I remember one incident where one of my best friends in school. One girl at school told him I was talking bad about him, which I definitely was not doing. That storms into the field, comes up to me, starts punching me in the face. I'm on the floor, I've got bruises all of my eyes, and I remember looking back at that, I almost started to observe human behavior early on. I'd say, where what is it that that
person's going through that's making them behave that way? Rather than asking the questions why me, I think I started looking at what's happened to them? Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so pumped that you're here with me right now. I want you to take a moment and just honor yourself, acknowledge yourself. I want you to keep showing up for yourself, but I want you
to thank yourself when you do. And every time you tune into on Purpose, you're appreciating yourself, You're investing in yourself, You're growing yourself. Now. I interview a lot of people. I love my solo episodes, but every now and again, I like to share an interview that someone did with me. I find out when people interview me. I get to
share more of myself. You get to learn more about me, and some really fascinating insights come out that wouldn't come out sometimes if I was planning a session myself or scripting a session with myself. I find that when I'm being asked questions, I'm connected to my intuition, I'm channeling more, I'm in flow, I'm in the zone. So this is one of those special interviews. It was with Mason and Payment out of Mad Happy. If you know the brand,
love these guys. They did a great interview. I'm excited for you to listen to this one. There's so many insights that came out, like I said, that I'd never thought of before, or I hadn't put into words. I really hope you enjoy it. I can't wait. Well, thanks for coming on, Jay. We like to start off every
episode with a prompt from our journal. Obviously, journaling is like such a huge practice with so many mentalth benefits, so we always like to start off the show with that to kind of get us all on the same page. Today's prompt which Payment wants or first? Then you go and I'll close this out is what are you proud of? Yourself for I think for me, just I've been trying to use my phone less, especially at night, and I've
been doing a little bit better. I would say I'm still not all the way there, but that's one thing I'm proud of myself for. So yeah, what about you, Jay, I'd say that the thing I'm proud of myself for recently is I haven't seen my wife for around four months, and I think we're so used to obviously during the pandemic being together with each other every day. We loved
hanging out for like a solid two years. But she's been working in London and I've been in LA and traveling and we haven't been able to find time to see each other. She's coming back in a couple of weeks, which I'm excited to see her after that long. But I'm really proud that. I'm proud of both of us for having just communicated really effectively while being apart for that long, and not having moments where we argued about silly things, so we were able to understand if the
other person wasn't available when we were free. There's an eight hour time gap between London and LA so it might be around five months. By the time we've seen each other, and I'm really proud that we've continued to feel more in love and I miss like anything and I just can't wait to have a back. Yeah, that's amazing, that's crazy. That's a good answer. Yeah, for me, I recently started working out for like the first time in my life. I think physical activity and exercise has always
been kind of hard for me. I think because of my ongoing depression, it's just hard to really like motivate. And I went to the doctor for the first time in a while and he said that I should start to put onto muscle. So I've been lifting for the first time. And I never felt like that guy or really felt like masculine or strong in that way. And I think it's it's really given me a lot of confidence and has made me feel a lot happier and payment gives me my workout, so so I'm grateful for
him for being my little pseudo trainer. But yeah, I'm proud of myself for keeping that up for a few weeks now. Yeah, I love that I can relate to that too. This was the first year that I really started getting in the gym for physical health too, as opposed to I love playing sports. Yeah, that's pretty much what I've done my whole life. But this was the first year, so I can very much relate to everything you just said. Well, that's a great way to kick
it off. Jay, I'm wondering if you could give us a picture of your childhood and your upbringing. We always like to start there because so much of your early lifehood life and childhood experiences shape your life. So curious about your early life. Yeah, So I was one of two kids. My parents were immigrants. They moved to London. My mom moved from Yemen to London when he was sixteen. My dad moved from India to London when he married my mom, so probably he was probably in his like
mid twenties. And I went to a school in my area which was pretty rough and tough. I was bullied for being one of the only Asian kids school and being overweight as well when I was growing up, So I went through a lot of bullying, got beat up a bunch of times. I'm talking about like when I was like six seven years old through till about probably
about like yeah, about ten years old. At elementary school or primary school as we call it, but what I remember from that time is my mom just giving me all the love in the world, working super hard, cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner, dropping us to school, picking us up, helping me with my homework. Just I've I've always felt this flood of love from my mom, and I think that my capacity to love today comes from the fact that I received so much love from her and still do
till this day. And my dad was more aloof and disconnected from my life, and at the time it was hard. You know, it was hard when I'd be at a swimming class and I'd look up to see if my dad was in the stands it he'd be like reading his newspaper, or you know, completely uninterested. Or you know, when I was playing rugby for my school and I'd looked to the sidelines, but my dad wouldn't show up
to the games. And when I was growing up, I think that affected me at the time, and I would think, well, look, everyone else's dad's there, everyone else's parents are there. And actually, as I grew up, I now feel a sense of gratitude for it, because it allowed me to do what I wanted to do for myself. And so now when I look in hindsight, it's a different experience. But during that time, I think I went through a lot of common things that people go through, whether it's bullying, disconnection.
But the thing I remember most from my childhood is my mum's love for sure. Yeah, And I'm curious, is I actually immigrated to the US when I was six from Italy and my parents are from Iran. They immigrated to Italy and then to hear and I always talk about just like that feeling of feeling different, and even though you weren't an immigrant, I'm sure you felt that and like probably internalize that through the bullying. Is that how you were thinking about it growing up? Like damn,
Like why am I different? Like why is my skin like this? Why is everyone like you know the same? Like how are you thinking about that? At that time, I don't even know if I had the capacity to ask those questions because I was so young, and so now when I think about it, I almost feel like at that time I just thought I didn't even ask why is my skin or why is that? It was just like why is this happening? Right? Like in general?
Or or like why am I going through this? And I remember one incident where one of my best friends in school. We were in grade four, so I would have been like, well like seven years old or something like that. And I remember that one girl at school told him that I was talking bad about him, which I definitely was not doing that. That's not the kind of person I am. And he had a really short temper, so he stormed in. This is my best friend at school, storms in to the field, comes up to me, starts
punching me in the face. I'm on the floor, I've got bruises all of my eyes. And I remember looking back at that just thinking like wow, Like you know, I almost started to observe human behavior. Eleon, I'd say where I was like, wow, it's so interesting to see how people get triggered. It's so interesting to see how people act out of character when they're insert and scenarios and situations. I thought, how incredible is it that? What is it that that person's going through that's making them
behave that way? I think those were the questions I started asking. So rather than asking the questions why me, or why am I going through this? Or what's wrong with me? I think I started looking at what's happened to them, Yeah, right, Like what's going on with them that's making them act that way with me? Because I'm
just trying to be a good kid. I was teacher's pet, I worked hard, I was well behaved, I followed all the rules up until fourteen, And so for me at that time in my life, it was more like, well, what happened to them? Like what did they not have? What structure do they they'll have? What support do they not have that making them act in that way? Yeah, I can relate to you with your dynamic with your parents. I also kind of moved around a lot as a kid.
My biological father left me and my mother before I was one years old, and then she remarried this man who technically my stepdad but raised me as my dad. And even growing up, I was so close with my mom, and she really modeled what it was to show love and care about people and like how to go about
your life. And my dad, who I found out later that he was gay at the time, but like was experiencing a lot of rage and like things that were very confusing to me while he was dealing with his own stuff and he wasn't that kind of model for me was a bit more absent, like how you were explaining. And I feel like the way that that's manifested for me and my life has really been to be much
more kind of empathetic and sensitive. And like I said at the beginning during the prompt, right, I growing up, I never really felt like a man quote unquote or I have a problem with anger. I've never yelled at
anyone in my entire life. Right, all these things that I'm still unpacking, because it really was my mom who was modeling the world for me and how to behave I'm curious for you just with that dynamic between your mother and your father, how you feel like that kind of manifested into your adult life and like how you grew your personality and way to see the world. Yeah, that's such a great question, and thank you for sharing
your experience too. I really feel like it was similar where my mom had this big heart, she was highly understanding, very compassionate, very empathetic, and I think I adopted a lot of those traits as well. And because I saw her working hard, like you know, she was working a job, she was the main breadwinner. She's taking care of me and my younger sister, Like she's supporting us. I gained so much empathy and compassion for women, mothers, people who
are just trying to make everything possible. And I also saw that my mom was quite non judgmental and non critical, and so I think I adopted some of those traits as well, where I looked at the world for what it was, and I didn't try and judge your place, my opinion on to other people, but observed why they behaved they were. I think my mum was highly forgiving, and I think so I developed a great deal of forgiveness and tolerance by again, like you said, mirroring her behavior.
And then of course there's the natural unlearning of certain parts that don't work as well or that don't fit so beautifully as well. And so I think what I've learned is that you have to go through this journey where at one point in life, you take stock of the values that you practice and you have to ask yourself two questions, where does this value come from? And do I want to keep it? Do I want to make it mine? Because most of our values are adopted
from our parents, our teachers, our friends, our family. And so getting to that point of saying, well, what are my values? Do I like them? Do I want them? And do I want to keep them in my life? And so I think when I started to make that transition, that's when you start becoming your own person, and you start to recognize that you know our parents and will do the same when we become parents. Your parents give
you what I call gifts and gaps. Sometimes you're trying to give you gifts and they're beautiful, and then some of those gifts have gaps, and some gaps don't have any gifts, and it's up to you in life to fill the gaps, to repeat the gifts, to make the gifts yours passed them along. And I think that's what I've found most interesting about the journey of life, that everything was designed for me to learn something specific, and when I'm able to learn that, that experience now becomes
meaningful and a powerful part of my story. Yeah, it seems like you're pretty in tune with like yourself and your emotions, especially as a child. And I'm curious, like as you got older, right, Like mental health is not something you think about when you're six, but you said, like when you're fourteen, and I think you sort of like misbehaving in class, And was that like the first time that you like consciously remember like going through a challenging time in your life, and can you paint that
picture for us? And then how that led to college and beyond that. Well, I think I had this model of life where I'm like, I've been a teacher's pet, I've ticked every box, I've worked hard at school, but I'm still bullied. I still deal with racism, and teachers are still you know, picking on me or taking shots at me, and it doesn't feel fair. And so it was almost like, I've been good and that hasn't got me anywhere. So let me be mischievous and silly and
playful and rebellious and see if that goes anywhere. And so I think I was chasing a thrill, but I didn't realize that the greatest thrill of life was purpose. I didn't know that at fourteen. And so at fourteen, thrill came from being the class clown. It came from being the class rebel. It came from being involved in the wrong circles. It came from going against what your parents say. It came from doing the opposite of what was the right thing. To do, and so I think
that came from a sense of seeking purpose without me knowing. Yeah, And I would say that at that time, I wasn't being myself. I was now playing up to be like the people that I thought were cool, or that I thought were the right people to imitate, or the people that were ending, or the people that had influence or cloud And so you spend your whole teens kind of
trying to mirror that person. I almost feel like zero to ten you end up trying to be the person your parents want to be, and ten to twenty you try and be the person that your friends want you to be, and then twenty to thirty you realize you don't want to be either of those things, and then hopefully in your thirties you start being the person who
want to be right. It's kind of like that's that's I mean, I'm stereotyped thin and simplifying, but I feel like that's been the journey that I've been on at least, and I realized that you have to go on that journey in that way because you learn valuable lessons at each steps. So for me, those teens were very much me trying to be like people that I thought were cool or respected and recognizing that that that didn't quite have it either. Yeah, I had a similar experience where
I was really good at school. Even when I moved here. I didn't speak English, but I learned it quickly, and I was really good in school, And I think I was bored with that in some ways, and like we're still trying to like act with other people. So I was doing like the class clown things too all the way through like eighth grade. And it was funny because
the purpose thing you just brought up. I think I could really relate with that, because like I got purpose from like doing well in school and from like making jokes and like people thinking I was funny and like more of the external validation, which I think is like pretty normal early on. I'm curious and then, like I also had a similar experience where I went to undergrad
business school. I'm curious, like how you made that decision and then eventually how that led to you like going on that journey to becoming a monk, because obviously those two things seem very opposite. Yeah, I think I did what every sane person does after going to undergrad business school, which is becoming a monk man. I'll explain it. I'll track back to be honest, when I was in my teens, the subjects that resonated with me most were art, design
and philosophy. Like, that's what I fell in love with, and so I would spend more time at art class and in the studio, and I would spend more time on online on Photoshop, and you know, I'd going to be working on art. It's what I fell in love with and what I was attracted to. But then there was still that voice inside my head that said art is not a career, right, Design is not a career,
Philosophy is not a career. And because I'd had that ingrained so deeply within me, I was like, well, then I should go get a degree that has a career behind it. I would say. In my teens, I didn't know it was possible to be anything else apart from a doctor, a lawyer, or a business person. Like I almost didn't know, as silly as it sounds, I just wasn't aware that there were that many careers beyond a few set careers that had been laid out by friends,
family members, and people around me. And so I went there honestly, just because I thought it would line up a safe career opportunity. Now, when I went there, I still realized that there were things I was more interested in. So I got deep into behavioral science and I started doing electives and arts and antiques markets, and like all of my dissertations and thesis were all about fascinating subject
matters even though I was there. But I think the most important thing that happened is I would go and hear people speak. And this is before podcasts, right, this is before podcasts, it's before YouTube. This is when you actually had to go to physical spaces to hear people speak. And it was before TED was big. TED was obviously around, it just wasn't a big deal at the time. And so I would go to my university to hear people speak,
or go into the city to hear people speak. And I was invited to hear a monk speak by some of my friends that had been getting involved in meditation and mindfulness. This is back in two thousand and six, so very early days, and I was just like, what am I going to learn from a monk? Like I was super skeptical, super cynical, didn't know what monks did. Didn't know what value monks could add, but I made my friends promise that we'd go to a bar afterwards.
Like that was my state of consciousness at the time. My friends were highly persuasive, so they agreed, so we went to this event. I'm thinking, I'm just gonna be looking at the clock, trying to get out of this space. And the opposite happened, where I was staring at this monk as if he was the most beautiful woman in the world, Like that's how fixated I was. And he was wearing robes, he were you know, he was from India. You know. It wasn't that there was anything externally attractive
about him. It was just that it almost felt like I'd met someone who had the frequency and energy that I didn't even know I was looking for. And this is something that I really believe in that not everyone needs to meet a monk, but I do believe today that we rarely meet people of different frequency and different energy. We followed the same people, we watched the same people.
We hear from the same people. The media covers the same people, and we could hear deeper stories about those same people, but we don't often hear those, So I'm not saying that the same people are the issue. You could hear deeper journeys and deeper elements of their background
and walks of life. All we need to be exposed to new minds and new thinkers and people that we don't recognize, because that's what gives you the opportunity to go, oh, there's something out there that I know nothing about, but I'm attracted to. And that's how I felt when I met a monk. If you asked me, if anyone ever said to me, Jay, you're probably going to become a monk for three years of your life, I probably would
have thrown my beer bottle at them, right like. That would have been, like you know, it would have been. I would have laughed. I would have thrown at them. I don't want to hurt them. I would have laughed. It would have been It would have been ridiculous, is what I mean. It would have been, you know, preposterous to imagine that that would be a path I would take.
But I got so attracted to him. And then during my time at college, I was interning at investment banks and consulting companies, and I was going to spend time at the monastery in India, and so I did my first split test or a b test, and I realized when I graduated that the life of living as a monk was far more fulfilling than the life of working in this city. So I turned out my corporate job offers and I went and lived as a monk. And it was because of two things. Two things were important
to me when I chose to become a monk. The first is I wanted to understand how I could purify my ego, master my mind and live a life where I could actually manage my emotions. And I saw that monks could do that, and I wanted to learn to do that. I felt that that would be one of the most valuable skills for myself and my experience of life.
And the second thing, and the reason I did it, is because monks were serving, They were helping others, they were contributing to society, and I thought to myself, that seems like a worthy cause. That's what I want to do with my life. So those are the two reasons that that took me in that direction. I think that the note of being of service is something that I think about a lot. Being in sobriety and recovery. Obviously,
that's a huge part of the program. And I think where I've found myself feeling the most fulfilled and the most connected and really the most myself. And I think a lot of what we try and do at Matt Happy Too is obviously giving back and educating people and sharing our own experiences to inspire other people to speak up. And I think being of service is truly how the life that I want to lead when I really think
about what makes me happy. And I was wondering if you could just explain kind of what that monk was saying that day a little bit, and then almost what life as a monk kind of looks like. I think when I think of a monk, you know, I think of just kind of like a Buddha on a hill, like just like not talking all day, and like that might be what a lot of people think of it as well. And what was it actually like And what were those first things that you were hearing from him
that were really kind of opening your mind? Yeah, he was saying that the greatest thing that a human can do is to use their gifts in the service of others, that you use this life this body, this mind, this heart that you have in order to improve the lives of others. And you can only do that when you learn to purify yourself of ego, of arrogance, of pride, of elements in your life that block you, of envy, of illusion, of these things that block you from serving
people with a full heart. And that really deeply resonated with me, because I could see people who are well intentioned, but then their ego got the better of them. Well, I could see people who wanted to do good in the world, but then they couldn't take care of themselves at the same time. And so those were some of the things that resonated with me, And obviously I had to spend more time with him. And there are different monk paths, So what you just said about a particular
monk path, there are those paths. I chose this particular path because it was about self and service. There are a lot of paths where it is just about being silent, so our mornings would be silent and our days would be service, but a lot of parts will be fully silent or fully serviced. And I chose this path because I felt that both were important tracks in our life.
And so we'd wake up at four am every day and mourning meditations collectively would be four thirty to five, then five to seven would be individual meditation, then seven till about eight to eight thirty would be a class on the spiritual literatures, and then eight thirty would be breakfast. And then from like nine thirty onward, it would be a mix of daily chores, going out and building sustainable villages,
going and helping villagers with their daily tasks. It could be going out and feeding the homeless or children at school. So the day would be spent being with society and being present with people who needed that support. And of course there were elements where we would go on pilgrimage and visit these five thousand year old temples and go to these incredible places across India that you know, haven't
been visited or seen for thousands of years. Or it's this beautiful thing that I read about recently which I'm encouraging more people to experience. Scientists call it the or effect, and or is something we all get to experience. We experience it when we see a beautiful scenery, or you're in nature, or like I'm saying, when you visit a five thousand year old temple and always defined as when you feel small but connected to something bigger at the
same time, so you feel really insignificant. You get to experience humility but connectivity at the same time. Yeah, And I got to experience a lot of that as a monk, where you felt so tiny, but you felt so big and powerful and capable. And I think that that juxtaposition of ideology is is what we're all searching for. We don't want to be big on our own alone on a mountaintop. No one wants that. No one who has achieved success is happy being lonely at the top. Yeah.
And at the same time, no one wants to be depressed and alone and left with nothing and feel like they have nothing to offer the world. So I think if we can all experience, or not just through external visuals, but through the cultivation of that inner space of I'm really tiny, but I'm apart of something really big, which makes me really significant and insignificant all at the same time, I think that's just a really beautiful place to live.
And I'd say that that's one of the key things I learned during that time from an internal standpoint, Yeah. As soon as you said that, I thought about the first time that I went to Yosemite and just like standing in that valley and it was such a significant artifact of I feel so small but so connected, and I find myself with nature, especially because it's so kind of mysterious and there's no answer for how this got
here or what it means or any of that. And I feel like that's where I really feel the awe effect so strongly, when there's not a clear answer. I think that those are the most beautiful parts of life to me, where I can feel the most connected, where there's not like there's no right or wrong, there's no winning, it's just it can't be explained, And like that's where the most kind of beauty I find is for me. Yeah,
I mean what you just sparked something for me. I mean we are nature, and I don't think we observe nature enough. I think we observe machines more than we observe nature, and so we are starting to think like machines, i e. Productivity, goals, targets, list checks, systems, processes. But we are nature. And if you look at a tree, a tree has all different branches going off in different directions.
It has roots getting nutrients. It sometimes is giving out fruits and flower is sometimes it's shedding, and it doesn't do that like a tree is not confused in autumn or fall going why are my leaves falling? The tree does that naturally. But if we go through a phase in our life where we feel like we're shedding or things are transitioning, we get scared because machines don't change. Right, This microphone looks the same in January, and it looks
the same in December. But nature doesn't look the same in January in December. And if we're in nature, then that's more of what we're going to be like. But we're trying to be like this microphone. We're like, I don't want to change. I just want to remain the same the whole time. And so I think there's so much more than even or to be gained from nature, where it's like we are nature. If we observe nature deeply, we can actually flow and live life much more naturally
and simply than being attracted and attached to machines and machinery. Yeah, you talk about, you know, the power of being able to spend time along I think it's like something that's like a lot harder. And even I talk about this a lot, like even when I'm alone, I'm like listening to a podcast or like doing something where it's like you're not actually alone, just with your thoughts. And like the challenge for me of just like driving home not
playing music or not. You know, it's always like so hard for me, and I try to do it every once in a while to just because I know it's good for me, and it always feels good when I get to my final destination because I obviously thought about a lot of things that wouldn't have come up in
my own head without giving myself that space. So I'm curious about your time as a month, because it seems like the morning time was spent like being more by yourself, even if you're surrounded by others, and then the second part of your day was like being around others and like in service. So I'm curious like what you began to think of that and the importance of spending time alone in that process. Yeah, I think that's really fair what you've said. We've made loneliness and being alone the
enemy since we were young. If you went to school and you didn't have someone to sit next to you, you were called the Lona, right. Or if you threw a birthday party and not many people showed up, you were considered unpopular, even though today as adults, if we had five people show up to our birthday, we'd be happy because we realize that that's probably the amount of people that actually know us. If you get invited to a wedding and you don't have a plus one, it's like, well,
you didn't bring a plus one. You didn't want to bring someone. Right. Even now, when I haven't seen my wife for a few months and I go somewhere, the number one question I get asked is where's your wife? Right, it's so abnormal for people to see people alone. And there's an amazing author called Paul Tillick who writes that there are two words in the English language for being alone, but we only use one of them, so it's loneliness. And he says there's another word, and it's called solitude.
And when we were monks, we were taught to practice solitude, not loneliness or being alone. And so Paul Tillick writes that loneliness is when you feel weak on your own and solitude is when you feel strength when you're by yourself. We've been getting so many amazing reviews for The Daily Jy, my new daily guided meditation series on the car Map.
You might have heard a couple of snippets on the podcast for a few weeks, so in case you haven't had the chance to check it out, I just wanted to share this review from Caitlin, an elementary school teacher from New Jersey. He's what she had to say. I have over nine years of experience in the American public school education system, including teaching throughout the pandemic. Over the past two years, I've seen extreme cases of anxiety and
my students like never before. Many of these children have never experienced these feelings before, and most are not even sure of what they are feeling. My school district has spent a great deal of time focusing on social emotional learning SEL through this school year. We try to teach coping skills and focus on teaching kids how to deal with their feelings and become the best version of themselves.
As someone who has also been experiencing the many anxieties of the world today, I have recently downloaded the car mapp thanks to my mom. My mom and I are big fans of yours, and once she heard that you will have seven minutes of Daily Jay each day, she encouraged me in doing this. Your meaningful ideas and meditation have quickly become part of my daily routine, so much that I've begun incorporating some of them into my sel
morning meetings with my third graders. If you've ever wanted to meditate with me, join me on the car map for the Daily Jay, a daily guided meditation where I'll help you find calm in the chaos, plant beautiful intentions for a happy, abundant life, and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams.
Meditate with me by going to Calm dot com forward slash Jay to get forty percent off a Calm Premium membership that's only forty two dollars for the whole year for a daily guided meditation experienced the Daily Jay only on Calm. What I find is really fascinating about solitude is that it's a time in your life where you get to make sense of your own thoughts, your own feelings, and your own emotions. Most of the time we're using other people as sounding boards for our thoughts, our emotions,
and our feelings. Now, that is healthy in therapy, that is healthy in coaching, that is healthy in conversations like this. But we also need time and space to do that with ourselves, to refresh, to recalibrate, to resynchronize with ourselves. That's what solitude allows you space to do. Solitude also
allows you to hear your inner voice. If you're only always listening to music or TV or shows, that voice becomes your voice, or that noise becomes your voice, and you lose the ability to check in with yourself and go, how does that feel for me? So often when I'm in solitude, and when we were monks, it was the idea of could I sit with a thought and genuinely discover how I feel about it at the core, regardless of how everyone else feels about it. And you can
only do that in illness and silence. You can't do that when you're constantly surrounded by lots of people, and so we've never been trained to do that. We've been made to believe that you'll be happier, you'll be more social when you're around people, which is true. But what I find is that if I want to make my mind up about something, I find it, you're much more likely to hear your inner voice and nowhere to be
guided by learning that practice. I'd say everyone has that loud voice in their head when they're young, and we've drowned it out or pushed it aside so much that it's got quieter and quieter and quiet. When someone says, Jay, I don't hear that voice, I don't hear myself, it's because it was so loud when we were young, when it was like, don't do that, do that, try this, don't hang out with that person, do this, You don't
need to do that. We just went no, no, no no, no, no. I'm going to do this because I think it's the right thing, or I think it's cool, or I think it's the thing I'm meant to do for me, Solitude is about building that habit of asking yourself, how do I feel about this, what's important to me, what's meaningful to me? What do I truly want to pursue without the noise, without anyone else's voice or opinion. Yeah, for me and P I'm curious how you feel about this?
Like I feel like as i've gotten older, and we've grown this business, and I've gotten into a relationship, and I have five brothers and sisters. Like anytime I'm expressing myself for making a decision or thinking, it's almost impossible for me not to consider these other people right, or like well, how's it going to make my girlfriend feel? Then what are my business partners going to think of me?
Than like what about my siblings? And just like all that, And I find it really difficult as I get older and there's more kind of stakes and pressure of life to be able to really be selfish in that way and like make a decision just for myself and not really worry about anybody else because it could potentially have such a direct impact on so many others. You know, Well, I want to respond to that because I think that's a healthy trait that you have, and I wouldn't discourage that.
So to give a nuance to what I said, I think it's less about even making the decision, but it's about being aware of what it is that you want a need, yeah, and then being able to process the discussion on the outer layers of who else is involved, rather than what we do is we usually ignore are completely unaware of what we need. Yeah, and then we just avoid it. Right, So I agree with you. I think what you're sharing I actually find beautiful and wonderful.
I think it makes someone a wonderful human when they're aware of other people's needs and other people's concerns and interests. But I think you can't be fully yourself in that if we're not aware of the first thing is what I meant. So thank you for sharing that because that helps me contextualize a little more for sure. Sorry, I wanted to hit from you as well. Yeah, I'll go Aheady,
it's a good thing you just brought up. You know, I started going to therapy the last January, which I always talked about on this show, and it's been very informative for me because my therapist is like the science side and like the spiritual side, which I found amazing.
And you know, he's like a big meditator, talks a lot about the energy stuff that you brought up earlier, Jay, And I think for me, when Mason just brought it up, I was thinking, oh wow, like I only think in the way of like me and everyone else versus like just me first, which I think like could be a very valuable skill to develop and just see like how often that is the same decision I would have made otherwise versus not, you know, and like I could still
keep going with that decision. That's more the middle ground for now. But I think the awareness piece, like you said, Jay, is the most important part. We just think of life is like yes and no black and white this or that. Right, It's very binary. So it's like I either focus on
myself or I focus on everyone else. And actually life's more like that logo behind you where it's circles yea, And so you have you, then you have your family, then you have your friends, then you have your community, and then you have your podcast audience, and then you have the wider world. And life's more like that. So
life isn't either role. It's almost like starting from this central point and then cascading and emanating outwards, right, And so I think the challenges we've been brought up to believe that it's binary, and it's not binary. It's almost like concentric circles that keep expanding out and that energy that's created within is is going to move outwards. Yeah, I'm curious, Like I know that after a few years, you decided to leave the monastery reenter society, and at
the time, like, how are you thinking about one? How do you make that decision? But too, how are you thinking about like what your life? You know, what was in store for your life? Because I imagine before, you know, you had a different view of like success and like happiness and life. So how did you come to that decision? Yeah, I think leaving was I've always described it as one of the hardest decisions of my life, because you know, when I became a monk, it wasn't this celebratory thing.
It was like, you know, most my extended family were like, you're never going to make money again, You're never going to get a job again, You're never gonna no one's ever going to date you again. Like you're committing career suicide. Like you've been brainwashed. Like you're wasting away your parents' hard work, you're wasting away your education. Like it wasn't I didn't become a monk under like happy circumstances. I
became a monk against the grain. I had friends who didn't understand my decision and didn't want to talk to me anymore because they didn't understand what I was trying to do. They were just like, you've changed, and you know now we can't talk about the same thing, so we have nothing to talk about. So I lost friends from that decision, and so when I left, I was like,
was everyone right? And the decision I left for was actually that spending time as a monk gave me so much self awareness that I realized I wasn't meant to be a monk, that I wanted to share what I'd learned, that I wanted to pass it on, that I wanted to speak about it in lots of interesting, exciting ways.
I wanted to pair it up with science because I loved the behavioral science growing up, and so I had all these ideas of how I could help people who came from the same backgrounds and walks of life that I did. And I recognized I was like that desire wasn't a monk desire in terms of the journey of a monk. And so that's like one of the hardest things where you feel like you left everything to get
married to the love of your life. I either part of being a monk, and now you go, a wait a minute, but that doesn't make me a monk, I might need to break up or get divorced, and that's what it felt like. It felt like a divorce. And I remember that my teachers saying to me as well that they felt I could share what I'd learned better
if I moved on. And that was a really stressful, pressurized situation because I now moved back to London to my parents' home, aged twenty six, and I was in twenty five thousand dollars worth of death eighteen thousand pounds roughly at the time. I hadn't had a job for that amount of time, so I had no work experience. All my friends were like getting mortgages, you know, dating
and serious relationships or growing. They were doing well in their careers, they were getting promoted, and I'm coming back with nothing to offer. Then I applied of forty companies and get rejected by every single one of them before an interview because surprise, surprise, no one wants to hire a reform a monk. Right, They're like, what are your what are your transferable skills like sitting still and being silent? We don't need that. So I'm almost like, oh, my gosh,
was everyone right? Everyone was right? I did waste my life. I did mess up, you know, and so it was a very And again I didn't know who the Prime Minister of England was, I didn't know who won the old Cart, and you know, I hadn't listened to music or a TV show, like, I didn't know how to do small talk anymore. Imagine, imagine you haven't done small talk for three years, like you literally yet how to have a conversation, Because so I was. I felt really
out of touch. And on top of that, my health had taken a hit because as a monk, I'd been like practicing all sorts of fasts and crazy meditations and my health was quite depleted. So I was also low on you know, from a physical point of view, and we all know that that can massively impact you from a chronic fatigue point of view and even depression, and so I was in quite a difficult space. And so leaving was Yeah, leaving was one of the most toughest
things I've ever done. And it's only all in you, like it was all for me. But yeah, it wasn't easy at all. Yeah, and then after that, I guess, what was the moment where you kind of got back on the horse so to speak, or like kind of had your first big break of realizing, all right, there's something here and I can kind of take what I've learned and really build something out of this. So it took ten months when I left to get a job. I took ten months of applying, being unemployed, figuring it out,
living in my parents' home. It took ten months to get a job. And those ten months included the first month I just didn't do anything at all, And then the next nine months I was waking up and meditating again, practicing everything I learned as a monk, going to the library, reading books about business, studying philosophy again, trying to just get back into the world. And I remember ten months later,
I went to this I got this job. Finally. I went to this networking event at the beginning of the job, and I remember that activity was pizza making, so it was like pizza making groups so you can network and connect. And I was like, what am I doing here? Like it was the biggest culture and I was like what am I doing? Like I didn't know what to wear. I was like, is this too? There was like, you know, it was like business casual, and I almost I was like,
oh my gosh, what do I wear? Like what's in today, what's not? And that was the moment when I started that job, I realized something really important. I realized that I wasn't five years behind everyone. I realized that I'd learned lessons that put me ahead. And when I say ahead, I don't mean ahead of others. I meant ahead in my own understanding. And so even though I was twenty six and everyone who started that job was twenty one, I was like, no, the lessons I learned is a
monk are going to be my armor. They're going to be my strength. So now let me recognize how to apply this. So I've always realized that my life became good. That moment changed when I started applying everything I'd learned
rather than trying to push it away. And I think you talk about this idea of like conscious capitalism, which I think in many ways, like very much is aligned with what we're doing, because, like we always say, like, we're a business, and we hope through having a successful one, we can make a big impact in the world. We could spread awareness, raise money for mental health, all of those sorts of amazing things. I'm curious how you came to that realization. Was that sort of like the bridge
of your earlier interests. How did you come to that? Yeah, that's a really great question, and I'm glad we're talking about it, because I think spirituality and money or often uncomfortable conversations for me what I have, And I would say it was an uncomfortable situation for me because when I started what I was doing, I honestly started with the intention of I just want to help people. I just want to serve. I'm just going to create stuff
that's going to improve people's lives. And as I started to do that, I realized that if I wasn't able to create a business or a venture, I couldn't create structures to scale, amplify, grow both the message or a team of people that also get to live their purpose. So today, when I've been able to connect and synchronize those two worlds of spirituality and business or conscious capitalism, as you said, you start recognizing that, oh, actually, I can do more good with money and use money for
more good. That includes living a life for myself that allows me to live in abundance, creating jobs and opportunities for other team members who now get to live in a purpose led organization. Like everyone who works with me on my team loves what we do. They believe in mental health, they believe in conscious business. They want to create opportunities and products and businesses and content to help people.
So now you've got all those people who are helping, right, and then on top of that everyone else who gets to be impacted. So for me, I recognize that if I lived in a world where I didn't connect spirituality in business or impact in business, then what would end up happening is I would have enough for me. But then I wouldn't be able to scale, grow, or make a difference in the world to the extent that I
wanted to. And so I had to rewire my relationship with money because I grew up in a family where we always had enough. So I grew up plenty of days in my life, months, years, having zero dollars or zero pounds in my bank account like consistently, and I
always had just enough. And when I started to realize that just enough is fine for you, but what about all the people you want to serve and create opportunities for, It's been fun figuring it out, and I'm still figuring it out and I think you have to be you know, careful with it. But you know, last year, this was one of my favorite things. Last year, my wife and I read a statistic that you know, one person was I think dying from COVID every five minutes in India.
It was it was pretty bad. And we decided to organize a fundraiser within twenty four to forty eight hours with all of our friends and community and you know amazing people that we had that supported it. And you know, we had like everyone, like you know, Sean Menders got involved and Ellen got involved, and then we led this online fundraiser and our audience deliver it and we've raised like across twenty four hours, literally twenty four to forty hours,
we raised five million dollars. That event costs like fifty to sixty k to put on online production all that kind of stuff. And I was just thinking, like, we would never been able to do that, and I just felt so grateful. I mean, that was nothing. I mean, you know, India had far more challenges than five million dollars could solve, but I just felt grateful that that made me feel like, this is what we were able
to do because of everything else that existed. Yeah, I think this like notion of like money can actually do good. I think people are just like not as open to it right now, and that's fair. I think everyone has their own relationship with it. But I think some of the companies who have made the biggest differences, like a Patagonia for example, like they've done very well as a business to be able to give back more and more every year to make the planet a better place to
live for everyone. And so I think it definitely is possible, and it seems like you're doing a great job of it. So Congress, Well, no, I think I'm trying, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm trying to figure it out. And it's definitely my tension, like it's intention and action is there, Like it's what we believe and it's what we want to do. Yeah, we worked. We've worked very closely with Pencils of Promise, which builds schools across the world right
to provide education. And I've worked with them consistently over the last few years, and we've provided education for thousands of children across the world. Like stuff like that gets me so excited, and I'm like, yes, because of our platform because of our this is what we get to do, right, So it's almost like you have to do all these things that you have to do to get to do what you want to do. And I think we live in a world where we only want to do what
we want to do, and often isn't that easy? Often? You like, you know, I interviewed Matt Damon recently on the podcast on my podcast on Purpose, and he's been directing all of his profile and energy and passion to providing clean water and access to water and sanitized water to people across the world. Like that's what he's directing. His brand is fame is popularity too, and I think it's incredible right to see that. So there's a lot of people that I admire in this space. One more
question I had going back to the ego thing. I know you said that was one of kind of the first principles that really drew you to the monk during that conversation. Obviously, you can't explain it in a short amount of time, and it takes a lot of work, But what are sort of the practices and the steps to really being able to work on quieting your ego and kind of diminishing that in a way to be more of service and live a life more for others, because I feel like that's a real struggle for me.
And obviously it sounds very easy and peaceful to say, but in practice, what are some of the tangible steps that that actually looks like? Well, I think what I might say, or at least the step one might sound
kind of counterintuitive, but ego is fed. The ego is fueled by validation and the chasing of validation and clout and external or people things making us feel good about ourselves, right, and to really the first step to taming the ego is self validation, is learning to validate the things you love about yourself, appreciate about yourself, acknowledging your own weaknesses,
acknowledging things that you're working on. The antidote to ego is honesty, because the ego lives in a lie and an amplified version of self, whereas true living is in living an honest life of these are my weaknesses, these are my strengths, these are my flaws, these are my skills. And I think we're scared we actually think ego means I don't even think I have skills. I don't even think I have anything to offer, and that's actually not true. The truth is saying I do have these skills, and
I also have these challenges. I do have these strengths, and I also have these weaknesses. That's how you start breaking down the ego, because what's really tricky about the ego is it can make you feel like the best of the best. It can make you feel like I'm the best in the world, and it can do the opposite. It can make you feel like you're the worst in the world. It's just inverted the ego and so and neither of those are true. You are not the best
in the world, right me included all of us. And you're not the worst in the world either, because no one's the best of the worst. We're aldest humans with complex emotions, and so acknowledging and embracing your complexity and the juxtaposition of things that you end up becoming is the first step in order to purify your ego, because you're honestly embracing and accepting yourself. Yeah, my last question that Mason will ask the two questions we ask everyone.
But if you know you said you know zero to ten, ten to twenty twenty to thirty thinking now back to your thirty year old self, like one bit of advice that you would give yourself if you could go back, what would it be if I could go back to what age to your thirty year old self? Okay, so I'm thirty four right now, So I guess not that more years. I guess that's not that much time. But still yeah, no, four years ago. I feel like, I think it's always been trust your inner voice, like, trust
your intuition, you know, trust your gut. Don't get distracted by shiny things, new things, other people's opinions, expectations, obligations. Yeah, just just you know, trust, trust what you always wanted to do. It's always good advice. Pee, What would be your advice to your twenty year old self? Yeah, I mean I think it was pretty pretty dead on Jay when you said earlier, just like zero to ten, it's
like more parents, ten to twenties, more friends. I think when I was twenty was when I was first starting to like begin to think for myself and less about friends. I always think like the first few years of high school and the first few years of college, I was still getting acclimated. So it was more just like doing things because like it made me fit in more. And I think towards the end of college just just starting to like branch out on my own more. And I've
done more of that each year. So I would just again tell myself to like, don't be afraid to start that earlier. I think, like I thought I had to follow this path. I went into banking before we started this also, and a lot of that was just following a path instead of like understanding what I wanted to do for myself. And I think I understand that more and more each year now. So I feel good about that now at twenty eight, and hopefully I can keep
that up. Good. All right, Jay, Our final two questions. The first is if you could nominate anyone to come on the Mad Happy podcast who's been a big inspiration for you or who you feel like has a really powerful mental health story or journey, whether you know them or not, who would it be. I think what Simone
Viles did. I don't know her, but I thought what you did in sport last year was pretty credible, and Naomi Osaka as well, Both of them like for what they did in terms of sports and performance and mental health again, don't know either of them, but I think they would be totally. Yeah, definitely two two leaders in the space that are that are huge inspirations for us. And and finally, Jay, what makes you mad happy? I'm going to give an answer that hopefully it is less
predictable football soccer. I'm a massive ninety United fan, playing soccer, playing FIFA, being on a soccer field, watching a game of soccer, like anything soccer related makes me mad happy. Did you catch that Madrid come back on the other day? I did, I did, highlight didn't what's the game that was inane? Yeah? I love those moments. I love those moments of comebacks on the Yeah. Yeah, you talk about an affect like being in that crowd. That's an affect
right there, Kelly. That's mad happy for Jay. Thank you so much. We really really appreciate you coming on. I know that our audience will love this one. We love it and thank you for everything you do. We listen to a lot of the podcast episode, so keep it all up and hopefully next time we'll do it in person. Definitely, I'd love to meet you both from person. Congrats on everything you're doing with the brand, and I'm so grateful
to have been on. Thank you to your amazing community who's listened to today, and I really look forward to hanging out more man. Thank you so much to both of you, and congrats on everything you're doing. Thank you likewise, thank you everyone, Thanks guys, Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with the guys, are mad happy? I really hope you enjoyed it, And just thank you so much for all the reviews that are coming in. I hope you saw me posting a
ton of them to my stories on Instagram. And if you don't already follow us on TikTok as well, make sure you do because we're posting a lot of great clips from the video episodes on TikTok. Thanks so much everyone,