Jay Shetty on Life, Love, and the Business of Podcasting

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0:02:01 [MUSIC]
0:02:05 >> Okay, what’s going on?
0:02:07 I am on vacation for the week.
0:02:09 I am in Zermatt.
0:02:10 Why am I in Zermatt?
0:02:11 Because I can be.
0:02:16 And that light at the end of the tunnel where my kids are no longer gonna be.
0:02:20 I’m so freaked out about all this data around 90% of the time you’re gonna spend
0:02:23 with your kids is before they’re 18 and my kids are barreling towards 18.
0:02:30 So I’m spending most of my disposable time and money on spending time with them.
0:02:32 Anyways, in place of our regular scheduled programming,
0:02:34 we’re sharing a conversation with Jay Shetty,
0:02:39 the host of the world’s number one mental health podcast on purpose.
0:02:44 I found Jay to be really nice and soulful in what you would expect from someone who
0:02:46 has the number one podcast on mental health.
0:02:49 We discussed with Jay his journey from monk to media mogul.
0:02:53 The business of podcasting and the key to personal growth and success.
0:02:57 So with that, here’s our conversation with Jay Shetty.
0:02:59 [MUSIC]
0:03:01 Jay, where does this podcast find you?
0:03:04 >> I’m at my home studio in LA.
0:03:06 >> That’s right, I have been there.
0:03:09 It’s like a little bird’s nest overlooking all of LA.
0:03:14 Something that people consistently ask me in an age of AI and digital is,
0:03:19 what is the key competence should young people be studying to find success in
0:03:20 economic security?
0:03:24 In my view, the only enduring skill is storytelling.
0:03:27 And I think of you as someone who has mastered storytelling.
0:03:31 I’d love to hear a little bit of the origin story around how you
0:03:33 developed your skills as a storyteller.
0:03:38 >> Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that before, I love that.
0:03:39 So I don’t disagree with you.
0:03:45 I think storytelling is such a powerful skill and such a powerful tool.
0:03:51 My origins of storytelling, I’d have to go back to,
0:03:54 wow, I’m really having to look for that.
0:03:57 >> I’ll help, you were a consultant, right?
0:03:59 >> Yeah, but it was long before that.
0:04:02 I think, yeah, I found it, I found it, I found it.
0:04:04 Thank you for that prompt, I found it.
0:04:09 I was fascinated by autobiographies growing up.
0:04:14 So I spent my teens in the pages of Martin Luther King,
0:04:19 Malcolm X all the way through to David Beckham and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
0:04:24 And I found myself just completely captivated by the real life stories,
0:04:29 not just the medals, the awards, the successes, but the depression,
0:04:33 the doubts, the fears, the pain that people had gone through.
0:04:36 And to me, those stories moved me, they stayed with me.
0:04:41 I, even till this day, if someone tells me something’s based on a true story,
0:04:42 I want to watch it immediately.
0:04:46 And so to me, my love for storytelling and my love for stories
0:04:50 came from studying real life stories, true stories.
0:04:54 I was never attracted to fiction as I was to non-fiction.
0:04:59 I don’t, haven’t read much fiction in my life up until this point,
0:05:00 unless someone really recommends something.
0:05:05 And so my love for storytelling comes from hearing about the pains and
0:05:06 challenges people went through.
0:05:09 And there’s a famous quote that says,
0:05:13 I’ve never seen a strong person with an easy past.
0:05:19 And I really, truly believe that when we study the difficult, tumultuous,
0:05:23 challenging pasts of people we admire,
0:05:27 we in turn get the ability to build the strength, the resilience,
0:05:31 and the confidence through their journey.
0:05:34 You actually get to ask yourself, what would it look like?
0:05:38 What does life look like for someone who’s aspiring towards great things?
0:05:41 And going back to your point on what people are challenged by today,
0:05:44 I think we don’t study the stories of the greats anymore.
0:05:49 I don’t believe we dive into the pages of people who’ve come before us.
0:05:55 We’re looking at what everyone is doing today right now in the moment on social media.
0:06:01 We’re not looking at what they did 10, 20 years ago in their childhood bedroom,
0:06:06 or in an interaction with a family member or whatever it may have been
0:06:08 that is their defining moment.
0:06:12 So I think we get lost, enamored by where they are today,
0:06:14 where they live, what they drive, what they do.
0:06:18 But you don’t see the foundations of how they got there.
0:06:22 Was there a moment, an aha moment when you realized that you were good at it
0:06:25 and that you might be able to make a living at it?
0:06:31 I enjoyed it when I started speaking at colleges
0:06:35 and speaking to small groups in London.
0:06:37 I realized that I really enjoyed it.
0:06:40 I really was fulfilled by it.
0:06:43 But to me, it felt like something I would have to do on the weekends and evenings
0:06:50 because I didn’t know anyone in the world who could make a living off of it personally.
0:06:53 So I really believed that I would have to work a real day job,
0:06:55 being a consultant at the time.
0:06:58 And on top of that, I would do this on the evenings and weekends
0:07:00 because it’s what fulfilled me,
0:07:03 especially because what I would talk about was eastern wisdom,
0:07:07 which at the time especially was extremely niche, very small.
0:07:11 Even till this day, I think it’s still making its waves into the mainstream.
0:07:16 But eastern wisdom was something that was not high demand.
0:07:20 And so I was very much ready and set for the life
0:07:24 that I would work my day job that paid the bills.
0:07:27 And on the evenings and weekends, I would do something that was meaningful to me.
0:07:32 It was only when I made my first set of videos.
0:07:38 And my hope was I was doing events where maybe 5, 10, 20 people would show up.
0:07:43 And I was thinking, “Wow, if I did this video and maybe 100 people would be affected by it,
0:07:45 how amazing would that be?”
0:07:49 And it was only when my first four videos, when shared by The Huffington Post,
0:07:54 did something like 250 million views across platforms,
0:07:57 did I really believe that there was some momentum behind the message?
0:08:01 But at one point in my life, I had roughly 250 million views
0:08:03 and I was four months away from being broke.
0:08:07 So it took me a long time to realize that there was something real here.
0:08:10 And I think a big part of that is because I just never knew anyone
0:08:17 who had built a career out of sharing wisdom, telling stories and sharing insights.
0:08:20 I didn’t know anyone in my personal life.
0:08:22 And what was the first medium where you monetized it?
0:08:24 Was it books, videos, podcasts?
0:08:27 Like, give us the universe of Shetty.
0:08:32 Like, how have you figured out how you built a small, what feels like a small media empire?
0:08:34 Like, where, what is the flywheel here?
0:08:36 What do you do for awareness?
0:08:42 What do you do for, you know, academic heft or intellectual heft?
0:08:43 And how do you monetize it all?
0:08:48 Yeah, so I made videos for two years before I could actually monetize them online
0:08:52 because I started primarily on Facebook.
0:08:56 My videos were posted to YouTube at the time, but we didn’t have ads turned on.
0:08:58 And then I was working for the Huffington Post.
0:09:02 So I was a salary employee while making content for their platforms.
0:09:06 And then when I left and I was making content for my own platforms,
0:09:09 Facebook didn’t allow you to monetize until 2018.
0:09:12 And I started making videos in 2016 or something like that.
0:09:18 And so those first two years, I was just making videos because it was what I loved doing.
0:09:21 It’s what I enjoyed. It’s what was so meaningful.
0:09:26 And 2018, that shifted when Facebook was able to build their monetization.
0:09:31 And so that became a very early form of monetization, of storytelling.
0:09:34 And that was videos I was creating anyway.
0:09:38 It was amazing. We were making videos that were getting hundreds of millions of views at the time.
0:09:42 It’s really, really a special time in connecting with so many people.
0:09:47 At the same time, I was learning from my audience what they wanted from me.
0:09:52 And what I found was that a lot of people wanted coaching and meditations and insights.
0:09:56 And they wanted to learn these practices.
0:09:57 And so two things came from that.
0:10:01 One was we launched my Genius app and my Genius community,
0:10:05 which was a membership platform, a membership platform that exists today,
0:10:08 seven years on since we launched it,
0:10:15 where every single week I’m live wherever I am in the world for 40 minutes teaching a workshop.
0:10:18 So I was just in Mexico for a friend’s weekend this weekend.
0:10:20 And I’m live on the channel.
0:10:24 And this week I’ll be in LA and I’m live on the channel, wherever I’m in the world.
0:10:27 I’ll be live 52 weeks a year.
0:10:31 And we found that to just build an amazing connection with my community.
0:10:35 And it was built on the three practices that I believe are needed for transformation.
0:10:39 So there’s coaching, consistency and community.
0:10:43 I believe that if you want to change an area of your life, you need all three.
0:10:46 And most of us are trying to change our life with just one.
0:10:49 So if you have coaching, it means you know what to do.
0:10:52 But if you don’t have consistency, you don’t know how to repeat it.
0:10:57 And if you don’t have community, you won’t be inspired and motivated to keep going.
0:11:01 If you only have community, you have lots of people around you that want to get there.
0:11:04 But you don’t have coaching, you don’t know where you’re going.
0:11:07 And if you don’t have consistency, you don’t have the habit building.
0:11:12 And so Genius, my app was built around coaching, consistency and community.
0:11:16 And we’ve had thousands of members from over 140 countries in the world
0:11:19 that are members of that platform.
0:11:20 And then I saw the value in meditation.
0:11:25 And I was getting a lot of mentions from a lot of friends of mine
0:11:29 that at the same time, 2016, 2018, around those times,
0:11:31 there was this app that was having this massive impact.
0:11:33 It was called Calm.
0:11:35 Of course, everyone knows it now.
0:11:38 And a lot of my friends were telling me about Calm.
0:11:42 And a lot of other people were telling the founders of Calm about me and my work.
0:11:44 And everyone kept telling us we should meet.
0:11:46 So I met with the founders of Calm.
0:11:50 I think probably the first time in 2018, somewhere like that,
0:11:54 with Michael and Alex, who went on to become very good friends.
0:12:00 And I love their vision of making meditation and mindfulness
0:12:03 available in the most accessible, relevant, practical ways.
0:12:06 So they have meditation stories read by Matthew McConaughey
0:12:10 or meditation series by LeBron James.
0:12:14 And so we built together something that they wanted to call the Daily J,
0:12:20 which is where people can listen to me for seven minutes every single day,
0:12:22 five days a week for the last three years.
0:12:27 And that program was around, you know, $42 a year for the subscription.
0:12:30 So that became an amazing, amazing investment in my time and energy,
0:12:35 where we scripted a unique meditation that last seven minutes was seven minutes
0:12:39 because we wanted to create something that you could do while washing the dishes,
0:12:42 doing the laundry, drying your clothes.
0:12:46 You could do it while packing your breakfast in the morning, whatever it was.
0:12:50 We wanted to create a meditation that you could practice on top of your already busy life.
0:12:54 And that’s had tens of millions of downloads now, that meditation series.
0:12:59 So I found myself partnering with amazing brands that I was proud to be a part of.
0:13:02 I found myself creating ventures like Genius.
0:13:07 And then, of course, as we went and built the podcast, which we launched in 2019,
0:13:09 that’s an interesting story in and of itself,
0:13:14 because I invested everything I had in 2018 to launch the podcast in 2019,
0:13:21 put all the money I had into production, you know, editing, all of that kind of stuff.
0:13:24 And for anyone who’s launched a podcast, you know,
0:13:27 you can’t monetize for the first six to 12 months
0:13:32 because you have to have a consistent record of downloads and data.
0:13:37 And so we didn’t start monetizing the podcast probably until late 2019, early 2020.
0:13:40 But that turned out to be one of the best investments in my life
0:13:42 because of the success of the podcast that we’ve had now.
0:13:48 So I looked at everything from partnerships, platforms, and all of it came from a place of passion.
0:13:54 I did the podcast because I had people in my life that I was coaching clients or friends
0:13:57 that I was having these amazing offline conversations with.
0:14:00 And I thought, how amazing would it be to have them online?
0:14:03 The CarMap was because I loved what they were building.
0:14:06 And I’m so grateful to be the Chief Purpose Officer of CarM.
0:14:08 And then Genius was a need.
0:14:10 Our audience was saying, Jay, I want you to coach me.
0:14:12 I want your insight in my life.
0:14:14 And so all of it was built around passions.
0:14:19 We got so many other offers for me to build everything from apps
0:14:23 that I didn’t want to build through to this field and that industry.
0:14:26 We said no to so many things because they weren’t things we were passionate about.
0:14:29 I think there were plenty more opportunities that we’ve said no to
0:14:31 than the ones we said yes to.
0:14:35 So you’re both in subscription and ad supported.
0:14:37 Do you have any advice?
0:14:41 I mean, we are constantly, it feels like every three or six months,
0:14:45 we toy with the idea of putting some, some or all of our content behind a paywall.
0:14:48 Because sometimes you read an ad and you think, I mean,
0:14:51 for example, we no longer do crypto ads because I read this ad.
0:14:54 And I think I don’t have the time to do diligence on this.
0:14:56 And I just don’t, it just doesn’t feel right.
0:15:01 And I actually enjoy some of the ad reads, but we always toy with the idea.
0:15:04 Wouldn’t it be nice to kind of go more artisanal?
0:15:06 I have a lot of respect for Sam Harris.
0:15:08 I know you’ve built a big subscription business.
0:15:13 Break down the pluses and the minuses in your view of kind of the ad supported model
0:15:14 and the subscription model.
0:15:16 And do you have a preference for one or the other?
0:15:22 I’d say that to me, when I look at anything, I have a three step checking system.
0:15:25 So whether we’re choosing an ad partner to come on our platform,
0:15:27 whether we’re looking at a partnership.
0:15:31 And it’s always been called ESM and the E stands for energy.
0:15:35 The first thing I look at is, do I think we’re energetically matched?
0:15:38 So when I met Michael Acton Smith and Alex, who founded calm,
0:15:40 I really liked those guys.
0:15:40 They’re great people.
0:15:43 And so if I can, I’m always trying to sense energy.
0:15:45 I loved it when you came into the studio.
0:15:46 I thought we hit it off.
0:15:48 I hope we can do lots more together.
0:15:51 I’m someone who likes to live in an energetic space.
0:15:53 The second is strategy.
0:15:57 Do I really believe now that we’ve passed through the gate of energy,
0:16:04 do I really believe that strategically this partner, this brand, this idea
0:16:06 whether it be a venture, is it strategically accurate?
0:16:08 Do we actually believe this has a plan?
0:16:10 Does it strategically make sense?
0:16:13 Does it have, do we understand the market?
0:16:14 Do we understand demand?
0:16:16 And I always do that second.
0:16:19 And that’s an important second gate for it to pass through.
0:16:21 And the M stands for money.
0:16:25 Finally, financially, does this stack up in terms of my investment in time,
0:16:29 in terms of what I believe our value is, that person’s value is,
0:16:31 are we aligned financially?
0:16:33 And so to me, ESM has always been my model.
0:16:37 And because I think in initial times, the energy would be great
0:16:39 and you just rush into a relationship.
0:16:42 And it’s almost like bad dating where like,
0:16:43 you’re like, oh, we energetically get along.
0:16:45 We should build something together.
0:16:47 And then, you know, three months down the line,
0:16:48 you realize it wasn’t a good fit.
0:16:53 And so ESM has protected me and helped me make better decisions,
0:16:54 not that I’ve made perfect decisions,
0:16:56 but it’s definitely been a supportive technique.
0:17:00 When I look at both of the methods you’ve talked about,
0:17:05 I love the fact that 99% of what I create is free.
0:17:07 So the podcast is free.
0:17:11 We post to Instagram every day for free.
0:17:14 We post to YouTube every week for free.
0:17:20 We, 99% of what we create on a yearly basis is absolutely free.
0:17:22 Now, like you said, there’s an ads space there.
0:17:24 Like we have ads on our podcast, of course,
0:17:28 but they’re brands that we choose very intentionally
0:17:31 and carefully through our research and the best we can.
0:17:35 And that to me, I love because my goal
0:17:37 was always making wisdom go viral.
0:17:42 How can we make wisdom accessible, relevant,
0:17:43 and practical to everyone?
0:17:44 That’s where my true heart is.
0:17:50 That’s what my joy is in knowing that someone in the middle
0:17:54 of a country that I’ve never visited can watch my video
0:17:55 and it can help them.
0:17:56 That makes my day.
0:17:57 Like that really fuels me.
0:18:00 At the same time, what I found is that there were people
0:18:04 who wanted to go deeper, who wanted to learn more,
0:18:05 who wanted more commitment,
0:18:08 the Genius app being a great membership platform.
0:18:12 We found that those were people who wanted to commit
0:18:15 an hour, two hours, three hours a week to do the work.
0:18:18 Now, in order to give them something that’s of value,
0:18:22 I also needed to put in more effort.
0:18:24 I also needed to be able to build a platform.
0:18:26 We have teams that are running all the behind the scenes.
0:18:29 So if you ask me which one I prefer,
0:18:31 the truth is I like both models.
0:18:35 I think entrepreneurs should be open to both models
0:18:38 because I think free is a great way to scale
0:18:41 and membership is a great way for depth.
0:18:43 And I value both scale and depth
0:18:45 because scale allows me to reach someone
0:18:47 who may never have a thought about wellness
0:18:52 and depth allows me to reach people as deeply as I want to take them.
0:18:55 And so to me, as someone who’s fascinated by both scale and depth,
0:18:59 I’m not excited about the fact that someone listens to one episode
0:19:00 and then never changes their life
0:19:04 because I don’t believe that you’re going to transform your whole life
0:19:06 without habits and community.
0:19:09 At the same time, I’m not someone who’s just inspired
0:19:11 by taking people on a long journey
0:19:14 and not reaching people in the corners of the world.
0:19:16 So my values are both scale and depth.
0:19:19 And I believe there was a TED talk a few years ago
0:19:21 that called it, I can’t remember who it was by,
0:19:23 but it was called mass intimacy.
0:19:26 So this idea of how do you scale an idea
0:19:29 but then have really intimate experiences with people?
0:19:31 So membership to me is intimacy
0:19:33 and social media and podcasting is scale.
0:19:36 And when you break that down further,
0:19:41 what we realized after running genius for what was it at that time,
0:19:45 probably like we were running genius for two to three years
0:19:49 and we found that people needed to become leaders.
0:19:52 So we launched my certification school
0:19:56 because we found that now people who’d been through the program,
0:19:57 they were saying, Jay, I want to be a part of this mission.
0:19:59 I want to help others.
0:20:00 I want to serve. I want to give back.
0:20:01 I want to be involved.
0:20:03 I don’t just want to be a student.
0:20:05 I want to be a teacher and a leader.
0:20:07 And so we built our certification platform
0:20:09 to help people actually develop the skills.
0:20:11 It’s a full 100 hour program.
0:20:14 So a lot of our development of products and services
0:20:17 has been based on listening to our community.
0:20:19 And I think that’s what I would be doing
0:20:21 when you’re making your decision
0:20:24 is if you’re hearing people say, Scott,
0:20:25 I really want a membership.
0:20:26 Like I want to learn more from you.
0:20:28 I want to have more access to you.
0:20:30 I don’t just want you talking to all of us.
0:20:33 I want you talking to a small group of us.
0:20:36 I think it’s listening to your audience and community
0:20:38 that makes us make amazing shifts.
0:20:40 So for us, everything we’ve developed
0:20:43 has been constantly, consciously listening intently
0:20:46 to what our audience wants, what they need,
0:20:47 how we can make it better.
0:20:50 And I think that’s the fun of being a creator there.
0:20:51 You’re not just building your vision.
0:20:53 You’re building the vision that your audience wants.
0:20:56 You’re also, I mean, you’re definitely,
0:20:57 you’re going, in my sense, or what I’ve read
0:20:58 is you’re going multi-channel.
0:21:00 That you’re actually taking your podcast on tour.
0:21:01 Is that correct?
0:21:03 That’s right. Yeah. I’m so excited.
0:21:06 It’s the first time we’ve ever taken the podcast on tour.
0:21:12 So two years ago, I went on a nearly 40 city world tour,
0:21:14 which was a one-man show led by myself.
0:21:17 But this time, I’m actually going to interview guests on stage.
0:21:21 And I just felt that the podcast is now, what, six years old?
0:21:25 And it felt like the right time to go out there.
0:21:26 And I was thinking, all these people are trusting us
0:21:28 with their ears every day.
0:21:30 And I was like, I want to meet the people
0:21:31 who make on purpose what it is.
0:21:33 I always say on my podcast,
0:21:35 “Hey, if you see me on the streets, come and say hi.
0:21:36 If you listen on purpose,
0:21:38 tell me that you listen to the podcast.”
0:21:39 And I get lots of people coming.
0:21:40 It’s nice, isn’t it?
0:21:41 Yeah, I get lots of people coming up to me.
0:21:43 So I thought, how awesome would it be
0:21:45 to actually travel, bring out guests
0:21:48 that people also are excited to see in the flesh?
0:21:50 I hope maybe you’ll come out to one of them
0:21:51 and be a guest for us.
0:21:52 That would be amazing.
0:21:55 And I think also giving people the opportunity
0:21:57 to ask me questions, ask the guest questions,
0:22:00 I think it’s a dynamic experience
0:22:02 that you don’t get to do on a podcast.
0:22:03 So I’m excited to take it on tour.
0:22:05 So we’re starting with North America,
0:22:07 and then hopefully we’ll take it across
0:22:08 different parts of the world as well.
0:22:11 It feels to me like podcasts saying,
0:22:12 I mean, the original guys,
0:22:14 the Mark Marins, the Alec Baldwin’s,
0:22:18 there were some kind of initial people in podcasting,
0:22:19 and Joe Rogan is endured,
0:22:22 but there’s a constant reshuffling.
0:22:23 I have noticed, for example,
0:22:26 I think Joe Rogan is about to be displaced,
0:22:30 either by Mel Robbins or a kid here named Stephen Bartlett.
0:22:32 There’s just a constant disruption
0:22:33 in the podcasting space.
0:22:36 And because I’m obsessed with affirmation of other people,
0:22:38 and I’m always feeling economically insecure,
0:22:40 I check the rankings every day,
0:22:43 and I can’t get over just how dynamic
0:22:44 the rankings are right now,
0:22:48 meaning that I would bet in the top 100 podcasts,
0:22:49 30 of them, and it feels like 50,
0:22:51 weren’t there six months ago,
0:22:53 which means 30 or 50 that were in the top 100
0:22:54 and are no longer there.
0:22:55 What are your observations?
0:22:57 I mean, I think people think of you
0:22:59 as a very spiritual guy on a podcast,
0:23:00 but you’re also a business person.
0:23:02 When you sit down with your team
0:23:03 and you think about the dynamics
0:23:04 of the business right now,
0:23:06 what do you see out there?
0:23:07 What do you think is shaking up the industry?
0:23:11 So, yeah, it’s a really interesting question,
0:23:12 and I love talking about these things,
0:23:17 and I really believe that talking just suddenly
0:23:18 to the point that you mentioned
0:23:20 about spirituality and business,
0:23:23 one of my favorite thoughts from Martin Luther King is,
0:23:27 those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves
0:23:28 as well as those who love war.
0:23:31 And so when I look at my strategic mind
0:23:32 and when I look at my business mind,
0:23:36 I’ve become extremely organized about spreading wisdom
0:23:38 because I believe that if I’m not,
0:23:40 this wouldn’t even exist.
0:23:41 I wouldn’t even be around today.
0:23:44 I started creating content nine years ago,
0:23:46 and the fact that we still exist
0:23:49 is only because we’ve had to be thoughtful
0:23:50 and mindful about how we build,
0:23:53 and I think mindfulness and strategy
0:23:55 are more aligned than people may think.
0:23:59 So, anyway, to answer your question more directly,
0:24:01 there’s a couple of things.
0:24:05 The first thing is when a lot of us started out,
0:24:06 I mean, I can’t speak to Joe Rogan
0:24:08 because there’s so many more years before me,
0:24:11 but when you look at my content journey on social media,
0:24:14 whether it’s Facebook where we have 30 million followers,
0:24:16 Instagram where we have 16 million followers,
0:24:18 TikTok where we have four and a half million followers,
0:24:22 the podcast where we do 100 million downloads,
0:24:25 hundreds of millions of downloads every year,
0:24:30 the differences is that it was all organic.
0:24:34 And what I mean by that is we never did any paid advertising.
0:24:37 And what I’ve noticed in the last six to 12 months
0:24:40 is a lot of the rise has come from paid models,
0:24:42 more strategic models,
0:24:45 the industry getting smarter and sharper,
0:24:47 giving people the ability to pay to play.
0:24:51 And so I’m noticing that a lot of the charts,
0:24:53 and for those of us that understand that well,
0:24:55 a lot of the charts aren’t necessarily accurate,
0:24:57 a lot of it’s become paid to play.
0:25:00 And so the charts are accurate and inaccurate
0:25:02 in that they’re incomplete
0:25:04 because there’s so much more to it behind the scenes.
0:25:08 So there are platforms now where you can pay money
0:25:11 based on however many episodes that you want to launch
0:25:12 that will boost your subscribers,
0:25:14 not artificially, they’re real people,
0:25:16 but it will boost you in the charts
0:25:18 because you just got more subscribers that week.
0:25:21 That doesn’t mean you actually got more listens than Joe Rogan,
0:25:22 just to give an example.
0:25:24 And so I think we have to be very careful
0:25:28 as creators when we’re watching those things.
0:25:31 And to me, the pay to play has changed the industry of podcasting.
0:25:35 I think the exclusive deals that now have gone
0:25:37 non-exclusive have changed the deal.
0:25:40 So none of the big platforms right now, Spotify, et cetera,
0:25:42 want to do exclusive deals again.
0:25:44 So they don’t want to do that either.
0:25:45 So that’s changed the market.
0:25:48 And the third thing that’s changed the market
0:25:52 is the incorporation of YouTube and video views.
0:25:56 So audio as an industry has only ever valued.
0:25:58 So when I came into podcasting,
0:26:00 we worked really hard on downloads
0:26:02 because that’s where the value was financially
0:26:04 from a business point of view.
0:26:06 But today, the shift is happening slowly.
0:26:08 It’s not happened yet.
0:26:10 But in the next 12 months, you’re going to see video views
0:26:13 being married to audio downloads
0:26:16 as part of valuing the strength of a podcast.
0:26:18 Hence, when you look at the success of Stephen,
0:26:21 who’s a friend and coming over for dinner tonight,
0:26:23 or Mel, who’s also a friend who’s been on the show,
0:26:27 like when you look at the success Stephen’s had on YouTube,
0:26:30 that value hasn’t even been accounted for yet.
0:26:33 And in the next 12 months, you’re going to see that
0:26:36 be accounted for in a really valuable way
0:26:38 from a financial business point of view.
0:26:39 So I think those are the three things,
0:26:42 pay to play, non-exclusivity,
0:26:46 which is really helpful for people to be on every platform
0:26:49 and gain the distribution that platforms weren’t allowing.
0:26:52 And then the third thing is the valuing of YouTube
0:26:55 as a big, big, big player.
0:26:57 And if I’m not mistaken,
0:27:00 the biggest consumption of podcasting happens on YouTube.
0:27:04 And so I think those three things have really shifted
0:27:06 up the industry where back in the day,
0:27:06 you didn’t have pay to play.
0:27:08 It was purely organic.
0:27:09 Platforms were exclusive.
0:27:13 So you had podcasts that weren’t competing for their rankings.
0:27:16 And thirdly, YouTube wasn’t included.
0:27:19 Not that it’s included in Apple or Spotify rankings,
0:27:21 but it wasn’t included from a business point of view.
0:27:22 We’ll be right back.
0:27:30 Support for the show comes from the FunRise Innovation Fund.
0:27:32 Think of the five biggest names in AI today.
0:27:34 How many of these companies do you own shares of?
0:27:35 Probably not many.
0:27:38 Maybe one, maybe two.
0:27:38 Why is that?
0:27:40 Because the open AI’s and anthropics of the world
0:27:41 are still private.
0:27:45 That means unless you’re an employee or a VC, you’re out of luck.
0:27:47 So it isn’t hard to see why venture capital
0:27:49 has been one of the most prized asset classes in the world.
0:27:51 But unless you’re worth eight or nine figures,
0:27:53 you likely don’t have access to these funds.
0:27:55 The FunRise Innovation Fund is different.
0:27:57 It’s already raised more than $150 million.
0:28:00 It holds a portfolio of pre-IPO tech companies
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0:28:08 Visit fundrise.com/proppg to check out
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0:28:21 Support for the show comes from Skims.
0:28:23 This is for the men listening right now.
0:28:25 There are endless products promising self-improvement,
0:28:28 but when was the last time you updated your underwear drawer?
0:28:30 Though the first thing you put on in the morning,
0:28:34 so you might as well get it right with Skims.
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0:28:51 I’ve tried Skims myself.
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0:29:25 Support for PropG comes from the NPR podcast Up First.
0:29:27 Compulsively reading, depressing, upsetting
0:29:30 and enraging news all day long does not feel good.
0:29:32 You don’t need to tell me that.
0:29:35 Oh my God, help me, Cal God take me away,
0:29:37 but it can be hard to find the right balance.
0:29:41 Between protecting your mental health and staying informed,
0:29:44 that’s where NPR’s podcast Up First comes in.
0:29:46 Up First covers the three most important stories
0:29:48 of the day in just 15 minutes so you can learn
0:29:50 what you need to know and then move on with your day.
0:29:53 From the current administration to business and the economy,
0:29:54 all the way to immigration policies.
0:29:57 Up First is the go-to daily habit for the news consumer
0:30:01 who wants to stay informed but is forever strapped for a time.
0:30:03 And every episode gives you what you need to be informed
0:30:05 without compromising your sanity.
0:30:08 I listened to a recent episode and I found it really crisp
0:30:10 and kind of gave me sort of an overview
0:30:12 or the cliff notes of the day.
0:30:15 And by the way, NPR, they just do a fantastic job
0:30:16 at almost everything they do.
0:30:19 The production quality is really top notch.
0:30:21 If you’re looking for more news and less noise,
0:30:25 you can listen to the Up First podcast from NPR today.
0:30:36 I want to kind of move more towards your domain expertise
0:30:37 and I’m going to start out,
0:30:38 I want to talk about a couple things.
0:30:40 I want to talk about anxiety and I want to talk about finding love.
0:30:43 And I’m going to, so just so you know,
0:30:44 my guests are nothing but a vehicle for me
0:30:46 to talk about myself.
0:30:47 So this is that part of the program.
0:30:51 I struggle with anger and depression.
0:30:53 I’ve been able to manage it without pharmaceuticals.
0:30:57 I do it through exercise, time with my boys, trying to eat clean.
0:31:01 I have a bunch of tricks to try and, you know,
0:31:04 or practices to keep me sort of even killed
0:31:06 and hating my life less and less every day.
0:31:09 But things will trigger me and I’ll go down a rabbit hole.
0:31:11 And that’s happened to me recently
0:31:13 since the election or since the inauguration.
0:31:16 And whether that those feelings are justified
0:31:18 or there’s something deeper,
0:31:22 I’ve really struggled with trying to disassociate or separate
0:31:23 or maintain some perspective
0:31:27 around what’s happened recently in the US.
0:31:29 And this isn’t a political statement.
0:31:31 I’m not saying that my anxiety is warranted
0:31:36 or in any way justifies or indicts what’s happening.
0:31:42 But I would, what advice would you give to me to say, okay, Scott?
0:31:44 And for me, meditation is like flossing.
0:31:45 I lie about it.
0:31:48 And that is when my hygienist says, do you floss?
0:31:50 I lie and I say yes.
0:31:51 I very rarely floss.
0:31:54 And when people ask me if I meditate, I lie and I say yes.
0:31:55 And the reality is I don’t.
0:31:57 I really don’t do a lot of meditation.
0:31:59 So given that I’m a newbie,
0:32:02 given that I’m struggling a little bit with anxiety,
0:32:05 given the state of the world, give me your best shot.
0:32:08 Like give me your download on, all right, Scott,
0:32:11 these are some best practices, some initial steps.
0:32:15 You should be taking to manage your anxiety.
0:32:21 First of all, Scott, I want to validate your anxiety by saying that
0:32:28 I’m not surprised that you feel the anxiety that you feel.
0:32:30 I think we’re living at a time.
0:32:32 I was reading an article that said,
0:32:40 we digest or consume more tragedy in 24 hours
0:32:43 than we used to do in our whole lifetime 25 years ago.
0:32:46 And if you think about that for a second,
0:32:51 the amount of news, information, negativity, noise,
0:32:54 notifications that a human consumes today
0:32:57 is not something we’ve upgraded to yet.
0:33:00 It’s not something that we’ve figured out yet.
0:33:02 And so anyone who’s listening right now,
0:33:04 which I think will be all of your audience
0:33:07 that feels anxiety about something in their life,
0:33:09 it’s because we’re so overexposed.
0:33:12 Me, you, and everyone, we’re all overexposed.
0:33:15 You know what’s happening halfway across the world
0:33:18 before maybe even someone who’s in that area,
0:33:21 in that vicinity, if you’re logged in and tuned in.
0:33:24 And so I think the challenge we’re having is
0:33:26 we are exposed to more negativity,
0:33:31 noise, news, notifications than we ever have in our lifetime.
0:33:33 Now, accepting that, and we have to accept that,
0:33:35 because I think if we don’t accept that,
0:33:36 we can get very judgmental.
0:33:39 We can get very harsh with ourselves.
0:33:40 We can get very critical with ourselves.
0:33:43 If we just think I’m weak, I’m not strong enough.
0:33:45 I’m not, you know, maybe there’s something wrong with me.
0:33:48 It’s like, no, no, no, some things have changed.
0:33:50 Things have shifted and they’ve shifted fast.
0:33:51 And you might even have missed it.
0:33:53 So what do we do with that?
0:33:54 I think it’s really important.
0:33:58 The first thing I’d say is before we even get into meditation
0:34:02 is we’ve got to be really careful with our digital diet.
0:34:07 If your digital diet means in every gap of your day,
0:34:11 you take out your phone and you scroll on TikTok or Instagram
0:34:13 and you allow yourself to discover
0:34:17 the latest piece of news around the world,
0:34:20 it’s literally like going to your refrigerator
0:34:23 or your snack cupboard and picking out a bag of chips
0:34:26 every single part of the day where you have a break.
0:34:28 Now, if you did that, if every single break you had,
0:34:31 you went and grabbed a fizzy soda, a Coke,
0:34:34 you went and grabbed a bag of chips.
0:34:37 If you went and grabbed an unhealthy snack, no wonder.
0:34:39 Your diet would be terrible.
0:34:42 You’d be highly inflamed and you’d have massive health issues.
0:34:44 But that’s what we’re doing to our mind.
0:34:48 And so the first step for me is being really clear about
0:34:51 where you get your news, how you get your news
0:34:53 and how often you get it.
0:34:55 That to me will solve half of our issues.
0:34:58 I don’t think people are curating
0:35:02 how they consume difficult information.
0:35:04 If you think about it, like if you were diagnosed,
0:35:09 one of my friends recently sadly had diagnosis of cancer,
0:35:12 when his doctor was telling him he had cancer,
0:35:15 the doctor would say to you, “Take a seat.
0:35:16 “I’ve got something to share with you.
0:35:17 “Do you mind coming in?”
0:35:20 They might even call you and say, “Hey, do you mind coming in?
0:35:21 “Take a seat.
0:35:23 “Hey, this is what’s going on.”
0:35:27 That would be the environment in which you consume
0:35:29 difficult information.
0:35:31 Now, not that all the information we consume
0:35:33 on a daily basis is about us.
0:35:35 But if you’re going, “Oh my gosh, I just heard
0:35:36 “that someone got shot down the road.”
0:35:40 And, “Oh my god, I just opened up the ring app
0:35:41 “and I know that someone got burgled
0:35:42 “like a mile away from me.”
0:35:45 And then, “Oh my gosh, there’s fires happening over here.”
0:35:47 And it’s, all of a sudden, you’re not informed.
0:35:48 You’re overwhelmed.
0:35:52 And so I would really ask people to differentiate
0:35:56 between what is your definition of being informed
0:35:58 and what are the newsletters you follow,
0:35:59 what are the news accounts you follow,
0:36:01 how often do you look at it,
0:36:04 and that digital diet has to become everything.
0:36:06 Because otherwise, your anxiety is going to be
0:36:07 constantly triggered because, by the way,
0:36:10 these platforms are told to do that.
0:36:12 They know that they’ve got to have breaking news
0:36:13 every moment.
0:36:16 And I know so many people who just have a news channel on
0:36:18 in the background of living their day.
0:36:21 No wonder you’ve got all of this anxiety
0:36:23 just seeping in moment to moment.
0:36:27 Studies show we have 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day.
0:36:32 And 80% of those are negative
0:36:34 and 80% of those are repetitive.
0:36:38 So you’re not just having lots of different negative thoughts.
0:36:41 You’re having the same negative thought again
0:36:43 and again and again,
0:36:45 which means you can disrupt that pattern,
0:36:47 which means you can change it.
0:36:48 So how do we do it?
0:36:51 You were saying you struggle with meditation,
0:36:54 and I could give you loads of great meditation advice,
0:36:55 and here’s the thing, Scott,
0:36:57 until I lived with you for seven days,
0:36:58 maybe 30,
0:37:00 and sat next to you every single day
0:37:02 and meditated with you,
0:37:04 chances are it would be hard
0:37:06 for you to truly internalize it.
0:37:07 Because that’s the kind of pattern shift
0:37:09 that your life would require.
0:37:12 So, or anyone’s life would require.
0:37:14 So what I’m going to say is this,
0:37:17 you can’t control 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day.
0:37:18 You might not even be able to meditate
0:37:19 for 10 minutes a day,
0:37:21 but here’s what I want you to do.
0:37:24 I want you to master the first thought
0:37:28 and the last thought of every day,
0:37:30 because usually what happens
0:37:32 is our first thought is repetitive
0:37:33 and our last thought is repetitive.
0:37:34 Think about it.
0:37:36 You go to sleep and you say to yourself,
0:37:38 “I’m so tired.”
0:37:39 You wake up in the morning
0:37:40 and the first thing you say to yourself is,
0:37:42 “I’m so tired.”
0:37:44 You somehow make it through to 9 a.m.
0:37:45 to get your morning coffee
0:37:47 and you’re thinking, “I’m exhausted.”
0:37:48 Then you get to 12 noon
0:37:49 and you’re thinking,
0:37:50 “Well, lunch is going to be a bit late.
0:37:51 I’ve got a couple of meetings.
0:37:53 I’m exhausted.”
0:37:55 And now it makes it at 6 p.m.
0:37:56 You’re like, “I’m so tired,
0:37:57 but I’ve got to work a bit.”
0:38:00 And somehow at 10.37 p.m.,
0:38:02 you get the courage to click next episode
0:38:03 and watch another three hours
0:38:04 of your favorite show
0:38:05 and the cycle goes again.
0:38:08 So we’re used to repeating the thought,
0:38:10 “I’m so tired.”
0:38:11 And that thought’s useless.
0:38:14 It doesn’t help because we’re not making it useful.
0:38:17 So how do we master the first and last thought of the day?
0:38:19 You set an alarm at night
0:38:21 to wake up in the morning.
0:38:23 You don’t set an alarm in the morning.
0:38:24 Right? You don’t say,
0:38:25 “I’m going to wake up at 7.30.”
0:38:27 And when I wake up at 7.30 in the morning,
0:38:28 I have it on my alarm.
0:38:29 You go the night before,
0:38:31 “I want to wake up at 6 a.m. tomorrow.
0:38:32 Let me set my alarm.”
0:38:35 Let me set the mindset
0:38:37 I want to wake up with tonight.
0:38:39 What is the coding
0:38:41 that I’m going to put into my brain,
0:38:42 into my mind?
0:38:44 I am going to wake up
0:38:47 rejuvenated, rested, and fueled.
0:38:51 I am waking up feeling rested,
0:38:52 feeling calm,
0:38:56 and not being distracted from my phone.
0:38:59 What is it that you want to program yourself to do?
0:39:01 You’ll find that if you do that intentionally,
0:39:04 of course, if you ideally sleep at a decent time,
0:39:05 you’ll wake up in the morning,
0:39:08 and you’ll find that if you plan to that thought deep enough,
0:39:09 it will be the first thought of the day.
0:39:10 And all of a sudden,
0:39:12 you won’t retrieve your phone
0:39:13 and allow the news, negativity,
0:39:15 and notifications, and the noise to come in.
0:39:16 And you’ll say, “You know what?
0:39:17 I’m going to go on a little walk,
0:39:19 get some sunlight,
0:39:21 go and take my morning coffee,
0:39:23 what morning tea, whatever it is for you.
0:39:25 And yeah, in 30 minutes, I’ll look at my phone.
0:39:26 And by the way, I won’t just look at my phone.
0:39:29 I know the newsletter I’m going to look at
0:39:30 or the page I’m going to look at.
0:39:33 So I would encourage you
0:39:35 to master your first and last thought of the day
0:39:38 as a preliminary practice to meditation,
0:39:40 because to me,
0:39:43 those thoughts are the ones that are repeated
0:39:46 and meditation ultimately is a repeated thought.
0:39:47 And so that’s where I would start.
0:39:50 And I would have never gotten there on my own.
0:39:51 This is virtue signaling,
0:39:52 but I’ll do it anyways.
0:39:54 I’m finally, I’m older than you.
0:39:54 I’m at a point in my life
0:39:57 where I want to catch up from all that I’ve taken
0:39:59 and I’m starting to give away my money.
0:40:01 And it’s something I find really rewarding,
0:40:04 but I want to be intentional and purposeful about it.
0:40:06 And I met with someone who was so insightful around giving,
0:40:08 and they said, “What are you passionate about?”
0:40:11 And my passion is helping struggling young men.
0:40:13 Like, well, what would you do for them if you could do,
0:40:15 if you had a group of young men
0:40:17 and you wanted to do something for them,
0:40:18 what would you do?
0:40:18 What would you do?
0:40:20 And I said, “Well, number three in reverse order,
0:40:23 I’d want more male involvement in their life.”
0:40:25 And that’s, you know, you can solve that.
0:40:28 Big brothers, there’s some stuff that’s more complicated,
0:40:32 ranging from family court or different types of legislation.
0:40:35 Number two, more economic opportunities.
0:40:36 So you can think of things.
0:40:38 You can think of legislation or vocational programming.
0:40:41 But the thing I would want to do for young men,
0:40:42 and my question to you,
0:40:46 is if I could give anything to a lot of young men,
0:40:50 it’s that one in three young men are in a relationship,
0:40:53 and two in three women under the age of 30 in a relationship.
0:40:55 And you think, “Well, that’s mathematically impossible.”
0:40:57 It’s because women are dating older,
0:41:02 because they want more economically and emotionally viable men.
0:41:05 And when I look back at the most important things in my life
0:41:08 as a young man, it was having the joy,
0:41:10 the love, the camaraderie, and quite frankly,
0:41:13 the guardrails of a romantic relationship.
0:41:16 It was just so important, you know,
0:41:18 to have someone who was crazy about me
0:41:21 and then not crazy about me to get my heart broken,
0:41:23 to learn resilience.
0:41:26 It’s just that partnership, saving for a house.
0:41:30 It was just so, more I think than money,
0:41:33 more than anything, it just shaped me as a man.
0:41:38 And so few men are finding this.
0:41:38 At a young age.
0:41:41 And you’ve written a lot about this,
0:41:47 but how could you advise a young man to be more successful
0:41:50 with respect to romantic relationships and finding love?
0:41:52 And I know that’s a really big,
0:41:54 I know we’re gonna need a bigger boat,
0:41:58 but are there any practices for a young man who thinks,
0:42:01 “I remember thinking, I didn’t have a girlfriend
0:42:03 ’til I was well into college.
0:42:05 I remember thinking I’d be the best boyfriend
0:42:07 if someone would just give me a shot.”
0:42:07 Right?
0:42:10 And I think there are literally millions of men out there
0:42:12 who are thinking the same thing.
0:42:13 Anyways, your thoughts.
0:42:16 That’s, yeah, it’s a huge question.
0:42:19 And I’m so glad that you’ve focused your life on this.
0:42:22 I was very fortunate enough in my younger years
0:42:26 to mentor a group of 20 young men in my spiritual community
0:42:28 who I’ve seen grow up,
0:42:33 probably mentor them for around 15 years now at this point.
0:42:36 And it’s been an incredible journey watching them,
0:42:40 become phenomenal young men, find love, settle down.
0:42:43 Some of them have started to have children now.
0:42:46 It’s been one of the most meaningful investments in my life
0:42:49 that I probably didn’t realize how deep it was gonna be then.
0:42:52 And these men are my younger brothers.
0:42:54 They’ve become very, very close friends.
0:42:56 So it’s something very close to my heart.
0:43:00 The first thing I’ll say when it comes to love and for young men,
0:43:03 which is probably counterintuitive
0:43:05 and probably one of the hardest things to train,
0:43:09 but I do believe it’s so valuable, is sense control.
0:43:11 Because sense control,
0:43:14 and this is what I was fortunate enough to learn in the monastery,
0:43:21 sense control is the greatest confidence booster and builder
0:43:24 that you’ll ever, ever have.
0:43:30 You can’t be a master of your senses and not be confident.
0:43:34 It’s just not possible because you’ve conquered the hardest thing.
0:43:38 You’ve built a relationship with the part of you
0:43:41 that pushes you and pulls you whenever it feels like it.
0:43:44 So how does a young man do that in today’s world
0:43:50 that’s bombarded by porn, bombarded by exposure to too many things,
0:43:54 too many sensory images, sounds, everything else?
0:43:55 How do you do that?
0:44:02 I think it’s really powerful when men can build up a healthy relationship
0:44:06 with spending time alone by themselves.
0:44:08 And I think that comes through doing something hard.
0:44:10 It’s not sitting alone with your thoughts.
0:44:12 It’s not sitting around where you are.
0:44:17 It’s picking up a sport, a habit, a practice, a workout regime,
0:44:19 whatever it is that you’re passionate about,
0:44:25 reading, going there and building a strength and commitment
0:44:27 by focusing on doing something hard.
0:44:28 When I say sense control,
0:44:31 I don’t mean every single sense of yours is mastered
0:44:32 and you never feel any urge.
0:44:35 I mean, how can you do something that’s truly hard?
0:44:38 How can you do something that’s truly challenging?
0:44:40 And how can you do something that’s measured?
0:44:42 How can you do something where it’s like,
0:44:43 “Okay, I’m black belt now.
0:44:44 I’m blue belt now.
0:44:45 I’m yellow belt now.”
0:44:46 How can you do something where it’s like,
0:44:49 “Okay, I’m able to play this pace of tennis.
0:44:52 I’m an amateur, I’m semi-pro, whatever it may be.”
0:44:57 I think taking on a challenge that can be measured is critical.
0:45:00 And I think taking on something younger is ideal.
0:45:02 I was very fortunate.
0:45:05 My parents were so scared that I was going to be so shy
0:45:07 and insecure growing up,
0:45:09 they forced me to go to public speaking school.
0:45:12 And so from the ages of 11 to 18 for seven years,
0:45:15 I took exams in public speaking.
0:45:17 I went to nine hours a week in public speaking training.
0:45:18 I went to drama school.
0:45:21 I did a ton of training at that time and it was hard.
0:45:22 I was terrible.
0:45:23 My friends would laugh at me.
0:45:24 It wasn’t cool to go to that.
0:45:26 And when I look at any success I have today,
0:45:29 it’s because of those seven years of working,
0:45:31 working really, really hard on a skill set
0:45:33 that I didn’t even know how I was going to use.
0:45:35 I didn’t know podcasting didn’t exist,
0:45:36 social media didn’t exist.
0:45:38 It wasn’t like it was a strategic investment.
0:45:40 It was just the idea that there was something
0:45:41 that I could do that was hard.
0:45:42 I didn’t enjoy going.
0:45:43 I was forced to go.
0:45:44 But there’s power in that.
0:45:46 So don’t resist something that’s forced.
0:45:47 That would be step one.
0:45:51 The second thing men can do for romantic love is
0:45:57 be really aware whether you like someone
0:46:00 because you just want to be liked.
0:46:02 I think a lot of young men, like you say,
0:46:03 they say they’re going to be a great boyfriend.
0:46:06 But it’s because they want to be a great boyfriend.
0:46:10 They want to be known as being a great boyfriend,
0:46:11 not being a great partner.
0:46:13 And I think that’s a big, big, big challenge
0:46:16 as to why young love is so hard.
0:46:20 Because we’re doing the right thing not to be a good person,
0:46:21 but because we want to be as seen
0:46:22 as the person who’s doing the right thing.
0:46:25 We want to be seen as the guy who does all the right stuff.
0:46:27 And you may realize three months from now,
0:46:29 you don’t even like that person that much.
0:46:31 And so I’d be really, really clear on,
0:46:35 am I doing this to be liked or do I actually like this person?
0:46:37 If I like this person, let me really invest in this.
0:46:39 Let me really be building something powerful here.
0:46:44 But let me not do this because I’m building my self-worth
0:46:47 off of someone else’s praise of me doing the gimmicky thing
0:46:49 because I think it’s going to make them like me.
0:46:52 That’s going to end up messing their life up
0:46:53 and messing my life up.
0:46:56 And the third thing I’d say in love is
0:47:10 be really conscious of how your past pain creates present problems.
0:47:15 And so reflect on where you’re hoping your partner,
0:47:17 I call it the gifts and gaps.
0:47:22 We’re often wanting our partner to fill the gaps our parent left.
0:47:26 Or to repeat the gifts that our parents gave.
0:47:28 Be really aware of those.
0:47:32 I’m not saying either is right or wrong or they can go either way.
0:47:36 But to be really, really conscious and aware of where they’re coming from
0:47:40 because what often ends up happening is we’ve ruined something great
0:47:42 because of something terrible in the past.
0:47:46 And it’s because we’re so unaware of what triggers we’re taking forward with us.
0:47:49 I mean, I could talk about this for hours, but those are three things I think about.
0:47:57 We’ll be right back.
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0:50:50 We’re back with more from Jay Shetty.
0:50:53 I love the way you think.
0:50:56 You kind of, you think in threes very much like a consultant
0:51:02 and give us your top-line thoughts on what you’ve learned with your partner
0:51:06 and the relationship advice you would provide or give to more men
0:51:12 who are in a relationship, a monogamous relationship.
0:51:16 One of the things that was really hard for me to get over, Scott, was
0:51:22 as someone who’s a, you know, someone who’s on stage, a public personality,
0:51:27 and I think men have this regardless of whether you have a public profile or not.
0:51:32 I think men, we want to be admired.
0:51:33 We want to be appreciated.
0:51:36 We want to be respected, especially by our partners.
0:51:40 And some men I know want to be celebrated, want to be adored,
0:51:43 want to be fanned over to some degree.
0:51:47 And I was really fortunate because
0:51:54 my wife, by her own admission, I would say isn’t my,
0:52:00 isn’t the number one fan of my success, but she is the number one fan of me.
0:52:02 And I think this is a really important point.
0:52:09 I had to learn through my wife to value myself based on who I was
0:52:14 and how I behaved, not what I achieved and what I killed and what I created.
0:52:18 And I think if it wasn’t for the way she loved me for that,
0:52:21 I think I would have been someone who measured my value
0:52:28 based on simply my success, my wins, and my accolades.
0:52:33 And so I would encourage people to say, is your partner here for you?
0:52:39 Because chances are they are, but we’re so wrapped up in wanting them to love us
0:52:40 for what we achieve and what we do.
0:52:42 I’ve had so many friends who are like, oh my God,
0:52:46 like I just don’t feel valued for what I’m building and what I’m creating.
0:52:50 I’m like, that may be the case, but what if you lost it all?
0:52:52 Would that mean you wouldn’t be valued now?
0:52:54 Is that how you want to be loved?
0:52:56 Do you want to be loved for that and unloved for not having that?
0:52:59 Or do you want to be valued for the qualities you have,
0:53:02 the characteristics you have, the values you live by?
0:53:06 So that was a big, big, big lesson for me that I learned through my wife,
0:53:09 not that she doesn’t love the podcast and the books and whatever.
0:53:15 She appreciates all of it, but it pales into insignificance and irrelevance
0:53:20 compared to the love and appreciation she has for me as the man I show up as.
0:53:24 And I think that’s made me value myself more highly and better than I would have before.
0:53:25 So that’s been huge.
0:53:34 Another thing that comes to mind as you ask that is if your partner is trying to change you,
0:53:40 help them understand how unlikely that is.
0:53:43 I find that a lot of men deal with this problem the most,
0:53:45 where their partner’s trying to change them.
0:53:49 And I’ll often get women in my audience that will say to me,
0:53:52 “I really want my husband to get into self-development and personal growth.
0:53:54 And I just don’t get out and get him into it.
0:53:55 And he won’t listen to me.
0:53:57 And I’m giving him all the books.
0:53:58 And J.I. sent him your podcast.
0:53:59 I’m like, “Oh, please don’t.
0:54:00 Please don’t send him my stuff.
0:54:02 I don’t want him to hate me for the rest of my life.”
0:54:05 And I get a lot of those questions of how do I do it?
0:54:09 And when I’m speaking to the women, I’ll always say to them, “Don’t do it.
0:54:11 Like, let him find its way to it.
0:54:13 Let him find something that’s natural to it.
0:54:16 Don’t send him my interview with the person you’re inspired by.
0:54:18 Send him my interview with the person he’s inspired by.
0:54:19 Maybe he loves athletes.
0:54:21 Maybe he loves musicians.
0:54:22 Maybe he loves Scott.
0:54:26 Like, that’s the conversation he needs to listen to, not X, Y, and Z that you love.
0:54:28 Stop trying to make him the version of you.
0:54:34 And I think for a lot of men, either we pretend to change or we promise to change.
0:54:37 Or we say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we go along with it.”
0:54:39 Rather than saying, “You know what? This is who I am.
0:54:42 I’m really going to struggle to be that version that you want me to be.”
0:54:45 The amount of times when I met my wife, I was so clear.
0:54:46 I was like, “This is who I am.
0:54:47 This is who I’m going to be.
0:54:48 This is what I value.
0:54:50 This is my purpose.
0:54:51 This is the guy I am.
0:54:54 I’m not the guy who wants to go to the movie theater every week.
0:54:56 I’m not the guy who wants to do X, Y, Z.
0:54:57 Like, this is who I am.”
0:55:00 And communicating that.
0:55:02 And then also hearing from her, who is she?
0:55:03 What does she want?
0:55:08 And then we learn this art where we’ve overused the word respect,
0:55:10 but we’ve actually undervalued what it means.
0:55:16 Respect means I don’t need you to value what I value,
0:55:18 but you respect what I value.
0:55:22 You allow me to live life the way I want to live it.
0:55:25 And I allow you to live life the way you want to live it,
0:55:28 because I respect your value.
0:55:30 But I don’t need you to change to be who I am.
0:55:33 So I think being really careful about being open about,
0:55:33 “This is who I am.
0:55:36 This is what I can realistically do.”
0:55:40 I’m not going to pretend and promise and overshare on this potential of,
0:55:41 “I’ll be there someday.”
0:55:42 “Oh, I’m getting there.”
0:55:43 “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m reading it.”
0:55:45 It’s kind of like what you said about meditation.
0:55:47 Like, what’s the point of lying?
0:55:48 What’s the point of pretending?
0:55:50 And as you said, I like threes,
0:55:53 and so I’ll give you one more, because why not?
0:56:05 My favorite one probably is letting my wife change.
0:56:09 I married, my wife and I met in our early 20s.
0:56:10 I was in my mid-20s.
0:56:12 You know, we’ve been married.
0:56:14 We’ve been together for 12 years, married for nine.
0:56:20 And I’ve been pretty much the same human through most of it.
0:56:21 I don’t think I’ve changed that much.
0:56:24 The scale of my life has changed and things like that.
0:56:28 But my priorities and the way I work, I’m pretty much very, very similar.
0:56:32 My wife has changed and lived so many different lives in the last 12 years.
0:56:39 And I feel like that’s the mistake a lot of us make
0:56:41 where we go, “Well, you didn’t care about this three years ago.
0:56:42 Why do you care about it now?
0:56:45 You didn’t want this seven years ago.
0:56:46 Why do you want it now?
0:56:48 You weren’t this person nine years ago.
0:56:50 How are you that person now?”
0:56:55 And I think the realization that, “Hey, the person you marry on your wedding day
0:56:59 is not the person that’s there at your 50th birthday.
0:57:02 And it’s not the person who’s there when you’re sick in hospital.
0:57:03 That person changes.”
0:57:04 And you probably will too.
0:57:09 So recognizing that they’re going to change, I’m going to change,
0:57:11 and I’m going to allow space for that.
0:57:12 Because guess what?
0:57:15 That’s what makes the relationship joyful.
0:57:16 That’s exciting.
0:57:18 And by the way, if I don’t find that exciting,
0:57:20 and I want to find someone that’s going to be the same,
0:57:23 I’m going to find someone who can probably be the same for seven years.
0:57:24 Right?
0:57:26 Divorce happens between the first five to seven years of marriage
0:57:28 and cycles every seven years.
0:57:31 Maybe someone can stay the same for five to seven years.
0:57:34 But even the cells in our body are changing during that time.
0:57:37 So maybe someone’s going to be a new person every seven years.
0:57:39 So maybe you’re going to leave that person, find another person.
0:57:42 Maybe you’ll find someone who stays the same for five to seven years.
0:57:44 But that person’s also going to become a new person.
0:57:46 So start getting real about the fact that
0:57:52 there is no consistency and stagnancy and remaining the same.
0:57:56 What remains the same is that you’ve lived that much life together.
0:57:59 My wife’s a different person today, but she’s the only person in the world
0:58:02 who’s experienced my trajectory with me as intimately.
0:58:06 That’s what I value so deeply about that consistency.
0:58:11 Kind of invokes that old adage that women want men to change
0:58:13 and men want women to stay the same.
0:58:21 Anyways, I have found that with a partner that they are forced to go through
0:58:24 to change their complexion and approach to life
0:58:28 because they take sometimes a disproportionate
0:58:31 unfair amount of responsibility around the kids.
0:58:32 But you’ve been very dense with your time.
0:58:34 I just have one more question.
0:58:35 You have a very public profile.
0:58:39 It’s impossible to have your profile and put yourself out there
0:58:44 is openly and is provocatively on issues this important
0:58:48 and without getting a lot of criticism.
0:58:50 How do you deal with criticism?
0:58:54 And what advice would you be in terms of a practice for how to handle?
0:58:56 Be thoughtful, right?
0:59:00 Anyone who is immune to criticism, I wouldn’t trust.
0:59:03 I’d be like, okay, I think that makes you a sociopath.
0:59:06 So how do you deal with criticism?
0:59:11 One thing I’ve learned just by observing and having the fortune
0:59:16 of coaching people who are far more successful, famous, and accomplished than I am
0:59:20 is that the closer you get to the top 1%,
0:59:23 the more likely you are to have 50% of people disagree with you.
0:59:27 So if you look at the most prominent positions in society,
0:59:33 you take the president, chances are close to 50% of the country disagrees with you, right?
0:59:36 So you look at the more someone gets into the top 1% athletes,
0:59:39 you look at athletes.
0:59:42 It’s like you look at Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
0:59:44 You get 50% on either side.
0:59:46 You get Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
0:59:48 You get 50% on either side.
0:59:52 Like it’s very hard to be the 1% of your industry
0:59:56 or the world in case of these people that I’m talking about
0:59:58 and not have 50% of people disagree with you.
1:00:03 So I think the first step is recognizing that the closer you get to the 1%,
1:00:06 the more chance it is that 50% of people are going to have an issue with you.
1:00:10 So I think everyone remembers as an early stage creator
1:00:12 when you kind of had 100,000 followers
1:00:15 and your comment section was La La Land, right?
1:00:18 You lived in this little bubble where everyone loved you.
1:00:19 Everyone said wonderful things.
1:00:22 Things were beautiful and then you got to a million followers
1:00:24 and then that changed proportionately
1:00:27 and then you got to 10 million and it changed and whatever else it may be.
1:00:28 So that’s the first thing.
1:00:31 We have to look at it realistically, statistically
1:00:35 and realize it’s not personal, it’s math.
1:00:36 That’s the first step.
1:00:42 The second thing is how can I take feedback without the sting?
1:00:49 And this is an art that I was really grateful to learn in the monastery
1:00:51 which was this, the quality of humility.
1:00:52 What does humility really mean?
1:00:57 Humility doesn’t mean I’m weak and I’m not good enough
1:00:58 and that’s low self-esteem.
1:01:06 Humility means I have the ability to extract that which is beneficial for me
1:01:10 and leave that which is hurtful and poisonous.
1:01:14 Can I actually have the ability to listen to something,
1:01:18 to consume something that may be really hurtful
1:01:24 but extract the minimal truth in it that may inspire me, that may make me better
1:01:29 and leave behind the part that was venomous or poisonous.
1:01:34 And I try and do that as much as I can when I see anything.
1:01:37 I’m always like where is the truth in that?
1:01:39 What can I take from that?
1:01:42 What is there about that that can actually improve my character from?
1:01:48 And let me leave behind the negativity, the venom, the envy.
1:01:52 Sure, I’m sure it’s covered in envy, ego, competition.
1:01:55 I’m sure it’s covered in all these things but the skill of humility
1:02:00 is the ability to leave all that stuff behind and extract and see if I can work on myself.
1:02:04 And the third thing is to
1:02:15 be really careful about having a group of people who truly know you,
1:02:19 who deeply know you, who intimately know you,
1:02:21 making sure that you’re not lonely at the top.
1:02:28 I’ve seen that for so many people, the cliche is true, people are lonely at the top
1:02:32 because they don’t make friends with people that go through similar things.
1:02:37 Most people who are at the top will make friends only with their childhood friends,
1:02:38 which is great, I love my childhood friends.
1:02:44 But my childhood friends can’t relate to what I go through at this stage in my life.
1:02:48 So I have to have friends in the similar industry in a similar space
1:02:52 to actually be able to share what we’re going through.
1:02:54 And if those people know me intimately,
1:02:59 those are also the people who can remind me of who I truly am, why I started, why I’m here.
1:03:03 And to me, that is the most powerful investment you can make.
1:03:06 The biggest mistake you can make is to think because you’re number one,
1:03:09 you don’t need anyone else around you.
1:03:13 And by the way, back in the day, 25 years ago,
1:03:14 people were pit against each other.
1:03:18 They were told, you can be the only successful black man in Hollywood.
1:03:21 You can be the only successful woman in this field.
1:03:22 People were told things like that.
1:03:30 And I think that naturally made people disconnect and not build friendships in their zone of genius.
1:03:35 So I would encourage people to make friends in their zone of genius and deep intimate friends
1:03:39 because chances are that’s the only person who knows what it feels like.
1:03:44 And so that’s how I think about it in those three areas again.
1:03:48 And by the way, my biggest takeaway on all of that is,
1:03:56 it’s so wonderful to be detached through criticism,
1:03:59 to praise and ego and your own height.
1:04:02 If it doesn’t offer any other value,
1:04:08 it offers the value to remind you that you do this only for the reason you do it for.
1:04:10 You get joy from the fact that you’re doing it because you believe in it.
1:04:14 And that from a very spiritual perspective,
1:04:17 you don’t get to take your fame with you.
1:04:18 You don’t get to take the money with you.
1:04:22 You don’t get to take the accolades with you.
1:04:24 And no one’s even going to remember any of that.
1:04:27 So the universe is just preparing you to be detached from things
1:04:29 that are going to be taken from you anyway.
1:04:32 So why not learn to be detached while they’re still here?
1:04:35 Rather than wait till the moment they’re all snatched away
1:04:40 and then try and grab a hold of them and scrap with them.
1:04:42 Why not embrace your own insignificance
1:04:45 before you truly become insignificant and irrelevant?
1:04:46 And so it gives you a glimpse of that.
1:04:50 It gives you a really beautiful spiritual ego death and glimpse of that,
1:04:53 which materially is the worst thing to go through
1:04:56 and spiritually is the most beautiful, fulfilling thing to go through.
1:04:58 Yeah, I like that.
1:05:00 Embrace your insignificance in a healthy way.
1:05:03 Jay Shetty is a global best-selling author, entrepreneur,
1:05:06 and the host of the world’s number one mental health podcast on purpose.
1:05:09 Born in London, Jay embarked on a transformative journey
1:05:12 as a Hindu monk before merging ancient wisdom with the digital world.
1:05:15 His podcast on purpose with Jay Shetty chops the charts
1:05:17 as one of the world’s leading podcasts
1:05:19 with over 35 million monthly downloads and features.
1:05:24 Influential gas, basically, you name it.
1:05:25 I won’t even go through all of these.
1:05:29 And he also has several best-selling books.
1:05:32 He joins us from his home in Los Angeles.
1:05:33 Jay, I really enjoyed this.
1:05:38 You’re sort of like entering into this dream-like state
1:05:39 when I listen to you.
1:05:42 I’m listening, but I just find a sense of calm
1:05:45 about the rhythm and the cadence.
1:05:47 You’re really a joy to listen to.
1:05:51 I appreciate your time and am really happy for all your success
1:05:53 and thank you, I think you deserve it.
1:05:56 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
1:05:58 Our intern is Dan Shalon.
1:06:00 Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
1:06:02 Thank you for listening to the PropG Pod
1:06:04 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:06:07 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercenome Mouse,
1:06:08 as read by George Hahn.
1:06:10 And please follow our PropG Markets Pod
1:06:12 wherever you get your pods
1:06:14 for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.
1:06:17 (upbeat music)
1:06:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]