Whether you're at work, whether you're in a small family a big family. I want you to make it a priority that by the end of this week, you know everyone's love languages. Because one of the things I found for a long time is that as a leader, as a partner, as a friend, as a parent, you may think you're very loving, right. You may believe that you're a very loving, caring individual. But if you don't love in the way someone wants to be loved, they still
may feel extremely unloved. Hey. Everyone, it's Jay Shetty and I am so so grateful that you're here right now and that I get to spend this time with you, and until we meet, until we bump into each other, until you come to a live event, which I can't wait. Next year, I'll be going on my world tour for the release of my second book, which I cannot wait to share with you. This one's really powerful. I'll be announcing it soon, so make sure you keep a lookout
for that. But I cannot wait. I'll be going on tour, I'll be traveling across the world. I want to meet you all. I want to hug you all. I want to hold your hands. I want to look you in the eyes and really connect, because I just feel like you've been so supportive, you've been so incredible. You've been unbelievable to me over this time when we haven't been able to meet each other, and I can't wait to
finally be connected. I can't wait to finally make sure that we actually get to have a real life, in person, human experience of what it means to transform our lives, experience wisdom. So cannot wait for that. But I want to thank you for lending me your ears today. Whether you're walking, whether you're cooking, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're at the gym, whatever you're up to right now, thank you for being here. It really means the world
to me. And today I wanted to talk about an idea that has been around for some time, and this idea originated from Gary Chapman when he wrote the book about this theme. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. If you haven't done the test, I
highly recommend it. You can simply google it online. But the reason why I wanted to talk about this is that there are very few ideas that are as timeless as this one, because what we realize is that so many of us haven't figured out how to do basic connection with the people closest in our lives. We ignore or don't understand what someone needs what we need, and then we live in that no man's land of misunderstanding.
Just think about that for a moment. If you don't know what you need and the other person doesn't know what you need, that's a really uncomfortable place to be. It's a really weak place to be as a couple, it's a tough place to be as a friendship. And we have this belief that if you know me, you should know what I need. Now, let me ask you this, how many of us would say we know ourselves to some degree. Do we always know what we need? I don't think so. There's so many times in the day
when you don't know what you need for yourself. How is someone else's mind, How is someone else's psychology? How is someone else's time going to give them enough time to figure that out? So that desire to be predictable, which is really what we're asking. It's like, I'm predictable enough that you should know what I need. The truth is none of us are. We're always changing we're growing, we're evolving, we're moving so fast, so that creates a
massive challenge in our relationships. Something else that creates a massive challenge in our relationships is that we're not comfortable being honest about what we need. We think if we say what we need, it somehow makes us vulnerable and it makes us weak because now we feel like the
other person is power and control over us. And maybe that is your case, right, maybe you have actually had that experience where you did communicate a need and someone misused that, exploited that, or abuse that, And I'm so sorry if that's what you went through or if that's what you experienced, because you know, if that kind of behavior is just unacceptable, but when you've been through it,
it can close you off. There's a beautiful old story about a mother and her child, and the child has been experiencing a tough time at school, bullying, name calling. You know, they're feeling insecure, they're feeling uncertain, they don't want to go to school, and they're also starting to say that they feel like they're just becoming numb to
it all. So the mother in this story puts some hot water on and then she puts a potato inside the hot water, and a little while later they touch the potato and she asks her child to touch the potato and says, what's happened, And it's like the potato's gone soft, right, the potato's gone completely soft in the boiling hot water. Then the mother puts inside an egg, and a while later the egg's gone hot. And then the mother finally puts in in the story, it's coffee beans.
I'm going to say tea leaves, because you know we have jyote. I hope you've tried it. It's an air one right now. We literally are so excited. It's been so fun. If you're in La, that is, we're trying to get it internationally and working on nationally as well. But if you're in La, you can try it. But so she puts in coffee beans, I'd put in tea leaves, and the watercolor changes, the fragrance changes, the scent changes, and the mother explains to a child that we have
these three choices. When we go through hot water, when we go through pain, we can need to become soft like the potato. We can become hard like the egg, or we can transform our environment like the tea leaves and like the coffee beans, And so why am I telling you this story in this context? What I'm saying is that, yes, there may have been someone in your past that has made you go soft or has made you become hardhearted and untrusted worthy, but taking that baggage
and taking that into another relationship doesn't make sense. So, for example, if you ended your last relationship hardhearted, we have to start our new relationship neutral but protected. Right, If you start your new relationship hardhearted because your old one left hardhearted, you're now making it much harder for
the other person and yourself to have a genuine relationship. Now, let's say you ended your last relationship feeling weak and vulnerable, and you now start your new relationship feeling weak and vulnerable and continue to be that open. You continue to have no protection, you continue to have no boundaries. You end up in the same position again. So the mistake we make is that we start our new relationships the
way we ended our last ones. And when you do, that new relationship will also end in a similar way, or it will end for sure, because you're now creating a steep hill or a deep valley for that person to climb into right. When you become weak, you either set yourself up for failure, or when you become hardhearted, you create a challenge. And it's trying so hard to come back to neutral again, and you're like, how do I do that? When you do that by going this is a new person, I have to be neutral with
a new person, right. And the third challenge we have with love languages communicating our needs, expressing who we are, is that we think we just have to say it once. We think that if we tell someone once how we feel, that they'll know, they'll understand, they'll get it, they'll figure it out. It's almost like, oh, yeah, I told you that now, whether you're working in a company, whether you're
in a relation lationship, where you're in a friendship. I've found that reminders are probably the most important thing human memory. I'll have to write a book about this one day. I find human memory fascinating. Isn't it so weird that you can remember some random lyric from sixteen years old when someone broke your heart, but you can't remember what
you had for lunch yesterday? Right? Like, isn't it so strange that you will forget the most important thing of the week, but you will remember the random TikTok YouTube video you saw and you're telling your friends about. It's strange, isn't it. Memory is so random. You have the nostalgia of an event from when you were younger, but you can't seem to make new memories. I have to write book about this one day. I'm fascinated by memory, and maybe I'll do a podcast episode on it again as well.
But this idea that once I tell someone what I need, they should just remember it. They should know it, and they'll get it perfectly right. People need a lot of direction. People need a lot of clarity, and that clarity and that direction can only come from you. Truly, it can
only come from you. So I want to dive into the five love languages that you may have heard before that Gary Chapman talks about, but I want to shed a bit more light on them, and, inspired by what's inside the book, talk about like, you know, what does that really mean? How do we really figure that out? And how do we really approach our partners and the
people in our lives. So the first thing I'm going to say is whether you're at work, whether you're in a small company, a large company, whether you're in a small family a big family, I want you to make it a priority that by the end of this week, you know everyone's love languages. You can send them the test, or you can ask them directly. And I am starting to do this now. I'm going to ask everyone. I'm
going to do this with you. I ask everyone in my company to do this because one of the things I found for a long time is that as a leader, as a partner, as a friend, as a parent, you may think you're very loving, right. You may believe that you're a very loving, caring individual. But if you don't love in the way someone wants to be loved, they still may feel extremely unloved. Let me say that again for you. If you don't love people the way they
want to be loved, they could feel extremely unloved. Now, how many of you know in your life that you have tried your best to love someone but they still feel unloved, uncared for, or unseen. And you're wondering how I literally do everything, I try my best, I give you everything I have, yet they would still say they don't feel loved. It's fascinating, isn't it. And this happens in the workplace, it happens everywhere you like, but I'm always there for you. I do this for you, I
do that for you. And they're like, yeah, but you don't get it, Like you don't get it right. How many times if you ever heard that, were's like, but you don't understand me. That's not what I want from you. And you're like, well, what do you want from me? I give you everything, what do you want? And it's like, well,
that's not what I want. I want this. Hopefully it gets there, but we often just have this full blown argument about you don't give me what I want, and the biggest reason is because people don't know and people don't share. We've been getting so many amazing reviews for The Daily Jay, 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 in 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 mapp 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 experience the Daily Jy only on Calm. The reason I'm really placing emphasis on this is if you do this as an exercise over the next week, I promise you it's going to transform your relationships. I promise you it's going to make
birthdays and Christmas is easier. I promise you it's going to make day to day interaction easier, and it will really change the quality and the depth of your relationships. Isn't that what we want? How many times does it come to someone's birthday that you love and care about and you don't know what to get them, or you don't know what to do for them. You finally get something together, you put it together and you give it to them and you're hoping they'll be happy with it,
and they may or may not be. They might be grateful. But if you understood their love language, it would change it. Or when someone's going through a tough time, maybe someone's lost a family member, maybe someone's pet is unwell, maybe they just lost their job, and you're wondering, well, how do I process this? And you're like, oh, well, maybe
I don't know. Maybe I just won't say anything because they don't want to hear about it, or maybe you know, like maybe I'll just send them some flowers or I'll send them a card, and we do the most generic, basic thing, right, Like that's what we do. And I really get upset of myself because I fall into this trap all the time where I do a generic, basic thing, or in the past sometimes I've made the mistake of
avoiding it because I'm uncomfortable, right, I feel uncomfortable. I'm like, I don't know what to say to them, so I just won't bring it up. That doesn't help anyone. But if you knew their love language, you would know how they want to be approached in this situation. Right. This isn't just about not arguing with your partner. This isn't just about like what gift to get someone on their birthday. This is about a deep understanding of how to connect
with this person at different places in their life. And so I just really want to take a moment to reflect on that with you, Right, I really want to take a moment to reflect on that with you because this is going to be huge for so many different areas of your life. Right, This is gonna be huge for so many different areas of your life, and I
just don't want you to underestimate it. So a big thank you to Gary Chapman for writing this book, for creating this concept, and for introducing it to me through his work. And I'm just grateful that I get a pass it on to all of you and share my reflections. That's really what I'm doing here is as someone who's been trying to practice this for many years now, I wanted to share my reflections, my challenges with it, the
things I've learned from it. So here are the five languages words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, lay time, and act of service. The first thing I want you to do, and I'll do it as i'm speaking to you, is I want you to write down your five in your order, Right, I want you to write down your five in your order, and I don't want you to be shy. I don't want you to be uneasy about this. I want you to push through that and really write
it down, like be honest with yourself. See the reason why we don't write this down and reflect on it is because we know we feel uncomfortable saying that. We feel like, oh my gosh, it must be so weak that I want to be loved in that way? Right, I must be so weak that I want to be loved in that way. And the truth is because we feel weak wanting to be loved that way? How empowering is that? To be loved that way? We in our own heads feel, wow, the way I want to be
loved is so lame. Wait a minute, then, how are we going to deserve the love we need in one? How are you going to receive the love we need in one? If we think it's lame? So write it down and I'm going to share mine with you as well. So I literally just ranked my five in order. So words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, acts of service, put yours in your order. I'm going to share my order in a second with you all. Which
one do you find most important to least important. Okay, so my first one is words of affirmation, And this is why I absolutely love to see your reviews for the podcast. It's why I love it when you tag me in an Instagram post or a tweet. It's why I love it when I see dms flying in and why I read them myself and look through them myself and spend so much time with those myself because I
love words of affirmation. Because why for me, when someone takes the time to tell me how they feel through words, it really touches my heart. It's the way on why right, It's the way I'm wired encouraging powerful, empowering words, appreciation, gratitude. It makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. Now do I believe I'm doing something worthwhile anyway? Yes? Do I feel proud of what I do every day? Yes? Am I in love with what I do every day? Yes?
But when someone loves me back for what I love, I just fall in love with doing it more So whenever I bump into you and you tell me something beautiful, or you write a review on my podcast, or whatever it may be. Last week, I bumped into a few of you at Air one when we were launching joyot there and it was just so beautiful. I loved it, and so I just really mean that, like, it's been so powerful receiving your words of affirmation, so thank you
so much. And with these podcasts, that's what I'm really trying to give you back. I'm trying to give you words of affirmation back as well. Now, let's say someone in your family needs words of affirmation. It means that you want to communicate and connect with them in a way where words are very important. This isn't just about being encouraging or giving empty flattery or saying nice things, right. I think that's where we make a mistake on what
words of affirmation really are. Sometimes we think or people just want to hear nice things about themselves, and it's like, well, no, no, no, that's not it. That's a very basic version. And this is exactly why I wanted to do this episode to deep dive on this. Words of affirmation are clearly and carefully using words with these individuals, right to them, words
are the most important things. So words can wound them, or words can be wisdom to them, you know, passive aggression to them, like a slight dig to them, a comment about something, they're going to take it even more seriously. And sometimes you will be like, but I was just joking with you, Like it wasn't that deep. But to this person, the words you use with them are so sacred and so important, and they needs words to have appreciation, acknowledgement,
to feel seen, to feel understood, to feel heard. They experience that through words. They experienced that through words throughout the day. For this person, you could have made the bed, made breakfast, and you could have made lunch, and what they needed to hear is how are you doing today? Oh, yeah, you've got that big meeting. I hope it goes really well. I'm sure you're really well prepared for it. Or the night before saying, hen, no, you've got that big meeting,
how can I help you with it? Right? And that word of affirmation, or they came back and they told you, hey, you know what, the meeting went well, and you're like, that's amazing, I knew a world. Congrats, like tell me about it. Like the words are so important to them, that positivity, that energy that comes through language. Now, something that these people often really appreciate is handwritten notes or cards.
They love getting a random text throughout the day, right like, words are so important to them throughout the day, to know that you're thinking of them, to know that they're in your mind. And the thing that really upsets them is when they don't feel acknowledged for their efforts, they don't feel seen for their hard work. And you may think, well, gosh, why does this person need this? And it's like, because there's a part of them that's doing that for you.
You may not feel that, you may not think that, but there's a part of them that feels they're doing it for you. And by the way, taking an opportunity to be grateful, whether something small or not, it goes such a long way. I know that for me this because I love receiving words of affirmation. I find giving words of affirmation fairly easy, and I do it a lot with Radi. Whether she's just cooked us them amazing dinner,
I'll thank her every day for an amazing dinner. And I realized how much I love doing that for my mom as well, because it means the world, right like, it means so much it shouldn't just be expected. And I think sometimes when we're scared of giving words of affirmation, it means we kind of expect that that person should be doing what they're doing. Anyway, noticing with words is a beautiful thing. Okay. On my next list is gifts. Now.
One of the things I want to clarify her is that the way we get our love languages is often how our parents did or didn't love us. So the way your parents loved you or didn't love you, if there was some lack or inadequacy in their love and appreciation,
it creates a love language. So my mom, even though she didn't have a lot of time, she always made sure that she got me one gift every year that I really wanted, whether it was power ranges right, whether it was a special cake designed like a football, or whether it was a football jersey of one of my favorite teams, or whether it was I don't know, like whatever, it may have been right, and my mum would always make sure I got that. So I felt my mum's
love through gifts. Now, I felt my mum's love through a lot of different ways, but gifts was a big part of it, and she never bought me. We didn't have a lot of money, so she didn't just buy me gifts to make me feel good. It was. It was really her way of getting me that thing that surprised me. And this was the inner part I learned. When I first read receiving gifts, I was like, that's me. And now it's time's gone on. I realized I love surprises.
I love personalized gifts. When I was young, I thought I wanted audacious gifts. I thought I wanted ostentatious gifts. And one of my favorite gifts I received was a magazine cover signed about the Dalai Lama and it's the Dali Lama and the Life magazine cover. And when I received that gift, like, I was so touched. It was so personalized. And so I also received a gift which was Christopher Nolan's screen play of Inception right, and that's a movie that I loved. And so I've realized that
gifts are no longer there. You know how expensive they are, fancy, they are like, that's not a good gift to me. So notice how even the psychology of gifts is so much deeper than a gift. For example, if someone just got me a random gift. Now basically I'm starting to sound very difficult, right, Everyone's like, wow, Jay, you're like high maintenance. No, I'm trying to express to you the nuances,
the subtleties that come with all of these love languages. Now, with someone who loves gifts, it's that thoughtfulness, It's that clarity on understanding, showing that you understand a person and what they're going through. And one of the things that people struggle with people who want gifts is people go, oh my gosh, they're so difficult to buy for. I won't get anything, and that ends up making the person and feel really really upset because that was something they wanted.
They clarified it, and you're like, oh, no, you're too difficult to buy gifts for. And it's like, well, maybe I'm not. Maybe try me right, And so I find that it's really important for you to try and to learn and to understand and give it a go. Now, I'm being very vulnerable with you, as I always am here on this show, because I think that's the only way we grow, when you realize that we all have needs and desires and wants and we want to be clear about it. Okay, So the third one on my
list is quality time. I love spending quality time, but it isn't in my first two. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't like spending quality time with my friends and family. It's just that the way I show and receive love is usually through words of affirmation and gifts. But I realize there's a lot of people in my life who love quality time, and so I have to figure out whether I can make that time for them. So people who like quality time, they want time that
is not full of astractions. You haven't got your phone now, you're not constantly running in and out of meetings, you're not responding to emails, You're really present one to one. Quality time also isn't just hanging around. It's creating like beautiful experiences, making something out of anything like a candlelit dinner, right, whatever it may be. It's like trying to find a
way of making experiences special. That's what people are really looking for, and they're not just looking for like, oh, yeah, I took two hours to be with you, right, Like that's not I remember speaking on one of my clients years ago and he was saying that he just came back from five days away with his wife, and she was like, oh, I wish we spend more time together,
and he was like what do you mean. I just spent five days with you, but the whole time he was on his phone, he was reading his own books, reading his magazines. And it's like she was like, but that wasn't time together, and she was right. And so quality time needs to be expressed specifically, because as I always say, I don't think any one actually wants your time. I think they want your presence. I think they want
your energy. I think they want you. And so when we say to people I want to spend more time with you, we don't mean time. And I think finding different ways of spending time with people makes quality time even more fun, because you can't just keep having dinner. You can't keep sitting around, right, you can't keep doing just that. So I think that's been really really powerful and important to learn. The last two. My fourth one
on my list is physical touch. And that doesn't mean it's not important to me, right, Just because it's fourth out of five doesn't mean it's not important. It just means that there's a hierarchy. Now. Physical touch often people think that just means sex, and it's like, well, it can do, but it doesn't mean just that. It means a comforting touch it means a show of love. It could be a hug in the morning, a kiss on
the forehead, it could be giving someone a massage. It's basically a sense of physical connection, holding hands as you walk down the street, putting your arm around someone else. Like it's the playfulness that comes with it as well. And I think for a lot of people they just feel so disconnected intimately from their partners because they can't remember the last time they felt loved in that way.
And I know that for me and RADI like, since we've been marriage, she's always gone to sleep with their head on my chest. And when we're traveling or I'm traveling or we're not in the same place and I don't have that. It's it's a part of that intimate connection that we have. It's a part of our feeling of being together, and it really is a huge, huge thing. So it's really interesting to me how for a lot of people physical touch just becomes sexualized and it doesn't
need to be. There are different ways of it playing true in our lives. I think there's a lot of us that you know, you could be having the best sex ever, but you want to be able to actually have a sense of connection throughout the day when you're not in the at zone. And so I just really really believe that that's something to think about. And then fifth and final is for me acts of service and acts of service. I struggle with giving this. So this is what you realize. The lower you go on your list,
the less good you are at giving it. Right, So the higher up on the list words of affirmation and giving gifts. I love doing those two things. Acts of service I find harder to do because I don't have as much time. And then I have friends who really appreciate acts of service brings them joy. It makes them feel like if I help my friend move, they feel loved. If I help my friend reorganize their cupboard, they feel loved.
Like that's how they feel love. And so if you're someone who needs acts of service, invite people to help you and explain to them that this makes me feel like we're real friends. Right. These people want breakfast in bed, they want a dinner maid, they want some help with chores around the house. And when people are turning up to parties giving birthday gift but they're not doing this, this person could feel very unloved. So I want to thank Gary Chapman again for writing the book The Five
Love Languages. I highly recommend you read it. I really hope this has helped you understand the nuances the subtleties behind them, and I want you to do this with a colleague, a loved one, a parent, a friend this week and watch how your life changes. Thank you so much for listening. Please do leave a review with words of affirmation. Really appreciate you all, and honestly, I've got
so many exciting updates. Please keep a lookout. I can't wait for you to get excited about everything that's coming your way. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you,