Like many influencers these days, Jay Shetty is much discussed, but not necessarily much understood. He seems like he’s everywhere–officiating JLo and Ben Affleck’s wedding, dispensing wise sound bites on TV, and connecting daily to nearly 50 million people across a variety of social media and other platforms. Shetty rejects the title “guru,” which some have used to describe him, but it’s easy to see that he’s a guiding light for many. Shetty strives to create spaces where true vulnerability and openness is possible, and he brought a sense of peace and calm to this wide-ranging interview which traces his path from “failed” monk to household name. Together, Katie and Jay explore the power of unconditional love, and how to take self-care from buzzy jargon to practical tactics for bringing more peace into our lives.
Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, and this is next question. I love origin stories, the way our lives begin shape, so much about how they play out and how we see the world and the world sees us. My guest today, Jayshetti, has an origin story that in some ways seems predestined. Business student meets monk, leaves business to become a monk. Monk, finds social media and becomes a spiritual teacher to the world. It almost sounds like a movie, right, But as you'll hear in our conversation, the waters of Jayshetti run deep. He rejects the term guru, but it's clear he's becoming a guiding light of sorts to many. His enterprise is best spanning podcasts. His is called on Purpose to a life coaching training company. Now, some of you may have seen that Shechetty's reception hasn't been universally warm. There was a Guardian piece about a month back before Jay and I spoke that scrutinized aspects of his business and his story. His reps then responded refuting parts of the article they say are untrue. Now we're not going to litigate the back and forth of it here, but What is irrefutable is Ja Shetty has struck a chord and is providing millions of listeners with advice and observations they seem hungry for. Jay. I'm so happy to view with you.
I'm happy to be with you. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
You know, I was reading about you, Jay, I know about you already, but to refresh my memory and to learn new things, I was doing some research and I've decided that dose at case man has nothing on you. You are the most interesting man in the world, Jay Shetty.
I'm not sure about that, but I'll I take that as a wonderful complement from you.
It is, I mean, and you have had such a rich, diverse life. And I wanted to kind of go back to the beginning because I love to discuss people's origin stories because I feel like we're shaped so much by our childhoods and our parents. And you grew up in London in a very middle class family. I know you were bullied in school. How would you describe your childhood in general?
You know what's really interesting, Katie, is that your own childhood is so normal to you that the word that comes to mind immediately is normal, but that doesn't mean a lot because we all look at everything through our own lenses normal, And if I had to define it or describe it, I'd consider myself to be quite a obedient son. I was someone who worked hard at school. I was always kind to my fellow classmates. My childhood was normal in that sense, but as you mentioned, I was bullied a lot for being overweight, who was bullied for the color of my skin.
Because my parents immigrated from India too.
So my mother was born and raised in Yemen, oh, and she moved to London when she was sixteen years old because Yemen got its independence and she wanted to keep her British passport, so then she moved over to London. And my dad moved to London from India when he married my mom, and so there was a lot of It was really interesting because I grew up in an area where there weren't a lot of people who were Indian, and so even at my school, and so it was quite strange for people to see me. And so what's really fascinating though, is that even though I'm saying that and I recognize I was bullied, when I actually think about my childhood. I kind of think of it as very normal. It was just, you know, I was going to school, I was trying to work hard, I was trying to be a good son. I was trying to be nice to people. And I look back on it not looking at it as having any deeply amazing fond memories or having any major negative memories.
It sounds like it was a comfortably middle class upbringing. I guess your mom was a financial advisor, your dad was an accountant. Yes, you must be good with numbers.
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. I don't think my dad was very happy with my math skill when I was growing up, so he'd be pretty angry at me my poor math grades.
But what did set you apart? J which you were just describing as kind of the immigrant experience, And I'm curious how that might have shaped you. Feeling in some ways othered by a lot of your classmates, a lot of your neighbors, a lot of people in your community. How did that impact you?
So I think that's what's really fascinating. My parents never really let me feel othered, so they never really talk about how we were different or how they were treated, and I think that actually helped me integrate in that I never felt I had a weakness because of the color of my skin, or I didn't feel I had a weakness because of my shape or size at the time, or whatever it may be. I never felt weak. I always felt like I fit in, and I always felt like I was doing the right thing, and I always felt like I was a hard worker. So I almost had this sense of if anyone's being mean to me, it was because of them, and it wasn't really about me at all, because I felt like I was making friends with some people. I was, you know, learning from my teachers, I was getting along with my parents and my family, and so I actually went the other way where I never actually felt other. I felt very confident and comfortable with who I was.
And do you think that was because of your parents?
I think it was. I think one thing I've learned over time, and I'm sure you've come across this is all the studies showed that the deep love from one parent can almost act as a shield from so much pain that we go through. And I feel like the depth to which my mother has loved me my whole life has acted as this incredible shield even today where I feel so and I believe it's because when your parents love you that deeply, you don't ever question whether you're lovable or not. And then when someone doesn't love you, it's so abnormal that you recognize that you have a loving place to go home to. And so I would say it's my mother's love that's acted as such a shield and such a potent force of Often I feel like I have so much love that can overflow to other people because I've been given so much love, so I don't necessarily often seek it either or need it as much because I feel it's almost overflowing because of the cascading love my mother gave me.
I was going to say, you feel filled up already, very filled. Yeah, what about your dad? Did you feel that from him as well?
No, my dad was totally the opposite. So my dad he was aloof he was busy, he was you know, at work, or he was you know, trying to provide, or he was also and my mom was the breadwinner for a lot of my life too, so she was doing a lot, but my father was more aloot. And I again look at that as something I'm very grateful for and I don't mean this now, I mean this throughout my whole life, not based on reflection, because it allowed me to become my own man. I never had a man that I had to grow up into being because I didn't have a role model, and my dad eventually became a friend more than a father. And I'm very grateful for that because I was allowed to mold myself into the human I wanted to be, and I didn't feel any pressure or expectation for my dad to become a certain type of man. And I look at that freedom as a beautiful gift because I feel like I got to find my own male role models, which naturally, later on in my journey became monks that I studied with, and I feel that's who I accepted as fatherly figures almost in my journey.
I want to talk to you about being a monk, but first I want to just mention how I feel the same way, but luckily from both my parents, how much unconditional love I felt my entire life, and how sad I am when other people didn't get that from their parents. I feel so fortunate, and you know, looking back on my childhood and my life until the moment when my parents passed away. I don't think it even daunted on me to question their love for me. It was so deep and constant, and I just feel I feel so lucky because I think it does give you a certain sense of protection when you're out in the world. I recently interviewed Kamala Harris, and I thought it was so interesting that she said she never felt I read this because we didn't talk about it. We were too busy talking about Israel, immigration and abortion. But she said, I never felt that I didn't belong anywhere. Yes, you know, and she must have had that also, that fierce, unconditional love that made her feel strong enough to almost be in any environment. And that's such a gift, is it is?
And I'm the same as you. I feel a deep sense of empathy and compassion for those that didn't receive that, and can completely understand as to why it leads to so many challenges in the future because you don't have that deep well to pull from, and your foundation is not built on that deep sense of love, belonging, connectedness. And so it's been really interesting and having both my parents, one like I said, being more aloof and one being very present. It's also interesting to me as to how all of that can affect us, but how much of it is you know, something that we I've often found is that all of us have to reparent ourselves or parent ourselves later on. And that journey is something that I see so many people beautifully, gracefully coming towards of learning to reparent themselves, learning to heal themselves. And it's something that's necessary for everyone, even if you were loved. Because what's really fascinating is I call it in my second book Eight Rules of Love, the gifts and gaps that our parents give us. And so if our parents leave gaps in how we're raised, we often try and fill them through other people. But if our parents give us gifts of love and greatness in their parenting, we often also still look for other people to repeat those things, and that can be a painful process. Yeah, because no one will love us ever as deeply as our parents loved us.
And sometimes I think it's hard for us to accept people who don't love us right if you're confusing and hard to understand. So maybe there's a thing of loving too much in some case.
Absolutely, that's what I mean. That's exactly it. That's exactly that a gift can be a gap, and a gap can be a gift. It's very dependent on how we have perceived it and how we've processed it.
Let's talk about your ar is a monk? Three years in all you were in business school and you had somebody come and talk to you. All. Who was that? Again?
It was a monk?
Yeah, and you thought, Hey, that sounds like a good life, like you know, the life of a monk. Wait, what how did how? I'm curious, like what appeal to you about that?
Yeah? I was at a point in my life and I still have this today. I think it's why I do my podcast and why I interview people. I think I fell in love with studying and observing humans in my teens, and so I was reading everything from Martin Luther King to Malcolm X, David Beckham to Drain the Rob Johnson like I was reading autobiographies and biographies, and even till this day, biopics are my favorite type of movies, whether it's Bohemian Rhapsody about Queen or whether it's Oppenheimer This Year. Like, I love movie, I love learning about fascinating people.
I'll have to give you my memoir.
Absolutely I would love to read it. And to me, that's kind of how I've always been. And then my friends invited me to hear a monk speak, and I didn't really know too much about monks, so I wasn't feeling inspired or excited because this wasn't someone I knew of and not someone I recognized. But my friends were very persuasive and they said to me, you know, let's just go along to this event. And I said, well, as long as we go to a bar afterwards, then I'll come along. So I went along to this event not expecting anything, and what really impressed me was here was a man with an Indian accent, wearing robes and of Indian descent, sitting and talking so comfortably in a college room in London, with no anxiety, no nerves, no qualms, no feeling of like he didn't belong. And I saw someone who is so confident in their own skin. And now, upon reflection, I always realized that I think at that point in my life I had met or seen people who were rich and famous and beauty full and powerful and strong, but I don't think i'd ever met anyone who is truly happy or content as they were, and he was, and there was something inside of me that just said, I want that, Like, that's what I want to feel, that's what I want to experience. That seems like a worthy pursuit. And often people will say, well, did you have something in you or you know, how did you have that sense at eighteen? And I would say, I don't think the credit goes to me. I think the credit goes to him. And I still know him today. He's a dear friend and mentor in my life, and he still carries that presence when anyone meets him. He has this magnetic energy because of his deep spiritual practice that can take away all types of barriers. And so for me, the credit goes to his presence and his aura, far more than my qualification at the time, which I don't think I had much of.
So you're studying business, then you decide I'm going to move to India, right.
So not immediately, I spent the next because I was at college. I spent the next summers in Christmases visiting him in India, and I was also interning at corporate companies in London. And then when I graduated, that's when I made the decision that I would prefer to live as a monk than in the corporate world, which were my two choices pretty much, and I felt so much more drawn to a life of mental mastery and service as opposed to a life of getting a job in the traditional sense. And so I traded my suits for robes and went off to live as a monk across India and the UK and Europe for three years. We would travel as well, often encouraged to come back to the UK to serve where we were from and connect with people. And it was truly one of the most beautiful experiences in my life that I cherished so deeply. And I was just at the monastery last week. I was in India visiting again. I go back every year to reconnect and reground myself.
So obviously it was incredibly formative. But you ultimately decided that wasn't the life you wanted. Before you tell me why that was the case, I'm curious, what do you do when you're a month? What is the day and the life of a monk?
Like, so you wake up at four am?
Okay, I'm out on that. I did that for too many years.
Yeah, I can imagine, I can imagine you did. So you wake up at four am. There's collective meditation and prayers from four thirty till about five point thirty, and then there are a couple of hours or two hours of personal meditation. Then there's more collective meditation than there's more private meditation.
And that's a lot to meditate.
That takes you all the way up to breakfast, and there's a wisdom class and then the rest of the day looks different. It can be a mix of chores, more meditation, philanthropic work, service work, going out and serving, especially in India, serving villagers, serving the homeless, interacting, so there's a lot of service work as well, and that's the path. That's why I chose the path that I did, because half of it was in silence and for the self, and the other half of it was service. And I felt that that felt like a balance that made sense to my you know, Western ideology as well of I wanted to actually do something as well. I didn't just want to be, And so that balance was of being and doing that seemed to work very well.
And ultimately, why did you decide that this was not the life you wanted to choose.
Well. I think what's really interesting is that the goal of the amount of time you spend as a monk, one of the goals is self awareness. You gain so much insight into how the mind works, into your triggers, your weaknesses, your imperfections, your flaws. And the biggest conclusion I came to was I wasn't a monk in that my self awareness showed me that I'm quite independent, I'm quite rebellious, I have a certain way that I like to do things. And that was quite humbling at that time, because you've kind of geared yourself up to do this thing, and you know, earlier you mentioned that I've had such an interesting or fascinating journey. When I chose to become a monk. It wasn't met with that emotion or experience from my family or extended family. Most people thought I was wasting my life, I was throwing away my education, I was committing career suicide, I was letting my parents down, and I'd probably been brainwashed. And so it wasn't met with this, oh my gosh, this is going to be such an amazing life experience, how beautiful. It was met with cynicism and skepticism.
Well, you can understand why your parents were a little like, wait a second, jape.
Absolutely absolutely I can. And it's just interesting how something that was initially so seen that way has become something that is so interesting and fascinating.
I also think interest in meditation and this kind of idea of a life of purpose and service and community. I think now probably much more so when you were even eighteen, people are craving that, so I think in a way it's almost more understandable today in the environment we're living in now. Absolutely absolutely so, you decided I'm not going to be a monk anymore. Was your mentor upset by the way when you decided to leave the monastery?
It was more the other way around. I was upset with myself. I felt pretty embarrassed. I felt a bit ashamed. I felt a little bit of guilt because I had put all that pressure on myself that I was going to do this for the rest of my life, and so leaving was probably one of the most difficult things I have had to do. And I'd say my teachers made it easier than they did harder. I got some beautiful advice. I remember talking to my mentor and saying to him that I'm not going to be able to pursue this path anymore, and that I was worried that I wasn't sure if it was the right decision. I was actually quite uncertain about if it was the right move. I was scared that actually I may regress and move backward in my journey that I'd tried to take steps forward in. And he said to me, said, Jay, you know when people go to college. Some people stay at the college and they become professors and researchers, and some people leave and they get jobs. And he said, which one's better? And I said, well, it doesn't matter. It depends on the person. And he said exactly the same. He said, some people join the monastery and they become monks, and then they stay and they become senior monks, and some people leave and they go off and live their life. And they reminded me that leaving didn't mean I had to leave the philosophy or the tradition or the practice. It was simply leaving an external practice of it. And I think that that was very comforting at a time when I was definitely feeling anxious and confused about what I would do. When I went back, everyone around me would and they did say I told you so, we knew you wouldn't make it. Oh, and have you heard about your friend who's now dating that wonderful girl? And have you seen that person who's got promoted now? And oh, did you know I so and so just moved into that new apartment And all of a sudden, you're hearing about the great wins and successes and progress that all your friends and family and others have made, and how you've been left behind. And so I came back to a world that was reminding me of potentially how I'd wasted three years of my life, as opposed to a celebration of coming back.
After a quick break. How Jay's three years as a monk laid the foundation for the life and businesses he's built. If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Upcall by going to Katiecuric dot com. Now more of my conversation with Jay Shetty. It seems to me your time as a monk really informed who you are today and set you on a path to be who you wanted to be ultimately, and you are living a life of service for your podcast, your books, and you've created kind of this space for yourself that I don't think you would have not that I know everything about you, say shety, but you wouldn't have done it if you had not had those three years of experience. And can you just explain how you got from failing monk school I'm kidding, from deciding you weren't going to be a monk to creating honestly, And I don't even want to call it a business because I feel like that you can demeans it in a way. But how did you get from there to here?
Yeah? And I want to change that too. I think I empathize with what you're saying there, but it would be nice to redeem the word business too, you know. I think sometimes the word business gets a bad rap.
But I almost found maybe enterprise, Yeah sounds a little less, I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, but the journey was, at least at the time felt slow and confusing, and now looking feels perfectly aligned. And I'm always remembering that beautiful quote from Steve Jobs where he said that you can't connect the dots looking forwards, you and you can looking backwards. And when I look back at that time, I first order, I just need to pay my bills because I was living with my parents again, and you know, I couldn't just depend on them for the rest of my life. So I wanted to find a way, and I thought I'd have to go back into a job that made sense. So I was applying to consulting firms because that felt like where I would have ended up previously. I was rejected from forty companies before even an interview. No one would even get me an interview through the door because surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire a former monk on their resume. Like people are like, well, what are your transferable skills? Being silent and sitting still? We don't need that in our company. So I wouldn't get an interview, and I was getting really really anxious that, Okay, I may have made the worst decision, because how am I going to survive in the real world now. And then finally I got a job at Accentua, which I'm extremely grateful for. If they didn't give me a shot, I don't know who would have and they put me on their grad program. I was age twenty five and everyone else was age twenty one, but I took it. I was happy to work my way up and figure it out. And so I spent two years there.
And what was your job there?
My job there? I joined as an analyst and then graduated on to become a consultant. I worked on everything at the time, from digital strategy to social media. That was the growing rising tide in the world in twenty thirteen, especially in that B to B space or the business space. And I was actually gaining confidence because Actensia prioritized mental health inside the organization in a really phenomenal way.
I was going to say. They were very early.
Absolutely early adopters and really valuing trying to help people and you know, figure it out. And when they discovered that I had learned meditation and about my background, they encouraged me to do that in the workplace. So I would lead meditations in rooms probably the size of this maybe.
Very small for you all who can't see it.
Maybe two people would show up and I would be so excited to share meditation with two people. And I would keep doing that, and every week more and more people would come. Different parts of the company would invite me. I would travel around the company to teach meditation and mindfulness. And then once I was asked to teach my entire cohort, my colleagues of a thousand people at our summer event. And I was an employee inside the company. I didn't have a brand or I didn't have a business or a website or anything or at all. I was an employee and that gave me so much confidence that what I had learned had so much value in the real world, because people would come up to me and talk to me about how the sessions had helped them and help them get through a really tough time or overcome burnout. And I was receiving all this positive feedback from my colleagues, and I thought to myself, well, maybe this should reach more people, Like how beautiful would it be if this would connect with more people? And I'd been then doing an event in the city of London. I would invite whoever would come, and teaching and sharing has always been a part of my fascination. I did this even at college. Ever since I met the Monk. I was giving small seminars and lectures about everything he'd teach me to my fellow students at university. And so I thought to myself, I want this to reach more people. And so I created a plan to pitch my video series idea to media companies in London. Applied to ten of them. They all turned me down. And then I networked with three executives and I asked them to give me a break, and I said, I don't care what you pay me. I will do this for free. I just want to create these videos and this series and maybe it's a show, whatever it is. And I got three answers. You're too old. I was twenty eight years old, you're too late, and you're too unqualified. And I didn't have a communications background or I didn't have a degree in it, so people thought I didn't have the skills. And so I was feeling like, oh, well, here we are again, like this isn't going anywhere. How is this going to build? And I ended up at a ethnic minority TV presenter workshop in London. So again it was a room probably triple the size of this room, five to six brown people and black people in this room being trained in presenting. I went there to see if I could develop the skills. And when I went there, they said, heja, you actually have some really good skills. I said, great, give me a job in media and they said, well, there's no jobs in media. And I said, wow, So you invited five to six brown and black people here to tell us that there's no jobs in media. Thank you so much.
And this was lest year twenty This was twenty fifteen, all right, so nine years ago, and think of what they would say today. But go on.
So then they said to me, they said, well, why don't you start a YouTube channel? And I hadn't really considered social media then because I never really I didn't really understand it fully. I didn't know what it could do. I didn't, you know, I didn't have any case studies or examples in that way. And I said to them, I said, well that works for Justin Bieber, like that's not going to work for me. And I got a point. And I'm reminded of this quote often and I still live by it today. Thomas Edison said that when you believe you've exhausted all options, remember this you haven't. And I live by that today. Whenever I feel I've knocked on every door, I realized there's still one more way through. When I feel like I've broken through every door, I feel like you have to realize you might have to jump over a wall. Like when I feel like I've pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and running out of energy, I know that I need to push once more. And so I started a YouTube channel because I didn't have another choice. So I didn't come into social media ever thinking social media would be the way I would connect with people. I came to social media because I didn't know what else to do to connect with people, and so I started. I made my first video in twenty sixteen, got like one hundred views, and I was over the moon. I was so happy. And as I continued to make those videos, my boss at Accentua, well not even my boss, our global HR leader, saw them on the intro at the internal social media and website, and she showed it to Ariana Huffington at Davos, and Arianna Huffington loved the videos, so she sent Danny Shaye and Dan Katz, who became two really dear friends who were her core people at the time things still are now, sent them over to meet me in London and they said, and I went there ready to ask Danny for a job. So I said, Danny, you've got to give me a job. I want to do this for the rest of my life. I'll do it for free. I don't care. I'm here to work. And he said to me, he said slow down. He said, we're going to share your videos on the Huffington Post page, and depending on how they do, we'll see how this goes. They put out the first video. The first video did a million views in seven days, and I was over the moon. I was just like, I can't believe this, and they were like, yeah, that's okay for us, Okay. Then then then they put out the second video, and the second video did a million views in twenty four hours, and they go, Okay, there's something happening here. Then we put out the third video. The third video did a million views in sixteen hours, and then it just went from there and those four as we made probably have done around two hundred million views across different platforms at the time.
By the way, can I just interject and say, God bless Arianna Huffington, who I love, who is one of the most generous people on the planet, and gosh, I wonder do you ever think she If Arianna hadn't seen something.
It would have taken so much longer, and maybe it would never have happened.
As as you know, Foster still see Arianna all the time. Yeah, I hope you send her flowers every day.
She knows how much she knows how much I love her and I appreciate her so deeply, and I'm so grateful to her, And I think everyone needs that. Everyone needs someone like that who allows their work and their world to be seen and put out there.
But how wonderful she saw something in you, right, And I always think it only takes one person to see a spark or something in another person to just give them a chance. Yeah, you think of how much untapped talent is out there, but they just haven't had someone say, hey, I want to give you this opportunity. Absolutely, and I'm so happy she did because you went from I guess those videos on Huffington Post to your podcast, right, I mean, tell me what happened after that, because your trajectory must have been straight up.
Well, it's never that easy. There's always so many pivots to the story. So yeah, I'm over the moon that my videos are doing well. And then I messaged and email Danny Shay every day for thirty days and begged him for a job. I said, come on, these stats have to prove to you that I should be doing this full time. And I messaged him every day and I Saidanny, I'm going to message you for the rest of my life until you give me a job.
He just wanted you to stop messaging.
Yeah.
Yeah, So Danny goes all right. And then Danny and Ariana figured out my visa. I moved to the United States and moved to New York in twenty sixteen, and they gave me a role at the Huffington Post. And the most funny thing happened the day I landed in New York. My first day was Ariana's last day because she left to start Thrive, and it was I was at her leaving party on my arrival day.
That's so funny, and it was.
So. I was there for six months, and then I went off in twenty seventeen to build my own world. And it wasn't easy, you know. Twenty seventeen was a year of me figuring out how to do this and how it would land, and what we would build and content was in its early stages, and you.
Know it was intermediation.
Yeah, you couldn't monetize it immediately. You're spending money creating content. It was a really interesting year and I really really wanted to do more long form content. I was making these four minute videos, and these videos at the time were doing two hundred, three hundred and one hundred million views of video. But I really felt that I had more to share and more stories to tell, and there was more to understand.
And also more people you wanted to talk to, right, absolute kind of going back to your monk.
To study people, to study people. And so I ended up pitching again to another bunch of podcast networks my podcast idea, and the feedback I got was we're not interested or j people like listening to you for four minutes. No one wants to listen to you for an hour. And I had a company that pulled I had a company that pulled out two weeks before we launched on purpose because they felt it wasn't going to be a big podcast.
In those words, do you ever call those people and the only petty one.
No, I'll tell you why, and I'll tell you why. So that thought has crossed my mind, I would be lying if that thought hadn't crossed my mind. The thoughts crossed my mind. I'll tell you why they did me the biggest favor in the world, Because I own my work, like through and through, we own everything we've ever created. I've they gave me the biggest blessing of my life. We didn't sign any bad contracts. We didn't sign any bad deals. At that point, I would have written half my life away for an opportunity. We didn't. And so I'm extremely grateful to everyone who said no, because it meant that we built our own platform from scratch, with our own investment and our own hard work.
So now you've written two New York Times bestsellers, you have your podcast which is enormously popular called on Purpose, which is very clever. Purpose is your bag. And I'm curious, as somebody who I consider myself a pretty good communicator, and I'd love to learn from you what you think makes your podcasts so effective and how I could do better.
I mean, I'm sure I can't give you any tips. That's very no.
I think you could actually and I think part of a really important aspect of life. And you must agree with this is to always want to learn and grow absolutely and never feel like you can improve or get better at something. So I say this with not false modesty, but with genuine curiosity. Tell me a little bit about your approach with guests.
Yeah, well, I think everyone creates a different atmosphere. I'm communicating differently today because of the energy you've created. So I'm far more subdued today. My tone is far more calm and still and peaceful than it often is.
Am I overwhelming?
No, not at all. It's because you've created a really still environment in this room and I can sense that, and therefore I'm responding to that in a positive way, and it's bringing out a type of communication in me that requires this type of stillness to come out. And that's something you've crafted and created.
And physical surroundings, not not even the physical surroundings, because I think the way you talk and the pace at which you talk informs me as to how this conversation is flowing.
I was on a podcast earlier today and we were talking really fast, and I was talking really fast, and it was really animated. I was using my hands and my tone's going up and downwards. Today, I'm with you I'm not there, and that it's not a good or bad thing. I think the beauty of podcasting, or the beauty of any interview format is the interviewer gets to guide the tone and the pace and the quality of the conversation. And I think whether you talk fast or slow, it's not about the pace, It's that both are creating the environment right for the community and the audience. And so for me with my podcast, my goal was always to create a deep, safe space for raw vulnerability and for people to share things that they were uncomfortable.
With and they do and they do. Tom Holland shared something very personal about his drinking.
Yes yeah, his sobriety journey, which was really beautiful of him to share. I know so many people message me after that podcast and told him too, saying just how much that's helped them in their journey. And that was my goal. My goal was I wanted people that you recognized to share a part of themselves that you'd never seen, or I wanted people you didn't recognize to share insights that you'd never heard. And my hope was that the audience in our community would feel so seen, heard and understood because the guest felt seen, heard, and understood, and that would translate to the people at home. And so my podcast was not mental or technical, or theoretical or philosophical. It was deeply emotional and inside our hearts. And that was my goal, was to lead a podcast from the heart, not the mind.
You've had so many well known people. I'm curious who has surprised you in that environment, who has been very different than you thought they would be.
I'd say everyone's been different in the way I thought they'd be, because everyone's far more Everyone has so much more depth than I think of that with humanity in general, I feel everyone has a store, everyone has so much more depth than we uncover. One person that comes to mind immediately is Brian Chesky, the found I love Brian too. I absolutely adore.
He started Airbnb for yeah, the.
Founder of Brian Chesky, one of the founders of Airbnb, founded it with his two friends and he came on the show. And what I love about him is that he's just not a tech founder's he's an artist. He's a right yeah, he's a design think right. And what I loved about that episode with him is after the interview told me he's so used to being asked, what does it feel like to IPO or build a you know, mega billion dollar company, And we didn't talk about that, And that's always my goal. My goal is to ask you the question that you never get asked because people may not want you to go that deep, or they may not think you're able to go that deep. But I believe everyone is able to go that deep. And you'll see if anyone watches it or listens to the episode, you see Brian almost walking us through the visions of what he's building in a company in his mind, and it turns into somewhat of a collaborative visualization session as opposed to an interview. And it was just a beautiful experience and we both walked away becoming really good friends off of it, and it just created a beautiful relationship. So I think people like that surprised me in a positive sense. I knew he could go there, but surprised me in the sense of he was so willing to go there, so vulnerable to share his own journey.
You officiated Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's wedding.
What, Yeah, it was a really fun experience.
How did that happen?
Share Jennifer Lops came on the podcast in twenty twenty at the beginning of twenty twenty, and that's when we first connected and we really got along. We hit it off, and then we stayed in touch and we were connected, and then she invited me to officiate weddings at the launch of her Marry Me musical performance, so there were people from her community that her and Maluma were the witnesses and I was officiating the weddings. We stayed connected, had lots of conversations, and then when I was asked to do this, I mean I was getting invited to someone's wedding is pretty spectacular, let alone having to officiate, and I was the most nervous, anxious, and you know, anxious wreck that I'd ever been because I was like, wow, like this is a lot of pressure and it's pretty hard to do something like this. But we had a really beautiful chat to really understand the type of ceremony they wanted, and then on the day it was just one of the most surreal experiences of my life because I love love, I love everything to do with romance, and I'm having the experience of like am I in a movie or am I in reality because I've only ever seen weddings like this in a movie, and I'm like, no, no, no, this is real. Get back into reality, and then just trying to convince myself to not cry because I love crying at weddings, like I will cry at everyone's wedding because I love love, and so the whole time while then standing right next to me and he's shedding a tear and Jennifer's walking down the aisle and the dress and everyone's looking at her, and I'm just like, Jay, do not cry. This is not about you. Do not cry, and just holding it together the whole time. But it was. It was really a beautiful experience. I was so grateful for the opportunity and it will truly always remain as one of the most you know, special memories that will cherish for a long long time.
When we come back. How Jay balances his desire for death and purpose with a life that's gotten pretty snazzy. We're back with Jay Shetty. I'm curious, since you have become friends with a lot of fancy people and have a lot of well known folks on your podcast, does that ever come into conflict with sort of your core message or has it made people look at you differently and maybe do sometimes because of the fact that you're well known and celebrity and fame come with a lot of good things but also some tough things. Has that been hard for you to balance in a way?
Yeah, I would say that all my close friendships in that space have originated from really organic, deep conversations. So any friends that I have in and I'm assuming what you're referring to as celebrity friends are all because all of our conversations are based on really deep, thoughtful ideals, And so for me, it's actually one of the greatest joys of my life because I get to talk about what I care about with people who care about what we're talking about and are trying in their own way to grow, to improve, to learn to And it's been among the greatest joys of my life to get to know people with that much depth, because it requires so much vulnerability and openness from both sides, and so that's been again something that I cherish for the rest of my life, and I believe I've made friends for life. I think on the podcast too. For me, like we talked about earlier, I've always been fascinated by studying the lives of incredible journeys and the fact that I get to sit with those.
People and accomplished people who have you know, unique talents too, right, yeah.
And accomplished different things in that. You know, we've had Lewis Hamilton, who's you know, potentially the greatest Formula one racer of all time. And you know, Lewis is a deep meditator, and he's a deep practitioner, a focus and he's such a disciplined individual. So I also don't think it's extrapolating how did you become successful? It's almost like, how did you become present? And how did you become focused? And these are all skills that we all need, so to me, I'm extrapolating more than how.
Did you not get screwed up by your success? Right?
Exactly? Exactly like how of these people like Lewis is a wonderful human And that's what I'm intrigued by, is how someone maintains their ego in that space. And so even the lessons were extrapolate and kind of going back to the Brian Cheskey point, I'm not really interested in asking him, Hey, how did you become worth x billion dollars, like that's really not I don't really care about that. I don't ask questions like that on the show. All the questions are about humanity and mindset and well being. And then, of course it is challenging. I think that it's natural when people see you interacting with certain groups or certain people. You know, people have assumptions and judgments, and it's never easy being judged. And I've always said, whenever anyone judges me, or you hear any criticism or whatever it may be, what I'd love to do is you'd love to just sit down with each of those people and just spend time with them, like have some tea with them, and just talk to them. And if only you could do that with a million people, you'd have to probably see what one hundred people every day for the rest of your life, and you probably won't even come close, and so it's really hard. I think that's what I find challenging, not hearing judgment. I respect people's opinions, and I recognize the paradoxical nature externally of what something can look like. I recognize the contradiction externally of what people may see. But to me, I don't judge that I totally respect that, but I can't do anything about it, And so you almost sit there and allow for it to exist and recognize that you can only continue to do the work that's close to your heart.
I'm curious, you know. I know your most recent book is The Eight Rules of Love, How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go. And you previously wrote in twenty twenty Think like a Monk, and both books have done very well. Does anyone ever challenge you and say, like Jay Shetty, you're a great guy, but how you know? How the hell do you know about this stuff? And I guess the question is how did you you accumulate such wisdom? And do you always feel confident in your ability to be what is in essence a spiritual teacher.
I think I've tried to live my life in a way to get as far away from that title as possible. And I think partly why.
The title of spiritual teacher? Yeah, yeah, that you don't like, you feel like guru is really misunderstood.
I think guru is just a very sacred word in the East. You know, a guru is someone who promises to dedicate their life to uplifting you out of the ocean of material misery. Like it's a very deep position. It's almost like mother or father or even like godfather or you know, like that godmother like. It has a very weighty responsibility that comes with it. So you can't possibly be a guru for the world because then you'd have to promise to uplift each and every person. It's almost a vow. And so I respect the word gurul and it comes with a lot of weight for me. But I think that I'm more trying to be everyone's spiritual friend as opposed to a spiritual teacher. And I think that's because I think the challenge is that teachers will always let us down because no one's perfect, and often teaches in their attempt to try and be perfect or present themselves as perfect and end up letting people down anyway. And so one of the reasons why I enjoy dressing fashionably, why I enjoy living the life I do, is to kind of take that away, and I'd rather be a round spiritual friend and not try to be someone else. But in terms of the wisdom, as you were saying about writing the books, and if I feel confident about it, I feel confident about my research and ability to connect ideas more than I do in my teachings, and I think the idea of what I'm trying to do in both my books. So whenever I think like a monk, think like a monk is a deep reset study in how monks live. So you'll hear me quote from Christian monks and Buddhist monks and Hindu monks, and you'll hear me share these stories and teachings that have existed for thousands and thousands of years. So my confidence isn't in the fact I lived as a monk for three years. My confidence is in the fact that this tradition that has lasted thousands of years must have some serious validity for it to last that long. There's very few things that have lasted a thousand years alone more than that. And the fact that some of these books, texts, and wisdom, traditions and practices have been around, I think makes me confident that they have validity, especially when I can draw parallels with modern science. When I wrote The Love Book, a lot of questions are like, well, what do you know about love? You have't been married for that long. And I think that again, if someone reads the book. I'm not teaching from my marriage. The book isn't a book that says, hey, I have a really successful marriage, why don't you learn from me. It's me having spent so much time trying to read and study and learn and interviewed couples and spend time with them who are older than me, far more wiser than me. And my job is to curate, synthesize, and share what going back to what you were saying, to often communicate ideas that get lost in academic journals and you know, college rooms that people may never learn or hear about. And so I take confidence in the fact that I have a great research method. I trust myself and my ability to synthesize and make things simple, accessible and practical. But my confidence in the wisdom is because the wisdom exists outside of me and before me.
There's been so much emphasis on self love. I strongly advocate for self love. I think it's great, but I wonder, and I'm curious how you feel about this, Jay, Can you place so much emphasis on self love, self improvement, self in general that it precludes you from being of service, from caring about other people, from being attuned to other people's needs, which has shown to be the true way to happiness. You know, I always believe you get what you give, and you know, being kind to other people is sort of the key to life. How do you balance those two things? And I, you know, blah blah. I know you can't love other people if you don't love yourself, YadA, YadA, YadA. But I sometimes I feel like there's so much self focus it prevents people from looking outside of themselves.
Yeah, I mean, the beautiful lesson that I learned during my time as a monk was that the reason you take care of yourself is to serve others. So therefore it's symbiotic in that.
Do you feel like it's symbiotic in our current culture?
I would say that because culture generally oscillates between extremes, we often have to go to one extreme and then go to the other to find the middle path. And so maybe we lived in a culture where people we're just trying to help other people. I don't even know if we ever lived there, but let's say let's say that we live there, or at least some people did, like maybe mothers did. Right, Let's say that we can probably agree on that that a lot of mothers maybe lived quite.
A and sacrifice, sacrifice the lot.
And sacrifice their life. Right, there was a part of society that we could agree with that with that one, hopefully it's a lot of moms. And so if mothers did that, then sometimes I think we have to oscillate to the other extreme of okay, just take care of yourself now, and then society evolves to recognize, well, actually, the reason I take care of myself is so that I can extend myself to others. And so I feel that that's kind of how I watch things kind of evolve in society. I don't think things ever evolve in the way you want them to. We kind of do do the pendulum swing because we're trying to find the middle. We're trying to get that pendulum to land perfectly, but it doesn't, and we keep going. It's almost like saying, should we hustle or should we meditate? Some people are like, if you want to be successfully, you have to hustle, and some if you want to be successfully, have to meditate to be still, and it's like, well, you actually need to do both. But we kind of oscillate between the extreme. So I think with everything. I think the point is that I'm making is it's the reason you take care of yourself is more important than even taking care of yourself. So I take care of myself and my health and my well being so that I can do more for others, as opposed to I'm taking care of myself because I'm the most important person in the world and nothing else matters. I think that intention makes us more hard hearted. And you know, you don't want to become more hard hearted. You want to become more soft hearted. And when we do hard things, we often do just become harder and harder and harder. And the goal is to become softer while you do hard things, because actually, when you're doing something difficult, the goal is you should become more compassionate because you realize how hard it is for anyone else to do it. And so I think surrender and self love and service should create a softer heart because you start recognizing how steep climate is for you, and therefore how steep a climate is for anyone you're trying to help.
Tell me about your wife.
She's a chef, she's a plant based recipe developer, and she has a cookbook coming out and that's exciting. Yeah, she's she has her own YouTube. So we tell this story I love infest. We tell this story in full on my first ever podcast on Purpose of How I met my wife, And the short version that I'll tell you here is I was in my final year of university and I knew I was going to become a monk, so I would go to my local temple to serve and stay out of trouble. Because as soon as you make a commitment thinking you're going to become a monk, the allures of life become very amplified. And so I was trying to stay out of trouble. And while I was trying to stay out of trouble, I was asked to show a lady around the temple with services and certain chores and certain rituals at the temple. She was around my mom's aid age, and so I was showing her around, and then afterwards she said to me, I have a daughter that i'd love to introduce into spirituality. She's around your age. How do I do that? And I said, well, I'm going off to become a monk, but I can introduce her to my sister, and my sister's I'm sure.
Oh it's I'm going I'm about to go off and be a monk. Excuse, Yeah, that was that.
Was my excuse. And so she brought a daughter, and I did invite my sister so that they could connect, and that happened to me. My wife's mom and she was bringing her daughter to learn more about spirituality, and so I introduced my now wife and my sister and I went off became a monk. They became best friends. And so when I came back from the monastery, she was at my house all the time, and so my sister was the person who was our go in between. It was like, she likes you, and then you know, my my liking of her back. But the first time I saw her, I thought she was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. And if you ask her, she was saying, yeah, I didn't feel anything. So so it was good that I became a monk then because I didn't have a shot at that time, so I didn't have a chance.
How many years have you ever made?
We've been together for eleven years and married for eight and so it's been it's been many not yet, no, not yet. We've been through so much change together. We got married, we moved to New York, we moved to la we both quit our jobs in London. We transition. There's been so much change in chaos in our lives in a good way, and I think, you know, we've been lucky to become closer through it, and I think that's been a priority for us. I think if we would have added kids to that, I think it may have hampered our relationship with each other.
Let me ask you a couple of questions from my social media followers. Gosh, social media has come along with sn't it goodness? Does positive self talk really work?
Great question? So that to answer that question, you have to understand that self talk already exists. And I think people don't think about this. When we hear the word positive self talk, we like it. Does it really work well? Negative self talk works? I'm guessing that everyone says in their mind at some point, I don't think I'm good enough. No, I shouldn' do that. I probably won't make it. I probably won't work for me. We're all practicing negative self talk every day by default, regardless, and it's working because it's making us more miserable. It's making us sad. It's making us not believe in ourselves. I was reading a study the other day that was talking about there's two types of voice in our head. One is I am lazy, I am not good enough, and the other voice we have in our head says you're lazy, you're not good enough, And that often is even worse and harder to handle as in a critic, because it sounds like an authority figure in our minds telling us. And often that voice has been picked up from family members, teachers, partners, friends, ex boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever else it may be. We've adopted someone else's voice as our own. And so positive self talk isn't saying you're the best, you're amazing, you can do anything you want, right like, that's not positive self talk. I don't love the words negative and positive when it comes to self talk. I like the way of coaching yourself. And what I mean by that is, if you were with a coach who is trying to help you become better and improve, how would they talk to you. People often say talk to yourself as if you talk to your friend, and I think people struggle with that. But talk to yourself the way you believe a good coach would talk to you to get the most out of you. How would they understand how to challenge you, how to check you, how to encourage you, how to champion you. And so, to me, positive self talk, a healthier version of that is me saying, for example, if I wake up and go, I'm so tired, right, positive self talk would be I'm so energized. Now. That doesn't work because you can't just fly to yourself and your mind's not going to believe it. So the actionable item is I am tired and I will go to sleep early tonight. It's an acceptance of how you feel with an action of how to make it better. I am not good enough, and I can learn how to improve. It's the accepting of how we're feeling right now with an action of how we can be better, of how we can grow. And so that's what I would recommend to anyone who's trying to learn what positive self talk.
Is or giving yourself grace. I am tired because I went to bed late last night, and I should be tired, right. I think this sort of self flagellation that we sometimes resort to, I don't know. I give myself a lot of grace.
I'm really excited, so yeah, me too. You have to, I mean, especially if you're living a high stress life, which I think so much of the population is today. You have to give yourself grace because you're all trying to do everything. We're trying to be perfect parents, we're trying to be perfect professionals, we're trying to be perfect partners. Of course, we're going to fail at one of those things, if not more. And you can't guilt yourself into growth. That's what we have to understand. You can't guilt yourself into achieving your goals. We don't respond to guilt or blame or shame. When was the last time someone shamed you into becoming better? It doesn't work that way. We become better because someone believes in us. We become better because we believe there's an opportunity to become better, because we feel that someone supports us and loves us no matter what. That's what inspires humans to become better. Or the opposite, where there's lots of pain and lots of loss and lots of stress as well, can do that, but there has to be grace in both.
That's perfect segue to this next question, which is how to deal with the grief of a lost soulmate and how to live life after loss. I'm really struggling, and someone else asked the best approach to dealing with grief.
Katie, I was going to say, you're the person to answer that, not me, you know, from what we're speaking about before. I mean, you're the only person who can genuinely answer that from an untheoretical point of view.
We were talking earlier, by the way, that today is the twenty sixth anniversary of my husband's death, which is so hard to fathom, and it's always the sad day of course. Gosh, you know, it's different for every person, and each circumstance is different. I think for me, you know, I had two small children who were six and two when their dad died, and I think for me, I never thought that Jay, my husband, would want to impact their lives in a negative way the fact that he died, and so I think I wanted their lives to be full of joy, and I also think I wanted to have joy in my life. And as hard as losing someone is, I think the challenge is to make sure that that death doesn't pull so many other people down with it, and I think I came to terms with this idea that we're all terminal. Nobody. My dad used to say, no man knows his time or place. Life is so fragile, and that you just have to make the most of whatever time you have. And that doesn't mean not mourning the loss of someone you love, not missing that person terribly. But I think it just means trying to move forward with a life of purpose and joy. But it's very hard to be prescriptive with questions like this because everyone we're all so different, and our relationships are different, and we contain multitudes as we Whitman said, So I hate to really give advice, but I do believe in almost every case that it gets better with time. People say it's like carrying a big heavy stone in your pocket. It's always there, but it just doesn't feel as heavy after a while. But what advice would you give? I mean, I know you must talk to a lot of people as an observer of humanity. What advice would you give those people? I'm curious.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I don't think we can be prescriptive or you know, especially in this kind of situation and I haven't lost a soulmate, so I can only define it. I can only express like you did your own experience. And during the pandemic, I lost two people who were very close to me. One was my spiritual mentor, who died of stage four brain cancer and so I couldn't go back to his funeral. And then another friend who was my closest friend when I was a monk. He was still a monk when he died, and he died of colon cancer.
Again during life, my husband died of wow.
Yeah, and so at the same time. So my monk friend was around my age, in his thirties, and my spiritual mentor was in his sixties. And I can honestly say that I missed them both deeply every day for different reasons. But I let them live on in my life by living as the person they both wanted me to be, and by sharing the wisdom they shared with me with others. And so I find that to me, they're still living with me in their presence and spirit and energy.
I'm so unfair, though, isn't it. I Mean, I think that's what upsets me the most, that these things are so random, Like why did your friend who was a monk in his thirties get diagnosed with colon cancer. I mean, it's just so random. What upsets me so much is what these people miss out on. It makes me feel so terrible that my husband didn't get to walk our daughter down the aisle, he didn't experience becoming a grandfather. It's just so sad to me.
Yeah, and that's why the only thing we can do is experience it on behalf of them and more deeply for them as well. And maybe we would not have experienced these things, is deeply if we hadn't had that experience with them. That's all we can do, you know, That's all that we're left with. I find that often these things can be sometimes when you haven't had that perspective, you may not even approach these moments with that much depth and that much clarity and that much presence, because these moments force you to do that. And I think doing things on behalf of those people is still a beautiful spiritual practice. And you know, I dedicated I went on a world tour last year and my London show was dedicated to my spiritual mentor who lived in London. And you know, when I was saying it on stage at the end of the show. I was about to break down after like, you know, being on stage and performing and everything else. But you know, I felt like I was. I knew he'd be happy and he was getting to experience it in some way even when he wasn't physically there.
I was going to ask you, do you believe in life after death?
Yeah? The Eastern perspective is quite clear on reincarnation, which is a fascinating concept.
Do you believe in reincarnation?
I do.
I want to come back as a cat.
Yeah, that's possible. That's very, very possible. I read a really beautiful book called Old Sold many years ago by Ian Stevenson, and he documents many different experiences and interactions with reincarnation past lives, and it's really spectacular. If anyone's curious to hear about it from a more research based perspective as opposed to a spiritual perspective, that book Old Sold by doctor Ian Stephenson is really remarkable.
I'd like to check that out. Last question, I promise you have to go. I have to go. But it's been so fun. By the way, I think I see why you're such an effective podcaster because suddenly I'm talking about all these intensely personal things with you, Jason. I think it's your voice or your accent, or are there something.
My voice is usually quite different when it's my podcast. But you you brought this very sober version of me today.
I don't think it's sober. I think it's gentle and calm.
Well, you brought that more of me today.
I don't usually have that effect.
Yeah, today, that effect on me today.
What is the best advice you've ever gotten?
I'm going to share one with you that I haven't shared before because I answered this recently and we had a clip that went viral with me sharing the advice that I did, which.
We don't want this to go virul.
I consider the same thing. I consider the same thing.
No, you don't have to up.
No, I said something on that it was No, I'll say it because it is the best advice. It's it's honestly the best advice I've ever received. So it's from my spiritual mental that I just spoke about. I remember going to him. I'd left the monastery and I went to him and I said, I have so many ideas of things I want to do to help people, but I have no idea where to start. I don't know what's going to work. I don't know what's going to make an impact. I don't know what's going to matter. And he said to me, he said, open every door possible, and then observe which doors close and which doors stay open, and keep walking through the ones that stay open, because those are the doors that were meant for you. And I think it's the best advice I've ever received, because I'm only here today sitting with you and talking about all of this, because I've just tried, and I still do try to open every door possible in order for me to live my purpose. I've had so many doors close on me. I've just kept walking through the ones that remain open because I believe those are the right doors. And so anyone out there who's struggling to find direction or what's the right path or what's the right choice, to be honest, no one knows. All you can do is try everything and see what remains open, because what remains open is your path, not what you hope will be. And so, yeah, that's the best advice I've ever received.
Well, this was such a fun conversation and fascinating and deep. It was very yeah, So thank you, Jay. This is really lovely. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much. I'm so grateful honestly, and it was wonderful to spend this time with you. Genuinely.
Thank you so much, Thank you, Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave a short message at six oh nine five one two five to five five, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.