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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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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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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 On Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I ll be playing a hand-picked Daily J during each of my Friday podcasts.
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This week we re tackling the topic of mindset, and how to approach life with focus, perspective, and positivity.
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Of course, if you want to listen to the Daily J every day, you have to 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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Hi, besties, and welcome to a brand new Almost Adulting, the largest self-love podcast and movement, your number one destination for personal growth and mental health.
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I m your big sister and your host, Violeta.
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So our guest today is Jay Shetty.
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He is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the books Think Like a Monk and his newest one, which we ll discuss today, Eight Rules of Love.
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He s also the host of the award-winning podcast On Purpose and chief purpose officer of Calm.
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Welcome.
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Hey, thank you so much for having me.
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It s so nice to be in your home.
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I appreciate it.
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Thank you for being so welcoming and gracious.
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Yeah.
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And I also love that your eyes match your shirt.
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It looks really good.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, thank you.
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SPEAKER_01
I appreciate that.
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Did you know only 2% of people in the world have green eyes?
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I did not know that.
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Is that true?
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Are you joking?
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I genuinely did not know that.
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Oh, I just assume anyone with green eyes were part of the 2%.
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Yeah, my wife.
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Oh, your wife.
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Okay.
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Annie, do you have green eyes too?
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Thank God.
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Okay.
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Then it would just seem like everyone has green eyes.
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That s so funny.
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How did you not know that?
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I feel like normally people with blue or green eyes were like, look at my eyes.
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It s so funny, I feel like when you grow up with something, whether it s eyes or a skill or whatever it may be, you don t notice it.
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Like you don t notice it as much when you have something, you notice it when other people notice it because you kind of see it as normal.
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Oh yeah, I guess you re right, that s true.
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All right, so I m just shallow.
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Okay, so before we dive into your book, which we have here, if you re watching the video, this is right here.
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It s an awesome book, and I ve been loving it.
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But before we dive into the book, I thought it would be nice to kind of get to know you since on your show, a lot of the time you dive into your guests.
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So I thought this would be funny.
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Love that.
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Let s do it.
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Your journey has taken you from being a monk to becoming a popular motivational speaker, a New York Times bestselling author.
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And I was kind of wondering how did you make that transition and what was the biggest challenge you would say that you faced during that process?
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I mean, the transition is like, you re looking at like 10 years, you know, of time in between.
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So I left the monastery exactly 10 years ago right now.
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And so the journey you see is like, it looks quick online sometimes, but then the actual journey is so much more slower and harder.
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And I d say the transition happened in so many different phases.
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And that s kind of how I think a lot of our life transitions happen.
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So,
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when I left the monastery I ended up moving back in with my parents in London and for like 12 months I was just struggling to find work.
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No one wanted to hire someone who d been a monk before.
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People were like what are your transferable skills sitting still and being silent like we don t need that.
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Right.
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And so I just spent a lot of time like
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trying to find myself again, reconnect again.
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I d forgotten how to do small talk.
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This would have been really tough for me to do.
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Like I would have, I didn t know who the prime minister of England was.
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I didn t know who won the world cup.
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I didn t know what the latest movies were or music was.
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I had no idea.
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And so there was a whole period that was just reconnecting.
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And so the version of me you see today is like,
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going back to being myself and reconnected again.
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But at that time, there was this whole phase of just reintegration and reconnecting with society.
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And then after that, I went back into the world of work, which really helped me kind of get a sense of what was going on and how things were.
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And then after working in the corporate world for around two, three years, that s when I was like,
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I don t feel like this is my purpose.
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I don t feel like this is what I was meant to do.
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I feel like I had that experience because I wanted to share what I d learned to help people.
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I ve learned all these amazing techniques like meditation and mindfulness, and I ve learned so many disciplines, and I ve learned so much incredible wisdom from this experience.
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My goal must be to have to share it with people.
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And I was sharing it while I was working in the companies and everything.
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So the biggest challenge I d say I ve had, which I think hopefully will relate to the people that are watching and listening right now,
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is allowing yourself to change, allowing yourself to say, I want to be more.
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And it s okay to want to transform and change and grow.
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I don t have to stay stuck.
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I don t have to stay the same if I don t want to.
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And I think that s the greatest challenge that you go through is allowing yourself, giving yourself the permission to be more of who you are.
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Right, because normally before you make that decision or say that to yourself, a lot of times people first look at that as failure.
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They think, oh, I failed.
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Exactly.
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Versus saying, I m allowed to change my mind anytime or I m allowed to wake up today and decide that this is not enough for me.
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Yeah.
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So how do you kind of switch from feeling like a failure or
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not enough versus being like, no, this is just, you know, rock bottom and just only up from here.
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Yeah.
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Well, I look at it as how much time we have, right?
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Like, I think that a lot of us don t recognize, a lot of us now today feel like, gosh, I m getting old.
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And it s like, we re not even that old, right?
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That s so true, yeah.
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Like you re in your thirties or your forties or even your fifties.
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And if you re in your twenties, you re definitely, you know, definitely not.
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And if you re in your teens, you re definitely not.
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And it s like, we start putting this
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timeline and deadline on where we re at and i kind of look at life and go there is no timeline or deadline there is no schedule and i think we think about life as a schedule because someone in our life told us go to college get a good job get married buy a house like whatever it is right there was this laid out plan and we re measuring ourself according to that plan as opposed to saying wait a minute there is no plan i can only live my life and so i think we have to disconnect from society s
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approach to what life should look like and recognize there is no should look like, there s only the life you want to live.
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Yeah, I agree.
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Over the course of your career, of everything you ve done, what would you say the worst advice you ve ever gotten?
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That s a good question.
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I d actually say it applies to that.
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The worst advice I ve ever got is, you re too old, you re too young, you re too early, you re too late.
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You re too underqualified, you re too overqualified.
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I feel like we put these extremes on, we put these limits, boundaries, deadlines, schedules onto people, and I think that s bad advice.
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The amount of people that have said to me, Jay, I think you re too old to be doing this, or you re too young to be doing this, or Jay, you know what, you re just too underqualified for this role.
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I think I ve heard that so many times.
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And I think we start to internalize these statements, and then we give up on our dreams or the things that are important to us.
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And I think we live in a world right now where I see, you know, you see 70-year-old YouTubers, you see, you know, you see 10-year-old YouTubers, you see people doing things as and when they want and can.
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And I think we ve changed, I think the world has shifted and changed where
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Like someone might say, well, I wanted to be an athlete and I m too old to be a Premier League football player.
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Sure, but that doesn t mean you can t play football on the weekends or the evenings.
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It doesn t stop you from doing what
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you want to do.
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And I think that s the worst advice that I ve ever heard of like, it s not going to work.
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That s not a good idea.
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It s only not a good idea if you don t try it out.
1
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Yeah.
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I mean, my mom, whenever I m afraid of doing anything, my mom always taught me that I m only a loser because I ve always get scared of being a loser.
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If I fail people, everyone will know.
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But she said, you re only a loser if you don t try.
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Yeah.
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And I agree.
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Do you feel that sometimes when people give you that advice, you re too young or too old this and dies because they re projecting because they re scared they can never do it.
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Yeah, I think it comes and I have compassion for that because I think we all project our limits onto other people and we all project our insecurities onto other people.
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It s like if your friend says to you, oh, I m thinking about moving country and you ve thought about it before, but
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you don t think it s a good idea or you re scared about it.
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Now when they say, you go, oh, no, no, but have you thought about this, this, and this?
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And you give them your thought process.
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And they re like, yeah, but those are not things I worry about.
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So I think a lot of us, when we re giving advice or receiving advice, need to recognize we need to not project
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our insecurities and our issues onto other people.
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And same when you hear advice from other people, make sure that you re not just adopting their insecurities and their issues.
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You have to filter that out for yourself.
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Yeah, I agree.
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When we, when my family and I won the green card lottery, all of our family members told us not to move.
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It would be so stupid for my father this age.
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He was in his fifties and thank God my dad didn t listen and he moved our family to the US and then everyone else wanted to follow our footsteps afterwards.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
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That s a great example, right?
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And I think that happens with everything.
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It s like your friend says to you, you know what, I m thinking of quitting my job and I want to start a podcast or I want to, you know, whatever it may be.
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Now, you ve also got to understand that when your friend projects their issues and insecurities,
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we shouldn t be upset about that.
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It s just someone trying to care for you and they re trying to show you love or they re looking out for you.
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And often thinking it through is actually pretty helpful because I also think we live in a world that, you know, I feel like we, we also just take these big rush changes as well.
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Like I think a lot of us are also living the other extreme where it s like, Oh, I m just going to do it anyway.
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It doesn t matter.
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And it s like,
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maybe the middle approach is better.
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Like when I was trying to find my passion and my purpose, I was also working a day job that paid my bills and I spend my evenings and weekends doing what I love.
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And I think that that transition is healthy because it provides safety, it provides support.
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Whereas if I would have just thrown everything away and made this jump, maybe it wouldn t have worked because you don t create great work out of scarcity.
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You don t create great work out of fear and insecurity.
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Oh, I like that.
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SPEAKER_01
That is a really good point.
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I also like the fact that you looked at the other perspective of the fact that your friends or your family and all that, they re not coming from a bad place when they re giving you quote unquote poor advice.
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They re actually coming because that s all they know and they re just trying to be helpful.
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That s a nice perspective to have.
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Yeah, I just want to live with no bitterness in my heart, you know?
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I made that commitment a long time ago.
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I was like, I don t want to live having bitter feelings or negative feelings towards any person or any group of people because it doesn t,
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carry me well, like it doesn t make me feel good to walk around with a bitter heart.
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I like that.
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And I know you focus a lot about that.
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And I ve spoken about that on my podcast as well, that people don t understand how much negative emotions can actually affect your day to day life.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I think there s three things that I talk about, which I learned during my time in the monastery.
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It s in my first book, Think Like a Monk.
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Our teachers would call it the cancers of the mind.
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And so they said, complaining, comparing, and criticizing were the cancers of the mind.
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When we complain reoccurringly, we lose control of the situation.
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When you re complaining, you re basically saying, I can t influence this.
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So when you lose influence, you lose your ability to transform your life.
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When you compare, you re setting yourself up for failure because here s the thing, if you feel ahead of other people, you will always feel behind other people in both ways.
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So if you re like, I m now feeling ahead of the pack,
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That means one day you ll feel behind.
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If you re saying, now I m number one, one day you ll feel like number two.
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And so when we place these comparisons, we think when we re at the top, it will feel amazing.
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It won t because if you lived your life on comparison, even if you re at the top, you re now insecure and unsettled because you re like, what if I lose this spot?
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And so comparing and then criticizing is probably the most obvious one out of all of them.
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Like I remember when we were kids, we would watch people on TV, me and my friends, and we d laugh at like, how s that person on TV?
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They re not even talented.
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Like, who are they?
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Who do they think they are?
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But then what were we doing?
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We were just sitting on our couches.
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So I remember being that kid where we were just so critical of other people.
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And as time s gone on, I ve realized that, but that person tried.
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They put themselves out there.
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Yes, they maybe made mistakes.
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Yeah, they re probably not perfect, but at least they put themselves out there, whereas I m just sitting on the couch, you know, criticizing.
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And so removing, complaining, comparing, and criticizing, now that doesn t mean you can t open up to your friends.
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It doesn t mean you can t share how you feel.
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Like, I m not saying you can t do any of that stuff, but I m just saying being mindful of that can help.
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how do we then shift our mindset from being negative to wait, because it s easier said than done to be like, oh, today I m happy and everything s going to be good.
1
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And people, I think, put too much weight on emotions in general.
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They think being sad or angry or whatever it is, is negative, it s bad, versus it s just passing emotion.
1
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So how do you kind of able to shift those feelings?
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Yeah, so I feel like there s four things that we re experiencing at any moment, our thoughts,
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our actions, our feelings, and that inner sense of knowing that we all have.
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So you have your thinking, your behaving, your feeling, and your knowing.
1
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And what you just said is, and I agree with you, we place way too much emphasis on our feelings.
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And our feelings are, like you just said, they re near, they can move, they can pass, they re here, they re gone, they change.
1
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But the way you change your feelings is not with how you feel.
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The way you change your feelings is by how you think,
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how you act and how you know.
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And so I spend more time trying to think, am I happy with the thoughts in my head?
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Not am I feeling happy?
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Oh, I like that.
1
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Right?
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Am I happy with what I do with my day?
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Not am I feeling happy?
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Because if I change my thoughts and I change my actions, I will change how I feel, but I m not going to change my feelings by my feelings.
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SPEAKER_01
That s really interesting.
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That s a really good perspective.
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I really like that.
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Thank you.
1
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Thank you.
1
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Yeah, I ve been really spending a lot of time on that recently because I agree with you so much that I wake up feeling tired sometimes.
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I wake up feeling like, oh, I don t want to get up today.
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I have those feelings too.
1
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Jay Shetty has those feelings.
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I have those feelings.
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Yeah, I genuinely do.
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And I realize, but that feeling, I can t do anything with it.
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All I can do is accept it.
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I m not going to pretend it s not there.
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I m not going to pretend to be positive.
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I m not going to say, I m Jay Shetty.
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I have to pretend to be positive.
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That s not going to help anyone.
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And I wouldn t say to anyone, hey, just say something positive to yourself, be happy.
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That doesn t work.
1
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That s toxic positivity.
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And so what I would suggest is focus on, let me change my thoughts and let me change my actions.
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So if I now change my thought to be, I am tired, but I will sleep early tonight.
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right?
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I am feeling a bit upset this morning.
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I ll reflect for a few minutes today and journal to figure out what s going on.
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All of a sudden I ve changed my thought from being, I m tired, to I m tired and I ll sleep early.
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And I ve added a behavior, which means my thoughts and behaviors will change how I feel.
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I love that.
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Right.
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So and as a solution, because I think a lot of times we don t realize that whatever we re feeling has to do with other things.
1
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Like for the longest time I was I was anxious with driving and I kept thinking it was because I was just scared of driving.
1
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And then I really sat and went backwards to figure out why am I so scared of driving?
1
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And I realized because when I get on the road on the freeway specifically,
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I have no control over other people and I was like, oh, it s my control issues.
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And then once I ve processed, okay, I can, I cannot control other people.
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I can control myself and my car.
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So once I came to that process, I realized I m not scared of driving.
1
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I m just a control freak and I need to get over it.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s a great example.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s a great example of you have to change your thoughts in order to change how you feel.
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Because you can t just say, I m going to be a good driver.
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I love driving.
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Everything s okay.
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Like you can t just say that.
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It doesn t solve the problem.
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And so I love that example.
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SPEAKER_00
That s a great example.
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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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But I don t think I always realized that that s how I think.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I love the, everything that you said, cause it s a reminder for myself.
1
SPEAKER_01
Cause I, a lot of times I can be in my feelings and I, and I love, yeah, I love the processing backwards.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
What can I do?
1
SPEAKER_01
What actions can I take to change this?
1
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
1
SPEAKER_01
So then what would you say in the course of your career, the best advice you ve ever gotten?
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you have so many.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s a good question.
1
SPEAKER_00
Best advice I ve ever gotten.
1
SPEAKER_00
I want to give you something really special and thoughtful, so let me think.
1
SPEAKER_01
By the way, we have the same editor, so he knows exactly how to cut everything.
1
SPEAKER_00
Brad?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I love, no, you can leave this in there.
1
SPEAKER_00
I like the reality of me thinking about something because I really want to honor the, it s a great question and I don t just want to say something.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I d rather give you something that I really, really feel is the best advice I ve ever heard.
2
SPEAKER_02
sitting with one of my mentors once he passed away from stage four brain cancer around three years ago.
2
SPEAKER_02
And
2
SPEAKER_02
Losing him was tough because he was the first person I d call when something good happened and he d be the person I want to share it with.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I remember years before my external online journey happened, before people were aware of my work, I was sitting with him and I said to him, I said, I have so many ideas and I have so many things I want to do.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I don t know where to start.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think this is a common thing that I hear a lot of people say to me today, where it s like, I could start a company.
2
SPEAKER_02
I could start this.
2
SPEAKER_02
I want to write a book.
2
SPEAKER_02
I want to do a podcast.
2
SPEAKER_02
I want to do social media, whatever it is that people have so many ideas, but it s like, where do I start?
2
SPEAKER_02
And he said to me, Jay, he said, he said, start everything.
2
SPEAKER_02
He said, open every door.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he said, doors will naturally start to close or some won t open.
2
SPEAKER_02
Just keep walking through the ones that stay open.
2
SPEAKER_02
And if I look at the last five years of my life, seven years of my life that I ve been doing this online externally,
2
SPEAKER_02
I can honestly say that that s all I ve done.
2
SPEAKER_02
I ve knocked on every door.
2
SPEAKER_02
Some have opened, some haven t.
2
SPEAKER_02
And some have opened and then later closed.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I ve just kept walking through the ones that stay open.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the reason why I think it s the best advice I ever received is we often
2
SPEAKER_02
paralyze ourselves with procrastination of choice of what do i do where do i start what s the perfect route what s the perfect path what s the right thing for me to do and it s like you have no idea right you can only try everything
2
SPEAKER_02
and see what feels right and see what stays open.
2
SPEAKER_02
But it s not up to you to figure it out in your head, what your purpose is.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think a lot of us are trying to figure out our passion, our purpose, our career path, our hobbies, everything in our head.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, you re not going to figure out in your head, you re going to see it unfold in front of you.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I d say that was the best advice I ever heard.
2
SPEAKER_01
That is actually beautiful, amazing advice.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s always inspiring.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you know, in the back of your head that every person that you look up to or every person that s out there that seems very successful, you know, in the back of your head, oh, they must have failed once or twice, but you forget.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s interesting whenever, when I hear you speak and then you mentioned, oh, a lot of doors have closed and then I just keep going for the ones that open.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re like, right, of course.
2
SPEAKER_01
I forget that for a second.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that applies to everyone.
2
SPEAKER_02
I can honestly say with every person that I know that is
2
SPEAKER_02
massively successful and every person that I ve worked with or coached or had on the podcast or whatever it may be, every single one of those people will say that they still have doors closed on them.
2
SPEAKER_02
So when I speak of myself, there are people who are far more prolific in their fields that still go through the same thing.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think that that actually is the reminder, like to me, I love studying people s lives that I love and I encourage everyone
2
SPEAKER_02
who admires anyone, don t just watch that person s TV show and movie.
2
SPEAKER_02
Don t just listen to their music.
2
SPEAKER_02
Study their life, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Study their life.
2
SPEAKER_02
Actually look at how they lived.
2
SPEAKER_02
So for me, I grew up studying Steve Jobs s life because I was a big fan of Steve Jobs.
2
SPEAKER_02
And if you look at the amount of failure that guy has had,
2
SPEAKER_02
is insane.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like he got kicked out of his own company.
2
SPEAKER_02
Imagine building Apple and being kicked out of the company you build.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t think there s a bigger failure than that or a bigger rejection than that.
2
SPEAKER_02
Then he went and built Pixar and then went back to Apple.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like it s, it s an incredible story.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think when you uncover that, you go, Oh, well, if that happened to Steve jobs, then it s okay if it happens to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you get used to it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
You forget, especially with social media now, a lot of times people just focus on everyone s highlight reels and they forget all the feelings because no one s really going to sit there like, hey guys, today really sucks.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m depressed.
2
SPEAKER_01
I haven t showered in four days.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, buy my book.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like you re not going to, you know, it s hard to always be that open.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And also I think like, stop just following people on Instagram.
2
SPEAKER_02
Stop just watching people s TV shows.
2
SPEAKER_02
Stop just watching
2
SPEAKER_02
people s movies and listen to people s music study the lives of the people you love and admire study their lives and that will inform your life s path so much more genuinely and authentically instead of just watching and following people let s start.
2
SPEAKER_02
Understanding them so that we can follow in their footsteps in our own way in our own lives.
2
SPEAKER_01
I like that, that s part of taking a chance on your own life versus just living through someone else s life.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so then what s one advice that you ve gotten over the course of your career that you wish you would have listened to earlier?
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, great questions, all right.
2
SPEAKER_02
And am I pronouncing your name right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Violetta, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Violetta, Violet, Violetta, whatever you want.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, no, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
I like saying it, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Like I said, all I remember from my Russian class is thrashtri minyazevut j. That s so good.
2
SPEAKER_02
I remember, this is really embarrassing, but I was 15 years old.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I was 15 years old when we studied Russian in school.
2
SPEAKER_02
We learned how to speak and write.
2
SPEAKER_02
I could speak and write fluently for that year.
2
SPEAKER_02
And we went to Russia on a school trip.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I went to St.
2
SPEAKER_02
Petersburg in Moscow.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m from St.
2
SPEAKER_01
Petersburg.
2
SPEAKER_01
No way.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like I, I loved, I literally fell in love with Russia when I visited.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was so beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_01
I always say thank you.
2
SPEAKER_01
People tell me where I m from is beautiful as if like I created it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m like, thank you so much.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, but it s your home.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s your home.
2
SPEAKER_02
I get that.
2
SPEAKER_02
And, and this is the embarrassing part.
2
SPEAKER_02
I used to think I was really cool when I was 15 and, and walk around
2
SPEAKER_02
telling young girls that I saw that they were really beautiful in Russian and I thought they d find me cute.
2
SPEAKER_02
But then I realized that the language I was using was more telling them that they look like a beautiful building.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like it s more like, it s the language.
2
SPEAKER_02
So you can translate this for me and say, if I m saying it right.
2
SPEAKER_02
I still remember it.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s that strong.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s, am I saying that?
2
SPEAKER_02
What am I actually saying?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, you re saying it, but you re saying it to a boy.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
There we go.
2
SPEAKER_02
Even better.
2
SPEAKER_02
There we go.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s what I m saying wrong.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re saying it to a boy.
2
SPEAKER_02
How do you actually say that?
2
Ты очень красивая.
2
SPEAKER_02
Красивая.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you said ты очень красивый.
2
Красивой.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s like you re either saying it to a boy or saying it to an object.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_02
All right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Anyway, there s my embarrassing story from 15.
2
SPEAKER_01
You still write in Russian?
2
SPEAKER_02
No, I can t.
2
SPEAKER_02
I can t.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wish I could.
2
SPEAKER_02
I didn t have, again, it comes down to any skill in the world.
2
SPEAKER_02
I didn t have Russian, like I didn t have any friends that spoke the language.
2
SPEAKER_02
I didn t, you know, but anyway, I digress.
2
SPEAKER_02
Your question was not,
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I actually, big secret, I can t write or read in Russian, but people always forget that.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they ll write to me, listeners and things like that, write to me in Russian.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I ask my mom what it means and then I respond to them in Russian.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my mom actually has been writing it for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
So people don t actually know that I can t read and write in Russian.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s embarrassing.
2
SPEAKER_02
No, no, I get that.
2
SPEAKER_02
I get that.
2
SPEAKER_02
Sorry, your question was?
2
SPEAKER_01
What advice do you?
2
SPEAKER_03
That I wish I practiced sooner.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
2
SPEAKER_03
Radios were smashed.
2
SPEAKER_03
Cassettes burned.
2
SPEAKER_03
You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
2
SPEAKER_03
And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
2
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.
2
SPEAKER_03
The danger they endured.
2
SPEAKER_04
They said my head should be cut off.
2
SPEAKER_03
The joy they brought to the nation.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re free completely.
2
SPEAKER_01
No one is there to destroy you.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m John Legend.
2
SPEAKER_03
Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_06
It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
2
SPEAKER_00
like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
2
SPEAKER_06
We re back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
So let s figure this stuff out together.
2
SPEAKER_00
This season, we re going to talk about whether or not we re financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
2
SPEAKER_06
We re going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
2
SPEAKER_06
All that plus so much more.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s learn about all of it and then some.
2
SPEAKER_00
Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_05
Guess what, Mango?
2
SPEAKER_05
What s that, Will?
2
SPEAKER_05
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
2
SPEAKER_04
I know.
2
SPEAKER_04
That s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
2
SPEAKER_04
It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
2
SPEAKER_05
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
2
SPEAKER_05
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
2
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that s a better idea.
2
SPEAKER_04
So every week on Part-Time Genius,
3
SPEAKER_00
we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
3
SPEAKER_00
Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto?
3
SPEAKER_00
Also, what happened to Esperanto?
3
SPEAKER_01
Plus we cover questions like, how Chinese is your Chinese food?
3
SPEAKER_01
How do dollar stores stay in business?
3
SPEAKER_01
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
3
SPEAKER_00
There absolutely is, and we are risking our lives by talking about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history, and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
3
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think there s something really interesting about speed and pace in life, and especially career, as you asked a question about career.
3
SPEAKER_02
When you re starting out, you have to make a lot of quick decisions and you have to move quite fast in order to get something off the ground.
3
SPEAKER_02
But that comes with a lot of mistakes and baggage, and sometimes you set yourself up for issues in the future.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I found that I m happy I started fast, but I think
3
SPEAKER_02
as things grew fast as well i wish i slowed down earlier to really take the time to be really mindful about certain career choices and about even the people you invite into your life through work and careers and so i think sometimes when you re moving fast you like
3
SPEAKER_02
You just work with everyone, you work with anyone, you just want to get on with it, you want to get going.
3
SPEAKER_02
People would always say your team is the most important thing, the people around you the most important thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
And today I am so grateful for the amazing team I have around me, Annie s in the room, and a bunch of incredible people that I have in my team who I m so proud of.
3
SPEAKER_02
But
3
SPEAKER_02
I think that the idea of being selective and thoughtful wasn t always there for me, because you re just trying to move and get stuff done.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think there s a time and place for that.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m not saying you shouldn t be that way, because in the beginning, you just got to go with it.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I wish I started thinking about that earlier.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m glad I figured it out now, but I wish I could have thought about that even earlier.
3
SPEAKER_03
I like that.
3
SPEAKER_03
I think, I think that is really good advice.
3
SPEAKER_03
We do forget to slow down.
3
SPEAKER_03
And I mean, I think even when I m asking you a question and you take a second to think it through, the atmosphere in the room changes.
3
SPEAKER_03
Suddenly I slow down and then I wait for you to speak.
3
SPEAKER_03
So I just, it is interesting how slowing down in general is really good.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think we think slowing down means achieving less.
3
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I don t think that s true.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think slowing down can actually make you more impactful.
3
SPEAKER_02
If you look at some of the best, I m a big fan of rap and hip hop music, or I was growing up at least, like Kendrick Lamar takes like two to three years to create an album.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like he slowed down.
3
SPEAKER_02
But every time it comes out, everyone s really excited and they re pumped and the album s always dope.
3
SPEAKER_02
And everyone s like, wow, that s art or that s a masterpiece.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so not everyone s going to be okay with waiting three years for an album.
3
SPEAKER_02
But if that s what you re trying to create, then that s what it s going to take.
3
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I like that.
3
SPEAKER_03
And I think it s really important for anyone out there is the slowing down.
3
SPEAKER_03
And then I think also there s just that memory of the fact you kind of brushed with it in the beginning about how, in a way, if someone s giving you advice and somebody you want to hear, it s
3
SPEAKER_03
you may just be in the wrong room.
3
SPEAKER_03
I think a lot of people stop too fast, you know?
3
SPEAKER_03
They just, instead of slowing down, just being like, okay, and I ve done, I ve done standup a while back of one of my shows.
3
SPEAKER_03
And I kind of explained that, you know, if today no one laughed at my jokes, I m not going to just give up.
3
SPEAKER_03
It just means I was in the wrong room and I m just going to keep going to that until I find the right people in the right room.
3
SPEAKER_03
So, but I like that.
3
SPEAKER_03
Cause that has to do with all the doors that close on you and open and you slowing down and finding the correct team.
3
SPEAKER_03
So,
3
SPEAKER_03
Very monk.
3
SPEAKER_03
I m very bad at slowing down.
3
SPEAKER_02
So am I. So am I. I think it s the pace of the world we live in, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
I think even you look at, let s look at the creator world.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like you look at someone like Mr. Beast who shifted to being like, I m only going to create a video every month.
3
SPEAKER_02
most YouTubers up until now thought they had to create a YouTube video every day.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
And here s, you know, the biggest guy on YouTube of all time going, I m going to create one video a month and it s going to be the best video ever, but I m going to make one video a month or maybe two videos a month.
3
SPEAKER_02
But it was different because we grew up, like up until the last couple of years, YouTubers were making videos every day.
3
SPEAKER_03
Well, it s always someone that starts it.
3
SPEAKER_03
Logan started it, Logan Paul.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he did a great job with it too when he did that.
3
SPEAKER_03
And then he was over it, but then because he starts something, then everyone else thinks they have to catch up.
3
SPEAKER_03
That s a comparison part where I just have to keep up.
3
SPEAKER_03
I have to keep up with people are going to forget about me versus I m here to create art and I need to slow down.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it may work for that person.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like there are certain people who can make incredible things every day.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m not saying there aren t people.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, there s TV shows, there s radio shows that make something amazing every day.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think it s about figuring out what you want to make.
3
SPEAKER_02
and not comparing it.
3
SPEAKER_02
So if you know what you want to make, you re not trying to keep up to someone else s pace.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think we re trying to keep up with someone else s speed rather than setting our own pace.
3
SPEAKER_03
What s the biggest lie you ve ever told yourself?
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, this could go one of two ways.
3
SPEAKER_02
One is that I m not good enough.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the other one is I am good enough.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I ll explain.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when you tell yourself the lie, I m not good enough, a lot of us get into that self-sabotage, critical, judgmental behavior.
3
SPEAKER_02
We just talked about comparison, complaining, and criticizing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Often, we complain, compare, and criticize more about ourselves than we do anyone else.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we look in the mirror.
3
SPEAKER_02
I hate the way I look.
3
SPEAKER_02
We have a meeting with someone.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, they re much smarter than I am.
3
SPEAKER_02
we are applying for a job or looking for an opportunity and we think, I m not good enough.
3
SPEAKER_02
And we lie to ourselves because we d rather not put ourself in the risky position of trying and accept failure before someone else rejects us.
3
SPEAKER_02
We often feel it s better to reject ourselves than for someone to reject us.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then that replays in our minds and we keep saying, I m not good enough.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it s a lie because you don t know.
3
SPEAKER_02
And when you try something, when you give it a go, when you take an opportunity, you often realize you re better at things than you imagined.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re better at things than you ever thought you could be because you tried.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I ve had personal experience of that where I was a really shy kid growing up, and my parents forced me to go to public speaking school when I was 11 years old.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they forced me to go because they were scared that I wouldn t be confident as a speaker.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they were right because before then I used to get, when I was seven years old, I remember going on stage and the audience thought I was not great as a performer, as a speaker.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you were seven.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_03
I mean, you think you would do better.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, let me tell you what happened.
3
SPEAKER_02
Let me tell you the story about what happened.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was asked to speak at a school assembly.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I was asked to speak and sing from my culture, so from the Indian culture, and I was dressed in traditional Indian clothes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, growing up, I was overweight, and I was wearing these clothes, and I didn t look so great in them, especially in front of the kids at my school.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I walked out, and all the kids in the school started laughing.
3
SPEAKER_02
I then started singing.
3
SPEAKER_02
I do not have a good singing voice.
3
SPEAKER_02
I started singing this prayer in my language and from where my parents are from, and everyone started laughing more.
3
SPEAKER_02
Jesus.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then I started crying because I felt so embarrassed.
3
SPEAKER_02
On stage?
3
SPEAKER_02
On stage and then I forgot the words and I looked down and my tears had smudged the words so I completely lost track and then everyone s completely lost it and then my teacher has to come on stage put her arm around me and walk me off which is even more embarrassing as a seven-year-old and so that was my first experience of public speaking.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so my parents really want me to go to public speaking school but the point is i was nervous to go but if i never went i d never be able to do what i do today so you re not gonna know until you go right that s one side the other lie of why i am good enough is alive to myself is i ve applied for jobs that i don t.
3
SPEAKER_02
have the qualifications for.
3
SPEAKER_02
I ve never lied about who I am, but I ve applied for things that I m not good enough for.
3
SPEAKER_02
I ve reached out to try and make things possible because you have to, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
You re not just going to sit there and be like, I m going to wait until I have it all together.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I think it s important for people to recognize both of those ways where sometimes you don t have to pretend you re good enough.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have to be honest and say, Hey, I m not good enough, but I love this opportunity.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I send messages like that all the time.
3
SPEAKER_02
I always send people a message saying, hey, I know you could do something way bigger than this, but this is what my idea is.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m okay with that.
3
SPEAKER_03
That actually reminds me when I was at university and we had some exam that I didn t study for and everyone else was studying right before the test.
3
SPEAKER_03
And they re like, V, are you going to study?
3
SPEAKER_03
And I go, no, because you know why?
3
SPEAKER_03
I have God.
3
SPEAKER_03
And I don t know why I said that in that moment.
3
SPEAKER_03
I said, I ll just say a little prayer and I m going to, I m going to score it.
3
SPEAKER_03
I m going to get an A. I was overly confident.
3
SPEAKER_03
And then I did my little prayer.
3
SPEAKER_03
Hey God, if you re listening, it s your favorite Jew.
3
SPEAKER_03
Like, please give me an A and everyone else studied.
3
SPEAKER_03
I took the test.
3
SPEAKER_03
Guess what happened?
3
SPEAKER_03
I failed.
3
SPEAKER_03
So I was like, okay, so that was a little too confident.
3
SPEAKER_03
That s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_02
So yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, obviously I m not saying it s great that you got bullied when you were seven, but what a wonderful experience that you were able to take something like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And now your whole career is public speaking.
4
SPEAKER_01
I always love hearing stories like that, that somebody decided instead of caring about what everyone else thinks, you re like, okay, you know what?
4
SPEAKER_01
Watch me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you re like the top motivational speaker now.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And not even, you know, like not even to, I genuinely mean this again, like,
4
SPEAKER_00
I never do things with the intention of revenge or showing someone what I can do, because that means I m still giving them the power and saying that how they feel about me is still more important than how I feel about myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
I like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you kind of elaborate before we dive into your book right now?
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you kind of elaborate really quick about why it s so important to forgive people just in your heart, not in general, where you have to be around them again, but in your heart because it eats you up.
4
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, when you carry around unforgiveness in your heart, it s so heavy.
4
SPEAKER_00
that it blocks energy from the things you really care about and want to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
Whereas when you choose to forgive, you re almost removing this massive boulder that s weighing on your heart, which then frees you up to love others and receive more love.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so
4
SPEAKER_00
if your hand is holding tightly onto something, there s no space to hold onto anything else.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if we re tightly holding onto revenge and bitterness and negativity towards someone, then there s no open palm for receiving love and connection and compassion from someone else.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so to me, forgiveness is not about
4
SPEAKER_00
forgetting and letting go of what the other person did or not setting boundaries.
4
SPEAKER_00
Forgiveness is saying, I want to make space for more love, not less love.
4
SPEAKER_01
I like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, but do you think that some people, they may not realize this because I think I read this research a long time ago, some speaker said this about how they think they don t want to be bitter.
4
SPEAKER_01
They think they don t want to be resentful or feel hate, but that s all they know.
4
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes it s, it s scary to,
4
SPEAKER_01
If every day I wake up and I m miserable, unhappy with my life, or my purpose now is just to hate someone else, it s scary then to wake up the following day and be like, you know what?
4
SPEAKER_01
Today I choose love.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because then you re like, what am I going to do with my life now if I have so much happiness to give instead of hating someone all day?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I forget what book it is, and I can t remember it.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a concept that talks about how having a common enemy is often a way to unite people.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And even unite with ourselves.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so that s what you re referring to.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s why so many.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a marketing strategy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Religions, philosophies, brands have a common evil so that we can get excited about defeating someone and beating someone.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I agree, it s not like waking up exactly, it s not waking up and saying I choose love and that doesn t exist anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s just saying I m not living to prove or disprove anyone else because the only approval that matters is my own.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you re just saying I don t want to live to approve or disprove anyone else.
4
SPEAKER_00
I only want to live for my own approval.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s that decision as opposed to choosing love.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you kind of have some example, an idea of how you or a lesson in your time as a monk or after it, where something kind of shaped your perspective on love and relationships?
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say the biggest one was this idea that
4
SPEAKER_00
monks didn t wait to receive love.
4
SPEAKER_00
They chose to express love or kindness or compassion or joy in every meeting.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what I found is that monks lived a life of love
4
SPEAKER_00
not because people loved them, but because they loved others.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think we think about love as being something you get and receive and people give to you, as opposed to, I can feel love just by being nice and kind to someone else.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I choose to do that, I am feeling love.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think also the idea that
4
SPEAKER_00
In the monastery, I felt a lot of love from my teachers.
4
SPEAKER_00
I felt a lot of love from my peers.
4
SPEAKER_00
I felt a lot of love from the people we served.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think modern society has created romantic love and put romantic love on a pedestal.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we think that if I have romantic love, then my life is perfect.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if I don t have romantic love, then I m not worthy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And as a monk, you don t have romantic love, but I felt so much love, which made me realize that we shouldn t devalue other forms of love.
4
SPEAKER_00
Love for your parents, love for your children, love for your friends, love for your family.
4
SPEAKER_00
How can we say that there s a hierarchy of love?
4
SPEAKER_00
But I think subconsciously we do.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think somewhere in our hearts we believe that the epitome of love is between two people who romantically love each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I would disagree with that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say that there are lots of different types of love and none of them should be compared to the other.
4
SPEAKER_01
I like that because in your book, Eight Rules of Love, there s two of the rules.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of them, you discuss service, what you can do for others.
4
SPEAKER_01
Another one, you discuss unconditional love, which we re going to dive into because for me, it s hard to see how unconditional love is possible.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think people want that, but me personally, from my own experience when I ve come to unconditional love is that
4
SPEAKER_01
love comes, growing up, it felt like love comes with terms and conditions.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if I don t fulfill a certain term or people get everything they need from me, they leave.
4
SPEAKER_01
So do you think unconditional love is actually realistic?
4
SPEAKER_01
Of course you do, obviously.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think unconditional love is real.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just don t know if it s realistic for two people in a romantic relationship as quickly as people want it to be.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, it s quickly.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I think that unconditional love is a tall order and reciprocal love is more realistic.
4
SPEAKER_00
What you just described is transactional love and below that is no love.
4
SPEAKER_00
So if you look at love as layers, when you meet someone new, you don t love them and they don t love you.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t know that, I m kidding.
4
SPEAKER_00
What you just talked about is what I would call transactional love where it s like you give me what I want, I give you what you want and then we re done with each other, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s a lot of people experience that today sadly.
4
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people that I ve been speaking to recently are experiencing that sense of
4
SPEAKER_00
immature people who just want to use someone take and they re in their own pain, but that doesn t give them an excuse to do that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Higher than that is reciprocal love.
4
SPEAKER_00
That means I do nice things for you, you do nice things for me, and we don t count, but we love each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then the highest is unconditional love where I m ready to do anything for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I don t even care whether you don t do anything for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a parent love.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s, yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
And parent love, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that what you said?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like that s like how parents love their kids for sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s the kind of love that exists realistically with unconditional love.
4
SPEAKER_00
But romantic love has to go through these levels
4
SPEAKER_00
because you can t just skip to unconditional love.
4
SPEAKER_00
We think if you put the ring on the finger or you got married or you moved in, you automatically move into unconditional love.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s just not true.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I would want people to just pace themselves better.
4
SPEAKER_00
Don t fall in love too fast because that s why it s called falling in love because you re moving so fast that you can t even walk, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
You re just falling over yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think if we move slower, maybe we could walk in love a bit longer and then maybe learn to run.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you can grow in love.
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s the goal.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that, that unconditional love was your number four rule.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, but if you kind of go backwards really quick, cause many of us grow feeling unloved or we feel like we don t actually understand what love is.
4
SPEAKER_01
Many of us still don t know definition of love because we think it s toxic or based on whatever our parents were.
4
SPEAKER_01
So in your first rule,
4
SPEAKER_01
it s in kind of the whole theme of around your book, it s the idea that love is not just an emotion, but a skill.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I like that because a skill gives me hope that I can, you know, the more you do a skill, the more you get to learn how to be better.
4
SPEAKER_01
So how can we kind of shift our mindset to see love in that way?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then what are some practical exercises we can do to develop our ability to love as a skill?
4
SPEAKER_00
I love that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Uh, that s shows me how
4
SPEAKER_00
Thoughtfully, you ve read the book, because that s such a nuanced point.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s such a subtle point, but it s so important.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love what you said, and you already took the words out of my mouth, that love is a skill and a practice, which means you can learn to love, which means other people can learn to love, and which means you can build it as a foundation.
4
SPEAKER_00
If love is just a feeling or an emotion, then you re always trying to chase it and find it, and you don t know what it looks like.
4
SPEAKER_00
Here s a couple of habits.
4
SPEAKER_00
Every day, find something
5
SPEAKER_00
you love about your body.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it could be often when people think of that, they think I have to think of something aesthetic.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, go beyond think about your organs.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like your heart is just working away every day with no love.
5
SPEAKER_00
When was the last time you showed love to your beating heart?
5
SPEAKER_00
And you think about how much love you think you give to others and they don t give you it in return, that s your heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your heart is giving love to you every single day by keeping you alive, yet we rarely think of our heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
Think about how easy it is to forget about the thing that keeps you beating, breathing and alive, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
We just forget about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that translates into our relationships as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so the first thing is, every day or every week, find one thing you love about your body, one thing you love about your mind, and one thing you love about your heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you can start that practice, you are learning to build self-love.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s a habit for self-love.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not telling you to say it out loud.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not telling you to say it in the mirror.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m just saying, can you acknowledge that there s so much good here and there s so much worthy of love?
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, a habit to love someone else, a great way is saying, I m going to learn when this person needs attention and when they need space.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to do a little experiment to say, do I actually know this person well enough
5
SPEAKER_00
to know whether they need space, attention, awareness, that s love and that s a habit and a skill.
5
SPEAKER_00
I can tell, and me and my wife do this with each other all the time, I m always trying to learn, does my wife need me to be a fixer or does she need me to be a listener?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s love.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s a skill.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s why love is a skill.
5
SPEAKER_00
I can learn to know that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if I m learning, I can ask her, do you want me to be a listener right now or do you want me to be a fixer?
5
SPEAKER_00
I love that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just asking that question.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not complicated.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she could say, Jay, I just want you to be a listener tonight, or I need you to fix this for me right now.
5
SPEAKER_00
And yesterday she came up to me and she was like, I really need to talk to you about something.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to figure this out.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, great.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we re in fixer mode.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then that helps her love you back.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the third thing is, tell people how you want to be loved.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think so often we re scared because we think if we tell someone how to love us, it s a weakness.
5
SPEAKER_00
But actually, if you tell someone, this is how I feel loved, now they get to choose whether they want to love you in that way or not.
5
SPEAKER_00
Rather than expecting them to read your mind and figure out who you are, tell them, share with them.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right, because you end up setting them up for failure.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, they don t care and so on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and some people just, most people have just not been trained to like notice these things.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like people just not, can t read between the lines.
5
SPEAKER_02
Well, normally we assume people love the way we love.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
We don t realize there s so many different love languages.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I grew up half of my life thinking my dad didn t love me and my dad every day did his best to show me that he loved me by giving me something his father didn t give him, which was a roof over my head and supporting me financially.
5
SPEAKER_02
But I never got hugged by him and I never heard the words that he loved me.
5
SPEAKER_02
So I m like, what does my dad hate me?
5
SPEAKER_02
When I got older, I realized that s all he knew.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like he doesn t know how to show love.
5
SPEAKER_02
He did his best and we connected again.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I m, I feel so always thankful that I was able to learn all these different love languages and get, got to learn and give my father and I another chance.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I think, I think so many people in this life don t give other people a chance and they just assume, Oh, that person doesn t care about me.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s so beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s an amazing reflection.
5
SPEAKER_00
I really appreciate it.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, I genuinely do.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s so great because, yeah, we want to be loved the way we give love.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we don t realize there are so many beautiful ways to show love to someone and receive love.
5
SPEAKER_00
And actually, if you tell someone, I only want to be loved this way, you miss out on the way they can love you too.
5
SPEAKER_02
Aw, I like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_02
I love that a lot.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
Um, your third rule in your book, you wrote that it s about love is that antidote to fear.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you, we ve earlier discussed fear.
5
SPEAKER_02
Can you kind of discuss how fear can really hold us back from experiencing a connection?
5
SPEAKER_00
Fear is just an unformed boundary.
5
SPEAKER_00
So fear is a boundary in the making, but it isn t yet a boundary and that s why it s still a fear.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so what we have to do is we have to take our fears and we have to turn them into principles, agreements, and boundaries.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if I have a fear that someone may leave me,
5
SPEAKER_00
Instead of keeping it that way, I m going to set a boundary saying, I m not going to get too close too quick without the person showing me they re ready for commitment.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not just going to make up in my head and pretend what I think this relationship should be.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I m going to change my fear into a principle I can live.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
As opposed to just saying, I m just going to constantly be scared of this.
5
SPEAKER_00
For example, if I m scared that someone doesn t love me, I m going to set an agreement with my partner to say, every week we do this, this, and this because it makes us feel close together.
5
SPEAKER_00
And does that person want to commit to that?
5
SPEAKER_00
If they do, great.
5
SPEAKER_00
We now have an agreement, which means we don t have to hold on to that fear.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we need to change our fears into boundaries, agreements, and commitments to each other so that both people are not walking around with insecurities.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right, because people get scared to even communicate in that way, but at least then you would know if your partner is willing to go the extra mile with you or not.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_02
Versus just living in fear.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, I remember when I first met my wife, I was scared.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had a fear that the amount I care about my purpose could scare someone away.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that was my fear.
5
SPEAKER_00
My personal fear was I am so committed to the life I want to create and build that it may scare someone away.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I said that to my wife when we were dating.
5
SPEAKER_00
I said to her, I said, my purpose is going to come first to me forever because I love it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s my life and soul to help people.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is that okay with you?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is that something you re comfortable with?
5
SPEAKER_00
And then we looked at what that looked like on a practical level.
5
SPEAKER_00
And luckily I have a wife who understands that about me.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she said the same thing to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
She said, my number one priority is my family.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we had that open and honest conversation.
5
SPEAKER_00
And because of that, there hasn t been this weird feeling when I jump on a plane to do something that s my purpose, she s not going to me, well, why are you going?
5
SPEAKER_00
Where are you going?
5
SPEAKER_00
And if she s saying, I need to be back with my family, I m not there going, well, you ve been there a lot this year.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, because there s a respect and there s an understanding of that s what fuels you.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you can turn your fear into a conversation, a principle and a boundary and a commitment, which frees you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, she could have said, no, Jay, I don t want you to live that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then we would have figured that path out and seen where that would have gone.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I think a lot of us are scared.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then what we don t realize is we end up living out our fears in the future.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t go away.
5
SPEAKER_01
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
5
SPEAKER_01
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5
SPEAKER_01
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
5
SPEAKER_01
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
5
SPEAKER_01
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
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SPEAKER_01
We re discussing it all.
5
SPEAKER_01
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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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SPEAKER_01
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like literally if you say, I m just going to take a step back and just in case if they want to leave me, then I won t be all in.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then because you re not all in, they re thinking, oh, the person s not interested.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Rather than you sharing it.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then all your fears actually come true.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think a lot of the time that s what happens.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
I did it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Someone that kept getting scared that something was going to happen during our dating.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then we would break up because of it.
5
SPEAKER_02
And we, in the end, end up breaking up because of it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s it.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your fears become your future for sure.
5
SPEAKER_02
I love how well you and your wife communicate.
5
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I am honestly astonished by it.
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Everything that you re saying, there s so many things you re saying that my brain, I m like, oh my God, I want to save it.
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Press save so I can remember.
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It s such good advice.
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For people out there who may not have this type of relationship that you have with your wife or
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with other partners or in general who are currently struggling with loneliness, and this book really helps to understand all the different types of love.
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What is your message to those that may be struggling with loneliness or heartbreak or lack of love in their lives?
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Being alone is a great time to get to know yourself because when you get with someone else, you often start adopting their behaviors, their likes, their patterns.
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Nothing wrong with that, but if you don t know who you are in the first place, that s why so many people say, I lost myself in the relationship or I forgot who I was.
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But it s like, you weren t really sure in the beginning.
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And so being alone after a heartbreak is such a great time
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to get awareness of who you are and i think it s so important to go well what do i like and what do i not like what kind of life do i want to create and what kind of life do i want to build what s important to me what s a priority to me and what isn t and when you start taking that interest in yourself
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We most often, we don t find ourselves interesting.
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That s why we want someone else in our life to make life interesting.
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But if you learn to become interested in yourself, I promise you life will become more interesting and you ll like to take joy in your own company.
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And by the way, that applies even if you re in a relationship.
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Even if you re in a relationship, spending time alone is so healthy for a sense of self-esteem, for a sense of self-awareness.
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And so this isn t just a skill that you have to practice when you re alone.
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It s a skill you have to practice when you re with someone.
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If you re constantly around someone,
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you are going to dissolve your identity into who they are and who you become in the relationship and that s not
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bad per se, but it s not healthy for your own long-term.
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That s why people have been married for three decades and one person says, I haven t achieved my goals, I don t know who I am.
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It s not because they didn t have a good relationship with that person, it s because you didn t have a good relationship with yourself.
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Often when people end up in breakups or divorce, it s not because they didn t have a great relationship, it s because they didn t have a good relationship with themselves and they sacrificed or put aside parts of themselves thinking that that made the relationship better.
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Only years later to find
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I wish I didn t do that.
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So I think those times are times to really get to know yourself.
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And the way you get to know yourself is doing things by yourself, taking yourself out on dates, going out to dinner on your own, going out and finding the friends that you want to connect with, going and developing the habits and the disciplines and the routines that are fruitful for you.
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If you do that, you start to attract the right community around you as well.
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I think a lot of people are afraid to, to take a look in the mirror, spend time with themselves because deep down they may not like who they are.
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And I think that s a lot of people s biggest fear that what if I get to know myself and I don t like that person?
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The best thing is you can change it.
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And you re not that person.
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Like you re not, you re not the person you feel like right now.
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You re something so much more powerful beyond it, beneath it.
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And you can become anything you want to be.
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Like you truly can.
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And I think we,
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If you do get to know yourself and you don t like yourself, I promise you another person will not solve that.
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Period.
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Right?
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It just won t.
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I like that.
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From your eight rules, what would you say has been, over the course of your life, the hardest rule for you to follow?
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I think the hardest one is always
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the rule that s win or lose together.
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So because your ego is a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly battle.
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And when your partner s being stubborn and you don t want to give in and you want to point them out or you want to trip them up or you want to call them out, we do that.
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Oftentimes, I think that s what ruins relationships, is our partners trying and we want to act all hard to get, and then we try and then they re acting all hard to get, or we re trying to be nice, but they re not being sincerely nice, so we want to call that out.
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I think we just call out our partners a lot.
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in a way that we don t do to anyone else.
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We pick their faults more, we pick out their insecurities more, we dig at them more, we know them better, so we know which buttons to push to get a reaction.
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I think that s... Instead of just saying, hey, when you re not around, it hurts my feelings.
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Totally.
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We want to say it in a passive-aggressive way.
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Oh, you re with your friends tonight.
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Okay, I guess that s better for you than to hang out with your wife.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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We want to say that rather than just saying, hey, this week, shall we plan which nights we re going to spend together?
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Right.
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It s the same thing.
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And I think that s why win or lose together, it s really interesting.
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I was thinking about this.
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We spend so much time trying to win someone over, and then we want them to lose arguments.
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And it doesn t make any sense.
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We spend all this time trying to win someone over, to impress them, for them to love us, and then we want them to lose.
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And I wish we could just give ourselves and them more grace in relationships because
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If you win and they lose, you both lose.
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And if you lose and they win, you both lose.
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So you have two choices.
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You either win together or you lose together.
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But if you win and they lose, that s a loss because you sleep in the same bed, you live in the same house, you wake up with that person, you re sharing energy now.
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And whether you like it or not, if you re trying to put them down or
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pick them apart, that is going to affect you every day.
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And you re setting yourself up.
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I don t want to live in a house where we hate each other or don t like each other or take shots at each other every day.
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I just don t want to live in that environment.
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Why would you put yourself through that?
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You might as well be alone.
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Right, right.
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Because sometimes you can focus so much on winning an argument and that that s how you lose versus we re arguing, but how can we win together by coming to an agreement?
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Yeah, we focus so much on winning an argument that we often lose the person because of it.
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And so often, it s not about you losing the argument and them winning either.
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It s about saying, how do we win together?
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Because we re on the same team.
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But how can you do that without accidentally giving too much of yourself?
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Because you know how everything you re saying is so peaceful and so wonderful, but then sometimes we forget that it takes two people to tango.
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You need your partner to be as understanding as you are.
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So what if every day I m the one that s like, it s okay, don t worry about my feelings as long as we can win together.
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That s such a great question, and that s the mistake.
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I m not saying you say, my feelings don t matter, it doesn t matter, I ll give in.
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That s not what winning together looks like.
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Winning doesn t mean tolerance.
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Winning together doesn t mean like you re just tolerant of someone else s issues and things.
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It s creating agreements, commitments, and boundaries together.
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Us coming together and saying, okay, this is a weekly problem in this house.
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Right.
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How are we going to solve it?
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It s not me saying, you re the issue, you need to change this, you need to sort it out.
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It s saying, this is something we both disagree on, right?
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How are we going to take care of it?
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I ll give a silly example in my own house.
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The bed was never made, right?
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The bed was never made.
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My wife wakes up earlier than me.
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So in her head, it was my job to make the bed.
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Right.
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Now I wake up later, but I feel like I ve got a million things to do.
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And so I m thinking, well, she can take care of it later on.
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Now, if we never talk about it, this could be an issue that lasts for years.
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And all the studies show that most couples argue about the same things for long amounts of time.
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It s not that you have new fights, you have the same fights again and again.
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I m taking a silly example just to help the situation.
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Now, the reason why I don t like doing the bed is because we have way too many cushions on that bed.
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I don t need bed pillows.
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I just need the pillow I sleep with and the duvet.
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She wants the decorative pillows on top.
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So we made an agreement and a commitment.
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We would limit the decorative pillows and the last person to wake up would do the bed.
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Oh.
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And that agreement has solved that problem where five out of seven days, I m the last person to get out of bed.
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And so I ll do it and I m happy to do it.
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But we ve also limited the amount of pillows so that I m not having to like.
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Got it.
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Do all this decorative stuff that I m not a huge fan of in the morning.
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Yeah.
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Because it may not be like the right act for me.
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And so I ve taken a very silly example, but the point is that s what winning together looks like.
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Winning together doesn t look like her saying, oh, Jay, it s fine if you just want to leave the bed.
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And then she s going resentment.
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Exactly.
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Or it doesn t mean me saying, I ll do all this decorative stuff for you, honey, because I m going to pretend.
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And now you re growing resentment.
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But then I m growing resentment.
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Why would we do that, right?
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Like, it s not a compromise.
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It s trying to create a commitment and agreement together that we can both vibe with.
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It would have been funny if you re like, so now every morning I wake up at 4 a.m.
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Yeah, I m going to beat you so you have to do it.
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Yeah, I like that.
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It s a compromise.
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OK, that is really good.
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You share so many powerful lessons and insights in your book.
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Can you kind of share another lesson or piece of advice that you believe that has the power to truly transform someone s life beyond everything else you already mentioned that I think could help anyone?
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Wow.
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I think in love and relationships, we often ask the wrong questions.
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I like that.
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So we often ask questions like, are they the right person?
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Are they right for me?
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Is there someone else?
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And I think those questions have unlimited answers, and they re not the right questions because I don t think it s about whether someone s right for you.
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It s whether you both want to make it right.
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Like there is no perfect person, there is no perfect partner.
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There s only the person that wants to make it work with you and the person you want to make it work with.
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And if someone doesn t want to make it work with you, it doesn t matter how perfect you think they are, it s not going to work.
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And we keep asking that question or we keep thinking when we break up with someone, but they were perfect, they were the one, that was the person I wanted to be with.
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And that s real because the research shows in science that you re,
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Literally, when you break up with someone, you re detoxing from the relationship as if you re craving a drug.
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detoxing from a drug, so you re craving that person, but you re craving the idea in your mind of what it looked like, not what it actually was, because guess what, that person doesn t actually want to be there.
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And so the biggest advice I can give is stop living life in your head and how it looks and how you want it to look, and start navigating the real world, because I guarantee you the real world has more beauty in its beauty
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and it has more signs in its reality.
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But the version you re living in your mind and your head is going to constantly keep perplexing you because you have a projector of your ideal life up here, and then you have the reality of your life down here, and they re never going to match.
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It s never going to match.
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I like that about asking the wrong questions or just a thought when you keep telling yourself, but that person was perfect.
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If they were perfect for you, then they would want to be with you.
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That s exactly the point.
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So they re not perfect.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I actually, that reminds me of a long time ago, my ex and I were together for eight years.
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And when we going through our 1 millionth breakup and I was sad about it and
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I was going through my love withdrawals, which are like a drug, heroin.
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And I kept remembering this one moment that we had the best time ever.
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And I was just giving my friend this advice, because she s going through it right now.
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And I said, that day, I had the best memory.
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We went to Malibu together.
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Then we got massages together.
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And then we had dinner.
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And we made love.
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It was the best day ever.
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And then finally, I said, let s really go back.
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And I remember I was really thinking more logically now.
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And I went back to that day that was my best day of a relationship.
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And suddenly, I got to see for what it was.
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when we re having lunch in Malibu, my boyfriend s on his phone and he was like, and I was like, smiling, so happy to be there with him.
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And you re just like, okay, are you almost done?
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Are you ready?
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Then we go get massages.
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He looks at me, he s like, you know, this was really expensive.
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Are you going to be thankful for this?
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And it s like all these little moments, which is fine.
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You know, I m not, I m not in any way blaming him.
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I m just saying we weren t to match, but it s the way I wanted to remember that day was as if we were perfect.
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It was beautiful.
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He was my person when reality, he, I don t think the guy even liked me.
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know, then dinner again on his phone.
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So it s not easy when you look at things realistically, but I think it is so helpful because I was so desperate to be loved that I didn t even notice that the person in front of me didn t love me.
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Oh, that is so powerful.
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That is exactly it.
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I m going to repeat what you just said.
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We re so desperate to be loved that we often don t even realize that the person in front of us doesn t even love us.
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You just said that.
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And that is so powerful and it is so true that we re making up the story.
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And it s really interesting.
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The trick of the mind is when you re with someone, you pick at all the negatives.
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But when you break up with someone, all you do is remember the positives.
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Yeah.
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And our mind plays that trick on us.
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When you re with someone every day, you re like, oh, they re annoying and they re the worst and they don t care about me.
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And then when they break up, you re like, no, no, no, because it turns into that craving.
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And so we have to remind ourselves of reality.
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Always focus on the facts.
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If you want the truth, the truth is the facts of what was really happening.
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And if you look at the facts, chances are you don t want to be with that person.
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Yeah.
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Or kind of what you said in the beginning with how when you re negative, our minds, we lie to ourselves, our mind plays tricks on us.
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So if I have a completely wonderful relationship with you and then I fall into depression or, and I start lying to myself thinking that I m not worthy of love, I m going to go back to our memories.
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I m going to remember something.
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You look at me weird or, and all that, I m going to think you don t love me.
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It s just, it s really interesting.
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Okay, so from your book, Eight Rules of Love, what would you say, I mean, there s so many great pieces of advice, but what would you say one of the best piece of advice that people can take from your book?
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I think I would say overall, I think we ve touched on some really beautiful points in the book.
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And the biggest thing I d say is the book s about every stage of love, how to find it, how to keep it and how to let it go.
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And I think that I tried to write a book that was for everyone at every stage of a relationship.
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almost like a map, and if someone wants to talk about and think about love in a more...
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systematic in a more scientific and in a more step-by-step way, then this book is great.
7
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If someone wants to talk about love in a more practical, real way, then this book is great for you.
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Because I m not trying to talk about love with this ethereal concept or this fluffy woo-woo thing.
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It s like, I m just laying it out as it is.
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And if someone wants to help going through a breakup, if someone wants help, because they re just about to move in with someone, if someone wants to help figure out being alone,
7
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this book covers the best resets, the best wisdom, and the best ideas, not just from me, but from, and this is what I keep reminding everyone, when I m putting a book together, I m not just sharing things that I know that would be limited.
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I go out there and research and curate, so I find science, I find wisdom, I find real life stories, I interview people, I look at research and studies, like, it s all curated to give you a really complete picture.
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And I think one thing from this whole interview that I really liked when you re discussing you and your wife is that it seems that you never stop learning about her.
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And I think that s one thing that people need to understand when it comes to love, that you re always, as long as you continue to be curious about your partner and how to grow, that s a successful partnership, right?
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Love means to learn.
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Love means that I will, if you love something, it means you will never stop learning about it.
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When someone says, I love football or basketball, what does that mean?
7
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It means they re always learning about it.
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What happened this week?
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What did the player do?
7
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That player got injured.
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This happened, that person scored.
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Like it s constant, right?
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That s what love is.
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If you love your garden, you take care of it every day.
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If you love your home, you take care of every item every day.
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But with our partners, we say we love them.
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but we take care of them once a year.
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And that doesn t make any sense.
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That s not love.
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That s ownership.
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I like that analogy.
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And I like that comparison also then with yourself, because that s another thing.
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I love myself yesterday.
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How come I hate myself today?
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Exactly.
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Right.
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One of the biggest things I struggle with is
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focusing on my progress over perfection, because I m a perfectionist, which sets me up to failure, obviously.
7
SPEAKER_01
So how can we shift our mindset to embrace this philosophy?
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And what would you say some practical steps we can take towards our goals with just, you know, not being a perfectionist?
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Yeah, I just, I think we have to come at it from the point of view that perfection doesn t exist.
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And I think the fact that we even think perfection exists is partly the problem, because it gives you something to work towards.
7
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But when you realize perfection doesn t exist, but there s a great book called Flow.
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And Flow State is all about when you feel like you re in the zone.
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So musicians or rappers or swimmers or singers, when they re like fully zoned in, like if you watched Elvis or you watch Beyonce or you watch your favorite athlete, you can tell they re in the zone.
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That s called flow state.
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And they say flow state is when your challenge meets your skill.
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So when your skill and your challenge meet and are aligned, that s when you experience flow.
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But most of us experience one or the other.
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We experience our challenge above our skill.
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That s really depressing.
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It s disheartening.
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It makes us feel unworthy.
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Or we experience our skill above our challenge.
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That makes us feel bored.
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It makes us feel lethargic.
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It makes us feel complacent.
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So what I say to people is if you want to feel progress and not work on perfection, just focus on making your skill and your challenge align.
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And that will create such a powerful mode to help you focus on your skill and your challenge, not on perfection or progress.
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and it gives you something worthy to focus on.
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So that s what I always focus on.
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If I find something too easy, I m like, what challenge do I need to take on?
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And if I find something really hard, I m like, what skill don t I have?
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I like that.
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SPEAKER_00
So I m not worried about perfection or progress, I m more worried about my skill and my challenge.
7
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I have a question.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Is there something that I should be asking you that I haven t asked you?
7
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No, I think you have asked brilliant questions.
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This has been such a fun conversation.
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I ve answered so many questions that I ve never been asked before.
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That s credit to you and your research and preparation.
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And I ve had such a good time talking to you.
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Thank you.
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Let s close this with your message of love and connection over the course of your career, over the course of this book.
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I think it s phenomenal and it s so powerful.
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So what advice, last advice do you have for those who may be struggling to cultivate meaningful connections in their lives and what can they do to kind of deepen the connections they already have?
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Connect with people who want to connect with you.
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I think most of our issues come when we re trying to connect with people who don t want to connect with us.
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And we, I promise you, you may think you make effort with people who don t make effort with you.
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I promise you there are people who make effort with you that you don t make effort with.
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I guarantee you there are people there that text you more than you text them, but you don t want to text with them.
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You want to text with someone else.
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And we live in this world where we are constantly chasing, pursuing, wanting to be around different people.
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But there are people who love you right now that you re disconnected from.
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And so connect with people who want to connect with you.
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Make an effort with people who make an effort with you.
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Sure, make new efforts and try and connect with new people, but don t chase someone who s clearly
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showing you that they don t have space for you in their life that doesn t make them a bad person they just don t have time right now i like that i agree it s
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It s kind of, it s your childhood trauma.
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You re chasing that love you didn t get as a child.
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And then it s, I was talking about a long time ago where you spend your whole life thinking people don t love you.
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And then when you actually pay attention, you realize all these people around you do love you.
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They ve been trying to show you love.
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And you said, you re like, why doesn t that person not love me?
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Yes.
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That s often what our life is.
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That is exactly what it is.
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We re looking at the one person that we want love from, as opposed to looking at the 10 people who are showing us love.
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how do we stop then and become aware?
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Because self-awareness is not easy.
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How do you finally like, you know what, enough, I don t want to chase this person anymore.
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They don t love me.
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It will only happen the more you connect with the people who do love you.
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You ll naturally feel it.
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You ll feel less needy.
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You ll feel less FOMO.
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You ll feel less disconnected.
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So it s not about, I think sometimes we think I have to disconnect first to connect somewhere else.
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It s the other way around.
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If I go and connect with the people I want to connect with,
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will naturally disconnect from the people that I don t need to.
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Right.
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So you have to unlearn your old behavior in a way, because if I keep thinking chasing someone, that s what love is versus this person sitting.
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If I m so used to only chasing love, if you re sitting next to me and you re showing me love, I m not going to understand this is love.
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You ve just hit the nail on the head.
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That s exactly it.
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Well, it s all because of your book.
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No, no, no.
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But that s exactly it.
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That is so well said.
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We ve conditioned ourselves to believe that love is chasing someone, which means even when the most loving person is sitting right next to us.
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Or we ve convinced ourselves that love means fixing someone.
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And so we keep finding people to fix.
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Or we ve convinced ourselves that love means saving someone.
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So we keep finding someone to save.
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And so we keep looking for someone to fix, someone to save, someone to chase, not realizing that love meant who s willing to sit with me right now and be present.
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I agree.
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Cause like I said, in the past, when I grew up with my, my parents were still together, my mom showed me so much love.
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She s the most loving person I ve ever met in my life.
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My dad didn t.
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And I chased that so much.
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And my mom would show me love.
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I thought that s so weak.
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She cries so easily.
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She s overly loving.
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And my father, forget what my birthday was.
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And I was like, that s my hero.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Exactly.
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And we get trained that that s a perfect example.
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Um, okay.
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So where can people find you?
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Uh, you can find me at my new book, of course, is a great place, which is eight rules of love.com.
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You can find me on my podcast on purpose and which is across all platforms.
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And you can find me on Instagram and tick tock at Jay Shetty.
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Okay, perfect.
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And then you re currently also your first ever world tour love rules.
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So you guys can go to Jay Shetty tour.com for tickets and also be my description.
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And you can follow Jay on Instagram and subscribe to his podcast if you re already subscribed, which I will be surprised his podcast is on purpose.
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If you have any questions, make sure to DM him and follow him.
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Is there anything else you want to add?
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No, I just want to say thank you to you.
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Thank you so much for having such a genuine, thoughtful conversation and doing so much incredible preparation, asking such great questions, such amazing.
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I was just saying to Violeta, and for all of you that listen, Violeta is an amazing host because when I said something today, I felt like she was internalizing it, reflecting it.
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And you could see her do what I hope everyone else is doing.
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And I think that makes you an amazing host to actually do that live and in real time and apply it to your own life.
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And I think that s going to benefit your community.
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And obviously it is.
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That s why they follow you.
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But I just want everyone to know that that s a really special skill.
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So thank you so much.
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Thank you so much for saying that.
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Of course.
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I mean it.
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Okay.
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Bye, you guys.
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Have a beautiful day.
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Thank you.
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I read something mind-boggling recently.
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Most of the cells in our body completely renew themselves over our lifetimes, some in just a few days.
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Make no bones about it, we re literally built for change.
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Yet for some reason, we resist it.
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The next seven minutes are about you and how to change your attitude towards, well, change.
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I m Jay Shetty, welcome to the Daily Jay.
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Now let s get centered with three mindful breaths.
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Inhaling and exhaling.
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Feeling the air flow in and feeling it flow out.
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Bringing your attention to this moment and settling in to the here and now.
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There s an old story about a man who had been struggling with anxiety.
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He heard that meditation could support his mental and emotional health, so he went to a local mindfulness center and started taking classes.
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On his own, he practiced diligently, getting up every morning and meditating to begin the day.
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One night, a few weeks after starting his practice, the man stayed after class to talk with his teacher.
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I don t know what s wrong, he said.
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I m doing everything you described.
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I m sitting every day.
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I m breathing.
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I m noticing thoughts and trying to release them.
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But I just can t get my mind to calm down.
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It s not working.
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The teacher nodded and smiled.
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It s okay, she said.
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Keep meditating.
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It will change.
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The man was skeptical, but he kept meditating.
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A few months later, the man stayed after class again, this time with good news for his teacher.
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Everything s changed, just like you said.
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I m finally feeling it.
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All the calm, the relaxation, I can easily clear my mind.
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It s wonderful. 
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The teacher nodded and smiled.
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Keep meditating, she said.
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It will change.
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If only we could freeze those good feelings, those times in life when things are going our way.
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We had a great day at work, or a fantastic date.
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We re feeling energized and healthy, and we think, finally, it s all coming together.
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Then, when things shift, as they inevitably do, we feel despondent, angry, or frustrated.
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Today was a struggle at work.
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We re feeling misunderstood by our partner.
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We re feeling burned out and warm thin.
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In these moments, it feels like things will never change.
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But there is no feeling in the world that is eternal.
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And there is no feeling in the world that is eternally absent.
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Whatever you re experiencing, it will change.
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On some level we know this and yet we either push back against it or we try and rush the change.
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But wishing your life would stop changing is like hoping that summer won t turn to autumn and trying to rush change is like telling winter to hurry up and become spring.
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Just like in nature, life happens in seasons.
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And while it seems like some seasons are good and others are bad, attachment and aversion are really just different sides of the same coin.
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They can make change more difficult or painful than it needs to be.
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By labeling the shift as good or bad, we re judging the moment.
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We re resisting the flow of life.
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Instead, when we learn to accept change, we re able to embrace whatever life gives us.
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Then we ll be able to meet each moment with courage, clarity, and composure.
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So today, good or bad, happy or sad, calm or stressed, just let it flow.
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And with that in mind, let s meditate and then reflect on your approach to change.
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So get comfortable wherever you are, giving yourself the permission to release a little tension.
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Closing your eyes if you feel like it will help you settle in.
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Feeling the natural rhythm of the breath.
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In and out.
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observing how your body feels.
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You can rest your attention on any part of this moment and see if you can bring an attitude of acceptance to whatever you re experiencing.
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If something feels good, we re not trying to hold on to it.
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And if something feels challenging or uncomfortable, we re not trying to change it.
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We re just noticing what is and allowing ourselves
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To be okay with that.
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Breathing in and breathing out.
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Stretching up and sinking down.
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And now let s open this up.
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Think about your relationship with change.
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Are you familiar with attachment or aversion?
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Do you meet change with resistance?
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Can you let go of your grip on the good times?
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Relax your rush during tough times.
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I know this might be easier said than done, but remember, we re built for change.
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I m so grateful to you for joining me today.
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I ll see you tomorrow.
9
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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.