Feel Stuck in the Wrong Job? This ONE Mindset Shift Will Help You FINALLY Discover Your Purpose (Even If You’re Starting From Zero)

one of the picture. It was only twelve to be in the position that you're in now. When you started out on this journey. How could you ever have imagined that it would end up where you are now, touring the country, touring the world in some senses, and people power into arenas to see.

went to speak, zero people showed up. So I just practiced to the four walls, and the second time I showed up, no one showed up, And so I practiced to the four walls. And the third time I realized that the fire the person who was putting the flyers out, because who went in a good job. But for years, nearly ten years before I posted a video, I was

speaking to groups of small rooms. I was speaking of groups of three people, five people, ten people, And I'll be honest with you, I never ever felt, why is only ten people? I never ever felt, oh, it's only twenty people today, I would have loved it to be fifty or one hundred, don't get me wrong, but I never thought it needed to be more than that. I was just happy that anyone would take time out of their day to come and hear about things that were

meant to be good for them. But you know, it wasn't hey, here's how to do this, or here's how to get rich, or it was here's how to improve your life. And so for me, those years of spending hours and hours and hours with people, roughly ten years later, when I post my first video and I start to have the groundswell experience of more people finding out about my work. I live in gratitude every day. I post those to show people that no one starts in an arena.

Everyone starts at zero. And the reason why we don't start is not because we're scared of starting at zero. We're scared of people watching us start at zero. We're scared of the opinions of people around us starting at zero. We're not scared of starting from scratch. We're scared of our friends seeing us start from scratch. And I just want to remind people that everyone started zero. You did, you did, and everyone on planet Earth did, and that means you can do it as much as I have.

great rapper, there's this great artist. If someone introduced you to that, you'd start talking about it because it was cool. And so for me, wisdom was cool, and so I was just sharing it because it changed my life and had an impact on me, and I thought it would help other people. So from my side, you don't even see yourself that way. You just see yourself as a spiritual dealer because you're just sharing what's helping you and you want it to help other people. So from my side,

I don't look at myself as that. I think for people, what happens is we're all looking for people who represent what we're chasing, who represent what we're pursuing, who represent what we admire. And I think the thing is everyone needs someone or something to believe in. Now, I don't want people to believe in me. I want them to believe in the wisdom. So that's my responsibility to make it very clear. I don't want you to believe in me. I'm flawed, I'm human, I have weaknesses. But the wisdom

has lasted for five thousand years. There's nothing in the world that has lasted apart from the world the planet for five thousand years. I remember talking about The Bug with Gito, which is the book that I referenced a lot in my books. I was speaking about it with a guy that had met and he was big in business, and he said to me after the interview. This was years ago. He said to me, because, how long did you say that book's been around? I said, five thousand years.

He goes, oh, there must be truth in it. If it's lasted five thousand years. You think about the best music artists, they're not going to last five thousand years. You think about the best movies, they're not going to last five thousand years. Well, I'm definitely not going to last five thousand years. So the fact that something has stood the test of time, that's worth sharing. So I'm

trying to get people to believe in that because that is actually going to change their life. Them believing in me or another person or whatever is kind of insignificant and irrelevant.

be your passion. But as soon as you start doing it to improve other people's lives, that's where it becomes a purpose. When you start connecting it with making someone else's day better. So instead of just baking for you, you're not baking for the homeless. Instead of just baking for you, you're not baking for the community. Instead of just taking pictures for yourself, you start sharing it so the people who don't have the money to travel that far can now see what it looks like to experience it.

All of a sudden, you start to get that feedback and you realize you're meant for more, You're made for more, You're here for more. For me, I would have kept going, and I did keep going for ten years of sharing it in small rooms because I saw impact on one person. And I think if anyone wants to build a product, a business, a service, a show, you've got to see how it impacts one person before you can impact one

million people. If your product can't change one person's life, it's never going to change a million people's lives because the feedback you get from that one person is everything. That one person could help you improve your product, your service, your energy, your show more than anyone. I'm sure you guys have had it, Like you've had someone who watches every Pivot podcast right every episode. They're like, you know what,

I really liked him when you guys did that. I wasn't sure when you guys did that, And same for me. People will be like, I really like it when you share your opinion. I really like it when you stay true to your value. That's what helps you keep going. So to me, I kept going because there was always one person who was being moved. And even today, when I'm speaking to a large audience or an arena, I'm visualizing being in that small room with three to five people,

because that's how intimate I want it to feel. I wanted to feel like this. This is special. Just the intimacy you guys have created here. This is special, and I want people in a room full of thousands to feel like this because this is what we're all craving. No one's craving to be in a room full of thousands of people. Everyone's craving this eye contact, this kind of connection, this kind of space, and it's our job. And that's what you guys do so well here. Whenever

I watch your clips, this is how I feel. I feel this close to you. Before I met you, I felt like I knew you because I'd seen so many of you guys's clips and it felt like you guys were genuine and sincere. You were doing this for the

right reason, and so I think we've got to give that give people that experience. And that's what I've always tried to do, whether it was five people of five thousand. Jay.

I'm a monk teacher didn't have any of those other things, but he was happy in who he was, and I was like, I want that, Like that feels like the life I want to have. And he graduated also from it, which is the MIT of India. So he went to one of the best colleges in the country. For example, the current CEO of Google went to that university. Like that's the level of institution. And he gave that all

up to be a monk. So I was thinking, and I was at college at the time, and I was thinking, wait a minute, if I'm going to aspire to get a job like that, this guy's given it up. There's something amazing about him. So to me, it was truly the fascination. And I'm sure you've had it in sports. I'm sure you've had it in business where you see someone and you just like the way they move and you think, how are you that happy, that peaceful, that content?

And I just wanted to know. And so to me, it was as simple as finding one person who is living differently. And I always say to people, everyone needs to find their monk. And what I mean by that is who's the one person you haven't met yet that's going to change the trajectory of your life. Who's the one person who embodies what you believe life is about. It might not be a monk, it might be something else,

but everyone has to find that. And for me, mental stability, resilience and peace and service to others have always felt like the best pursuits. And now when you're talking about you know, the hair or the clothes or whatever it is, I'm giving myself permission to be all of myself. So I enjoy presenting myself.

But let's say you were like, oh, it doesn't matter, it only matters what's on the inside. We'll just sit in a black room. Yeah, well that's gonna affect your mindset. So mindfulness also means focusing on the outside and the inside. And I think immature mindfulness is like, oh, it only matters what's on the outside, And materialism is it only matters what's on the outside, right, So I think that's the mistake we make as humans. We think, Oh, if

I'm spiritual, it means only the inside matters. And if I'm material only the outside matters. And intentional mindful living is they both affect each other. If I'm in a messy outside space, I'm gonna be messy up here. And

if I have a messy world here, it doesn't matter how clean my outside is, I'll never be at peace. And that's what I learned in the monastery for Shure.

that practice. You eat what you're given. You don't get to choose. There's no menu, you don't get to say to that one pizza and doesn't exis. Everyone eats the same thing. There's no space that's yours. So we'd be in a room like this and there's thirty men sleeping in it, and you just put your mout down and go to sleep. It's not like that's my corner. The idea is to lose a sense of I, me and mind until you have very very few possessions. And it's

that daily practicing commitment that if they see you're dedicated to that allows you to become a monk, Like.

it goes. And to me, it was as simple as I spoke to the monk in England, which is where I first met him, and then he invited me to India to spend time with him. So I flew over during my Christmas breaks in college vacations, and I would spend time with him at the monastery. And now at that time, I would get a more comfortable room and I'd do the practices so they didn't throw me right into the deep end. But I did that so often that I got so used to it that when I graduated,

I knew what I was getting myself into. It's almost like, you've seen this is you're going to sleep it. You've seen what it looks like. And I, truly, if I'm completely honest, I didn't give it too much thought. I was just like, I'm open to it. Let's see if it works, let's test it out. And so to me, the mindset was being open, not being skeptical, and being a human guinea pig and going let's see if this

proves to be true. And the more I did it, the more I gained confidence in it because I mean to me a kid from London waking up at four am. You know, as a college student, that's unheard of. You're getting back at four am right from going out, and so all of a sudden, I'm waking at four am. But I literally said, I'm just going to do this

properly and see if it works. And I think that's something I'd like to encourage, especially young people to do, is if you're going to try something out, go all in and test it out for seven days, and if it doesn't work, don't do it again. But the problem is we never go all in. We do it for a day. If I said to you, I really want to learn about American football, right, I really want to understand the game. Well, if I come to one game

a year, what am I going to learn? If you get a one meditation a year, what are you going to learn? I'm not going to learn anything. But if I sat with you every single day, if I followed you around, if I followed the players around, then I'm actually going to learn something, right. And so I think it's that intimacy and that connection to a coach, a mentor a guide that makes it easier to understand what's happening and what's going on. So it's an immersive experience.

Does that make sense. I want to make sure I answer your question. It's a great question.

to be like was a monk. People who was asking me, how did you have that at such a young age. I truly think it's because of their aura and their presence. I don't it's a little bit of me. I have a good heart. I was raised to be a good man. My mom raised me well. But they are just so powerful in their presence that you just couldn't help but

want to live that way. And I'm lucky that it was the right people not the wrong people, because that naive mindset can end up, you know, in completely the other direction.

to the same job every day. One person does it because they love the job. The other person does it to put food on the table. You could see two people dressed in three piece suits. One does it because they're insecure, and one does it because it represents who they are and how they want to be presented.

Yeah yeah, so my Yeah, my friends back at home will see me on the red carpet and destroy me in the group chat, right, They'll post it up and be like boys up with your hair, bro like you know, like what are you wearing? Why are you wearing that? Why are you looking like a girl? Like you know? Like that, my friends will completely destroy me in the group chat. So I get no clout for dress like I have taken some risks. My wife we made a video last week which wasn't my idea, but it was

Taylor who's here with me? So Taylor did she set me up? She invited me into a space with my wife and she had printed out all my looks in the last nine years of my public figure career, like since I left the monastery and since my career took off, and she got my wife to rap my looks and roast me on each one of them. My wife doesn't even like this stuff I wear. So, if I'm completely honest, and this is why I like Ryan because he has good taste. Right, So this is Ryan compliments me on

what I wear because he has a good taste. You know, a lot of people don't have good taste. So actually I wear a lot of stuff that no one wants to see me. And so what I'm trying to say is that actually I would argue that some of the things, and I'm talking for myself. I can only talk for myself. I'd argue and say a lot of the stuff I wear, the people around me don't even like it, but I like it. It makes me feel comfortable, It makes me feel confident, it makes me feel like I like for me.

I also like to dress up to feel how I want to feel in this space. So I'm comfortable in this. I feel casual in it, I feel like myself, I feel relaxed. Do I want people to think I care about my appearance, of course I do. Definitely do I care what people think about my parents. Of course I do. I'm not beyond that. And I think it's the honesty of that which is what makes me authentic, not the

not caring. I think we live in a world where we think, if that person don't care about what anyone thinks, they're authentic.

attractive about our appearance. And I remember walking through city centers. We traveled across Scandinavia, teaching meditation in Copenhagen and Stockholm and Oslo, and I'd be on the streets and people are laughing at you. People are looking at you like you're dressed weird, like I've done that too. So I have lived in a world of no one cared that I didn't care what people thought. But now at this point, I'd rather be honest than say I like taking pride

in my appearance. I like dress in a certain way. Some people hate it, some people love it. But I think that no one knows what's going on inside someone's mind. And that's what's most interesting to me is that we can all have projections of why people dress the way they do, talk the way they do, or do what they do, and then you realize what you said. I think the inner reflection is more important to me than what we think of others. So the inner reflection is

am I doing this for the praise? Because if I am, I'm going to be let down by it, because sometimes people are going to notice it and sometimes they're not. So do I keep doing it when there's no praise or do I only do it when there is praise? Am I doing this because it makes me feel comfortable? Or am I willing to wear something completely uncomfortable in order to impress people? Right? So I never wear a

suit these days because I don't like wearing suits. I don't feel comfortable in them, right, it doesn't make me feel at ease.

media you didn't really see that. And so if you think about in America, the most successful Indian person in America of all time is Deepac ch Oprah, like the only person I can think of, and then there would have been like a musician Jay Sean. More recently there's Ris Armored and Dev Patel, both amazing actors, but there's few and far between, like there's a handful of South Asian people. I think it's a hard question to answer

because I don't know is the reality. But what I would say is that subjectively speaking, there's plenty of people who've succeeded in life not based on their appearance as well, and they would say that themselves. And I don't think anyone is attractive to everyone. Like people always meet me and go, oh, you're a lot shorter in person, right, which means that there's a presence on screen that like people expect me to be bigger, but that's a personality

thing that's not my shape or size. Some people also tell me that I look more fat on social media. People meet them, they're like, oh, you know, you're really lean, you're a fit in person. And I'm like, oh, wait, what do I look to you? And then you know, so I think, you know, appearance and stuff is such a it's so subjective, right, I'm sure you've met someone that like, like, I get it. There's people that I think are attractive or whatever, and some people think they're ugly.

It's such a messy thing. Ultimately, what I think it is is it does come down to energy and personality and spirit, and that's what people hold on to with people. I think that's what works when you look at the biggest YouTubers in the world today, look at some of the biggest podcasters, look at some of the biggest comedians. It's people telling great stories and people who make you feel something. And I think that's what wins in the online world. Because back in the day, people were choosing

who people followed. Right, there'd be an exec in a suit that said, you're good looking, you're ugly. The good looking person gets to be front of house, the ugly person has to be back a house. No one decides that anymore, the public decides who goes up and down. So to me, when the public gets to decide, now, you have to make someone feel something for them to keep being involved. And I've been doing this for nine years online, and my goal always is to make people

feel something. By the way, if you look at my old videos, I didn't have like this, I'm wearing a T shirt. I've got, you know, people, I remember my first video we posted. People were like, why's he got a wind machine? Dude? It wasn't a wind machine. It was the wind. The wind's just blowing my hair. Because I didn't have a team to produce the thing. My first video, I'm sitting there with a boom mic stuck into a backpack to hold it up, and my friend's

got his camera, Like that's all we had. And so when I started out, we didn't have like I wasn't.

I wasn't, you know, wearing cool clothes. I didn't. My hair wasn't perfect. I was just some guys. So I think, to me, it's what we make people feel. To me, that's what people connect with.

don't want to feel like you're alone. People struggle to eat on their own. Whenever you ever seen someone go out sit at a table by themselves and eat food. If we do that, we have to get our phone now. It's very rare. So we've made it since we were young. If you think about it, if you were the kid eating lunch on your own table alone, you were considered the loaner or the weirdo. If you turn up to a wedding and you don't have a plus one, or you just got divorced, or you just broke up, everyone's

looking at you like are you okay? Like poor you. It's like if you don't have someone next to you, you're always seen as weaker, less than, or incomplete. We even say that, we say, find someone who completes you. What does that mean? It means you're incomplete without someone. So we've made people feel that if you're alone, you're incomplete. So we've villainized being alone. But Paul Tillich wrote about it, and the monk teachers reminded me that there's two words

for being alone. One is lonely and one is solitude. Paul Tillot says that being lonely is the weakness of being alone, but solitude is this strength of being alone. So solitude is saying, actually, if I can be comfortable in my own company, that success. If I can like the thoughts in my mind and the conversations I have in my head when I'm alone, then I've had success

in my life. And that's what the monks were trying to train you to do that instead of always looking for the next bit of praise, the next bit of validation, the next bit of approval. How do I feel so centered and happy and content with who I am that I'm not looking for other people to fill the parts of me that are gaps. I actually look for other people so we can enhance and grow together. And so, to me, solitude is something we all need. And by the way, we did this at my last show two

years ago, I went on a world tour. We did nearly forty cities across the world, and my first segment was something I was so excited to do. So what we did is I ask people in the audience who's the most addicted to their phone? And we broke it down to the person who looks at their phone basically every two minutes, so I'd bring them out to the audience. I had of five thousand people who take one person

onto stage, and I asked them how that feels. And they usually feel pretty bad about it, naturally, as we all do. And I told them, well, they shouldn't feel bad about it, because they're just the honest one. Everyone else is lying because you know, everyone's addicted to their phone. And then What I did is I gave them one question. And what they didn't know is we lock them into a cave on stage. We had this big box come out, almost like a magician's box, and we locked them in

it in pitch black. Gave them noise canceling headphones so they can't hear anything. I didn't even tell them how long they were going to be in there. This person was in there for fifteen minutes alone. We had a night vision camera so we could see how they were settling in them and I left them with one question. The question was, what's the one thing you value that you've been devaluing lately? What's really important to you but you keep brushing it aside. I left them with that.

Fifteen minutes later. People would come out of this solitude. Some people would be in tears, some people would be in deep reflection, some people would have had a moment. It was so good that people thought we fake the whole thing, Like people afterwards coming up to me, going, you must have faked that. I was like, trust me, I'm in Australia. I've never been to Australia. We just

picked someone out of the audience. People had huge experiences and the reason I did that was to show people that when you take reflection into solitude, you come out with value.

prove it. And what was amazing about it was just everyone walked away realizing that solitude and the discomfort of solitude was helpful. So to me, it's all about showing people that they have the answers within themselves, not showing them that I have the answers and solitude has the answers. You can't hear your voice when you're surrounded by all of this noise. You can't hear you in a voice,

when you're surrounded by opinions. You can't hear your voice when you're always asking the group chat, what should I wear? What should I do? Where should we go. You never get to know yourself because you never had to. I'm really loving where this conversation is going. Let's pause for a quick break for our sponsors and we'll be right back. Thanks for sticking with me. Let's get into it.

man who's practiced fifteen thousand kicks one time each. I'm scared of the man who's practiced one kick fifteen thousand times. Right, Because if you've practiced something once every time, you're not scared of that person because they can't do it that well. So the person who's running around trying to do everything, I'm not scared of that person. They're not winning. I'm scared of the person who stood at the hoop and shot a hundred free throws every hour for the next

ten days. That person's scary. So that's what stillness and solitude is is, can I focus laser focus on one thing, whether that's the mindset, whether that's clarity, whether it's strategy, whether it's my breath, whatever it is. That person's scary. That person's undefeatable because that person has done the same thing again and again and again. Doesn't make sense. It's like stillness and solitude isn't I'm just sitting there doing nothing. Time's going by, I'm wasting time. It's no, it's one

pointed attention. Energetically. I was talking to Carmelo Anthony yesterday, and he was saying that the best games he played was when his coaches showed him a video of like three hundred when like Gerard Butler's like shouting Sparta or like, you know, the best games he played was when he was in the zone. It wasn't the best games, wasn't the ones where he's like just doing a million things. It was like he was showing a video that made him feel like a gladiator, that made him know what

he had to go and do out there. That's what solitude gives you the space to do. Solitude gives you the space to go. What is the energy I'm trying to create? But you can't create that if you're hustling,

running around trying to win everything and do everything. And that's what I want people to think of stillness and solitude as it's priming the beast inside of you to do what Bruce Lee said, which is I'm so focused that you know, I don't even need to move that much to destroy my enemy. Like that's the energy you can create in solitude.

a monk. My wife is a monk like she's naturally that way. And I got lucky and fortunate that I was able to find a partner who actually brings me peace rather than brings me drama. And I always say that the right person will reduce drama and the wrong person will increase trauma. Right, the right person brings you peace, the wrong person brings you chaos. The right person brings you stability. The wrong person brings you inconsistency. And so to me, I found someone who was able to match

that energy. But it was hard in the beginning because I came out of the monastery as a bit of an avoidance. What I mean by that was I used to constantly say to my wife, you know, I'd be okay without you. I used to be happy before this. You know, I'm okay without you. And I didn't realize how much damage that did to connection because I felt that with strength and confidence, it was just avoidance. It was the avoidance of connection. I'd be like, you know,

I'd be happy on my own. You know, I'm happy on my own. I was good by myself. It's not that that's not true. It's that when you're trying to connect with someone, that isn't the language and the approach that creates connection. So what did that do that create a relationship When my wife like, well, I'm okay without you too, right, And now you're like few strangers living in the same house. We both think, oh, we're better

without each other. We're fine without each other. So that's what the challenge was, is that I came out as an avoidant and created an avoidant attachment style in my own relationship. And it took me a long time to realize. And partly it was me grieving a past life. And I'm sure you felt this in sport, business and everything else in your lives. When you're retiring, there's a grieving of who you used to be. And so for me leaving the monastery, I was grieving that life that I

had created for myself. And what you do is when you're grieving, you take that into the next life and you carry that baggage into your next relationship. It took me a lot of years to say, actually, I'm just gonna embrace I'm a married man now, I'm not a monk anymore, and that's okay, And this is coming with new gifts, new blessings, new reflections, and this is going to make me a better monk, a better man, a

better person. And if I embrace it rather than I keep holding onto this over here, there's a beautiful Zen teaching that says, whatever you're holding onto is what's holding

you back. So if you're holding onto a past version of yourself, that's holding your back. If you're holding to a person in your past, that's holding you back. If you're holding onto a life that you once had, that's holding you back. So what's holding you back is something you're actually holding onto. But if you just let it go and free it, you're free to move forward.

that space that you can't conceive. The only way I can describe it is like when you go to a stadium that you love and you just get pumped because you walk into this stadium and it has an energy because your greats played there and you won super Bowls there or whatever it is, and you walk into that space. And so I think the energetic sphere that's created by the monks is what makes it easier. Was it hard

for me? Of course it was. Was it unnatural for me, of course it was, But there was a value in it, and it was made easier in their association. There are certain things that are easier when you're surrounded by people. Right, there's that famous quote that says, if you're surrounded by five rich people, you'll be the sixth. If you're surrounded by five smart people, you'll be the sixth. If you're surrounded by five fit people, you'll be the sixth, And

if you're surrounded by five idiots, you'll be the sixth. Right, you're going to be the sixth of whoever you are. So when you're surrounded by all these people that are committed to this practice surprisingly becomes easier. But yes, there were times when I had to really lock in when I felt weak, when I felt moments of vulnerability. For sure, you're so engaged positively. This is another trick for the mind. The mind can't give up something hard if it doesn't

have something that it's connected to better. Right, So when you think about the first car you ever got, there's how I like to think about this. The first car I ever got. I'll have to show you a picture later. It's a red Vauxhall Courser, which I don't even think they have the brand in America. But it's like this tiny, little red beetle looking thing.

like that car was, you know whatever. But if someone told me to give up that car for nothing, I'd be like, are you kidding me? I'd never give it up. It's the best car in the world because for me, that's all I could afford. That was the best thing I could have. But if someone said, hey, i'll trade you at that time, I'll trade you a Mercedes for that car, I would have done it in an instant. Obviously. That's kind of what it's like, where it's like you're

addicted to this thing over here. You can't just give

it up. Like to make to theoretically rationalize how you can give it up is impossible. But when someone's offering you something, when it's enlightenment, mindfulness, presence, the greatest emotional and mental mastery, and it's being offered to you, it's because of that that it becomes easier to not follow this distraction.

confused stability with boredom. We've confused that if someone shows up with f that they're desperate. If someone shows up for us with time and energy, we think they need us. We think that if someone actually has space for us, then they must be the loser. We believe that love means chasing someone who doesn't want to stay, rather than

being with someone who never wants to leave. The biggest misconception is that love is something that has to be earned rather than shared, and so what we do is we want to be with the person who keeps us on our toes right. We've all met people who say I really want someone with values, but then they chase the person who doesn't give them validation. We've all met someone who says I really want someone who's affectionate, but they chase the person who doesn't give them any attention.

We've all met someone who says I really want someone who's present, But then you're chasing the person who never shows up on time. We're always chasing the person who doesn't give us what we want because we believe that's love. And that's the biggest misconception. And too many people are chasing all the wrong people. And the right person is standing right there, ready to love them with all their heart, but they're boring, needy, desperate, and I'm not attracted to them.

But wait, when you're gonna be with someone for five, ten, fifteen years, I want the person who texts me back. I want the person who calls me back in five ten, fifteen years time. I want the person who shows up on time. I want the person who wants to hear how my day was. I don't want the person who's never around. I don't want the person who disappears when it's hard like that's not the person I want. And so people are choosing the sixth month pleasure versus the

sixty year presence. And yeah, those six months are gonna be the amazing six months, but guess what, you're gonna have to keep doing those six months every six months six months, so you either date, you know, thirty people every six months or the rest of your life, or you have one person or two people maybe because by the way, I also don't like to demonize divorce and breakups because I do believe it's honestly possible for people to outgrow each other and for people to grow apart.

And I don't think we should demonize people who get divorced or break up or make it feel like a failure when actually it could be the best decisions of someone's life and the best decision for that other person. And I think we have to learn in society to be okay with that because a fifty percent of people are doing it anyway, so you're going to know someone

who's gone through it, and b it's actually we should realize it's more rare to stay with someone than it is to leave someone. It's way harder to find someone on planet Earth that you actually can stay with than it is to find someone that you probably will outgrow or break up with. So, you know, I think we've got to give people an easier time on that.

You can love someone but not be good for them, and someone can love you but not be right for you because they don't have the other emotional skills that make love stay. Love's not enough. You need emotional maturity, you need personal mastery, you need self control, you need compassion, you need empathy. There is so much more. Needed to make love last, and so a lot of us are going to lose love because we didn't develop those other skills. You lose love. To remind you that there are other

skills to be developed as well. There are other habits that you need to build as well. And the number one habit that I encourage all people to realize is that we've put romantic love on a pedestal on planet Earth. We believe that romantic love is the number one timeeype of love. If you look at all the spiritual traditions they disagree. They believe that the number one type of love is a parent's love for their child. That's the deepest,

most unconditional, selfless love that could possibly exist. But in humans, we've said romantic love is better than anything. So someone could be loved by their kid and love their kid. Someone could love their friends and be loved by their friends. Someone could love their brother or their sister and be loved by their siblings, but still feel incomplete because they don't have a partner. And I want to remind people that you need to value all of those forms of

love as much as romantic love. Stop putting this hierarchy

on love. Stop rating love on a scale of romantic love is the best. Family love is second, kid's love is fifth. That's what's ruining love in our lives. I think people don't realize how much love they already have have and by the way, that will probably help you find romantic love. Whereas when you walk around thinking I don't have love in my life, well, guess what, that's all you're gonna.

just like her. So there's a beauty in that too. I think about it the other way around. If you love your kid, you have to love their friends, because if you don't love their friends, your kid is surrounded by friends who don't have love. And if you love your kid and you love their friends, you have to love their school because if you don't care about the school they go to, your kid is going to become

like the school makes them. So if you love your kid and you love their friends and you care about their school, you got to care about the city they grow up in because what they see on the streets is what they're going to repeat. And then if you care about your kid and you care about their friends, and you care about the school and you care about the city, you got to care about the country they grow up in because the leaders they see are the

people they're following. So if you actually care about your kid, you have to care about the world because your kid is growing up in that world. And so I think people don't realize. They go, oh, I'm caring about my kids. But if you just care about your kids, you don't really get them anywhere because they're growing up in the world that you hate. And that's not the world you want to create. And that's why I think so many people today are realizing it does matter who the leaders are.

It does matter what they see on TV. It does matter who's represented. It does matter that people of color get a chance to have exec positions and leadership positions. It does matter that people have represented effectively on screen and off screen. It does matter that women are in boardrooms and are CEOs. All of this matters because your kid's going to grow up in that world. It's not good enough to say I love my kid, I care about them, and because I just take care of them,

everything's going to be okay. Now, I'm not saying everyone has the capacity to take care of everything, but the mom showing up at school to make sure the kids

have support, that's making an impact. Right the parent who's coaching their kid in Little League, that's making an impact. The fact that I get to try and show love to the world is making an impact in my own way. So to me, it's all connected. I can't really break it apart. If that makes sense. Let's take a short to hear from some of our sponsors, then we'll get right back into it. I hope you learned about some of our incredible partners. Let's jump by kid.

how it's meant to feel. It's hard because it's good for me. So anything that is good for my body and good for my mind is hard to do right now, but it bears benefits afterwards. And anything that is not great for me to do right now, it's going to be easy, but it's going to create lots of pain afterwards. And that reminder to me allows me to recognize it's okay. It's hard because it's good for me, So I turn

to that when it's a bigger thing in life. A mantra that I love is this only makes the story better. Whenever I fail, or whenever I lose, or whenever something goes wrong, I always say to myself, this only makes the story better. Because if you've failed, you've fallen, you've

made mistakes, you're a human. It's more relatable when you tell your story one day, more people will connect to you, whereas if your story was just win off to win, off to win, off to win, you're unrelatable, and so it only makes the story better.

whatever way it is that got him kighly. You know, for you when you think of of like dating apps and the way that people try to meet one another, now, how much better do you.

mile radius of where they grew up. So your friend knew them, your brother knew them, your family knew them, the person down the street knew them. Someone knew them, and that's how you met them. Today, people are getting married to people from different cities, different countries, different cultures, and that comes with a set of challenges. Not that it's bad, It just requires more maturity, It requires more

openness and wisdom. And so what I think we need to do is we need to be really clear about the values and vision of the relationship we want, because that hasn't changed. You could have married the person next door twenty five years ago and they could have been abusive, They could have been a narcissist. They probably were, and we just didn't think about it because people got arranged marriages and they didn't talk about it. It wasn't public knowledge.

Just because you married the person next door doesn't mean they were right for you. That wasn't a good thing either. So I think we also have this nostalgic view of oh, you know, the eyes crusted at the grocery store and I dropped a bag of potatoes and they came and picked them up with me, and oh my god, it was so romantic. It's like, yeah, but that person was a psycho, Like you didn't you didn't know that, right,

exactly right. It's like, well, you didn't. You didn't talk about that like part in the past that people didn't talk about this. Right, you have so many marriages that have physical abuse, domestic violence, verbal abuse going on background behind the scenes, no one even knows about it. But oh, we met them next door and they were my sister's friend, Like you know, it was awesome. Like we have this romantic view of the past, and I don't think that's

healthy either. We have to move with the times. So one of the things I built recently is I partnered up with match dot com to build a values based matching system. What this does is it allows you to do a short test we created where you get to learn your values, and everyone who joins that part of the app does the same. The goal for this was not to say I want you to find someone with

the same values. The goal for me was, now, at least you can see someone's values up front, and when you meet them, you can check whether their values are aligned. Because here's the thing, no one walks around with their values stuck on the top of their forehead. It takes years to figure someone's values out. But what if that becomes the thing you start talking about checking out when you meet someone and they say, oh, yeah, I love my family. Family's number one priority. Then you go to them,

when did you last speak to your mom? And they're like, I don't know, I haven't spoken to it for two years. It's like, all right, this person's not in alignment. Someone says to you, oh yeah, yeah, I'm ambitious, I love I love work, and then you go, all right, but what are you building right now? And they're like, I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out right. It's like you can very quickly when you talk about values, figure out whether someone is compatible for you and whether

they whether you're attracted them and excited about them. And so to me, I'm more interested in making people clear about their vision and values and that will make dating easier because that narrows the pool, that makes the choice easier, rather than if you're just basing it on looks, or

if you're just basing it on a clever little caption or a funny thing they said about themselves. I mean, now you can just get chat GPT to write the funniest thing, and everyone's a comedian now, you know. It's like it's not hard to fake it. And so I think we have to look deeper to find a relationship that's going to last longer. We have to look beyond looks to find a relationship that will last when the

looks fade. We gotta look so much more at someone's heart than just how interesting they look on a page. And that only happens when you talk about vision and values.

high school picture. Haha, right, And I think it's because of the story you shared on Instagram about it though, all the things people told you you couldn't do, all the things people said you couldn't be, And it seems now that you are living in your purpose, and that purpose is a tree that's deeply rooted with a lot of branches. For people watching this show, Jay, how will they truly know that what they're doing, what they're pouring into, is them living in their purpose.

the next thing and collect everything from there. And one day, after you've done enough collecting, you're going to start connecting the dots. So my first ever job was I used to deliver newspapers in my area. All my friends who also deliver newspapers, they used to throw them on the train tracks. They never delivered them, so the guy who owned the newspaper company gave me more streets. So what did I learn? I learned, when you do a good job,

you get rewarded. My next job was I worked at Morrison's. Morrison's is our walmart, like a grocery store. I used to stack shelves, I used to bring in palettes. I worked back of house. It was a hard job. I learned that not always just working hard leads to great rewards.

my purpose because I just connected all of that. Everything I'm living today is as much management as it is Monk,

as it is Morrison's, as it is paper delivery. It's all of those things. And people think, no, no, no, there's one job that's going to be my purpose. Everything you do today, everything all of you do today, is this beautiful harmony and synergy of all the experiences you've had. That's what purpose is. And so purpose is not about finding the perfect job or the perfect title or the perfect thing. It's about just collecting experiences, collecting people, and then connecting it.

terrible verses, like you know, but they stuck it out. Yeah, right, Like if you think about the amount of rappers that have terrible verses that have hit songs, but when you hear their bars, you're like, how did you make it? But they stuck around so consistency. Like what's that famous quote like hard work meets talent when talent doesn't work hard like that. It's the oldest quote in the book, but it's so true. So for me, I would say that I was so much of it was nurture. So

much it was nurture. My parents were really scared I was going to be a shy kid, so they forced me to go to public speaking drama school when I was eleven years old. I hated it, but I went for seven years. And when I walked out there, I didn't know what to talk about. But I knew I had skills, but I didn't have something to talk about. But then when I became a monk or I had something to talk about. So I found the passion with the skills. Because skills aren't good enough, what are you

going to do with it? And so I really believe in people nurturing their abilities and people investing in their abilities, and people realizing that it's possible for them. Is it possible for me to be a basketball player a football player?

you're a singer, but there's some singers who can't sing that well too, So you know, it's like there's a lot of careers where sports is probably the one that you just can't mesh around with, right, But then you get people like Alan Iverson, Like you know, you get a few players who don't really fit the bill, and that's exception. They're not the rule. They're the exception where they don't have the physicality, but they're just talented. So

I agree. I think sports is one of those things you can't break into if you don't have something you're born with. But of other things, there's not many things that feel the same way as sports.

I was just about getting steady in my job. I was going to get married to my wife, and I went, this isn't my purpose. I'm going to leave. That was a pivot. Started making videos. When I started making videos, I made these four minute videos. They went viral. I wanted to launch a podcast, and every podcast company said, don't do a podcast. People want to listen to you for four minutes. No one wants to listen to you for an hour. So I did it. That was a pivot.

Then I had a hit podcast. I wanted to write a book. Fourteen out of seventeen publishers said, don't call it. Think like a monk. No one wants to think like a monk. I wrote the book anyway. That was a pivot. Then I wanted to go. So it's like my life has just been full of pivots. I actually think all I care about is pivots. I don't actually want to be ever not pivoting, because that's what we all have to do. And I think the longer you take to pivot,

the harder it gets. There's a beautiful quote I read the other day that I love, and it says the longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to get back home. And so actually, the more you pivot, because I started pivoting when I became a monk at twenty one, twenty two years old. Because I've pivoted that early, I've got so comfortable pivoting. So I would encourage everyone to not be scared of the pivot, because the pivot becomes the platform that creates the next

moment of your purpose. Whereas if you stay where you are, that's what kind of crushes everything, and you get more scared to move the more years go by. And so I just I just keep pivoting even now, like you know, we're trying to do I mean, we've been talking about it. We're doing TV and film, we're doing production, we're doing all this stuff. And in one sense, someone said, well, Jay, what qualification do you have. Oh, I just got to

keep pivoting. Life's full of pivots, and I've learned that when I look back at my life, the best decisions I made were pivots. They weren't staying in the same place. That was never the good decision. So to answer your question, yeah, I've got a million pivots, and I hope there's a million more that surprise everyone. And I'm just collecting experiences. You know, today I get to see it with you guys, Like, how dope is this? Like, you know, I get to see with I get to sit with all of you

from this world. I was laughing at my life. I was like you were talking about it, like I was in Bad Boys, like a year ago, sitting here with you guys today. Yesterday I was with Carmelo Anthony. Then I was with a mindfulness expert, then my monk teachers coming into La to live with me for two weeks on Sunday. Now my life is just made up of

me collecting the random. And I want to die having just had these beautiful exchanges, meaningful exchanges with people that I maybe would never have crossed paths with or because I was trying to help people. How beautiful is that? Why would I say no to having the opportunity to have this rich life of experiences? And I think when you get lost in your cocoon and your echo chamber and your little world which we all do, you miss out on the joy that comes from you know. I

remember when Ryan. Ryan realized that I listened to the game, and that was like a big moment for him, and it was like and it was like I was like, yeah, Like all we did growing up in London was listened to American rap and hip hop. That's all we did. And you wouldn't know that from the way we dress, the way we look, from where we come from. But when you can find commonalities and similarities, you know, the the black Monk, Like who would have known? You know,

it's like, hey, it's official. Now away from this.

like the idea of being monks. Like that is the I love that. That's what makes life people I actually.

know you mentioned commonalities. I'm excited with working on something now. I'm excited about continuing to move forward, and that I do have one last question. I have like a million of them, but we'll talk about them off air one day.

You know, you mentioned pivoting, that your entire life has been a pivot, and when you decide that you're gonna dedicate your life and to the monastic lifestyle, that's a that's a forever change, and you had to move out of there to move into something else that continue to.

in the moment. More often than not, it will feel like a failure in the moment, But when you look back, you'll see it as a pivot, because what you realize is is that if you keep seeing it as a failure, you'll keep failing. And when I left the monastery and felt like a failure, which I did, I realized that at one point that mindset didn't serve me anymore. There was only so much I could feel sorry for myself.

There's only so much I could pity myself. There's only so much I could feel like I wish I was still there, and I had to own my life and take responsibility and say, what did I love about it? I love the fact that I got to study wisdom and share it. I love the fact that we woke up early and we meditated. I love the fact that we had a routine that made me feel good. Guess so I can do that. Well, now I can still do that, I can still build that into my life.

That's why I wrote the book Think like a monk, not live like a monk, because I'm not living like a monk anymore, but I'm still thinking like one. So to me, it's all about how you label it. And chances are you will always label the end of something as a failure because again, society has conditioned you to believe that ending something or leaving something incomplete is a failure. So you will, in the moment always think it's a failure. But the quicker you realize it to pivot, the more

you move towards your purpose. And so I would just encourage anyone to say, if something's no longer serving you,

if something's no longer fulfilling you, if you've tried everything you possibly can and you can't save, fix, or solve this thing, let it be. You will feel like a failure, expect it, and then pivot. Allow yourself to feel like a failure, and then pivot.

There's very few places in the world that we go into anymore where you feel connected to someone before you walk into the room. Now you can walk in and the person next to you as a favorite episode, you have a favorite episode. The energy is going to be electric and I'm going to be sharing wisdom and insights that we haven't before. I think there's something special about memories that are made in person. In New York, we're going to be at the Theater at MSG, so that's

going to be incredible. In LA we're at the Greek Theater, which is beautiful. Then we're going Chicago, Dallas, Florida, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Colorado, Philadelphia. You know. So we're doing fifteen cities and you can go to Jay Shetty Dop Me Forward Slash Tour and you'll find all the day to all the tickets, and I hope people will come out and leave with a connection with other people. That's my goal I think we're all looking for. I'm hoping people come there and leave

with the date right. Like it's like you see someone you like. They care about the same stuff you do. So you know how rare it is to go to a place where people care about the same thing you do. They're listening to the same show. You can leave it the day, you can leave it. The proposal.

outside man. So best of luck on the tour. Can't wait to work with you further.

and you know, reflect on stuff. And you know, I mean, I was blown away around by your hospitality, your kindness when I came out to the game to meet you. All the zoom calls we've had, I've really been humbled by how grounded and humble you are. Like it is just it's so rare in this world to meet someone who's operating at the top of their game, but is willing to make everyone else feel like a star. And

you do that. Watching you in your element of like literally being on TV, jumping off in between me and you having like deep conversations on the sideline, jumping back on and off like watching you do that, you're I mean, your magnificent in what you do, but I was more impressed by who you were in just connecting and so I want the world to know that you're even better in person. Congrats on the Emmy nomination. You deserve it,

you deserve to win it. And on top of all of that, it's just great to be around great men and great people. I think being around great men is something a lot of men need right now. And it's amazing that all of you are setting such an awesome example of what men can aspire to do, especially men who want to be powerful, make an impact, but then have a deep and good heart as well. So thank you for the example you're setting for men.