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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s that, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey everyone, I m so excited because we re going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays.
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The Daily J is a daily series on Calm and it s meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress-free life.
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We dive into a range of topics and the best part is, each episode is only 7 minutes long, so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter how busy you are.
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As a dedicated part of the unpurposed community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I ll be playing a handpicked Daily J during each of my Friday podcasts.
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This week we re talking about your habits, and how to develop better daily routines.
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Of course, if you want to listen to the Daily J every day, you can subscribe to Calm.
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So go to calm.com forward slash j for 40% off your membership today.
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I would like to start off by asking you, Jay, about your journey.
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You were born in Great Britain, born and raised in London, and you were kind of leading a certain kind of life that went in a certain kind of direction, and then a transformation happened, and you ve decided to go on a spiritual journey for three years, if I m not mistaken.
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So maybe can you lead us through the whole process because it s really interesting to hear.
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Yeah, for sure.
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And I agree with you perfectly that when we share our journeys, it s only to give voice to everyone else s journey.
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And I always think one day that everyone should try and write about their lives, not because they want to have a best-selling book or they want it to sell across the world.
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But when you write about your lives, your family learns about you.
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Sometimes I think my parents have been through so much, but I wish they wrote about it because I want to learn about them.
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One of the things for me is I obviously born and raised in London, and I grew up in a society where success and achievement was seen as the metric of growth.
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That was the metric of happiness.
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It was how successful were you?
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How much money did you make?
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What kind of job did you have?
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What status did you have?
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That s the kind of culture I grew up in.
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And I often joke that growing up, I had three options.
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I could either be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure.
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Those were my three options because all my cousins and my family members were in medicine, they were pharmacists, they were in law.
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And so I grew up in that kind of culture and environment.
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And I saw myself as a young person always drawn to things like art and philosophy and psychology and the mind.
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Like I was fascinated by those things.
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I wasn t fascinated by science and math.
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I was more fascinated by history.
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And so I saw myself very early on being very different to the people around me.
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And I think that everyone who s listening right now, everyone can relate to that.
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That maybe when you were growing up, there was something that was unique about you.
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There was something different about you.
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And there was a path that you were being encouraged to do.
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So at my time, when I was growing up in London,
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the number one career was to be an investment banker.
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Everyone was aspiring to be an investment banker.
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This is before the crash, the Lehman Brothers and the recession in 2007.
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So this is before that.
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And so everyone in my circle, whenever we talk about someone in family, especially in the Indian culture, it would be very much like, oh, he s an investment banker.
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He makes this much money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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And I got to a point where I saw myself trying to move away from wanting to chase material success because I started looking around and I was seeing that people who had material success, even little amounts, they weren t necessarily happier than anyone else.
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Now, when I was 18, I used to go and hear a lot of celebrities, athletes, influencers speak.
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And I would love to hear them speak.
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And this is why I love your story so much and why the podcast to me was so powerful, because what you ve been through is just, people can t imagine, right?
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You think, oh, Novak, he probably just trains.
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He was given this God-given talent of being an amazing tennis player.
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And now he s famous and he s successful.
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It s like, but you grew up in one of the most troubled times in one of the most troubled countries.
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And what you ve seen and experienced is like, no one would want to go through that.
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For me, I was inspired by hearing these rags to riches stories.
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I was always inspired by people who went from nothing to something, and I would go to hear them speak.
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And then once I was told that a monk had been invited to speak, and I was thinking to myself, who wants to learn from a monk?
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Like, what am I going to learn from a monk?
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Like, what does a monk know?
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They just went from nothing to nothing.
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Like, you know, what do they have?
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to share.
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And I had all these judgmental thoughts about monks and spirituality and religion.
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And I was just like, well, what do they know?
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What have they achieved in the world?
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And anyway, my friends forced me and I said to them, I ll only go if we go to a bar afterwards, right?
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If we go to a bar or a club afterwards, I ll come, listen to whatever this guy has to say, and then we ll go and have fun.
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And so I went to this event.
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And it s funny that the best moments of your life are also the most humbling
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because I was blown away when I heard this monk speak.
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And the reason I was blown away is because he very clearly said that the greatest goal in life is to use your talents and gifts to serve the world.
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He said, people think that their greatest goal in life is to use their talents and gifts to become successful.
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He said, no, it s actually to become a server of other people.
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And I m 18 years old and I m thinking, wow, that s really powerful.
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And I thought about this when I was 18, and you can think about this when you re listening and watching right now.
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When I was 18, I d met people who were rich, I d met people who were beautiful, I d met people who were famous, I d met people who are talented, but I don t think I d met anyone who is truly happy.
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And he was happy.
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He had that calmness.
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He had that gentleness.
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He had that happiness around him.
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And at 18, I was like, that s what I want.
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I want that.
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I want to feel like that.
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And so I spent all my summer vacations
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Half of them I would intern at a corporate institution.
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I would work in the city of London.
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I d wear my suits.
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I would hang out in steakhouses.
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We d go to bars.
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I d be number crunching away doing financial work.
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And then the other half of my summer vacations, I would spend living with him in India as a monk.
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And then when I graduated, I decided that I preferred the monk life to the management and the business life.
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And so I chose to go off and do that as a real monk for three years.
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And so for me, it wasn t about me being spiritual.
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It wasn t about me being deep or inquisitive or religious.
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I wasn t any of those things.
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But I knew very early on that I wanted meaning, passion, and purpose in my life more than the other stuff.
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And that the other stuff is not that it s not important.
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It s that it didn t have meaning without this thing.
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And this monk really showed me that.
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So that s kind of like the first part of my life and my journey.
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I hope I didn t talk for too long.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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That was really, really wonderful.
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Wanted to ask you, what made you
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do that step and make that decision to go to the monk life like you were doing that kind of like half half in a way kind of testing it out but what what attracted you to to monk life more than so to say modern contemporary life that we have in the cities i think it was the belief that if i was really going to master my mind if i was really going to
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overcome my ego.
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If I was really going to work on self-mastery, the self-mastery project, if I was really going to master myself, it couldn t be a part-time job.
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It couldn t be a weekends thing.
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It couldn t be like, I ll do it tomorrow evening.
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It had to be a real commitment because I could very clearly see that I, and I still have, right?
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I ve not overcome my ego.
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I m still working on self-mastery.
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It s not like it was all solved, but I knew that if I was going to accelerate that journey, it required a concentrated approach, just like in tennis.
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Like, you know, you know that you don t become the best tennis player in the world by playing on Saturday afternoon.
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And it s the same thing with self-mastery.
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You don t mask the mind by practicing on Sunday morning.
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You have to make it a lifestyle.
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So that was one thing.
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The second thing was that I realized I really wanted to serve and give back.
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And I loved that the monks I was living with were feeding and distributing food to kids on the streets of India.
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They were building schools and villages to provide this ecosystem for people to live better lives.
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And I got so moved by wanting to do service
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And I was thinking, that s what I want to do full time.
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I want to do service.
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And to be honest, I also had a few relationships that didn t work out.
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So I was like, maybe this is going to be easier.
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Maybe becoming a monk is going to be easier.
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Some healing time.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Some breakup healing time because I kept going through so many failed relationships.
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So that was definitely a part of it as well.
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Wonderful.
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And so when you were there going through your transformational spiritual journey, when did you come to realization what will your life look like post being a monk?
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When did you feel that you will come back
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to say normal life, whatever that is, coming to States and starting what you started.
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Now you have, your videos have been watched more than billion times, you ve been chosen in the 30 under 30 in Forbes, most influential people.
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I mean, you are a motivational speaker to millions and millions of people around the world.
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I mean, how did this come about?
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I mean, you literally created that from scratch.
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I think that there s something very, very powerful in that, and I always love hearing
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about these stories and journeys that have been built from the foundation up all the way.
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You haven t inherited anything.
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You created something that when you were 18 or 19, when you moved to pursue your spiritual journey, you didn t know what that s going to look like.
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So how did that all
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So yeah, great question.
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Yeah, great question.
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So one of the first things I d say is that I actually know that when I lived as a monk, I wanted to be a monk for the rest of my life.
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And that was genuinely like in my heart, I was like, I want to do this forever.
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And as a monk, one day, I ll travel the world.
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And I ll share this message.
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That was my in my head.
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That was my belief.
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because I was like, I m gaining so much from this practice and this path.
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And then as a monk, I will travel and I will share these teachings.
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So I always had a desire to share these teachings, but I always thought I d share them as a monk.
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Now, as my monk journey went on, I came to the realization that I didn t belong there
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You see, this is the interesting thing.
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Monk life gives you more self-awareness.
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And the painful thing about that self-awareness is then you have to accept what you re not.
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You have to accept who you are and who you re becoming and what you re not.
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And I realized that my desire to want to be out in the world and share this message and connect with people like yourself who are spreading spirituality, even through tennis, like I had this desire
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And I knew that I had to fulfill that desire.
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And at the same time, without even saying this to my teachers and my mentors, they also said to me that we think you have a purpose beyond this space.
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And this is the powerful thing about mentors and coaches.
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And I know you have lots of mentors and coaches and guides.
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I m a big proponent of two types of mentors.
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So in the Vedas, there s two types of mentors.
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It s called Vani and Vapu.
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Vani is the mentor that you learn from that you don t meet.
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It s the mentor that you have through books, through podcasts, through listening, through teaching, through inspiration.
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And Vapu is the mentor that you actually meet and you know them and they know you.
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And so these two types of mentors are talked about.
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And I believe that,
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you can be mentored by reading about someone s life, even if you ve never met them.
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And you can always be mentored directly.
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So mentors are really powerful.
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And my mentors, my monk mentors, they saw, they were like, no, you ve got a different path.
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So anyway, when I first moved back to London, I was around 25, 26 years old.
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This was in 2013.
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And if I m honest, I was in completely the lowest point in my life because I felt like I d failed being a monk.
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So a lot of my friends were like, oh yeah, you re back now.
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You didn t make it as a monk.
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Who fails at being a monk?
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A lot of my family was like, oh, what are you going to do now?
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You re not going to get a job.
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You haven t worked for three years.
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So I came back to all this negativity and I was feeling so judged that I d failed in life.
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And I was feeling that myself.
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And that s when all my monk training actually helped me, because at my lowest point, that s when the meditation, that s when the mindfulness, and I know you ve talked about this, when you re about to lose a game, that s when your mental mastery, your strategies, that s when it really kicks in.
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When you re down and you re about to lose that point, that s when your mind really kicks in.
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So that s how I felt that.
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I was in this process and this part of my life.
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Now, how it changed is I always had this intention that I wanted to share it with the world.
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And in London, I was coaching companies.
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I was coaching individuals.
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I was sharing this in small groups, in small circles, sometimes for free, sometimes with work, sometimes corporate companies.
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And it was all growing.
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But I had this feeling inside myself that this knowledge is the property of everyone.
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I want everyone to have this.
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And we re not seeing it everywhere yet.
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We re still seeing it in companies.
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We re seeing it in elite circles, but we re not seeing it everywhere.
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I was like, that kid.
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that s struggling with their mind.
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I want them to have access to it.
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And I thought, how do we do that?
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And I thought video and social media was a powerful way to reach people for free and to give them access to all of this.
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So anyway, in 2016, 2015, end of 2015, me and my friend went out on the streets of London and we filmed four videos.
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And I had no strategy.
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I had no game plan.
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I just knew that I wanted to make videos that started a conversation.
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And we put out these videos.
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And in three months, Arianna Huffington saw the videos.
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And she became my first public supporter of the content I was making.
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And I m very grateful to her for that.
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She saw my videos and she said, we should share this on the Huffington Post page.
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And so she started sharing these videos on the Huffington Post page.
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And the videos went viral overnight at that time.
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So they got tens of millions of views at that time.
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And for me, I was just making these videos in my bedroom.
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I would come home from my day job.
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I was working as a consultant at Accenture.
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I would come home in the evening.
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I would edit for five hours a day, five days a week to make one five-minute video.
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I taught myself how to do it.
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And so for me, it just completely transformed my life.
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And then from then on, I got more focused and strategic about the fact that people wanted this even more.
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And I continued not only to make videos, we launched the podcast because I wanted conversation.
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So me and you had become friends, and we d been talking back and forth.
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And I was just like,
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wait a minute, most people probably don t even know that Novak is so deep and spiritual and focused on mastery.
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I was like, people should know this.
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It will inspire them so much because you inspire millions of people by being one of the most talented players of all time.
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So people are like, yeah, I want to learn from him.
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And then when I interviewed you, people got to see, oh, wow, Novak is so much more than a tennis player.
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And I was like, ah, this is what we need to show people.
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We need to show people how powerful the people that they look up to are.
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And so you were, you gave me, you were one of my, I think you were my second guest on the podcast.
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One of my first guests.
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And I m so grateful to you because you gave me the opportunity to show people.
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And if you didn t say yes, maybe I would have had to wait, but you gave me the opportunity to show people that athletes are doing so much work in the background that people don t see.
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Absolutely.
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And your podcast has reached one million views daily.
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And I mean, that s incredible.
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I mean, that s amazing.
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And you ve had some really inspiring people from various fields of life.
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And I remember that
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After you ve interviewed me, you went to see Mario Goethe, a football player from Germany.
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We got in touch, you connected us and it was really interesting in my own world, in athletes  world, to really connect with people that are like-minded and like-hearted as well.
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Big wave and hug to Mario.
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He s also someone that is sharing that message.
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It s beautiful to see.
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Lewis Hamilton is also someone that shares that message of spirituality, being genuine, being kind, being aware.
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and being mindful of how you live and that everything in your lifestyle affects not only your performance, your health, but just millions of people around the world that are following you.
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So you do serve as a great example, not only by performing well and by being a champion in your sport, but also you have an opportunity to spread the message.
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and to spread the awareness about some really important things and some really noble things.
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When you see things from a larger perspective, it allows you to reflect on yourself and your life, to understand that, you know,
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We are all connected and we are all dependent from one another.
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We have our individual journeys and of course we do care about ourselves and our closest people, our family the most.
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But at the same time, I feel like we need to be conscious of
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the effect that we have in our community and the community in our city and city in our country and it s all it all travels very fast so so i think especially nowadays with internet and possibility to share the message through a video video vlogs video blogs or or through uh through lives like this one and interviews or whatever
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Instagram is a great platform where you can share your interest and your hobbies and your life and your philosophy through images, through photos and through colors, which I think is beautiful.
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So, you know, we have social media, we have Internet that allows us to express ourselves, you know, and I think that s a huge quantum leap forward for people to really connect even more.
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you know, in only a couple of decades.
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So, you know, so, so talking about that connection, uh, I m, I m, I m really, uh, interested, uh, when you came back to, to, um, to London and when you started, as you said, you know, uh, um, doing training with corporations and some companies and stuff like this, um,
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When did you know that, when did you connect with your purpose of that you have today?
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When did you know that that s something that you definitely, you know, it resonated strongly and you knew deep in your heart and in your mind that you re going to be where you are today?
2
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That s a great question.
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Really, really great question.
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And
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I d say that I started teaching and sharing when I was 18 years old.
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So straight after meeting the monk, when I came back from my first trip to India, I set up a society at university called Think Out Loud.
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And every single week, I would discuss a new theme or topic just like this.
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And I would dissect it from a psychological, spiritual, scientific, and human behavior level.
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And I would talk.
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And when we started, we had like 10 people coming every week.
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And when I finished university, we had like 100 people coming every week.
2
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And it was totally free.
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It was for students only.
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And it was just such a beautiful way to connect with people.
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And so when I started sharing again, and I started to feel like this is just what I was born to do and meant to do, and I really felt that in my heart,
2
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The day it happened was I remember I sat down with one of my mentors and he said to me, he said, Jay, do you only want to do this if one day, and he literally put it like this.
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He said, do you only want to do this if one day this is big and you re famous and you re known for it and it s, and it s huge.
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Or do you want to do this even if you can just make ends meet and live off it and do it, do it just for yourself.
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And I said to him, I ll do it even for that second reason.
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I said, even if this doesn t go anywhere and it doesn t get big and it doesn t become huge or whatever, I will happily do it just because I get happiness from doing it.
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And it seems to help a few people.
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And that was the moment I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life because I got so much joy from it.
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I got so much gratitude from it.
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And the people that were listening and were coming to the events, they were gaining so much from it, even if there were small groups of people.
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And then what happened is when I took my first leap, and I think everyone can relate to this, this is how life is.
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You re either just about to take a leap and a risk, or you ve just taken one.
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And that s kind of where all our challenges in life are.
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Either you re just about to take a risk and you re scared about that, or you ve just taken a risk and now you re scared that you just took it.
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And so for me, I remember when I was taking this risk of quitting my full-time corporate job to do what I do now,
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When I did that, and I saw every time I took a leap closer to what was my passion and my purpose, the world helped me.
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And the universe helped me.
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And if you want to call it God, God helped me.
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So what I saw was that
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There s a beautiful verse in the Vedas and it says, when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.
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And I love that verse because it s so true that our purpose is like this rare jewel that everyone will tell you that it s worthless.
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Everyone tell you it doesn t matter.
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Everyone tells you it doesn t count.
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Everyone tells you it s not good enough.
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And therefore you have to protect it.
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And when you protect it, the universe protects you.
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And I feel every time I take a leap,
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towards my purpose, and I have taken big leaps in my life, my purpose comes back and protects me.
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And that s when I got the confidence that this is what I m really meant to do, because I failed at a lot of stuff.
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But when I saw momentum here, I was like, ah, this is interesting.
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I failed at so many things.
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This is actually going in the right direction.
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There s something here.
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Do you feel that the purpose is something that will help people and encourage them to make that leap and make that risk?
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And if so, how do we as people find the purpose?
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Yeah, yeah, really good.
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So the way I ve been explaining it recently is that there s three aspects to purpose.
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There s interest,
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there s passion and then there s purpose.
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Interest is like a baby.
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When the interest grows a little bit and it becomes a teenager, it s a passion.
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And then when it grows some more, it becomes an adult.
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It s a purpose.
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So the seed of purpose is interest.
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The seed of purpose is the baby of just having interest in something.
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So it s not that you were as good as you are at tennis,
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Do you think you love tennis more now or when you were a baby?
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That s amazing.
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By the way, it s an amazing analogy because it s so true.
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Because I can definitely identify my career and my journey with the analogy that you just presented.
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When I started dreaming about professional tennis, about winning Wimbledon, the most recognized tennis tournament in the world in the history of our sport, when I was a teenager, when I started to feel that I m becoming strong enough to compete with professionals, I don t want to say the only thing, but
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Probably most of my thinking and most of my visualization was going towards me winning the trophy, me accomplishing my goals and my dreams.
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My dream was becoming the number one player in the world and holding a Wimbledon trophy.
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And when I was seven, I was making this improvised, you know, Wimbledon trophies from all these materials that I had.
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and looking myself in the mirror and saying you re a Wimbledon champion one day.
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I was seven.
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So I do believe I m a strong proponent and supporter of dreams and chasing your dream.
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And nothing, you know, everything is possible.
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Nothing is impossible.
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And I felt it on my own skin.
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But going back to the interest as a baby of purpose, you re right, because for me, it was about winning, winning, winning.
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So it was my self-interest.
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It was my interest to accomplish my own dreams and my own goals and my own visions, of course, with my parents.
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They were there, the biggest supporters and, you know, very limited amount of people around me when I was growing up.
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and but then obviously I start to feel that that s at the same time it wasn t always a passion and love because I really enjoyed playing tennis and for the sake of holding a racket in my hands and just being out there I never had an issue of really hating tennis or you know of course we all have days where we feel
3
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less of doing something that is our love and passion, but I felt that the passion or desire was always there and the flame was inside.
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But the purpose for me was strongly related to that interest, right?
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And then going back to the beginning when you said,
3
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you know, when you listen to the monk speak about service as being the biggest priority and the biggest satisfaction and, you know, and the biggest purpose in the life, that s something that I start to feel only later, kind of midway through my career, where I start to feel, okay, well, this is
3
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Yes, that s my purpose, but it kind of originates from the self-interest.
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But now my purpose all of a sudden is changing form.
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And now it s about service.
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And now I m using the platform, of course, partly a platform of playing tennis.
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I mean, still competing professionally.
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And because I see it as a platform where I m able to grow, where I feel that with, you know, all the suppressed
3
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programs, fears, emotions are surfacing like nowhere else in my life.
3
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So tennis court for me is in a way a battlefield and a classroom.
3
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And at the same time, I do feel that tennis as a whole and as a platform allows me to share with people my passion, this kind of things, you know, this kind of lives.
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And I try to always have in back of my mind the amount, especially of young people that are following me, that are watching tennis and watching every athlete because athletes are so blessed
3
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to have, you know, millions if not billions of people around the world following them, idolizing them.
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And so I see this as a great responsibility, if you know what I mean.
3
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Because purpose is a responsibility as well, if it s service.
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But even if it s interest, it s still a responsibility the way I see it, because it is responsibility towards yourself.
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But if the purpose originates from service, it s a responsibility towards yourself and towards others.
3
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And that s when you fully complete this cycle, and that s where you feel abundance inside.
3
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
3
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
3
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I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
3
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
3
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Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
3
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Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re discussing it all.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
3
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
3
SPEAKER_03
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
3
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Radios were smashed, cassettes burned.
3
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You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
3
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And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
3
SPEAKER_03
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
3
SPEAKER_03
The danger they endured.
3
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They said my head should be cut off.
3
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the joy they brought to the nation.
3
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You re free completely.
3
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No one is there to destroy you.
3
SPEAKER_03
I m John Legend.
3
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I respect you so much, because I know you ve called your book Serve to Win.
3
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And you know, that s beautiful.
3
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I love that on so many levels.
3
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And I think that that s such a great tennis analogy.
3
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But, you know, and I ve seen, I ve been on, thankfully, I ve been on the other side of your serves.
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And I know what they feel like.
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By the way, go back to the videos that we ve done, Jay and I, and with Louis in Los Angeles.
3
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We played some tennis and Jay has attempted to return my serves.
3
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It was very, very interesting.
3
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It was very entertaining.
3
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We were showing how it s good to always be a student again, and Novak was guiding us.
3
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But it s true, like serve to win, and I think that this is what I ve been saying a lot, and I repeat it often because it really helps crystallize it.
3
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It s like your passion makes you happy,
3
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But when you use your passion in the service of others, it becomes a purpose.
3
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So what you re doing is you play tennis and you re a tennis player.
3
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And that s amazing.
3
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But now, because of the platform that you ve gained through being the number one tennis player in the world, you re using that to serve.
3
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And that s the whole goal that everyone can achieve.
3
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Whether you re a teacher, you re a doctor, you re a nurse, you re a football player, you make videos like me, whatever you do, all you have to do is, okay, now that I ve done this, how can I use what I have to help other people?
3
SPEAKER_01
And you will feel so much more happiness and joy from that, no matter how big or small or successful or whatever you see yourself as.
3
SPEAKER_01
When you start giving away
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what you have in the form of time, ideas, resources, money, energy.
3
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Remember it s energy, like time and money, it s all energy.
3
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That s what you re really giving.
3
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And when you give your energy to someone, and especially your actual time, and you want to see the work change, you will feel so much more joy from that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I really believe that I used to take a lot of people, and Novak, I know we ve talked about this,
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Before I started making videos, I used to take a lot of retreats to India where people could live where I lived as a monk.
3
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So I would take these retreats to the ashram.
3
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And I remember taking a man and he then took his children afterwards.
3
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He was a successful businessman in London.
3
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He took his children afterwards.
3
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They were about 13, 14 years old.
3
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And he said that it was the best trip ever for them because they were blown away by how grateful kids in India were with much less than they had in London.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he said that the perspective that they gained from serving these kids who are just grateful to have a bowl of food, that just to have hot food for these kids was like their birthday party.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when his kids saw that they gained so much, and I really feel that
3
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The challenge here we have, the challenge that so many people have is mental health and that scientifically has been shown to be eased and healed when we help other people and when we serve other people as well.
3
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Not that it s the number one cure or anything, I m not saying that, but I m saying it is a method that can be very helpful when we re feeling pain to help others and to serve others because it puts our challenges into perspective and it gives us so much more of a greater worldview.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_02
And thank you for graciously mentioning my book.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you just published your book, Think Like a Monk, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
Can you maybe share, you know, with people something about, you know, those meditations that you ve shared in the book?
3
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Yeah, absolutely.
3
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So the book s called Think Like a Monk.
3
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And the reason why it s called Think Like a Monk is because I don t think anyone needs to live like one to think like one.
3
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And I really believe that Novak thinks like a monk in some parts of his life.
3
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I think a lot of people I interview on my podcast already think like monks because the monk mindset
3
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has three key aspects to it.
3
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The first is monks always focus on the root of the issue.
3
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They always go to the core.
3
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They always go to the root.
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They don t worry about all the branches and the leaves.
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The second thing that monks do is that everything is very intentional.
3
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Everything is very intentional.
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It s focused.
3
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It s not just by chance or by luck or by
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Hope it happens.
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It s not hopeful.
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It s not lucky.
3
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It s not chance-based.
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It s intentional.
3
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And people are very focused on their actions.
3
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And you know this.
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You have an intentional diet.
3
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You have an intentional workout plan.
3
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And of course, there s room for spontaneity.
3
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Of course, there s tons of room for creativity and spontaneity.
3
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But the real leaders know that routine gives birth to real spontaneity.
3
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It starts with discipline.
3
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And then the third and final part of thinking like a monk is being able, I think we need a world that is more compassionate, more empathetic, more mindful.
3
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And so these meditation practices that I share, I share three different types, breathwork, visualization, and mantra.
3
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And so these are the three main core forms of meditation.
3
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Breathwork, and I know you had Wim Hof on, who I m a huge fan of, and Wim s fantastic, and he s, you know, he
4
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He talks a lot about breathwork.
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Visualization, what Novak was saying he did earlier, where he visualized himself winning the Wimbledon trophy, visualization is an ancient form of transporting the mind.
4
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And there s studies now that show that virtual reality does the same thing to the body and the mind as the actual thing.
4
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So when you re standing on the edge of a cliff in virtual reality, your mind is having the same fear as when if you re actually standing on the edge of a cliff.
4
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So when you visualize something in your mind, it s actually real.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you visualize yourself at a beach,
4
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you ll feel the calm of the ocean.
4
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If you visualize yourself on a mountaintop, you ll feel the serenity of the peak.
4
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If you visualize yourself winning a trophy, working hard, focusing on the process, practicing becoming better, you become better.
4
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If you can t hit a particular shot in real life, if you visualize it, you may then actually be able to do it in real life because you ve seen it.
4
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Everything that we see, whether it s your favorite car or whether it s a beautiful home, it existed in someone s mind before it existed in reality.
4
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So we have to realize that.
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So that s visualization.
4
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And the third and final is sound and mantra.
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And the reason why sound is so powerful is sound transports us quicker.
4
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If you think about your favorite song from when you were a teenager or when you first fell in love, if you hear that song, you re back in that moment already.
4
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Back in the flow.
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Back in the flow.
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When you hear a song that you won a trophy to or whatever it may be, you re back in the moment.
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So songs and music and mantra, mantra is the repetition of a particular set of words.
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And that repetition can allow you to get back in the zone.
4
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And so athletes, I know Novak does this when he s about to play tennis.
4
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He has a mantra that he may repeat.
4
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I have mantras that I repeat before I go on stage.
4
SPEAKER_01
I have mantras that I repeat when I feel negative.
4
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These mantras change your mindset.
4
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So I share that.
4
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Do you want us to do one together, Novak?
4
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Would that be fun or not?
4
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Of course, of course.
4
SPEAKER_00
Should we do a quick meditation together?
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s do a quick one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you want to, we don t have to.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s absolutely fine.
4
SPEAKER_00
Love it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m just checking.
4
SPEAKER_04
A lot of people would love to actually experience that live and what that sounds like or what that looks like or what it feels like.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re going to do a short one.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you hear the music Novak?
4
SPEAKER_01
Tell me yes or no.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m going to ask you all to close your eyes.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what I want you to do now is bring your awareness to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
4
SPEAKER_01
Whenever your mind wanders,
4
SPEAKER_01
Just gently and softly bring it back to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
4
SPEAKER_01
Place your left palm on your stomach.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as you breathe in, feel your stomach come out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as you breathe out, feel your stomach go in.
4
SPEAKER_01
As you breathe in, feel your stomach go out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as you breathe out, feel your stomach go in.
4
SPEAKER_01
Breathe in for a count of one, two, three, four.
4
SPEAKER_01
And breathe out for a count of one, two, three, four.
4
SPEAKER_01
Breathe in.
4
SPEAKER_02
Breathe out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Breathe in.
4
SPEAKER_02
Breathe out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Breathe in.
4
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Breathe out.
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Allowing the one, two, three, four to become your guide.
4
SPEAKER_01
And now, repeat after me.
4
SPEAKER_01
I am grateful for, and fill in the blanks.
4
SPEAKER_01
whatever you re grateful for.
4
SPEAKER_01
It could be a person, a place, a project.
4
SPEAKER_01
See, we don t reflect on the good times as much as we reflect on the bad times.
4
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We remember the bad times more than the good times because when we go through something bad, we cry for a month.
4
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But when we go for something good, we celebrate for a night.
4
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And so it s so important to deeply step back into a space of gratitude.
4
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And you can visualize a moment in your life that you are extremely grateful.
4
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Visualize what could you see?
4
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Who was around you?
4
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Where were you?
4
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What was in the sky?
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What was on the ground?
4
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And what could you hear?
4
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Was it someone s voice?
4
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Was it particular music?
4
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Was it the cheers?
4
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And what were you feeling at that time?
4
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The love, the joy?
4
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This time when you breathe in, breathe in all of that gratitude, that joy, and that kindness, and breathe out any negativity, stress, or pressure.
4
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Literally step back into that moment and experience the gratitude in your heart.
4
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Extract it from that moment, take it all into your body and mind, and breathe out any stress or negativity.
4
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And when you re ready, in your own time, at your own pace, when you re ready, you can gently and softly open your eyes.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that was a very quick version.
4
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That was about three minutes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Um, but you can see how we did all of them.
4
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We did breath work.
4
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We did visualization and even mantra.
4
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I am grateful for, and you can see very quickly how you can get into such a deep state.
4
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And if you think about our negative states,
4
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We don t even need to meditate, you re in a negative state.
4
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And so when we deeply connect with gratitude in this way, through visualization, through all our senses, what can we hear?
4
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What can we see?
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What can we smell?
4
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What can we taste?
4
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Then gratitude becomes real.
4
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It becomes physical.
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And that s what we all need to do.
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So that s just a simple meditation.
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Thank you, Novak, for letting me share it.
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Thank you so much.
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And it was very profound.
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I think there s a lot of misinterpretation and misperception about what meditation is.
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And I think you really beautifully broke it down in a simple way.
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You were guiding us through three steps.
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And I think, you know, there s, you know, a lot of, I guess, parts of the world and different religions that think, well, meditation belongs to, you know, Hinduism or Buddhism, and it s not part of our religion, and we should, as such, we should refuse it.
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So I think it was really interesting the way you ve explained it and the way you ve kind of tried to put it closer to a perception of the mind of really making it clear by the meditation is breathing.
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Meditation is prayer as well.
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Because affirmations or mantras are prayer work.
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And visualization is something that you are doing in any religion, in any part of the world, because we all visualize ourselves being healthy.
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We all visualize ourselves achieving something in our life.
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And so meditation is everything, but meditation is mindfulness of being
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focus on that moment and being aware that you re breathing.
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Because breath, we talked about breath.
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I talked with Shervin actually about breath and it s such a powerful yet so underrated function, right?
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Completely.
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We understand we have to breathe.
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Once we stop breathing, we stop living.
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Completely.
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So why should we at all focus on that?
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I mean, what s the big deal about breathing, right?
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But then, you know, when you learn how to breathe consciously, like I remember when I was earlier in my career, when I was starting to compete on a professional level, I was struggling with allergies a lot.
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My nose was clogged up.
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I just, I had, um,
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I had a lot of doctors look at it and I even had some intervention on one of the left side of the nose and they re trying to open it up and so many things were coming out and no one can really understand what is going on.
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It kept coming back.
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And so I did change my diet, which affected it in a great, you know, in a great manner.
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But at the same time, I felt whenever I would get anxious on the court or feel too much pressure, it would start to happen again.
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I d start to have this sensation of choking, of having lack of breath and so forth, which would then obviously completely jeopardize my,
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physical state that I m in.
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You know, I would feel tired, I would feel fatigued, especially if I m playing on like really big heat like Australia, for example.
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But when I started doing, you know, yoga practice and when I started doing
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conscious breathing, it helped me tremendously.
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And it was so simple.
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And I encourage a lot of people that don t know where to start with all this, you know, like meditation, visualization, it might seem a little bit abstract.
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Yeah, like start with conscious breathing because and what you ve done with us, you ve led us through to counting the breaths, right?
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One, two, three, four, one, two, three, one, four in, four out.
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And there are, you know, millions of ways you can do that.
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And, but just simply starting to really be conscious of your breath, focusing maybe on the tip of your nose or something like that, or feeling the chair that you re sitting in,
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you know, then you re starting to train yourself to be more in the present moment.
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I think we, we, you know, um, as, as, as a professional athletes and, and being in an individual sport, I get to feel, um,
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a really big leaps, so to say, or transformations of emotional states very quickly.
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You know, I have no one really to rely on.
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So at times, you know, as confident I am in myself and comfortable in my own skin and being so experienced, sometimes I feel like, oh geez, you know, I wish there was maybe someone, like I wish I had maybe another minute or two to sit down and like recollect before,
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recover before I step out and compete but you know I don t so I have to find a way and the more I train myself to be mindful and to be present the more I feel my breath and the more I m recovering my energy and as a result the more I feel I m performing better right because I m more present.
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And I think a lot of people, including myself, we find ourselves spending so much energy and so much time thinking about what has happened and the events that we want to change, or what will happen, trying to understand, predict the future, or being afraid of something that might be coming.
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And so I think, you know, the only real moment we have is now.
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And, you know, living in the present moment is a deep wisdom of every religion, you know, regardless of where you re coming from, what are you doing, whether you re doing meditation, whether you re Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Muslim.
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Everyone understands that the power of being in this moment, the power of being in the now,
5
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actually allows you to really fully manifest your own capabilities and to get the best out of yourself.
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So that was very powerful Jay and I m just going to go through some of the questions that people asked already.
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Amazing, let s do it.
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I m going to go into one of the
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So this is coming from the profile Kunal Purohit790.
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Thank you for your question.
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Can you please share your thoughts and ask Jay what is the end point of purpose?
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What is the end point of purpose?
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Interesting question.
5
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So I always speak from the traditions that I ve studied, as opposed to just giving you my opinion, because I believe that people have explored happiness and meaning and purpose far longer than I have, quite frankly.
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And so from the traditions that I ve studied, the answer is that anything that is truly
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beautiful, spiritual, and powerful is always evolving.
5
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There is no end point.
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So you see that even in service, there s no end point.
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There s no point someone could say, I ve done enough for the world, right?
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You can t, who could ever say that?
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You could never say, I have now done the most I could possibly do, right?
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So there is no end point of purpose, and it is our fascination and addiction to the end that stops us from starting.
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That s the issue, that we have this big picture of like purposes, like this thing that s going to solve my whole life and it s what I m searching for.
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And that s why I said, no, just look for the interest.
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Just start with the little baby footsteps of interest, the baby steps.
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And if you start with just your interest, it can naturally grow and continue to grow.
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So we get so fascinated by the end of stuff.
5
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but we don t start.
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And that s how we feel.
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We always say, oh, I m never going to get to the end of that book, so I probably won t start it.
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I ll probably never get to the end, so I won t start it.
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So don t let the fascination with the end stop you from starting.
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Thank you for answering that, Jay.
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This is a question from the Bader family.
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Thank you for your question.
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How much percentage of the tennis game you feel comes from the mental strength to win the game?
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So, it s an interesting one.
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If you don t mind, Jay, I ll answer this one.
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I think I should answer this one.
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I think I should answer.
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I think it s a really high percentage.
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I think mental aspect is the most important, I guess, aspect or element of winning a tennis match or anything in life, really.
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Because if you re telling yourself, I have not prepared well,
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if you if you allow your doubts be stronger than your convictions be stronger than your confidence than your self-encouragement then obviously that is exactly how you re going to feel and Jay has wonderfully put you know described the visualization and you know it s scientifically proven that when you visualize something and when you
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When you not only think something, a thought, but when you actually feel it in your whole body, that s when the magic happens in both good way or bad way.
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So if you feel fear,
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of being in a center stage or if you re afraid of your opponent s game and you have doubts that you can overplay him and then you have doubts that even if you hit 2000 backhands in last two days you still don t feel confident enough to go for that shot and you re questioning it
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Of course, your body and your whole being is going to react in a way that you are commanding it.
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So I do feel that the mental aspect is the crucial determinant of whether you re going to perform well and as a result, whether you re going to win or not.
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So, of course, I m not saying that it s all.
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I m not taking 100% of victory depending on the mental aspect because, of course, you have to train, you have to put in the work, you have to be disciplined, you have to understand what serves you, what works for you in terms of training, the amount of training, the surrounding that you have around you, the recovery routines.
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the daily routines, what puts you in the flow, right?
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So when you get on the court, you want to be in that flow.
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And of course, there are some places in the world where I play where I feel more comfortable, some places where I maybe feel less comfortable.
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But in the end of the day, I try to train myself daily and put as much as work and I think value the mental training as much as I value my physical training.
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It s really, really important, especially when you get to the highest level of professional competition.
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Great answer, man.
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Really good answer.
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Thank you.
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So I m just going to go into a few more questions.
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Jay, thank you for your patience.
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Of course, man.
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It s great.
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Your audience asks great questions.
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Yes, thank you.
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This is a good question coming from a profile RajanKP23.
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How do you balance making a living and living your purpose?
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Yeah, good question.
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So the realist advice is there are certain people like Novak who knew very early on what he wanted to do.
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And I know this from the interviews that we ve done together.
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And he was very sure about it.
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And he was able to pursue it.
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And it was his passion.
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And it s become a purpose.
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He s using his platform to serve others.
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Now, there are a group of people like that.
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And if you re asking this question at 20, I m guessing you re not one of those people.
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Because if you wanted to be in a certain career and be in a certain path, you start at an early age.
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I was late to the game, by the way, as well.
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I started the beginning of what I do now at age 28.
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That s how old I was when I really started this from a career standpoint, even though I d been doing it for so long before.
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And so if you re in that position, my advice to people is be in your day job.
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You don t need to quit your day job.
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You don t need to suddenly throw it away.
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Be there and learn everything you can from your day job that will probably be useful in the future for your passion and your purpose.
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And then at the same time, use your free time to invest in your purpose.
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And that s really the key as to whether you re truly passionate about it or not.
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So I used to finish work and my day job, my corporate day job at 9pm sometimes I d get home,
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And I d work on my passion from 9 p.m.
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till 2 a.m.
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And then on the weekend, guess what?
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I didn t go out and have a social life.
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I was working on my purpose.
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I was editing videos again.
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I was learning video editing.
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And I was starting the journey I am now, even now for the past few years.
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I put in more time into my purpose than I do into any other area of my life.
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I was building my podcast.
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I wanted to interview Novak.
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He wasn t coming to the US.
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I flew out to meet him because, A, I was passionate about meeting him and learning from him.
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And I really wanted to interview him.
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And so you ve got to go out and show that you care about your purpose.
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And so what it s going to require is you don t need to quit your day job.
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I would never recommend that to anyone.
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It s what you do with your free time.
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And what will happen at one point is you will see that your purpose is growing.
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and you can then make the leap in a gentle and natural way rather than just dropping everything and trying to make a leap and then it may affect your family and I don t know what situation you re in but I would always say to people that for some time you will have to have your feet in both boats and it s uncomfortable but then you can make that leap over afterwards.
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That s beautiful.
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Thank you for your answer, Jay.
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The last question, uh, actually I m going to merge two questions in one.
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Okay.
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They re related.
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Uh, one is from, um, uh, life loving Chrissy.
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Thank you for your question.
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What is depression truly?
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And the other question is, uh, from, um, Adita Subramaniam.
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Uh, thank you for your question.
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How do you stay calm during a time of failure and how do you, how do you build your self belief?
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Hmm.
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Wonderful.
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We should both answer them.
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You should answer them too.
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But yeah, because you can speak to the second one a lot.
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So when it comes to define, let s do the first question first, the defining depression.
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You know, I m not a medical professional, so I always like to point that out, that clinical depression is different.
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But depression is generally experienced when you re having a long-term feeling of being down, feeling stuck, feeling highly emotionally negative, and you feel like this overwhelming burden that s just surrounding you
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and it seems that it s consistent.
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And that s usually how people express or experience depression, when they feel a overwhelming sense of pain and heaviness in their life.
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And that may come from failures, it may come from rejection, it may come from parenting, it could come from so many different things.
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And
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Depression truly is something that ultimately limits you from your potential.
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That s, that s what it is.
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It s, it s, it s, it s covering you away from what you re truly meant for.
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That s, that s what, when you said truly, like, what is it truly?
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That s what it is truly.
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It s a covering that isn t you, that is stopping you from achieving your highest potential.
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It s real and people go through it.
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And that s what I m saying, that the clinical definition is very important.
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And the way you deal with failure and overcoming failure, for me, these are the few things that I do.
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The first thing is I study the lives of people I admire.
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There is no one that I admire that hasn t failed.
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No one.
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If anything, they ve failed more.
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If you haven t read Walter Isaacson s books,
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on Steve Jobs, on Da Vinci, on Einstein, read them.
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Those guys have failed so many times.
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If you re inspired by Novak, which I m sure you are because you follow him, he s failed so many times.
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And I can say that because I know he knows that.
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And that s what got him to where he has today.
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He s failed.
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There s that famous phrase, the master has failed more times than the student has tried.
6
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And that s what we have to realize in our own minds is that we will fail
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Actually, the higher you go, the more you fail because the more you try and experiment.
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So the first thing I remind myself is that all the people I respect have failed more than I ve tried.
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That s the first thing.
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The second thing I do is I literally go, what is the feedback in this failure?
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What can I learn from this failure?
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Because this failure is a signal that I need to change something, that I need to learn a new skill, that I need to adapt.
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Failure is never just failure.
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It is a signal.
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It is a alert.
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It is a message to you.
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And often we want to ignore the message and just be emotional.
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It s important that we learn the message.
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And the third way that I deal with failure is I ve said this to myself for a long time.
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It just makes the story better.
6
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Because one day when you keep going and you win that trophy and you achieve that success and you get the recognition, whatever you want, you tell your story and it will make the story better.
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No one wants to hear a story of someone who just won at every stage in their life because it s not real.
6
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And so one day when you share your story, and I ve been in so many tough situations, and I used to look to my wife and I d be like, this is going to make the story better one day when I get to tell it.
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And it gives you that sense of confidence that you re on the right path, you re on the journey.
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That s beautiful, Jay.
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Thank you so much.
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And it s very clear.
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And what you talked about last there, the story that you get to tell, I think that s very powerful because that relates to the purpose.
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But also that relates, I think, to the goal setting, which I think is equally as important as being aligned with your purpose
6
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meaning being aligned with your passion and doing what you truly love and that giving you joy and that entertaining you and giving you happiness while you re doing it, which is very important.
6
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So I feel like in the times of failure, it s always good to really ask yourself, why are you doing that?
6
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Why are you even, in my case, playing tennis?
6
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What motivated you to play at the beginning?
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Why are you still playing it?
6
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And I think that s why, going back to the beginning of this conversation, talking about the importance of setting the purpose, being clear with the purpose, with the intention, with the passion, with motivation,
6
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uh it s very important because in these times you will have answers to your ego s questions you know and i think also what is important is going back to what i said about the short term and
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long-term goals it s very important because to set your goals because of clarity of clarity of thought clarity of feeling and energy because
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you know, where your attention goes, energy flows, right?
7
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And if you are confused about your life, about what you re doing, why you re doing it, you know, am I doing it for the motivations or the reasons that are material or less material, it s combining the two.
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If you don t clear that up yourself, no one else will.
7
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So you have to go deep inside yourself, understand,
7
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why you re playing when you re playing, set your goals, give yourself clarity, and give yourself a route that will be, you know, it will be a solid road that you will know that you re headed in this direction.
7
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If you fail, it s normal.
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Everyone fails.
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But it will be easier for you to recover once you know that your goal is there and you re headed towards it.
7
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And the last thing I would say is the importance of what Jay talked about is the mentorship, you know, whether it s from people that you know or the people that you don t know, whether they re your acquaintance or not.
7
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There s so many inspiring people around the world, they share their content, they share their wisdom, share their knowledge and passion.
7
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online, there is so much material, so many books, so many essays to read, so many wonderful videos to see, and you just need to first find an intention.
7
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My intention is to be clear with myself, what my goals are, what my
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If I can t find it, I ll look for inspiration.
7
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I ll look for people that have found their purpose, that have gone through a huge transformation in life, like yourself, Jay, that you ve had until you were 18, 19, one kind of life, then all of a sudden you have a different kind of life that got you to where you are.
7
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So these are examples and journeys that you can learn from so, so much.
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So I think environment is very important in the times when you re failing, when you re depressed, when you re not feeling good about yourself.
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Also question the environment.
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You know, who is surrounding you?
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What is the information that is being fed to you?
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Is it positive?
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Is it maybe less positive?
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Is it encouraging you or discouraging you?
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Is it inspiring you or not so much?
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So these kind of things are very, very important to have on your daily to-do list, in a way, asking yourself questions, writing things down.
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And it s important.
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Shervin and I talked about
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the power and energy that is behind writing things down in your diary, taking a pen and writing things on the paper, not only when you re feeling great, but also when you re feeling discouraged or depressed.
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And that s where you actually learn about yourself.
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That s where you can go dig, dig deeper and really transform yourself to even a better version of yourself.
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Absolutely.
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Thank you so much, Jay.
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I really, really appreciate your time.
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It s amazing.
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I really appreciate it.
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I m sorry if we took too much of your time.
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No, no, don t say sorry, man.
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I really enjoyed it.
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Same me, man.
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This is like hearing, it s a conversation.
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Like this has been such a wonderful conversation because I think we re so aligned.
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We re so different in what we do, but we re so aligned in values and in our heart.
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Absolutely.
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And so when we get to talk like this and how much we care, it just comes out.
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So no, man, don t apologize at all.
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This has been amazing.
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I ve loved every second of it.
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And I want to do more of this with you, man.
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I m excited.
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This is amazing.
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For sure.
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What you re doing is truly inspiring, Jay.
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Thank you for sharing your wisdom with the world.
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Thank you for being here with us.
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Thank you, bro.
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A big hug to you and your wife and your family.
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Thanks, everyone.
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Thank you so much.
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Here s a tip for your herb garden.
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It may sound counterintuitive, but if you want to get the most out of your basil plant, you need to regularly trim its stem.
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I know, I know, how does removing part of the plant make it grow?
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That s actually a long story, but trust me, proper pruning is a surefire way to ensure your basil grows big and bushy.
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And the same principle can be applied to your life.
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The next seven minutes are all about you, what you focus on, and how to trim it down so you can thrive.
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I m Jay Shetty.
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Welcome to The Daily Jay.
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Let s begin by focusing on three centering breaths.
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Inhaling and exhaling.
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Feeling your body rise.
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Now feeling at ease.
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Sharpening your mind.
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And zeroing in on this moment.
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Okay, story time.
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In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to run Apple after a decade away from the company.
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What he found was a business in disarray.
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Apple had become really bureaucratic, and it kept trying to satisfy the random whims of retailers.
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And so the company was left with a ridiculously large number of product lines.
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None of them were performing particularly well.
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As one company executive put it, Apple made tons of products, most of them crap, done by deluded teams.
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Jobs couldn t make sense of it all.
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He found himself asking, which one would I tell my friend to buy?
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Finally, he decided enough was enough.
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He declared that the company was going to focus on two types of computers, desktop and portable, with one professional and one consumer version of each.
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Four great products.
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That s it.
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The room was stunned.
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For years, leadership had pushed for more product lines, not fewer.
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But that approach hadn t worked at all.
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In the year before jobs took over, Apple lost more than $1 billion.
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So even though the company s board was terrified of this new direction, they felt they had no choice but to trust him.
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The result?
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Engineers and managers suddenly became focused.
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Their next desktop computer, the iMac, became the fastest selling computer in Apple s history.
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A year later, they reported a profit of over $300 million.
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Apple was saved, and you know where the company went from there.
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I love this story because it goes against the common mindset that all of us need to be able to do everything all the time.
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It can feel like success only comes to the overachievers, the ones who can do it all.
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Certainly, society reinforces that message.
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Have a side hustle, a passion project, and a viral Instagram account to boot.
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Now, I m not saying you shouldn t have these things.
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Some people are able to balance multiple projects at once.
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Some even thrive that way.
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But when you re feeling stuck, or stretched thin, or simply not your best, ask yourself,
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Am I unfocused?
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What are my product lines?
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You may need to cut some things in order to build a more stable foundation.
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Don t worry, cutting out a project today doesn t mean it s gone forever.
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Apple makes dozens of products now, many of them direct descendants of things that got axed in that meeting.
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But the company could only get to this point after sharpening its focus.
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And speaking of focus, let s sharpen ours now with a short meditation.
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Get comfortable wherever you are, relaxing your body and releasing a little tension.
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Now bring your attention to your breath.
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Don t worry about controlling your breathing.
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Just notice its natural rhythm.
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Tune in to the flow.
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If your attention seems interested in following a train of thought or latching onto a feeling, just notice where it wants to go.
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and gently rest it back on your breath.
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Breathing in and breathing out.
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We often forget that this present moment can be enough if we just let it.
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Let s open this up.
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Take a few moments to reflect on all the various projects in your life right now.
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I m talking about work, hobbies, goals, relationships, whatever it may be.
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You can even make a little list in your mind.
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Is your quality of life
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or your quality of output suffering as a result?
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Are you spending time or resources on anything that doesn t align with your mission, vision or purpose?
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Now ask yourself, which of these projects are essential, foundational, vital to your future?
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Could you consider slashing any of those product lines?
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Once you establish your foundation for success, there will always be room to build on that foundation.
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But as Stephen Covey famously said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
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Thanks for joining me today.
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I ll see you tomorrow.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.