Watch This Before You Die: Completely Change Your Life In 90 Minutes | Jay Shetty

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 There's a lot of people, Jay, they hear these things about purpose, and they're not sure how that actually translates for them in the context of their life. So this is something you've been talking about for years. So as things stand today, Jay, 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 0:23 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 1:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:27 ... 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 f- 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 3:39 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 4:03 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 4:19 Yeah

Jay Shetty 4:19 ... 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 T-I-M-E, 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 6:54 Yeah

Jay Shetty 6:54 ... 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 7:26 Wow

Jay Shetty 7:26 ... 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 7:36 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 mentioned 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.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:00 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 8:26 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 choices, 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 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 10:02 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:02 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 10:16 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 10:17 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 10:59 Yeah. Uh, 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 11:37 I'll be coming to you for tips. I'll be coming to you for tips, Rangan, for sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:40 Right.

Jay Shetty 11:41 For sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:41 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 is 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 12:39 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 a, 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 13:21 Yeah

Jay Shetty 13:21 ... 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 the 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 13:59 Yeah

Jay Shetty 13:59 ... "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 16:32 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 break-up, don't rush in. Take time to kind of observe, you know, see 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 18:12 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 19:37 Yeah

Jay Shetty 19:38 ... 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 20:04 Mm

Jay Shetty 20:04 ... 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 20:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 20:27 ... 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 20:49 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 20:49 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 22:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:20 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 in, 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 [laughs] 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 [laughs] 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, "Oh, 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. [laughs] How do we learn how to regulate our emotions and when to say these things in advance of things blowing up?

Jay Shetty 24:18 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 g- 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? Shall we, shall we go and, you know, shall 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 27:20 Mm.

Jay Shetty 27:20 And I think so many of us communicate what we need, but not why we need it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:27 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 27:58 Yeah, the first thing I'd say is that people don't change for other people. They change for themselves.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:05 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 28:06 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 29:53 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 29:53 "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 30:33 Yeah

Jay Shetty 30:33 ... 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 30:49 Yeah

Jay Shetty 30:49 ... 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 33:08 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 33:08 "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-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:21 Yeah

Jay Shetty 33:21 ... 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 33:33 Yeah. I mean, there's just so much fantastic wisdom in what you just said, Jay. You know, I love what you said at the start there about, you know, our job really isn't to change our partner. It's to help support them on their next journey of their growth, which I think is a really important point for us to sit with. I love what you just said about feedback. I had Rick Rubin on this show a couple of weeks ago, the record producer.

Jay Shetty 34:00 So cool, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:01 And it w- it was a beautiful conversation, but one bit I think that I think about a lot is he talks about giving feedback with the artists that he's worked with. And although it's a different form of relationship than, let's say, the relationships that maybe we're talking about at the moment, let's say with a partner, for example, actually some of the themes are very, very similar. It's about-

Jay Shetty 34:29 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:29 ... making it about the idea, "Hey, we're both trying to make a phenomenal album here," right? So when I give feedback, the feedback isn't at you, that you wrote a bad song or that lyric isn't good. No, it's together we have the shared goal of a beautiful, beautifully crafted, excellent album. And so I think there's a similarity. Again, speaking to what you said about-

Jay Shetty 34:51 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:51 ... people can get entry points from, through, um, through different people and through Lewis Hamilton or Kevin Hart. And I think very much like you, that's why I like to talk to lots of different types of people because I think we can all learn from any human being, actually. There's always something to learn from someone. Um, so that's really powerful, Jay. Um, there is so much I'm itching to talk to you about, but I'm-

Jay Shetty 35:16 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:17 I think if we talked about everything in the book that I wish to speak about, we'd be here in about five hours still. It's that thorough.

Jay Shetty 35:24 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:24 Um,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:25 I do want to get to rule four shortly, your partner is your guru, 'cause 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 35:47 Sure

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:47 ... chapter eight-

Jay Shetty 35:47 Sure, sure

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:47 ... 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 36:48 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-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:01 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:01 ... the book, 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 37:13 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:13 ... 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 38:17 Mm.

Jay Shetty 38:17 That was an act of love. That was a love story, but we don't present it that way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:22 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 38:22 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 why, 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 40:32 Two.

Jay Shetty 40:33 Two. So you have two children, and I'm guessing you, you love your two children, obviously.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:39 I do.

Jay Shetty 40:40 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 40:45 Oh, man. How much? Um, first of all, I feel it's almost impossible with-

Jay Shetty 40:56 Yeah [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:56 ... words to describe-

Jay Shetty 40:59 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:59 ... 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 41:11 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:11 That's my attempt-

Jay Shetty 41:12 I love that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:12 ... at the English language-

Jay Shetty 41:14 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:14 ... [laughs] to say how much I love them.

Jay Shetty 41:17 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 f- 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 42:30 Yeah. I, 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 44:27 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:28 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 44:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:41 That's, that's not relevant to me. But I think-

Jay Shetty 44:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:44 ... it, 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 44:54 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 wanna 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 46:08 Yeah

Jay Shetty 46:08 ... 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 46:30 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, 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 47:47 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 48:04 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 48:04 Like, as [laughs] the, the deeper you can cuss someone and diss someone-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:08 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 48:08 ... 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 50:02 Yeah

Jay Shetty 50:02 ... 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 50:47 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 50:47 ... 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. This-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:08 Yeah

Jay Shetty 51:08 ... 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 51:16 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. Something like that.

Jay Shetty 51:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:38 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 52:09 Of course. So do I

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:10 ... 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, 'cause 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, 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've given my right arm back then. So even if Mum'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. I'd be 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 mum 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 54:12 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 54:21 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 54:22 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 55:26 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 55:27 ... "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 56:08 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 56:08 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 56:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:31 Has your wife read this book yet?

Jay Shetty 56:35 So my wife sto- my wife just finished reading Think Like a Monk, I believe. It's been two-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:39 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 56:39 ... years now since [laughs] 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's, 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 57:23 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 I think it really speaks to what you just said about your podcasts and your [laughs] first 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 58:52 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 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 1:01:01 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 1:01:01 ... 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-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:28 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:01:28 ... 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 1:01:41 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:01:41 ... 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 1:03:04 Mm

Jay Shetty 1:03:04 ... 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 1:03:13 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:03:13 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 1:03:26 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:03:26 Sorry for getting emotional. I d- 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 1:03:38 It's, it- 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.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:01 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 1:05:08 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 1:06:31 Mm

Jay Shetty 1:06:31 ... 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 wanna 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 1:08:22 Again, we're going against societal conditioning where- [laughs] ... we have to kind of give roses and diamond rings and all these things, and you, you do outline those stories where [laughs] the, the traps you fell into, uh-

Jay Shetty 1:08:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:38 ... you, you do talk about them in the book, which is super, super interesting. It's interesting what you just said there about your sister basically introducing you in many ways to your wife. And 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 1:09:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:04 ... our families are from India.

Jay Shetty 1:09:04 London, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:06 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 1:09:36 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:37 ... 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, it was really interesting-

Jay Shetty 1:09:46 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:46 ... as a kid growing up, as an immigrant kid s- 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 TV and in films. But as I get older and as I reflect, and I'm not saying Mum and Dad's marriage was perfect by any stretch. You know, I'm not, I'm not saying it was or it wasn't. I'm just, I'm not trying to put it on a pedestal, but what I am saying is there are many different ways. I think this really speaks to a lot of the messages in your book, Jay. There's many different ways to love. There's not just-

Jay Shetty 1:10:32 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:32 ... one way that we get to experience love. And as you just said, your sister introduced you to the, the, the, the lady who now is your wife.

Jay Shetty 1:10:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:46 And we think about it's either a love marriage or an arranged marriage, but actually for many years even in Britain, you know, families have put dinners on and introdu- "Oh, you know, I think you'll really get on with that family's daughter. It's the right age." It's always happened somewhere along the, the, somewhere along the, the way we've kind of lost all that and thought, "We're just gonna randomly meet-

Jay Shetty 1:11:09 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:10 ... someone in a bar that we've never met before, go on a date, and suddenly it's gonna all mash up." Do you know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 1:11:16 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's a study, I think it was from, like, maybe, like, 30 years ago. No, up until 30 years ago, I think the research shows that you are likely to meet someone that you spend your life with within five miles radius of your home. Like, that's how close to home it was. Now, that's not a good or bad thing, exactly like what you're saying. I'm not saying, "Oh, things were better in the past, and everything's going..." I'm, I'm not someone who's painting that picture either, but I do think you're spot on that I don't think we're open. I know clients who've met because they care about the same charity. I have friends that have met because they both love cycling. I've, I've had friends that have got together because someone introduced them, and I think when we limit it to say, "Well, I'm just gonna hope I bump into someone," or, "I'm gonna go on the apps casually and see if I find someone," I think the casual approach to love doesn't work because it's a game of odds. You've got to meet a lot of people to figure it out, and I think today the problem is with the paradox of choice that we both know about when we talk about, this idea that now there's just plenty of fish in the sea and you actually know that, oh, my gosh, yeah, I c- I mean, anyone who's on this app, there's just so many more options. And what I've realized is that love isn't about finding the right person. It's about finding the person that you want to make it right with, and I think love is so much more about a choice of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:50 Mm

Jay Shetty 1:12:50 ... are we energized and enthusiastic to figure this out versus I'm gonna find someone who perfectly matches and fits? And so I think now we're looking for this perfect match, this perfect fis- fit, this perfect- ... connection, and that alienates us because every time we meet, it's like slightly wonky, it slight- slightly doesn't fit. There's, there's a slight issue, and we're like, "Oh, no, there will be someone who, who is all 10 of the things." And I'm like, "Well, I don't think there is." I think what there is is, you know what? We have enough energy, excitement, and enthusiasm for each other that we're gonna figure it out every single day, and we're gonna bring that energy every single day. And so I, I think that that's what's eluding us to the challenges that we face in trying to meet someone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:38 Yeah. I want to move on to rule six. Uh, sorry, rule four, your partner is your guru. Because, wow, I, I love all the rules. This one I really, really like.

Jay Shetty 1:13:48 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:49 And you s- you say in the book, "We don't usually think about our partners as teachers or guides, but none of us can see ourselves or the world clearly on our own." I think that's very powerful, and relating to what you just said there about love being a choice, in that chapter you write about your experiences as a monk, and you say as a monk you choose your guru, right? Then it's not allocated to you. You choose your guru. So we're talking a little bit about how love is a choice, how you chose your guru, how all monks do, and how our partner ends up being our guru. So effectively, we're choosing our partners-

Jay Shetty 1:14:37 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:37 ... to be our gurus, right? So for-

Jay Shetty 1:14:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:40 ... people who are getting confused, perhaps you can elaborate what exactly you mean by that.

Jay Shetty 1:14:45 Yeah, so this is definitely probably one of the most counterintuitive chapters in the book because everyone reads that and goes, "God, my partner ain't my guru. What am I gonna learn from them? And I, I don't want them to know that, 'cause if they know that, they're gonna start telling me what to do." Uh, I think the first thing is to define the word guru. Uh, I, I'll do this through, you know, experience of it. Our gurus in the monastery sat in our classes. Often my gurus were twice my age, if not even older. A 70-year-old man or, or one of our female guides as well would sit at the back of a class by a 25-year-old. Uh, they'd sit with us in meditation. They'd sit on the floor and eat with us. They would sleep on the floor with us. The guru was not this hierarchy of position in how they were treated or how they were lived. It was a position that was held with humility and held with compassion and held with encouragement and support. So just to alleviate any idea that a guru is just someone who's falsely revered or is acting holier than thou, that is not a guru. Uh, a guru is not judgmental or critical, but supportive and encouraging.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:58 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:15:58 I think a lot of people think, "Well, gurus mean they have to, like, spot all your flaws and everything." The reason why your partner is your guru is because a guru, in spiritual terms, acts as almost a mirror to your inner self, and that's what I believe our partners are.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:16 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:16:16 Partners are like mirrors, because you see the best and worst of yourself in your interactions with your partner.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:24 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:16:24 Your partner knows all your flaws, right? My wife knows whether I actually meditated. My wife knows what time I slept. My wife knows how messy the kitchen is. My wife knows whether I did my laundry or not. My wife knows. She actually knows me in the deepest way, and therefore, she's one person in the world who can constantly help me grow, if life is about growing, if life is about becoming better. And so you're choosing someone who you're willing to learn from and you're willing to grow with. So you're gonna grow with them, you're gonna grow through them, and you're going to grow together, and I feel that often we don't think of relationships as growth. We think of them as pleasure. We think of them as fun. We think of them as just enjoying ourselves, and I'm not saying there isn't, of course, pleasure, fun, and enjoyment in every relationship. But I think, and especially at your stage, when you have kids, when you have family responsibilities, you realize that your partnership becomes so much more about growing together.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:27 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:17:28 And the satisfaction from growing together is so much greater than what you felt on the first date. But you can't explain that to someone who's starting out. They'll be like, "No, no, no, this is so fun. It can't get any better." But what I'm trying to encourage in this chapter is the growth that you will make because of your partner physically and mentally and emotionally is actually what relationships are about. Relationships are far more about enlightenment than they are about entertainment and enjoyment, and the enlightenment that comes from being in a committed relationship is the greatest satisfaction that comes from it. Uh, and, and, and you're gonna learn practical things along the way, too. It d- what I'm saying is the deeper lessons you learn from your partner, uh, and I teach in the book how to be a guru, how to be a student-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:18 Mm

Jay Shetty 1:18:18 ... depending on what type of partner you're with, so it's very deeply laid out. Uh, I really feel that most people who've been together, and I learned this from speaking to couples who'd been together for 20, 30, 40 years, they all said that they had learned phenomenal lessons through their partner. That was, like, their favorite thing, and so to me, that's what I was trying to get at in this chapter.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:40 Yeah. It, it's a, it's a brilliant chapter. It really is. And, you know, I guess I love it because I've experienced a lot of it as well. You know, I've recently just celebrated 15 years of marriage with my wife, and it's a very different relationship from what it was when we were dating over 15 years ago.

Jay Shetty 1:19:00 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:00 Completely different. But when you adopt-

Jay Shetty 1:19:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:04 ... that approach of mutual growth together, it never gets boring because- There's always an opportunity for growth, right? There's always a niggle or something you disagree on, or something you have a different perspective on. And if you can shine the mirror up and go, "What can I learn here, primarily about myself?" It's, it's arguably the best, it's a masterclass in your own inner world, isn't it? You've got that mirror around you-

Jay Shetty 1:19:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:36 ... all the time. You, you beget, you know, you get to be a black belt in yourself if you approach your relationship in that way.

Jay Shetty 1:19:43 Yes, yes, and that's what I'm... Exactly. You've fully understood what I'm trying to get at. It's, it's what is life ultimately about, if not about growth, learning, and joy? And I argue that growth and learning are the greatest joy, because when you grow and learn, you can deal with all your problems better. See, what we don't understand is that entertainment is, and I love entertainment, by the way, I'm not hating on entertainment. I love TV, I love movies. I, I'm a big fan of all of that. But entertainment is an escape, and when you escape your problems, you come back to them with less time and the same amount of knowledge. When you elevate, when you learn and you grow, you come back to your problems with more skills, more insights, and more tools, so life becomes more joyful. And so you have this choice every day to escape or elevate, and your partner can either be your escape or be someone you elevate with. Now, go on escapes, go on dates. I'm, I'm not s- of course, me and Radhi love to travel together, of course. But the core spirit of that is growing and learning. So it's not that we don't go out for dinners. Of course, that's all great. But don't lose the spirit and the heart of we're trying to help each other become the best versions of ourselves and reach our potential. That's the kind of person I want to be married to.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:06 Before we wrap up our conversation, I wanted to briefly touch on the, the three commonest sources of conflict that you write about. These are the, the three things I think many people will relate to this, that, that couples fight about. Money, bringing up kids, and sex.

Jay Shetty 1:21:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:24 And as a, as a doctor, something I have seen many, many times, people would come in to see me and they would talk about their sex lives and, you know-

Jay Shetty 1:21:38 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:38 ... the, the, the frustrations, whether it's, you know, a different desire compared to their partner, what does that say about them? Let's not go through all three. I don't think we'll have time for that. But particularly on the conflict around sex, I think this is really, really common. And in your practice of coaching people and coaching them through their relationships for years, I'm sure this must have come up.

Jay Shetty 1:22:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:01 What is really going on when there is an issue around sex in a relationship?

Jay Shetty 1:22:08 Yeah. The, so the first thing is that sex is an extremely vulnerable act, and we often don't think about it in that way. We assume it just is. But you can't be physically vulnerable with someone when you don't feel emotionally safe with them. And I feel a lot of people don't feel emotional safety either within themselves or with their partners to be that intimate and vulnerable with their partner, or the quality of that exchange is not as high because of the lack of emotional security and emotional vulnerability. And the reason that I found that that had come about, Rangan, is because I talk about the four E's of intimacy in the book, and what I found was that if you look at most couples over years, the number one activity they do together, by no surprise, is watch TV together. That's the number one thing couples do every night. We watch TV together. We do this too, so I'm not, I'm not beyond this or better than this. Now, if all you do is watch TV together, what's happening? There's no vulnerability, there's no intimacy, and there's no shared experience. You haven't watched the show and then talked about it and dissected it and emotionally connected. You've watched it, gone, "Eh, that episode was all right. Okay, look forward to the next episode," switch it off, go to bed. There's no connection. So, so bonding over entertainment is a very low form of intimacy. To increase our intimacy, I talk about experiences. Going to date nights, going to vacations, traveling together. Having new experiences together helps you learn new things about your partner. See, most of us are just used to our partners. We watch our partners wash the dishes, do the laundry, clean the house, take care of the kids. You're watching your partner do the same old four activities for potentially 40 years. If you don't see your partner do anything new, how are you gonna have a creative spark, a, a moment of attraction? How are you gonna fall in love with them again when all you see them do is do old things? Higher than that is experiments. I recommend that couples do things that they're both novices in. Go and do a pottery class because neither of you knows how to do pottery. Go and do a painting class 'cause neither of you knows how to paint. Go out and try a surfing lesson if you can, because neither of you knows how to surf. It doesn't have to be big or small. Go to an escape room. Go and do something where you both are not experts, where again you get to learn about a new side. The reason why we've lost intimacy and connection is because we think we know our partners. We think they're the same. We think maybe they're boring, maybe we've lost that attraction to them. And the fourth and final stage- Is go and do some education and engagement together. If you're learning and growing together, you're gonna feel so emotionally close that the physical closeness is just a byproduct. And en- engagement, if you can go and serve together, if you can go and make a difference together, the connection you feel is so much more powerful. So those are reasons why you can both work on stuff. But often we find when it comes to sex, one of the biggest things is a personal sense of dissatisfaction. Someone's not happy with their body. Someone's not happy with their own purpose and passion. Someone's going through their own disconnection with themselves. Sometimes it's not about you at all. And I think so often we make it about us. That's what I've seen in relationships with coaching. When someone doesn't wanna have sex with you, you make it about you, and you go, "Oh, you don't have sex with me?" And they're like, "I just don't wanna have sex. Like, I, I still have to figure out what's going inside of me because I'm healing trauma, I'm healing stuff from my parents, I'm healing my ex-girlfriend, boyfriend, and relationships." And I think we don't talk about any of these things, and so I think we're often expecting someone to be vulnerable and intimate with us when we're not emotionally safe and secure with them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:29 Such wonderful advice, Jay. It's, it really is an- another fantastic book. I think it's gonna help so many people. Um, it's been a real joy talking to you. Just to finish off, Jay, um, for anyone who is listening to that thinking, "Yeah, you know what? There's something there. Something isn't right in my life with my current relationship," whether it's someone who's single and they want to get with someone, or whether someone's in a relationship and they realize that maybe, "You know what? We've taken this for granted a little bit. Things are getting a little bit stale. It isn't what it once was," I think there's a lot of hope and inspiration in what you've shared today and with what's in your book. But just to finish off, do you have any final words of hope for that person?

Jay Shetty 1:27:24 Yeah. I would say that I would want everyone to have a check-in conversation with your partner about this and about your relationship every month. I'm sure you connect about how the kids are doing at school. I'm sure you connect about the plumbing issues in the house. I'm sure you connect about who's doing the gardening and the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning. But are we connecting on the quality of our connection? And so the way I would recommend to do that is start every conversation with us and we, not you and me. Most conversations start with, "You never do the dishes. This is how you make me feel." Start your conversation with, "I really want us," and I often say this to Radhi, "I really want us to have an incredible relationship. Let's check in about what we're both willing to do to get there. What is it that we are willing to do to have a beautiful experience of this relationship in our lives?" And I think if everyone could start that conversation with their partner in a non-intimidating, a non-critical, a non-judgmental way, because most of our conversations about checking in are, "Look, you know what? You just, you know, you never fill the gas up and I'm late," or, "This- you never do..." It's always, "You never do this," or, "You always do this," right? And so when our language becomes you never or you always, now we've created a debate and a fight and an argument, whereas when our language is, "I've- we can- we have something special, and let's figure out how we can continue to help each other grow and become better," that approach, anyone who truly loves you and is with you will open up with you. But, and y- and it may be p- you may have to be patient and ask that a few times, but be patient and ask it a f- few times. Don't get frustrated that they don't respond immediately and they aren't jumping for joy saying, "I'm gonna read Jay's book with you." Like, that's, that's not the reaction you want. Be patient. Be, be steady. Like, this is something that we should've been doing from day one, but we're doing it on day 1,000, and that's okay. Start at day 1,000.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:53 Jay, you're doing incredible work. You're changing so many lives. It's a fantastic book. Thanks for coming on the show.

Jay Shetty 1:30:01 Rangan, I wanna say this to you because I know how much it feels when I hear this feedback, and I want you to leave it on the show, is, um, I've been doing so many interviews, that's one of the best ones I've done, and that's because even-- And I really struggle with Zoom nowadays because, you know, been trying to do more in person. But I probably, I feel so present with you. I feel so heard by you. I feel like you deeply digested the book, which is, you know, so fulfilling as an author. Uh, and on top of all of that, I feel like your reflections on the book and your digestion of what you've read is so on point that this conversation has been so meaningful to me. And even though you're miles away and we're both, you know, it's early for me, it's late for you, we're-- There's so many thi- and you've got personal stuff going on, so do I. It's like there's so many reasons why this conversation could have been rushed and, m- you know, whatever, like just kind of getting through it, and it's actually been so special. And I want to just say that's 'cause of the energy that you brought to it today and the, the consciousness and the work and the practice. And anyone who listens to you every week, I just want them to know how much value they're getting of s- you're, you're such a world-class human, and I think this is the time I've felt it the most in knowing you. And so I just want to share that, and I want you to leave that on there for everyone to hear because I, I think it's, it's very, it's very rare to get me emotional in an interview, but, uh, it's also... Well, not rare. I think it's pretty impo- I don't think I've ever, ever been on the verge of tears in any interview I've ever done. Um, but I've also just felt like I've really felt connected to you and the message today, so, so thank you. Thank you for that gift. I, I really value that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:43 Hey, I appreciate that, Jay, so much. Thanks, man. [upbeat music] If you enjoyed that conversation, I think you're really going to enjoy this one, all about why happiness is a choice you can make any time you like.

Speaker 1:31:55 If you actually went to the happiness gym several times a week, you will actually have a happier life, right? And the happiness gym is very straightforward. It's a set of skills, hmm, that you need to practice