So when I had to disconnect from that. It's like how we say, oh, my marriage is my purpose, and then when you get divorced, you're like, oh, well, I don't have an identity anymore, or my job is my purpose. When you get kicked out of your job, you go, oh, I don't have an identity anymore. That's what it felt like. It felt like a divorce or losing the job of my dreams, which actually led me to find my real purpose. Morning. Everybody is DJ Envy, Angela Yee, Charlomagne the guy. We
are to Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building, absolutely, Jay Shatty. Welcome, Thank you for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. Man. He's a very familiar voice. Because you got the number one health and wellness podcast, Spiritual mindfulness podcast on Purpose. I've had the pleasure of being a guest on it. You're a phenomenal guest. I loved the episode with Kobe Bryant. I loved the episode with Jada Pick. You got at a lot of
great episodes. Yeah, it's I'm really grateful. We've got an amazing community. They keep showing up and we've had some phenomenal guests. I was just saying, you were one of our first guests and like the first three to six months of the show, and it's brand new, so I'm so grateful you did that. Then I really appreciate thank
you for having me. And I've been hearing a lot of people talk about meditation lately, and so you actually help guide people through how to meditate, right, Yes, yeah, So I spent three years living as a monk in India and across Europe, and so I was trained in how to meditate from monks who'd been practicing for decades, and they were practicing ancient meditation techniques for thousands and thousands of years. And so when I was trained in that school, I felt this responsibility to want to share
that with the world because it changed my life. And I'm just an average kid born and raised in London, and I thought, well, if it can help me, then I'm sure it can help a lot of people. Would lead the young man want to be a monk. Trust me, I did not grow up wanting to be a monk. And if someone if someone told me that I was going to grow up and become a monk, I probably would have thrown a beer bottle at them that I
would have been holding. But I was born and raised in London, and I would go in my teens to go and hear from people who'd gone from nothing to something. So I was fascinated by rags to riches stories. I'd go and hear CEO's entrepreneurs, athletes, celebrities. And this is before podcasts and YouTube, so you actually had to go to events. And so I'd go to these events. And once my friends told me that a monk was speaking, and I was skeptical. I was like, what am I
going to learn from someone who's gone from nothing to nothing? Like, you know, what are they going to teach me? And so I said to my friends, I'd only go if we go to a bar afterwards. I was eighteen years old, and they were being very persuasive, so they agreed. So I end up at this event at my university waiting to hear this monk speak. I go there, I'm looking at the clock, like just waiting to leave, and I
was just mesmerized. And I don't mean that in like a spiritual experience, where I just mean like I was captivated by every word that he said and there was nothing externally attractive about him. He was wearing robes, he was from India, he wasn't connected to me in any other way. But he spoke about service, and he spoke about purpose, and he spoke about how serving others and helping others with your skills and your strengths is the
greatest thing you can do. My eighteen year old self was just completely penetrated my heart and I was just like, that's what I want. And now when I look back, I realized that when I was eighteen, I'd met people who were rich. I've met people who were famous, and met people who are beautiful and strong, but I don't think i'd met anyone who is truly happy. And that day I felt like I met someone who was truly happy and that you just felt that energy in the
space of being a monk. So the process is you wake up at four am every day, and what is a monk? Okay, but I don't so a monk is someone who dedicates themselves to a particular spiritual tradition and you genuinely practice celibacy during the time that you're a monk, But beyond that, you're waking up every day four am meditating for four to eight hours a day, So the morning meditation finishes about eight thirty, then you get some breakfast, then you do your daily chores, and then the rest
of the day we were out serving. So we were serving food to the homeless, building sustainable villages, helping out in schools and this is all out in India, so a lot of the philanthropy work as well. So the morning was about self mastery and the afternoon was about serving others. And so that's kind of like the rough framework of what a day looks like. You know, you said you wanted to be a monk because it led you to public service. I feel like that's our true
purpose in life, service to others. Yes, you can do that without being a monk. So what made you want to go full fledge and be a monk? Absolutely? And I think the truth is that I didn't see anyone living a life of service at that time who wasn't living from a spiritual place. It just wasn't as common. And now I feel so happy that this conversation is happening in the mainstream. But when I was eighteen, that's you know, roughly like sixteen seventeen years ago. That wasn't there.
You didn't see that. You saw the Forbes Rich List, you saw that list. You didn't really see a service list or a purpose list. And I think that's changing. But it was also the idea that the self mastery part was you're actually going to work on purifying your ego. You're actually going to work on your own mind, so you're not just going to go out there and try and help other people, but you're actually going to deal
with everything that's going on in here. And I think that attracted me that, Wow, I'm going to get X amount of time every day to figure out the mess that's in here? When am I ever going to get that time again? Like? Who's going to give you to do it? Like? You know, because if you want to be if you want to join the army, you can enlist in the army. If you want to be a police officer, you can fill out that application if you want to be there. So where do you go to
be a monk? So there are lots of different monks schools, if I can use that word, across the world. There's Tibet, there's India, there's you know, there's multiple ones. And I've visited many of them. I think it's about finding. As always, it is a teacher, a guide that you connect with. And so for me, I speak about this gentleman Garangadas in my book. He was the monk that I felt an affection and affinity with, and so I wanted to
study in his school. And so when I was part of his institution two hours outside of Mumbai in India, in that space, they had they had a system what you have to practice, what you have to process why. So for example, a big part of it was, you know, practicing silence. And when you practice silence, people think, oh, that sounds terrible, and it does for like seven days, and then after that you stop worrying about all the noise outside. You start hearing the noise inside, and then
you go deeper and deeper and deeper. A part of it was practicing fasting, right, we were practicing fasting for since control and being able to master the tongue and master the desire to eat and talk. And so there's so many practices and methods that were set up, and service was a big part of it to help us actually grow as humans. And I really feel that those three years a monk school have massively impacted how I lived that life now and I left nine years ago,
so it's been a fair amount of time. Once you're out of school, what was the first thing you did? Like? What do you how do you apply for positions? What did you do after three years? After three years as being a monk? So I thought I was going to do it for the rest of my life, and after three years it almost felt like a failure, Like I felt like I messed up because all of that self awareness led me to the feeling that I wasn't meant to be a monk, that I wasn't actually qualified to
live the life of a monk. I realized that monk life required a certain sense of letting go of the rebellious nature that I had inside of me, and also that this calling and desire I had in my heart to want to share this wisdom and message in a
certain way. I always when I learned about all these ancient teachings and scriptures, I was like, how cool would it be if we could share that in a modern, relevant, practical way for the people that I grew up with, who maybe wouldn't do this, who wouldn't go as far as I did, and So when I shared that with the monks, they said, you know, they were like, yeah, you know, we agree that we think you might be
able to help people more if you left. I think they were like saying, yeah, it's cool, leave get out of it. But they encouraged it, and for me moving on as was actually really difficult. So when I left, the first thing I did was come back start listening
to Drake. Yeah, I did that first thing. Ate a lot of chalk that I had any and for three years I went back into all my old bad habits for the first month that I was back, and moved back with my parents twenty six years old, because I felt like I'd failed and I was losing this life I'd committed to in Yeah, I was in debt twenty five thousand dollars in debt eighteen thousand pounds. School no no, no no no from my university days, like going to college.
I've gone to college before. Yeah, what did your parents think about you going to monk school and then coming back home? So when I first told them, my mom was like, where did we go wrong? Right? You know, like, what do we do wrong? And luckily my you know, my parents are very forward thinking and they supported me because they could see my heart was in it. And I can't really you know, I can't really blame them. They did a great job and they were really, really supportive.
But my extended family was like, you're never going to get a job again. You've been brainwashed, You're never going to make money again, You're never going to be you know, all that noise from society basically saying you've just committed career suicide, and what are you going to do when it doesn't work out? So when it didn't work out, I almost like I had made what they were saying true, and so I kind of came with a lot of pain and a lot of stress and pressure thinking all
these people were right and maybe I was wrong. You know, it's only interesting, man, it's I mean, it's you became a monk because you felt like it gave you a sense of purpose, Yes, But then as you were being a monk, you felt like you might have been suppressing your purpose. You felt like something it was bigger out there. So that's got to be psychologically. That's a great observation. That is a great You phrased it way better than
I did. That is a great observation, and that's a psychological mind mess because you're like, wait, this is And that's when I realized that your purpose is not what you wear, where you live, what you think everyone thinks of you. Because to some degree, I'd become attached to
living as a monk and that becoming my purpose. So when I had to disconnect from that, It's like how we say, oh, my marriage is my purpose, and then when you get divorced, you're like, oh, well, I don't have an identity anymore, or my job is my purpose. When you get kicked out of your job, you go, oh, I don't have an identity anymore. That's what it felt like. It felt like a divorce or losing the job of my dreams, which actually led me to find my real purpose,
which is what I get to do today. So when did you get out of that depression that you were in. I think it took and it was like I wouldn't even accept the word. I was in massive denial, Like I didn't even want to say the word to myself because I was so scared that if I said it that that would make it worse. Yeah. Yeah, at the time, And then I realized I was thinking. I think I
was in that space for about ten months. Wow, And it was I came back out and I was trying to practice all the principles I learned as a monk again. And that's when I realized that I'd actually been trained in all the principles I needed to get out of this space, but I was ignoring them and avoiding them and going back to my old habits. So I started waking up again, meditating every day again, reading the scripture again, studying again, working hard again, putting in those same routines
that I had as a monk. And that's when I started to feel like I was getting out of it again. And what was the voice that you heard? I told you this is what you should do. Is it the
direction you should go in? I feel like I had it even when I was there where it was just like, there are people who will never ever think And this is why I love what you all do and what you've done with your work, is there are people that will never ever think about their mental health, their mental world being about the word meditation or mindfulness because it
wasn't part of their upbringing. It wasn't a word that they heard, same as me, and if I can help make that accessible and relevant and practical and simple for that person, then my life's going to feel like a success. And so I just started to share it with everyone. So now I came back. My friends were all working, they were making money, they were buying homes, they had nice cars, maybe they were in a relationship, but a lot of them were stressed. They were working in big
city jobs, but they were burnt out. And so they started coming to me for advice. And this is back in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and they were saying, which you learned about mindfulness and meditation, can you help us with our stress? And so very naturally I started working with people inside big corporate organizations because that was my background, and so now I was seeing that impact on these people. And so I was speaking at companies, working with people,
coaching people. And then finally I took a corporate job back to understand what the setup was like. And my executive that was my lead, she discovered that I learned meditation, so she put me on in front of all my peers to teach meditation to a thousand people at our company event. This is before any of my online work and I'm stressing out because I'm no one. They're like, this is one of our guys, where he's our peer.
What are we going to learn from him? And it was just a beautiful experience where everyone appreciated it, and so I got to see how this work could be practical with people from all different backgrounds and walks of life. Meditation is a game change. Could you tell people just some of the benefits of meditation, Yeah, I mean meditation as a ton of benefits. Some of my favorites are that, of course, it boosts your mood, boost your immune system.
One of the most interesting parts about meditation that people don't obviously realize is our life is completely infiltrated by dopamine. Right, whether it's our phones, whether it's money, whether it's purchases, whether it's instant buying. Dopamine is that constantly being released. A meditation helps us balance because it creates serotonin and oxytocin. So those are the three chemicals that your brain needs to balance, and meditation is one of the key things
that actually brings about the other two. It helps with making sure that your brain's in sync. It makes sure that you sleep better. I mean meditation benefits go on and on and on of course with anxiety, stress and pressure. But to me, that balancing of the chemicals we need is it's probably one of the most powerful. And you know, it's very hard to like find that stillness and that that silence, you know, on your own. I tried it for years and couldn't grasp the concept until like like
December of twenty twenty. But you helped with the Calm at Yeah. So I literally just two days ago we launched the Daily Jay only on Calm and it's a daily meditation for seven minutes that I truly believe is going to be a meditation that each and every person on the planet can tune into and start their practice. And the goal of it was to make it as simple so that you can actually practice it while you're folding your laundry, while you're doing your dishes, while you're
making your bed. The goal was, how can we bring meditation into people's lives rather than saying, take out time out of your day to do this. And so we build this program and it's exciting. I'm really excited that it's out there. So, what are some things we should know about breathing when it comes to meditation, you know what.
I was just speaking to Chris at security and he came up to me and he was saying how when he was in the Army they learned box breathing, and I was saying, that's fascinating, as I learned that when I was a monk, and so what I loved was that in both senses. He was saying that actually to fire a gun, they had to learn how to breathe. And you do think about breath that way. And so when I hear someone like him, a military man telling me that, I love hearing that because it helps us understand.
Athletes have to learn how to breathe. Musicians, singers all have to learn how to breathe. And so the importance of breath came to me when on my first day when I went to learn to be a monk, I saw a ten year old monk teaching like five to six year old monks. And India, they start really young and they look adorable. Right, You've got these little monks being taught by his ten year old monk, and I'm watching them, and when he finishes the class, I was
like fascinating. I was like, what did you teach them and he said, I taught them how to breathe. I was like, what do you mean. He was like, that's their first day of school. He said, what did you learn in London? And I was like, I learned the ABC's one two threes. And I was like, why do you teach him how to breathe? And he said, well, what's the one thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die. He's like your breath. And he said, when you're happy, what changes
your breath? When you're sad or you're crying, what changes your breath. Every single emotion in your life is connected to your breath. So if you learn how to navigate your breath, you know how to navigate life. Bear in mind is a ten year old and I'm just blown away, thinking, Wow, I'm learning less since from a ten year old. This is beautiful. And so the power of our breath is
that it really is. If you see yourself when you're nervous, your breath gets shallower, it gets faster, and if you know that that's all that's happening, and you can slow it down, then you can change how you feel in the moment. Just through your breath. I wonder with COVID because a lot of that affected a lot of people and they're breathing who contracted it. So have you seen things like with people talking to you about that when it comes to some of the effects of COVID. Yeah,
I mean that's been really interesting to hear. I've had so many people talk to me about long COVID or them having breath challenges or breathing challenges after COVID, and I see those people practicing breathwork. I don't think there's been enough time to see whether it can help that. I believe it will, but I don't want to claim anything because I haven't There hasn't been enough studies. We haven't seen it for long enough. But breathwork is something
we all need. I think we all have days. Even our language, right, we say things like I'm out of breath, let me take a breath, like you take my breath away, like these are all breath related, whether it's positive or negative. So I do believe that whatever challenges we have in life, learning to breathe is probably the best skill we can learn. What is meditation? Right, And the reason I'm asking is like Charlemagne said, it took him a while to get it. Yeah.
So for people out there, what is getting meditation? What should they be feeling? What should they be seeing? What should they be doing? What should they you know, should they be sitting in the corner, should they be you know, criss cross apple cross apple sauce. So they have their hands up like, what is it? Yes, so no, it's a great question. It's a great question. I think it's so important. I think the first thing I'd like to say is that meditation is making time to spend with yourself,
as simple as that. Right. You make time to check him with your friends, your family, your partners, your kids. When was the last time you checked him with yourself. Some people to say I meditate when I drive because I'm just driving, And that's a great example as they go off no phone, And that's a great example. And I actually agree with you. I love thinking about life when I'm driving and talking to myself and figuring things out. That is a form of meditation. That is a big
getting step towards meditation. Now, when you start getting into meditation as a tool, it goes beyond that because now you're bringing your awareness to three different types of things in the way I was trained. So you have breathwork, which we just talked about. When you're focusing on your breath, you're learning to navigate your emotions. Second one is visualization. A lot of athletes use this before big games. Lewis Hamilton I've heard used it before he's driving a car.
Soccer stars use it before they take a free kick. Where you're visualizing what's happening in your life or what you're about to do. What it does is it prepares your body, It prepares the mind, right, So visualization is a way of meditation. And the third one is mantra or sound. So we all know, I mean you're in the heart of music. We all know that music can make you feel different things. Music can make you feel like you want to beat someone up, and music can
make you feel calm. Sounds and mantra really are defined to help you have sounds that bring peace and calm to the mind and body. So those are three different types of meditation. Doesn't matter where you're sitting, It doesn't matter how you're sitting, It doesn't matter whether you're wearing a yoga suit or on a yoga mat. That really isn't the point. The point is are you taking time to build that practice in that habit. Yeah, mantra slew my good sister, deVie Brown mantra and the beach is
what got me to able meditation. So I count my bees and I do my mantra, and it's just like that's what got me. Like, oh okay, you I mean you just know, like you know when you when you, when you when you when you come to and you're like, where was That's how it feels like. You're like just like you went into a sleep while you're sitting up, like you just like like everything just went still for
a moment, like nothing is on your mind. You just hear yourself repeating your mantra over and over and over, and it's just like I call it like a sinking feeling almost. Yah, I feel like you're just sinking, sinking, sinking, And I always jump before I go too deep. That's that's what makes me come back. Yeah, imagine imagine you actually felt like you are where your feet are, Like, imagine you actually felt like that that we right now, if we've all put our feet on the ground, you
actually felt like and what Charlomagne's saying about sinking. If I actually felt like I was actually here? How many times during this conversation, while I've been talking and we've been thinking about what have I got for lunch later on? Or what am I doing later on? Or who am I meeting? Or what's this going? What if I was actually here? How much could I actually have an impact on the people around me? How much could I actually feel people's energy? How much power and strength would I
have if I was actually where my feet are? Which is a common phrase and statement that's used in meditation language. If like, be where your feet are, if we were actually here, just how powerful would that be? And that's what you feel. You actually feel like, I am happy to be here. I am only here because think about it. When you wake up in the morning, how many times have you ever woken up and your mind is ahead
of your body. Your body's like I don't want to go anywhere, and your mind's like racing trying to do a million things, or you experienced the opposite. You wake up and your mind is like, oh, come on, I can't do this, but your body's like, come on, we gotta go, we gotta go. So what we're experiencing at all times is our body and mind are completely out of sync, completely out of sink. They're never in the same place. So meditation, and it's simplest form, is saying, well,
let's start here, let's bring them back into sync. Let's start with them being aligned, and imagine how powerful we could do. But if it's somewhere you don't want to be because I know you talk about how people are really stressed at work, yes, and so there's a lot of people who are like, I can't take this anymore. How does meditation help with that? So that feeling of I can't take this anymore can often create more stress
and pressure than we actually think. And what I mean by that is, let's say you're at work, but you're thinking about vacation. Then when you're on vacation, you're going to be thinking about work because you've trained your mind to not be present. And that's why even when we're with our kids or our family or the people we love, we're stressing about other stuff because we've trained ourselves to
not be where we are. And so what I would say in that situation, of course, it's different for people with different jobs, and I work with healthcare professionals and nurses, and I work with people who I believe have some of the most difficult jobs on the planet. There was an incredible reset study that was done by Yale where they tried to discover what they believed was the most difficult job in the world, and they discovered that it
was hospital nurses and sorry, hardened, that was hospital cleaners. Sorry, hospital cleaners. Hospital cleaners had the most difficult Definitely not rappers. I mean maybe maybe I don't know, you know better than me, but hospital cleaners had the most difficult job in the world because they clean up toilets, bathrooms, plates, beds, they clean up after people pass away. So they yeah, exactly. So they went and interviewed hospital cleaners, and some of
the hospital cleaners described their job like that. They said it was toff, it was hard, it was dirty, they filthy, and they said, we're cleaners, that's all. We are low skilled labor in their own words. And then they interviewed another set of cleaners, and when they asked themselves to
describe themselves in one word, they said, healers. These cleaners worked in the same jobs as the other cleaners, but some sort themselves as cleaners and some sort themselves as healers, and when they ask them why, the cleaners said, we believe that we create a clean environment where patients can feel better. We know that if we create a beautiful room, their family will want to spend time with them. We
see ourselves as integral to their healing journey. They did the same job, they clean the same toilets, but they saw it differently. They said a different intention. And Wayne Dyer said that when you change the way you look at things, things you look at change. Yeah, yeah, yeah, rest in peace, Wen Dyer, And that beautiful principle is exemplified by these cleaners. No one better than them to
teach us how to be. So you know, they could be sitting there going I don't want to be here, but they're going, well, actually, even this job helps me impact someone's life. And I think that's the part that if we look beyond our laptops, our screens, our phones, and we look up and we go, how does my job actually help someone's life? That's what helps us find some meaning in that job. I feel like we skipped a step right. Yeah, you went from being a monk
sir for a monk for three years. You couldn't find a job. He said, you got rejected about forty different forty companies. Yeah, at what point did the On Purpose podcast start? Between that? In So I left being a monk in twenty thirteen. I started in twenty ten On Purpose lawns in twenty nineteen, okay, so six years later,
and my online video content started in twenty sixteen. So in twenty sixteen, after I'd been sharing meditation and mindfulness with corporations, coaching people behind the scenes and never made any content, I just felt that I was sitting in a lot of boardrooms, which was fantastic, but I felt this message had to get further than the boardroom, and at the time, I was thinking how do I do this? And so I was applying to media companies that I was like, Hey, if these guys give me a job,
then I can make content about mindfulness and meditation. And I was rejected from three media companies. I remember chasing an exact on his bike in London and you're too old that I guess it was the president or CEO asked you to do that, correct, So that's when you felt like that what was your calling? Yeah? Because I was like, wow, I'm being asked to do this. It's working, but it needs to reach more people, and it needs to reach more people without just their organization being involved.
What if it could read the person on this street right, how do you get to that person? And so I thought media is the way. And so I was applying to all these media jobs, but everyone kept telling me you're not you're too you're too old. I was twenty eight years old. The're like, you're too old. Everyone's twenty one who wants this job. They were like, you don't have any background in media, You've never been in communications.
And so I ended up at a TV training day run by the BBC in London in Pinewood Studios and it was run for ethnic minorities. So they were just six brown and black people in that room and I'm one of them, and they tell me, Jay, you're good, like you're engaging, you can present well. So I'm like, give me a job, like I just want to shot. And they're like, Jay, there's no jobs in media. And so I'm like, come on, you brought me all the way here, like, you know, six brown and black people
to tell us there's no jobs in media. What was what was the point of this? And They're like, well, you should start a YouTube channel. And in my head, I'm thinking, yeah, that works for Justin Bieber. That's not going to work for me, you know. And I'm having that limiting a boy. I was about thank you, maybe not, maybe not yeah, and that uh and literally it was like I was like, maybe that worked for Justin Bieber, like that's and I had that limiting belief. I was like,
that's not going to work for me. But literally, there's a beautiful statement by Thomas Edison. He said, when you believe you've exhausted all options, remember this you haven't. And that's how I felt. I felt I had exhausted all options and the only option I had left was YouTube if I really cared about this, So I made a video and I kept making videos every week and they're doing okay, they're getting like a thousand views or something
like that. And in three months, Arianna Huffington saw my videos from the huffing In Post and so she really connected with them, and they said, hey, j look, we're not gonna pay you anything, We're not gonna do anything. We're gonna take your videos. We're gonna put them on the huffing In Post. Page because we like your content. What do you think. I'm like, great, let's get them
out there right, Like, that's what this is about. Smart you recognized the opportunity when it wasn't a paycheck at Yeah, yeah, there was no pay check attacks nobody they put it out. The first video did a million views in a week, the second video did a million views in twenty four hours, and those three or four videos I made for them did like a hundred million views across that year. Wow. And literally it just changed everything because now the message
was reaching people. And then I sent her right hand man who's a good friend of mine now, Danny Say. He was the one who'd come out to make this contact happen. I messaged him every day saying, when are you giving me a job? When he gave me a job, when are you giving me a job? Finally, after thirty days, he sent me a visa, sent me a job off for a move to New York City in twenty sixteen September to work at the HUF Post as a senior
hosting producer. That lasted around six months. I mean, the way you're speaking is great because it's not even about the meditation of what you're speaking, it's just about a lot of people don't have their drive. You were told no a thousands of turns, but still did it. You know, you did something that you had no idea about YouTube. Then when they came with a situation most people now I would be like, well, how much am I getting paid? Now?
You want to use my contact? How much? And he was like, nah, I understand what this could be and congratulately. I love I love stories like that. Thank you, thank you for highlighting that. I really appreciate the way you're looking at it over time, like yeah, come up here and be like how much I'm getting paid? But I'm not doing this because I ain't get no money if the test. But something's ain't about the money. We came from a place where we both worked for a long
terms about the opportunity. Yeah we knew hopefully, well we didn't even know. We did it for love. I did it for love, saying for love, and it just grew into what it grew into. So I really respect and appreciate that. Thank you for highlighting that, because I think sometimes you know, we get lost in, especially when people talk to me, we get lost in like the meditation and the mindfulness and it's like that is my heart
of what I want to share. But the way I've got there has not been normal or easy or you know, it's but that's been the most fun part about it. Like I think I always wanted to serve. My whole goal was how can this reach more people? And when half Post or anyone came with that opportunity, and thankfully after six months, I built in myself. So I went off built my own channels twenty nineteen and we launched on purpose and in the beginning we can book anyone again.
So by the way, I'll tell you when we launched the podcast, everyone said this to me, and this is why what you're saying has helped me go in this direction. When I wanted to launch a podcast, we had like billions of views on Facebook and YouTube, millions of views on YouTube, billions on Facebook. I had a video that did three hundred ninety seven million views on Facebook, something
ridiculous like that. And I wanted to launch a podcast, and everyone said to me, Jay, you're interesting for four minutes and a four minute YouTube and Facebook video, no one wants to listen to you for over four minutes. That was the feedback cover. So I was meeting all the podcast companies. We had one podcast company that was about to sign me, and I thought it was all done. I went away for Christmas. I came back two weeks after.
They had a new exec, a big podcast company. He came in and he goes, JA, I don't think this can be a big show. And so they pulled out two weeks before it launched, and I'd already invested all this money recording the episodes, videoing it. We've been traveling to get guests, and I was interviewing friends or people that I knew at the time, and we couldn't book anyone either. I remember I was getting rejected left ran center. That's what when you said yes, I was so grateful
we couldn't book anyone at the time. And now when I see what's happened, I'm like, I'm so glad that that company pulled out. I'm so grateful to them. Actually, I'm so blessed that they pulled out because I got to do it my way, on my own, and I got to build it on my Who was your first big guest? My first big guest was Russell Brand, who I've known for a long time. We have the same meditation teacher. We've been friends in London for a while. So Russell Brown was my first big guest. My first
ever guest was my wife was my first episode. Well she was your first big guest. Yeah, that was my first yeah, oh yeah, thank you. Yeah I messed it up. Yeah, I messed that up. Yeah, my wife was my first big Yeah. Russell Brown was my first well known guest. Novak Djokovic tennis player who I've known for a while as well. He was one of my first big guests. And then, you know, since then, it's just been a
joy to sit down with people that ryan. Yeah, I till this day, and I'm not just saying it because of what happened, and I don't I wish I didn't even have to say that, but I do because I think people try and make things a certain way. But I have never felt someone more present and grounded in his feet apart from monks, than Kobe Bryant. Like when I spoke to him, I choose there was so much gravity around him, and when he spoke his voice as well, it had so much presence. And that was two three
months before the tragic event. How did you speak to him? How did that connection happen? So his team had reached out and they said, Jay, we want Kobe to have a conversation with someone who isn't only obsessed with basketball. And I said to him, I liked basketball, but I didn't grow up like soccer is my first sport, right football. I'm from England, that's that's my thing for you. Yeah, yeah,
yeah forever. Yeah, that's why to translate for because then my British friends make fun of me for saying soccer, so I've got to you know, but yeah, Christiano Ronaldo, like, that's that's my goat, right, That's the person I go to. But obviously I have so much respect for Kobe. Obviously
I love I love basketball, genuine enjoy watching it. And so they said, but we want someone who talks to him about storytelling about him, about his heart, about meditation, about the stuff that he doesn't get to talk about because every time he goes to an interview, people just to ask him basketball questions. What would he like to play in that game? What was it like to learn from this? So they they've reached out to him, and I said, this is a dream, like I feel honored,
and so we did that. That's how the podcast came about. I didn't I didn't know him or I didn't have a relationship with him, but in that short time that we spent together, he walked into the room and he came around to my whole team and he introduced him Kobe Kobe like to my video, and you know, everyone's geeking out because everyone knows who he is. It doesn't have to explain. But he was so respectful, so wonderful
with the whole team. They'll never forget that experience. And you know, you're Will Smith and Jada Pinker Smith, You're very Yeah. So Will and Jada are super close friends. Consider them family that you know, beautiful people who've given me and my wife family in LA. To be quite honest, like we feel kind of adopted by them. I've been
able to celebrate Thanksgiving with them many times. That all happened because I was asked by Facebook to host the launch of Red Table Talk season two, and that's where I got to meet Jada, Willow and Cammy and I got to interview them, and Jada and I had this really interesting conversation backstage. I don't think i've ever talked about this before, but we were talking and she was asking me curious questions. She said to me, what did you learn as a monk? Like that's what you asked me,
kind of like you did. And I was telling her like, I learned, you know, meditation this scan and I could see that she you know, she was she was intrigued and curious, and something inspired me to go a bit deeper, and I said, I learned how to talk to God, like we learned how to pray to God. And when I said that to her, she said, I want to learn how to do that, like I would love to learn how to do that. And that's where our relationship began.
It began from both of us having this enthusiasm, and then I got to understand, like they both have been studying world religions every year of their marriage together. They're deeply thoughtful, intelligent human beings, and so that relationship has just been one of the greatest gifts and blessings of my life. And it all started from a God centered intention place. Again, like, none of this started from you know.
I think it's really interesting when people see pictures or see things they think, oh, yeah, that's just like it's a famous connection or it's this, and I'm like, well, actually, I'd say nine nine percent of my relationships have started from a god meditation, spiritual place, because that's what I'm trying to put out in the world. I was gonna ask you when people meditate? Right back to meditation, Yeah,
how long should somebody meditate? I really believe that it's about starting with the amount of time that you can And I said seven minutes for the daily jay because most of our daily activities take around seven minutes, like I said, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, making our bed. I think five to ten minutes is a healthy amount of time to start with. But hey, if you can start with sixty seconds, start with that. It's like being on the treadmill. It's like saying, how long can you
be on the treadmill for now? Tom Brady can be on the treadmill for a lot longer than I can. But he's been practicing for a lot longer than I can. And so it's like if he gets on the treadmill, if you can do one minute today, do one minute today, but commit to one minute for one month. Next month, commit to five minutes for one month, right, Like that's the point. And so I would say we started the daily jet seven minutes because I think it's a sweet
spot that's doable. That's that's actually some of my favorite time to do it, Like right when I get off the elliptical machine, you know what I mean. And you know sometimes you just sit down, because you like when you just sit down and you just turn off the music and just I count my beads right there because you're catching your breath as well, and for some reason, it just really helps you to me right after you
right after you work out. I love that you brought up the beads because that's how we were training as monks too, beads. And the reason was because all your senses have to be engaged. So when you when your hands are engaged, your mouth is engaged because you're saying the montra, your ears are engaged because you're hearing the mantra. And so when all of your senses are engaged, you're
actually present. And so if you want to be present anywhere, if you engage all your senses, you're more likely to actually be there. And that's why the beads work like magic. At you did you ever do any therapy. I have seen therapists, I've worked with coaches. I've never done consistent therapy, but I'm a huge proponent and fan of it. I've seen it help my clients. So I'm a coach. I work with clients, and all of my clients have a therapist as well. And I always believe it's two people
you need in your life. So I really believe that therapy helps you untangle your past and coaching helps you build your future. And so I really believed in both of those in our lives. And so yeah, I've seen therapists. I've had phenomenal conversations with them. I've seen them spot patterns for me and others in their lives too. And I know you've I mean we talked about this when you came on the show so much. Yeah, big fan of therapy. Therapy is the gateway drug to me, yea
to me, I mean some people. We had an Nay chapter up here, and he started his healing journey through meditation. Yes, I started mind through therapy and then got into you know everything else. You know, what thing I like about you, Jay is that you never seem to scare away from your purpose like as big as your name gets, as big as your profile gets, it's always about what your purpose is. Like you're here to help people heal, and you never scare away from that. That's very kind, man.
I think I think that says a lot about you more than me, because you notice that, And I think because you notice that, that says a lot about you. Genuinely. I mean that because not everyone's going to see that, And that's partly what I've understood on this journey is that you're the only person who's going to know your intention. People outside, not everyone's going to know your intention. And that's okay because as long as you know what your
intention is, that's what you're living for. And when you die, you're gonna die knowing I did it for that reason, and as long as you're cool with that, I think that's That's been the biggest lesson with everything changing. I think when I started, I really believe that everyone would see that I was trying to help and I was
trying to serve. And as things grow, I realized not everyone's going to feel that way, and that's okay because the only person has to feel that way is me and the people that know and love me deeply and the people that I speak to and see every week, and hearing it from you is I'm full of gratitude hearing it from you. It means the world. Honestly, what
is the balance with social media? Because clearly the digital world has helped, yeah, what you do tremendously, but also the digital world is impacts our mental health in a very very very negative way. So what's the balance? You know what? It's so challenging because if technology didn't exist and it wasn't going to keep growing, it would be easy for us to say, look, let's live a technology
free life. Let's all just meditate, focus, be present. But the truth is technology is already accelerating, and to sit here and work against it, I think it's too late. It's already moving too fast and it's gone too far. So my take is, how can we be in those places and give people alternatives to what they do on
that technology. That's all you can do, right, You can give people a choice, and I think with the work you do, with the work I'm trying to do with what you all do here, is giving people a choice of what else can you listen to? So the fact that someone can listen to on purpose instead of watching something or hearing something that may not be great for their mindset. That's all I can do is give people a choice. And so to me, I use social media
as a creator and as a sharer. I consume it only to see what my friends are up to and support them. I don't really use it for anything else other than that, So I limit my time on social media, especially in the morning in the evening. I've been avoiding looking at my phone in the morning first thing for years, because I think that's your most precious time. You get to set your day up in that thirty seconds you're awake.
And if you let in the news, the notifications, the negativity, the noise, you're drowning already and now you're trying to swim. You're letting somebody else at your intention. Yeah, absolutely, and you're drowning. You're already at the bottom of the ladder again. But if you can start that. So for me, it's as a creator, I have to recognize it's a tool, it's a platform. I have to use it wisely to
help give people a choice. But yeah, if you know, if people don't want to use it, when when I hear people are not on social media and they don't want to use it. I'm like, that's great, you know, power to you. What are some what are some everyday practices you think people can use to improve their mental health, Like it's regular everyday things. Yeah, paying for therapy or any like everyday thing. Yeah. So I would say there's
there's five habits and they're rule free and so. And it comes in the form I like to put things in memorable ways. So it comes in the form of an acronym called times. T I M E S so T is thankfulness. I am so addicted to thankfulness and gratitude. And even though I am I realized very recently I just told you this whole story, right, I told you
the whole story of everything that happened. Recently, I realized that I forgot the person who got me my first job after being a monk, after those forty rejections, and I realized I've never talked about him because he's not well known. No one would know his name. His name is Ravi Khan. No one knows that, no one knows him.
And I remember when I was struggling to find a job, I realized he went to the same university as me, and so my message them and said, hey, man, i've been out there work for a while three years, monk, etc. Like can you help me get a job? And he gave me the introduction to the company that I went to work for. And I realized very recently that I say gratitude all the time and thankfulness, but I forgot him because he's not a big he's not a big part of my journey, which is not true. He's a
massive part of my journey. So I sent him a message recently just to thank him, and to me, that was such an important thing because I was like, how many people do we forget that the in between people so thankfulness And the way you do this is for the next seven days, text, voice note, email message one person every day. It takes thirty seconds. But here's the way to make thankfulness work. It has to be specific
and it has to be personalized. If Charlemagne a second ago just said to me, Jay, I think it's really cool, right. If that's all he said to me, that's quite generic and I wouldn't know what to do with that. And he may have just said that after cuff, but when he actually said like, Jay, I really appreciate you stick to your purpose despite all that was so specific that it really touched my heart. And so if you're going to share gratitude with someone, has to be specific, has
to be personalized. Can't you just say, oh, you're a great person Like that doesn't help. Second thing I is for inspiration. Start your day with the thought that inspires you. It could be a quote next to your bed for me. At one point, I listened to Steve Jobs's Stanford commencement speech every day for nine months. There's nine months. I was depressed. Nineteen months. I listened to it every day, and I promise you that speech will change your life.
I just interviewed Matthew McConaughey on the podcast. I told him for thirty days, I listened to his Oscar speech every day when he won the Oscar for Dallas Bye Club. It's five minutes long that speech. Listen to it every day for thirty days. It was so powerful free. That's when he said that line that everybody says. Kevin Hart said, well,
the line, oh, I can't remember right now. It's it's the one where he talks about like he's like, I'm inspired by the person I want to be like, it's it's yeah, and so that was beautiful and then so those are free inspiration. So read a quote, put a little prayer in next to your bed in the morning, on a post it note that wake up to that third one M meditation. We talked about a lot. The daily J seven minutes E is for exercise. We have
to move. We have to have to move. It can be ten thousand steps, it can be a virtual workout, can be a dance party. Have to move in some way. We have to sweat every day. And S is for sleep. I just feel that if we did these five things and especially sleep out all of them. I choose sleep. If you can just do one thing is solve your sleep. If we can just sleep well, and the best way to do it is the human growth hormone HGH is most active between ten pm and midnight, the hours before midnight.
So the more hours we sleep before midnight, the more quality our sleep. So if you sleep six hours after midnight twelve to six, it's different if you slept ten to four. And that's what you want to move to is try and get a couple of hours in before midnight will change your life. So tims, thankfulness, inspiration, meditation, exercise, sleep, Jay, we appreciate. I was going to ask, but I mean, after speaking to you, realize what it is. I was
going to ask. When you first got here, I was like, wow. You know sometimes when we have a preacher or reverend him here, we say, okay, can you give us a prayer? Or we have a funny until the best we say, you know, give the people some advice. Or I was going to ask you can we meditate, but we really can't because we need more seven. I mean it will be deadier for seven minutes. Oh we can do it for less and seven we can do it. Hey, yeah we can. How long do you give me your time limit?
And then I'll stick to that. Thirty seconds? Thirty seconds a minute, Let's do a minute. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do a minute. Okay, let's do it. And everyone who's listening can join in as well. So what I want to get through thirty seconds were good? Okay? So what do I want ever want to do is just take a moment to look around wherever they are. So keep your eyes open and I want you to just notice five things in this space. Choose five things in
your environment and bring your awareness to them. The colors, the textures, the fonts, whatever it may be. Just five things, and when you found them, close your eyes. Taking a deep breath. Now, what are four things that you can touch and just be present with it. It It could be your jacket, the chair you're sitting on, your own hands. Four things that you can touch. No, it's the difference in the coolness and the texture. Taking another deep breath.
What are three things that you can hear there? Maybe some white noise, the sound of my voice, maybe even a voice in the back of your head. Three things you can hear, Just observe and be present, don't fight them. Just bring your awareness back to your breath. Breathe in. What are two things you can smell? Maybe the beautiful sage that we have here in the studio of the Palasanta. Maybe a fragrance it diffuses some food. Taking a deep breath,
and what's one thing you can taste? And be water? Breakfast. Now, in a moment, when you gently and softly, in your own time, at your own pace, you open your eyes, you'll experience full presence. Can open your eyes, all right, you know, man, I love to sound a white noise. I love the things you see behind your eyelids. And I've been stressing to I Heeart that we need a mindfulness minute on all radio stations, like we need whether it's J could be Jay, it could be Debbie Brown.
We need a mindful this minute, like a few times throughout the day, especially during like the ten am the two pm slot when it's mid days and people at work. Every now and then, you just got to take a break, like we got to do exactly what we did just now. So when we call you, J, answer the thank you
for the opportunity. Thank you guys, Thank you. Someone go get Ja Schetty's book, Think like a monk Um, subscribe to the Um on Purpose podcast with Jay Chetty, and check out the appcom one of my favorite people to just follow and continue to be a great leader, Jack, Thank you man, Thank you so so grateful than Jetty, It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,