Let's be honest. Life is stressful, its work, its relationships and the state of the world. But there's a way to bring that stress level down. Calm. It's the number one app for mental wellness, with tons of content to manage anxiety, promote concentration, and help you unwind. There's music, meditation, a more Calm makes it easy to de stress. You can literally do a one minute breathing exercise. Personally, I love the soundscapes. Nothing like a little rain on leaves
to help soothe my nervous system. I've actually been working with Calm for a couple of years now, and I'd love for you to check out my series on reducing overwhelm eight short practices Quick Relief. Right now, listeners of On Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calm Premium at Calm dot com. Forward slash j that's c LM dot com. Forward slash jay for forty percent off. Calm your Mind, Change your Life. No one says I love money, but everyone agrees that they appreciate what money
brings them peace of mind, diminished anxiety. Most of us are rightly worried about what will happen in the future, and if nothing else, money gives us the false confidence to believe that what happens good or bad will probably be okay. But absent the concept of money, what else can rich mean? What does it mean, for example, to live a rich life? The Number one Health and Wellness Podcast Jay Setty Jay Shetty, Hey everyone, welcome back to
On Purpose. I'm Jay Shechetty, and as always, I'm so grateful you're taking the time to be with me here for our latest episode. If you've been listening recently, you know we've had some incredible guests, incredible workshops for our fridays and it just keeps getting better. Whenever any of you tell me when I bump into you that you've been listening, you've left a review that you or enjoying and appreciating the guests and the conversations. I truly appreciate
the depth of what you share with me. So if you ever see me, let me know it means the world to me and I'm so grateful to have you here today. As we talk about this theme of defining wealth, defining success, not chasing and pursuing the things that other people are important, but actually focusing on the things that we believe are a priority, living our lives on our terms, focused and fixated on our goals that are truly ours.
Right when someone tells me their dream, the first thing I asked them if their dream is really their dream? Or is it their mothers or fathers, their sisters or brothers, their family members, their teacher in school, whatever it may be. So many of us use our time chasing a dream that isn't even ours. And in order to take us on this journey today, I want to ask you a question.
And when I ask you this question, a lot of you may see it as a simple matter of math, and the question can be easily answered by plugging it into Google or chat GPT. The question is who's the richest man in the world. Now, it's probably safe to say that most of us to find the word rich in exactly the same way money. Who has the most
assets or resources or stuff. Who has the greatest number of houses around the world, a supercar collection, maybe horses, artwork, wine collection, swimming pools, tennis courts, whatever it may be. Maybe they own a football team. Now, if you go online, the answer comes up at once. Right now. In the latter part of twenty twenty four, when I'm recording this. The richest man in the world is the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns X, which used to be known
as Twitter, and companies like tech SpaceX and Starlink. If online estimates can be believed, today Elon Musk has a net worth of two one hundred and sixty three billion dollars. Others on the Richest Man in the World list, which is heavy on fortunes derived from technology, are in second place Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon dot Com with two hundred and twenty four billion dollars, and down the list Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft,
and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta. But today I want to challenge us to look at wealth and richness through a different lens. Now, I've never been one to say money doesn't buy happiness. I think money can solve lots of problems, and I actually believe that learning to manage, invest and grow our financial stability is a really important skill. And we have other episodes with experts on the show
about that. But today I really want to focus on this idea of how we define wealth, what we think of as rich, and the truth is rich is personal? Two years ago, the financial services firm Charles Schwab conducted a survey of one thousand Americans from twenty one to seventy five. What does it take to be considered wealthy or rich? Respondents were asked. When the results were crunched, the somewhat random answer came in at around two point
two million dollars. Now why that particular figure, No one has a clue, especially since the net worth of the average American household is approximately one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, all of which goes to show that if your net worth exceeds one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, you may not be rich in the sense of having two point two million dollars, but you're better off than most of
your fellow Americans. Now why even ask this question? Partly because in the US, at least, we live in a culture that's preoccupied with the making, spending, and sometimes flaunting of money. One of the greatest privileges of being able to work, live and travel abroad is the recognition that what we assume to be universally true is in fact more of a function of where you grew up and
where you live. As listeners to this show, you know I was born in London, lived in India for some time while I was a monk, and across the UK during that time, and moved to the US nearly a decade ago. It's been around eight years now. One of the first things I noticed is that in America, one of the most common questions I was ever asked is what do you do for a living? And it's really interesting if you think about it. All of us at an event are asked, what do you do? What do
you do for work? Our work has become our identity, right what we do as our career has defined our personalities. But if you look at around the globe, asking another person what they do for a living might be actually a bit more rare, and we might find that bizarre because we don't even know of a place like that. Cultures like Scandinavia are intensely private, to the point where entering an elevator and saying hello to the other passengers
is seen almost as personal trespass. Now, I'm not proposing one or the other, and making the point as to how much our identity gets wrapped up in the work we do. I remember having the fortune of sitting down with the late Kobe Bryant, and what I was amazed by was that he was an athlete who is at peace in retirement, which is very rare because naturally, so much of your identity becomes about playing the sport. It becomes about being known as one of the best athletes
of all time. But he was able to detach and disconnect from that and create a new identity at the fortune of interviewing Tom Hanks recently, just a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and what I sensed from him was that he was peace in his career. And yes, you could say he's had a largely successful career. Of course, he has sort of phenomenal career, but it was also that he wasn't hanging on to it, he wasn't chasing it. There was a peace around him. And that's what I
was trying to understand. What's the difference between someone who achieves and has peace. So it's almost like someone who achieves and receives peace versus someone who achieves and then just needs to keep achieving. And what do we define as an achievement? So has rich always been linked to money? Is a really interesting question to look at, and the answer is yes, And he goes all the way back
to the Middle Ages. The original Old English word rice spelled exactly like the carbohydrate led to the word rich. Even back then, rice referred directly to how much money a person had, and was also connected to power, strength, and high social status. So from early on in our evolution as humans, there has been a strong link between money, power, rulership, and the attendant regard of others. Arguably the same is
true today. Now, what I'm interested in this episode to do is not to discourage you from having financial ambitions. I don't believe that that's the point. What I've realized actually is that it's not whether you have something or don't that makes you happy when it comes to material, physical things, it's what you don't have. So, for example, if you have money and envy, that will ruin you. If you have money and ego, that will ruin you. If you have money and a lack of gratitude, that
will ruin you. And if you have money and no envy, that's beautiful. If you have money and no ego, that's beautiful. If you have money and gratitude, that's incredible. So what I found over time that the missing link wasn't about the material thing, It was about the emotional part of the experience of having or not having that thing. That quality, that attribute is what transformed how we felt. Okay, I am so excited about this because we've got the first
ever merch drop for on Purpose. It's finally here and for world Mental Health. Today we're doing an exclusive limited edition drop with all the proceeds going to the National Alliance on Mental Illness NAMI. So now you can wear your on Purpose merch, listen to the podcast and know that you two are having an impact. I want to thank you so much in advance. I can't wait to see all of your pictures wearing the merch, their sweatshirts, the hat t shirts. Check it out on our website
jshetdyshop dot com. That's Jshettishop dot com. And remember, one hundred percent of the proceeds go to NAMI. So today, what I want to explore is different ways in which we can be rich, different ways in which we can be wealthy, because I really believe that part of it is creating an abundance mindset. That's what this episode is really about. How do we create a rich, abundant mindset as opposed to this scarcity mindset. The poverty in our mind is contagious, right, so how do we change that?
Experience has always told me that no matter who you are, humans want to feel a sense of contentment, a sense of ease in their lives. They seek a sense of purpose, which they often find in their work, and they seek social bonds in love. If you're a man whose biological goal it is to provide for and protect your family, your happiness can derive from the job you do and the positive feelings you derive from making sure your loved ones are safe and attended to. But let's also be
very clear. Money, even though no one likes to talk about it, matters. Money is important. No one says I love money, but everyone agrees that they appreciate what money brings them peace of mind, diminished anxiety. Most of us have rightly won worried about what will happen in the future, and if nothing else, money gives us the false confidence to believe that what happens, good or bad, will probably be okay. But absent the concept of money, what else
can rich mean? What does it mean, for example, to live a rich life. A few years ago, I read a wonderful article in the newspaper where the writers spoke about the difference between resume virtues and eulogy virtues. In the first category are those abilities and credentials that people bring to their workplace, and in the second category are those qualities that people discuss and get emotional about and remember once you're gone. These are known as eulogy virtues.
And while there may occasionally be some overlap between the two, it's striking that in the second category are the words such as honest and loyal, and a good friend and a loving husband and parent, and a great number of our community. But as the article i read pointed out, if we focus exclusively on our resume virtues, there will inevitably come a time in our lives when we begin feeling a little bit hollow, as though we've missed the
point of life. This was what it was all about all along, getting another promotion, earning a bigger paycheck, staying at high end hotels. Suddenly you consider friends of yours who maybe haven't made the same investment in their careers as you have, who've lived quieter, steadier lives, filled with children, good meals, the occasional vacation, and the effort to make
a difference in the worlds they inhabit. Maybe they haven't won an award, maybe they haven't gone close to earning millions of dollars, but they've lived a rich life as well, learning, growing, and being. This isn't again to discourage you. It's to say, what parts of your wealth do you want to expand what parts have you not invested in? Rich then has a lot to do with the choices we make about what is meaning and what doesn't. What does it mean
to lead a rich and meaningful life? It's a question nearly everyone confronts at some point in their own journey, and one that great thinkers and philosophers have been wrestling with since the beginning of time. Even asking this question is a positive step, as it gives us space from what the world appears to define as having meaning, example, behaviors, habits, and rituals that lead only to accumulation of economic growth. You may ask yourself, who am I and why am
I doing what I'm doing in this life? Is this something I love doing? If it isn't, then what do I want to do instead? What was I put here for this isn't just about what we do for a living, It's about the very why of our being. I couldn't be more excited to share something truly special with all u tea lovers out there. And even if you don't love tea, if you love refreshing, rejuvenating, refueling sodas that
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body while enjoying a truly delicious and refreshing drink. So visit Drinkjuni dot com today to elevate your wellness journey and use code on Purpose to receive fifteen percent of your first order. That's drink Jauni dot com and make sure you use the code on Purpose. Some psychologists define meaning as being about coherence and purpose, the understanding we have of our lives and the direction where we hope
they're going. Others argue that significance is just as important as coherence and purpose, that we need to have a sense of our lives intrinsic value. But regardless of what you believe, meaning in the search for meaning will always be a personal endeavor. There are no right answers. The way I found meaning in my life may not be how you find meaning in yours. That doesn't mean that one is better or worse. This isn't a competition, and
there are no prizes awarded at the end. It just means that meaning and the search for meaning is an individual as people are. That said, a rich and meaningful life tends to have a few things in common. The first is that it involves passion, caring deeply about what you do for a living or even the hobbies in
your life. Making and sustaining strong social relationships is another important factor, as there is a connection among the strength of our friendships, our sense of belonging in our perception that our lives are full and meaningful. Finally, there's our overall positivity. The more positive our mood and the more we feel in control of our environments will also enhance our sense of meaning. Let me give you another way to look at the richness of life. As humans, we're
all given two things, time and energy. We use both to foster experiences and create social interactions in our lives. Time in varying measures is one of the foundations of being born and of being human. It's when our personal clock starts ticking. We all know we have time, we just don't know how much or when that time will
run out. If we're privileged to be in good health and we live it an era in a culture where life is relatively peaceful, chances are good that we will live a normal life lifespan, which today in the US at least is eighty years for women and nearly seventy five years for men, averaging out between the two sexes at seventy seven years. We're also given energy or vitality, physical and mental power, the capacity to engage in work, and to exert ourselves together. Time and energy form the
basis of every one of our lives. What does it mean then, when we ask ourselves who's the richest man in the world, and of course ultimately who's the richest person in the world? Only focused on the male gender for the perspective of asking this question. But what makes us feel the richest. We've talked about money, We've talked about qualities, but it leaves us with the greatest gift. It's how we use our time and energy. Someone can be time rich because they have lots of time. We
often talk about feeling time poor. These days, we're running from meeting to meeting, running from this to that, So we're time poor and maybe money okay, But what about being time rich? That's value? What about being energy rich? We take care of our energy, We manage our energy. I want us to expand our definition of rich so that time and energy are also there. Tris like money.
According to one survey, We'll spend twenty eight years of our lifetime sleeping, fifteen years engaged in work, thirteen years relaxing, seven years performing everyday household chores, five years socializing, and four years eating and drinking. Over the course of an average lifetime, we'll work a dozen jobs and interact with
roughly eighty thousand people. Our heart will beat two point nine two billion times, or one hundred thousand beats a day, and our eyes will blink four hundred and twenty million times, or around five point three million blinks per year. We'll take six hundred and seventy two million breaths and walk roughly sixty three thousand miles. That's what it means to be alive, and it's so important that we figure out how we want to use that time alive. So let's
really look at richness as beyond money. When we're thinking about our lives and think about is this a year where I want to be wealthy and travel? Is this a year where I want to be wealthy in experiences. I remember speaking to our friend the other day and he was like, you know, the last couple of years, I haven't made as much money as I you know,
usually do. And I said to him, but you fell in love, You found the greatest wealth of all, you found a life partner that you've proposed to you're going to get married to. Like, what an incredible investment. And I think it's a really interesting thing that we have to think about where it's like there are going to be seasons in our life. Some seasons are all about financial growth, some seasons are all about family growth, some
seasons are all about relationship growth. And I think what makes our life hard and complicated is either when we're trying to do all of them all at once, or we feel bad that we're prioritizing one. Right, there's a feeling that when we're prioritizing our financial health and our financial wealth, that we're some way we feel guilty that we're not investing in the other things. And guess what it takes away from the joy from building your financial position.
And then when you're spending time with friends and family, you're then feeling guilty that you're not building your company. And so what we do is we actually let our internal state be clouded by shame and guilt for what we're focused on. So I'm here to remind you. Let's take away that shame and guilt. Let's take away that judgment. Let's focus in on the real thing, the real growth, right, let's focus in on going. Okay, what season am I in?
What year am I in? Is this a year where I'm really focused on my career or is this a year where I'm really really focused on my family? Or is this a year that I really need to focus on love? And I think so many of us are trying to do everything all at the same time, that we don't achieve anything, and then we feel worse, And I think often we're made to feel guilty and judged for focusing, for prioritizing, but we all know it's so hard otherwise, Right, what have you ever achieved when you
weren't focusing. I know there was a part of my work that I kept trying to outsource for the last few years. It's been something I'm really passionate about, but I haven't had the time because I've been working on so many other things. In the last twelve months, I decided to put so much more focus on it, and all of a sudden, it was transformative. It shifted, it moved. And so if we don't move our energy towards something
it won't move. And if we're trying to equally perfectly divide up our energy across a couple of areas, across a couple of things, we you know, recognize that that's all we're going to ever get back from it, right, That's all we're ever going to get back from it. Now. When you look at Bronnie wears beautiful book about the five Regrets of the Dying, she says they are, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings tell them.
If you've got someone that you need to open your heart to this week, you want to open your heart to tell them. The second is I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. Call that person, reach out, don't hold back. The third is I wish I'd lived a life true to myself, not the life that other people expected of me. That's what I was talking about earlier. What is rich for you? Define rich, Define wealthy, Define wealth this year. Don't be pulled and pushed around by
the opinions of others. The fourth is I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And I think that's a challenging one because we all have to work to survive, and I think we'll all feel that way. But I also want to give us grace to not have that regret and recognize we had Some of us may have felt like we had to, we needed to. And the fifth is this is the more important side of it. I think I wish I'd allowed myself to be happier. It's so beautiful. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happier.
How could you be happier today? How could you be richer today because you choose to be, You allow yourself to be. How could you be more abundant today because you choose to be, you allow yourself to be. How could you be wealthier today because you choose to be, You allow yourself to be. You look in that direction, right, you look in that direction, you amplify that, you bring it to life. I'm so grateful for your time and
energy today. I hope this leaves you feeling lighter, richer, wealthier, recordgizing that there is so much wealth in your life, and I hope it allows you to create more financial wealth as well. With that abundance mindset, take care of yourselves. Remember, I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you. If you love this episode, you love my conversation with Dr Joe Dispenser on why stressing overthinking negatively impacts your brain and heart and how to change your habits that
are on autopilot. Listen to it right now. How many times do we have to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering. That's the moment of change. Who cares how many times you fell off the bicycle if you ride the bicycle. Now you ride the bike.