the future. So don't then go, "Oh, well they didn't even deserve me to be grateful," because they did for that moment of what they did for you. So, uh, share it because it's good for you. Don't worry about how they respond.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:20:31 Yeah. And, and I guess also if they do respond in that way or if they do think that, that's their own issue, right?

Jay Shetty 2:20:39 Yeah. Yeah, completely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:20:40 That ain't, that's not your issue that you, you've expressed it from your hearts. How they react is kind of out of your control, right?

Jay Shetty 2:20:48 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:20:48 And that's another key learning, I think, on this path to thinking like a monk, I would guess, is, you know, you're not in control of other people's thoughts, [laughs] right?

Jay Shetty 2:20:58 Not at all. And, and that's, you know, that's the biggest lesson, is that you're not in charge of the results, how people respond, or what they think. You never are. So wasting your time trying to change how someone thinks of you is, can actually be one of the w- most worthless pursuits in life. But changing how you think about yourself is probably one of the most worthwhile pursuits in life, but the one we spend less time on. We're constantly trying to change how people think about us, and we think if they think highly of us, then we'll feel better about ourselves. But that's not the case. The case is we can change how we feel about ourselves by changing our behavior and being more in aligned with the person-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:21:39 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:21:39 ... we want to be with our values, as Rangan said, going back full circle. So don't get lost in trying to change other people's perceptions of you because that could be a never-ending journey and, and a journey that you never reach the destination of because y- you never will truly be able to control it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:21:57 Yeah. Comes full circle-

Jay Shetty 2:21:59 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:21:59 ... back to that Cooley quote, right?

Jay Shetty 2:22:00 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:22:00 I mean, that is, it is such a powerful quote because-

Jay Shetty 2:22:04 It's amazing

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:22:04 ... everything we talk about, you can then just back it up straight into that.

Jay Shetty 2:22:08 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:22:08 And it, and it, and again, it brings out the, the meaning of that quote so much more.

Jay Shetty 2:22:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:22:13 But Jay, when you were m- when you were just talking there about the insecurity that some people may feel when trying to express gratitude, um, I, I was really, I was struck by something I wrote down from your book, and I can't remember which chapter it's in, but you say, "It's impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others."

Jay Shetty 2:22:32 Yeah, so I'm quoting Daisaku Ikeda, who's a Buddhist philosopher-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:22:38 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:22:38 ... who says that statement. I belie- I can't remember which chap- I think I start the negativity chapter with that quote. So it's Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher, and he says exactly that, that you can't build your own happiness on the unhappiness of others. And I think what that truly means is we often believe that we can only be superior if someone else is inferior. So we feel better when we say, "Oh, you know that pers- did you know that couple's getting a divorce? Oh, did you know their marriage only lasted, like, two years?" And what you're really saying is, "Well, we've, we've somehow managed to stay together for eight years. Like, we've done pretty all right," right? And you're, you're kind of gossiping about them. Or another way it goes is like, "Oh, did you hear about him? He's, he's totally messed it up. Like, he's getting fired next week." And all you're doing is you're making someone feel inferior to make yourself feel superior. That doesn't create happiness. It creates more uncertain ground because now you're constantly looking for someone else to feel inferior for you to feel superior. And guess what? God forbid someone's now outperforming you, you're now feeling inferior, and you're feeling all the insecurity of what you felt about someone else. So it's never a stable ground, right? I believe it's in the Bible, but you know, you c- you can't, I think it's that you can't build your home on shifting sands, but in the same way you can't build a stable identity of yourself on the gossip or the mistakes of others.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:24:11 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:24:11 And so you've gotta be really careful about not building a ground for yourself. Imagine you, the ground you're standing on is built on blocks of superiority, bricks of gossip, and mud and cement of criticism. That's not gonna hold.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:24:30 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:24:30 And so you don't want to create your joy because other people are struggling or suffering. You want to create your joy because you know how to deal with struggle and suffering.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:24:40 Yeah. So, so, so beautifully explained, and, man, I think we often write the quotes down that really mean a lot to us. And I certainly feel, for me, that was something I spent a lot of my adult life really, uh, trying to come to terms with and, and realizing, you know, I used to be so competitive. You know, I, you know, if I won a game of snooker or table tennis or, you know, it would, it would literally elevate me. And if I lost, man, I would be down in the dumps. Like, it would-- [inhales] And I've really explored this and I, and, you know, given the time we've got left, I sort of probably can't go down this rabbit hole, but, you know, I, I, I know one component is that as a kid, um, you know, how I did at school, you know, and, and, and again, I don't know if this is the same in your household. I know a lot of immigrant families have this sort of mentality. If you, you know, if you got a 98%, it's like, well, why was it not 100%?

Jay Shetty 2:25:34 Yeah, [laughs] for sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:25:35 Um, you know, you were like, "Oh, what, you came second in that test. Why, w- what happened? Who was first? Why didn't you come first?"

Jay Shetty 2:25:41 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:25:41 And- You know, I actually think whilst I, um, and my mom will say, 'cause I've spoken to her about this recently, she said, "Well, I knew you were capable, so I wanted you to be the best you could." And okay, and I think she was doing the best she could. I would say for me, the way I interpreted it was that I can only be loved, I can only be-

Jay Shetty 2:26:03 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:26:03 ... um, feel good about myself when I'm number one.

Jay Shetty 2:26:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:26:07 And really I'd say the last sort of five years, that's pretty much almost gone from me now. I, I, I'm pretty, I'm pretty okay with it now. Like, I don't feel... And I think that, that is, I, I think it's such an important quote that you've shared because I sort of think now, uh, and we should probably talk about social media a bit because, you know, you're, you're, you're pretty much the king of social media, [laughs] uh, in, in so many ways, and I think I'd love to know some of your thoughts on social media. Um, but with respect to that quote, I think one of the negatives, and there's no doubt been a lot of positives to social media, um, you know, you have shared such amazing wisdom in your videos to millions of people around the world, which potentially may not have happened without social media, right? So it's not about saying it's either good or bad. But I do think for some people it can magnify those insecurities. So if you feel that you can build your happiness, uh, on the unhappiness of others, people can get very focused on follower counts and likes. Um, and I certainly know in the, in the UK medic world, uh, there's a lot of medics feel a pressure to be building up their profiles and have contacted me saying, "You know, I'm not sure what to do," and you think, wow, it's causing such discontentment. And it's just a metric that in so many levels, I'm not, I'm not gonna say it's meaningless, of course it's not meaningless. But if you're trying to do it because how you'll be perceived by others, going back to what we've been talking about throughout this conversation, what are you posting for? What are you hoping to achieve by posting? Is it in service? Is it to help people or is it to elevate yourself?

Jay Shetty 2:27:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:27:54 You know, I don't know, maybe you can untangle that some-

Jay Shetty 2:27:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:27:57 ... for us, because I'm sure some people listening will, will be thinking that.

Jay Shetty 2:28:00 Yeah. There's, there's, there's very few creators of content on social media that started out with a follower count in mind. So me included, uh, a lot of my peers in this space, a lot of people that I know that are extremely successful on different platforms, none of them started, at least the ones that I know, none of them started to get followers. They all started because they had something to share, whatever that was, whether it was comedy, whether it's wisdom, whether it was a workout plan, a fitness plan, whatever it was, like they had something that they did that they were passionate about, they wanted to share. And I can only speak to myself fully, but when I started, I thought I was gonna have a full-time corporate job, and I was gonna make videos on the evenings and weekends to share a message. That's genuinely all I believed. And I, it, after my first month, I had about 1,000 subscribers on YouTube, about four videos I'd made on YouTube. I had about 1,000 people that had subscribed to my channel, and most of my friends were like, "Great, Jay, that's where it's gonna end. Like, congrats. Well done. Like, you got 1,000 subscribers. You kind of just crept in there in 30 days. Like, well done. That's cool. Like, how far is this gonna go?" And that's really the reality of what it felt like. And the interesting thing is, the question was never how do I get more followers? The question was always, how do I make more content that impacts people? Because, and, and that's the question with everything. It's like, if you make more content that genuinely impacts people, you'll get more followers. If you build a business that serves more people, you'll make more money. If you help a lot of people through your talents and gifts, you will be famous and known for it. Like, it's, it's a byproduct of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:29:40 Yeah

Jay Shetty 2:29:40 ... doing something properly, and that's why I love the definition that Peter Diamandis gives that we should redefine the word billionaire to be someone who impacts the lives of a billion people. Why is Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world? Because he's created a product that we all say we want, and that it solves a problem that we really need. And so if you want to get followers, don't look at the number. Ask yourself, are you really creating the value that's going to help people? And they're going to naturally want to follow you and, and they're going to want to love your work and share it because to me, that's the worthwhile pursuit in life. Because when you do that work, that work is humbling. When you do that creativity, that's the part that makes you grateful for the success that you get because you go, "Wow. Like, people actually care about what I have to say." But if you're just obsessed about numbers and metrics without being obsessed by the content, the creation, and the, the service, then, then you'll never be satisfied because there'll always be someone better than you. So for me, when I set out to write this book, so many people were like, "Oh, so do you, do you want this book to be a bestseller?" And I said, "I want this book to be a bestseller, of course I do. But I'm not going to focus on it being a bestseller. I'm going to focus on writing the best book [laughs] in the world that I can possibly write, given the skills that I have." And that's why when I talk about dharma in the book, which is helping everyone find their purpose, dharma is broken down. Dharma means purpose loosely, uh, and has many different meanings, but one of them is nature and purpose, your true nature. And the three aspects that I'll share now for the, and there's more depth in the book, the three aspects of dharma are your passion, your skills, and your compassion. That's what it means. When you have your passion plus your skills plus your compassion, that equals purpose. But for most of us, if we're just looking at numbers and metrics and data, I mean, you'll be dissatisfied there. And, and I'm saying that as someone who really values numbers. I understand the value of followers, social media. I get the value of all those things, and I'm highly strategic. But I'll be completely honest with you, I'm not focused on the number. I'm focused on making content and, and that's the message, that if we're focused on really creating value in the world, all of the other stuff will come naturally. Uh, you know, you, you don't have to go out and separately- Try and get it. And, uh, you know, Rangan, you've done a great job of this. You've made content that's very organic to you. You've made content that's very natural to you. And, and I think that's what people gravitate towards you in your podcast and your books because it's you being yourself. You're not trying to sound like someone else. You're not trying to be someone else. And, and if you look at the most successful creators in the world, they're all like that. They've just really shared their raw personality with others.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:32:29 Yeah. I mean, thanks for sharing that, Jay. And I, and I will just add to that, um, as I have stripped away the layers of conditioning from my childhood and the insecurities, and frankly used a lot of the tools that, and you know, that, that are in your book, but there's a lot of new ones in there for me to, to be, uh, to be applying, which I'm, I'm really grateful that you've written this book, so I think it is incredible. And, um, I, I will sit with a lot of these, as I already am. But as I have become more me, and I'm... You know, I post... Frankly, you know, I'm, I'm, like you, like many people, I'm a busy guy. I've got two young kids. You know, I made a decision that I, my, spending time with my children, spending undistracted time with my family is more important to me than other things. Um, you know, people have heard me say before, I don't tend to, like, say, Insta story that much or when I'm at home because my kids are around, and for me, it doesn't fit with my values to model to them that every aspect of my life needs to be documented into a screen. Now, that is absolutely not a criticism of people who do do that. I genuinely isn't. It's not, it's just not the way I choose to do things. Um, but, but really w- what I, what I was trying to say is that I think what, what you said about your focus on making content that changes people's lives, and of course some people are gonna share it because you're giving people something of value. And I found not only, particularly with this podcast, which is probably the favorite thing of all the things that I do now, is I get to be myself. I get to talk with amazing people like you. We get to have honest conversations that really, you know, often there's no real agenda. It's just about trying to share your insight, my insight, just have these sort of conversations. And I, and I feel I have become a happier and more content person since I started doing my podcast, because it's helped me be myself. It's exhausting trying to be someone else. It's a- Do you know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 2:34:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:34:37 It's tiring trying to be someone else. And going back to what you said at the start, if people are trying to spend their lives living someone else's life, it's knackering.

Jay Shetty 2:34:47 It's so tiring.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:34:49 Right?

Jay Shetty 2:34:49 It's so tiring. It's, it's, it's, I think, you know, I'm sure it's been stated before around how it's, it's so hard trying to act like someone else, and so much easier, it's less effort being yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:35:03 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:35:04 Um, but, but that's what you said, that ch- our childhood had made, has made us believe we're not enough. And so we think we have to be what's rewarded in society. And actually, we're now living at a time where what's being rewarded in society is being yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:35:22 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:35:22 And, and you know, and that authenticity. And you're right. It, it's, it's not about whether someone's posting 30 stories a day or not. It's, that's not what it's about. It's about is that authentically the life they want to live? That's the question. The question isn't, do you make videos or have a podcast or have millions of followers? The question is, is that authentic to who you are?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:35:41 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:35:42 And, and what you're really trying to do in the world because, by the way, I know people who've impacted the world who have zero followers.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:35:48 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 2:35:48 Right? Like, I know people who've impacted the world who have no videos or content. That's not the only way to impact the world. That is a way to impact the world, and that's a way that I had to pursue, and Rangan's pursued in a different way in his life. And if you look at Rangan's journey and my journey, we're doing it in different ways. There's not, there's no sameness in how it's being done because everyone has that. So don't limit yourself to believe there's only one way to getting to where you want to go. There are multiple paths, and you probably have to test and experiment and take a few of them to see which one actually comes to fruition. And, and I took many paths. I tried so many things before I tried social media, that social media was the only option I had left.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:36:30 Wow.

Jay Shetty 2:36:30 And so for me, social media wasn't even my first choice. Social media was my last choice of how to work, but I was getting no breakthroughs from media companies and media execs and content platform. I just, I got no love from it all, so I had to turn to social media.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:36:45 Something I've been thinking about recently in preparation of this conversation is obviously we've both got Indian families as our backgrounds, right? Both of us, I think, were born and brought up in the UK, but our-

Jay Shetty 2:36:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:36:56 ... our families are from India.

Jay Shetty 2:36:58 London, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:36:59 And it's interesting. I don't know how your parents got together, but my parents had a full-on arranged marriage. You know, my dad was working in the UK. He'd, he'd emigrated here. He'd been here for about 10 years, and he basically took his annual leave. His family had arranged for him to get married. He literally flew home to India for, I don't know, a week. He met my mum, I think, on the Saturday for just a cup of tea, and on the Sunday they got married. And then a few days later-

Jay Shetty 2:37:29 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:37:29 ... dad, dad flies back home to work, and about three months later my mum comes over and, you know, they, they set up life together. Now, what's really interesting-

Jay Shetty 2:37:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:37:39 ... as a kid growing up, as an immigrant kid struggling with identity, trying to fit in with, you know, your English friends around you, I was always, I think I was a little embarrassed once I realized that Mum and Dad had never met. I'm like, "Oh, that's just not cool." You know, you know, people need to meet and fall in love and have romance and, you know, the things you see on