Kind: captions
Language: en
the one way to know your strengths
is to ask yourself what do you do
that you feel the most confidence doing
have you ever looked at how much content
you've put out no it's a lot dude like
when you search your name like to go
because i normally try to watch like
basically everything and i was like i
give up
it's just it's really incredible um
and going through that stuff it seems
really clear to me that you have massive
self-awareness
and
what would you say like is a is there a
process for people to gain more
self-awareness and then what are from a
behavioral um
uh you know just human behavior level
what are things that trip up the average
person the first answer i mean i'm a
huge fan of the book thinking fast and
slow i don't know how if you've read it
yeah it's a great book because for me
it's got a really close pattern
connection again to what i studied
so just understanding system one and
system two if anyone watching hasn't
read it i highly recommend it just being
able to differentiate between system one
and system two as daniel kahneman calls
it in the vedic philosophy we call
differentiating between the mind and the
intelligence
knowing how to differentiate the voices
in your head is the first level of
self-awareness so break down what system
one and system two are absolutely so
system one is your initial response to
anything that happens it's a stop that i
can't really say so if you say something
i don't like
my system one naturally would be a face
that i pull that i don't agree with that
that's that's an understanding of what
system one is it's your initial
default reaction in the moment that can
be positive often for example if someone
pulls out a knife you feel scared and
you run that system one that's a good
thing it's it's safe for you but also
system one is someone says something
that hurts your ego and you start
defending yourself immediately that's
also that's a negative of system one
that we would refer to as the mind it's
built up of conditioning those responses
are conditioned those default elements
are all there because of habit and
continuous practice
the system two is more like the
intelligence what i would say is more
like the parent if you can consider
system one to be more like a child
system two is more like a parent it
looks more at the long term it looks
more at the bigger picture it processes
that default reaction through a set of
checking and metrics to decide whether
that's true the child is the the one
that wants everything right away
impatient quickly responding straight
away reacting when it doesn't get what
he wants the intelligent parent and good
one knows what the child wants and needs
and what's better for in the long term
just starting there
and being able to reflect and observe
the different voices inside of us is a
great place to start yourself awareness
because the biggest challenge is that
most of us don't know what we're
listening to and we don't most of us
don't even know that there are more than
one voice inside of us
just getting over that line is a huge
win
because now at least you're trying to
differentiate
in what you're hearing and that's going
to help you make better decisions in the
future so that was answer one does that
answer your question oh yes and second
one was what um
so that's awareness how can what are
like typical things that trip people up
that so
in your answer just now it's like okay
if you want to become more aware just
know that those two things are happening
right you're gonna have an initial
response and then one that's more
calculated now be aware of these two or
three things that are also coming for
you
the biggest challenge is that there's
just so much noise
it's like have you ever had someone in
your home maybe it's your wife or maybe
it's a friend or whatever just play a
really bad song too often right just
playing a song that you really don't
actually heard my wife laugh because she
knows how guilty she right okay there
you go right there you go and you just
play a song and just think oh turn that
off and after a while it's been on for
so long
that you you become immune to it like
it's just there and it's still on it's
there in the back of your mind and you
didn't manage to turn it off so the
noise that i describe in life whether
it's your parents expectations whether
it's
society's expectations whether it's your
partner's expectations all of those are
like noise in the background and that
noise drowns out
your ability to understand
the mind and the intelligence that's one
of the biggest trip ups
i was looking at i gave a presentation
called build a life not a resume it's
also one of my popular videos
but very good video thank you man thank
you so much and when i did the research
so you don't see this in the video
because this research didn't make it
into the video but the research that i
was doing was around the most common
resume lies
the truth is over 40 to 50 percent of us
lie on our resumes yeah if you don't
you're missing an opportunity i'll just
say that yeah there you go right so and
i started to dig deeper and i was
looking at you know a lot of people lie
about their dates of employment so
instead of three days it's now three
months you know whatever it may be now i
dug deeper and i wanted to meet some of
these people and speak to people and so
i spoke to people who lie on their
resumes and we know that at least forty
to fifty percent tell us they do
you know the thing is no one was proud
of that no one was like yeah yeah i know
i'm gonna get really what it came down
to is we're really insecure about our
own abilities
really what it came down to is we're not
confident about what we have to offer
what it came down to is a lack of
self-awareness what it came down to is a
lack of understanding what am i good at
what am i passionate about what am i
bringing to the table
that's what people were really worried
about
they were worried about the job but when
you dug beneath the surface the real
behavioral trait that was coming out was
insecurity and being unconfident
about one's potential that that tells us
a lot that indicates a lot about human
behavior and human nature that the noise
from outside
makes us want to fit into a container
and that stops us from differentiating
between what is my mind saying and what
is my intelligence saying and what
happens is that noise becomes your voice
so that noise becomes what you think is
what you're saying
and most people don't realize that until
10 20 30 years down the line how the
hell do you like figure out so your
analogy is great yeah song's on you
don't even realize it's there anymore it
becomes total white noise you're
oblivious to it in fact you'll only
notice it if it gets turned off correct
so how do they identify that like you
have a process for that how do you hear
the thing that you no longer hear
so that you can shut it off yeah
absolutely one of the biggest ones and
we say this all the time but it applies
mostly to this is switching your
association is switching association to
people
right it's like changing your circle
because if you're only hearing the same
thing from that circle the only way to
turn it off without you having to do
mass amounts of reflection
is changing your circle where you start
hearing we all ultimately find the
things we want to hear right we know
that
all right right now in real time you and
i are going to do some cool [ __ ] okay
let's do it let's do it all right so
i created like a little um piece of
content for alexa where i was like okay
what are the the four questions that you
can ask to get because you and i use
different words but i think we're saying
the same thing so i call them invisible
beliefs beautiful so everybody has
invisible beliefs and they're totally
[ __ ] with you yeah i call it noise
yeah so they're they're controlling your
life
and
the only way to get them to stop
controlling your life is actually figure
out what they are and so i gave four
questions that two of them i just
straight stole from albert einstein what
are they um and it's
the most important decision every person
will make in their life is whether they
live in a friendly or a hostile universe
so just make it a question right do you
live in a friendly or a hostile universe
and so the the point i'll go through all
four but the point was that if you ask
these four questions and they're just
the tip of the iceberg but if you ask
these four questions you're going to
begin to identify your frame of
reference basically just trying to get
people to frame themselves as either
optimistic or pessimistic which i think
is sort of the the big hem-handed like
first thing you need to become aware of
so first um do you live in a hostile or
friendly universe another einstein one
is everything a miracle or is nothing a
miracle right because you get to choose
absolutely so neither one of those is
objectively real but you pick and it's
really going to color how you love it
yeah and then number three
can you do anything you set your mind to
without limitation or are there certain
things you can't comprehend
um and then number four i'm forgetting
right now so i won't waste time because
you get the yeah i get it i love them
they're brilliant brilliant questions so
what like they're woefully incomplete so
what could we add to that that would
really bring this home for people so if
that gets them optimistic pessimistic
what what other at a really high level
yeah sure what are other things that
people could immediately switch or in
fact would immediately switch if they
change you know the people that they're
hanging around but like let's really get
real about what some of those things are
so optimism pessimism what else so for
me there was two questions that i had to
ask myself that that really changed what
i do one of my big questions is what
advice would i give to my younger self
it's huge because i think that's the
stuff that we regret that's the stuff
that we wish we were doing that's the
stuff that has been lost in the noise
when you ask someone what advice would
you give to your younger self the number
one answer is i wish i studied this
i wish i tried this out
i wish i gave this a go you know those
are all things that somebody didn't do
yeah it's all things that things people
didn't do it's always like something
that either should have started or
didn't continue
and that's really tapping into someone's
voice
right that's really tapping into what
someone really wants to do and you're
going way beyond just like oh what do
you like what are you passionate about
so hard to answer that sometimes
especially if you're drowning does that
add to your questions or no no it's
really interesting but now i need to
know what your answer was so i used to
be uh i used to do a lot of spoken word
when i grew up i read the dictionary i
read the thesaurus i loved language
that's what i was fascinated by and for
some reason i gave it up then i found
out about monk life became a monk and
then almost back 10 years on at 28 i was
going i asked myself that question and
my answer was i miss words i miss
expressiveness i miss sharing a message
and stories through
incredible language and ideas potential
rhymes but flow and all of these things
so that was the answer to my question
one of the biggest answers was i wish i
never stopped
writing when did you ask that question i
was actually 28 so two years ago two
years ago what is up my friends i have
huge news for you about one of the most
exciting and important projects i've
ever worked on in my life
as you guys know it is my mission to
help teach people about how to build a
mindset and the skills that they're
going to need to live an extraordinary
life and over the last few months i've
been working hard behind the scenes to
create a brand new tool that will help
you do exactly that it's called project
kaizen and i'm proud to announce that
i'll be bringing it to the world later
this year project kaizen is a web 3
based game like experience that is a
story-based world that's going to allow
you to get inside build an avatar that
is aspirational of who you want to
become and then take the path of the
warrior seeking continuous improvement
inside of a story world and game
experience all right my friend i cannot
tell you how excited i am about this
amazing new project which i think ushers
in a whole new form of entertainment and
i want to meet you inside of project
kaizen and help you have fun with these
ideas of always getting better all right
click the link and join me in discord
and until then my friends be legendary
take care
your content is like the modern version
of spoken word so i don't know if that's
on purpose or an accident but like it
was an accident watching it i was like
[ __ ] like if he
is doing this off the cuff i have to
hate myself a little yeah and if he's
writing it down he performs it so well
yeah that it feels off the cuff but it's
the answer is very impressive thank you
man you're so kind i'm genuinely touched
coming from no no here's the thing like
look and and i love giving compliments
when they're real but more importantly
you complement the thing you want to
reinforce in somebody so you've got a
mission i find it very interesting which
is can we make
knowledge my word i don't remember what
word you use
wisdom perfect so can we make wisdom
spread as far and as fast as
entertainment which is so similar to
what i'm trying to change people's
beliefs through entertainment
so
i recognize the kindred soul right away
and then just watching the content i'm
like whoa like
it's i'm not surprised the number of
views that you've gotten because it's
songs work because they make you feel an
emotion but they also tap into
whatever it is about humans whatever it
is that we convey through rhythm
um so
and and before the cameras were rolling
we were talking about it so the one
thing that makes me very uncomfortable i
do the same called impact quotes and
impact quotes is the first time where i
allowed myself to perform where i'm
knowingly i would not say it like this
if you and i were standing next to each
other right this is for the camera i
know how it's going to be edited i know
we're going to add music to it so it is
a performance
but it's also some of our best
performing content so it's like what you
were saying earlier about look i just
accept that not everybody geeks out on
neuroscience and so i have to understand
like who my audience is and give them
something in in a way that will then
resonate and go viral absolutely and so
i think acknowledging that's really
interesting so anyway i'm responding
just to what you were saying about that
because your life seems to be an echo of
that answer all right so there's a few
more things that you have to get so
i'm here i'm here i'm i'm loving this
and if you're loving it that's even yeah
so
there are three questions that you get
asked a lot what are they
oh the big one is how do i find my
passion okay and you can tell me the
quote you get i need you to answer each
one of them yeah but if you want to run
through what each of the questions are
and then we'll go back
yeah no i'll just do them as they are
perfect so how do i find my passion my
simple model which
is the dharma model it also dharma means
eternal duty in the vedic tradition it's
very similar to what ikigai is being
spoken about today which is a japanese
version of reason for being why do we
live where is meaning coming from and it
talks about an intersect of four areas
what am i good at what do i love
what does the world need and how do i
get paid for it to me those four help
you unlock your passion when you find
the intersect across all of those four
you're making your passion your purpose
you'll unlock your passion you'll find
your purpose this is path one there's
two paths path one i find my skill set
and i engage it to help other people and
become better at it so i'm becoming
better at what i'm good at and i'm using
it to help other people because i'm
aware of what i'm quite good at and i
know what what knowledge i have what
skills i have i have some self-awareness
the other path that people often miss is
actually i just start serving people i
just start helping people and i start to
notice what i enjoy about that and what
i'm good at helping people with so
that's gandhi's part gandhi said that
you find yourself when you lose yourself
in the service of others so for me those
are the two paths of how do i find my
passion and finding the intersect
between those four areas
and the second one is
jay my relationship's falling apart i
get asked that all the time so the
answer to that is much harder
it's harder to summarize it but i always
start with self-actualization that
the problem is we have a list for the
one that we want
and we don't have a list for what we
need to become and i don't mean become
to attract i mean become to just be
to just get to understand yourself you
don't know what you need in your life
until you figure out who you are and so
i find too many people rush into
relationships without really recognizing
and being fully aware of what they need
from a relationship so it all comes back
to how aware are you
how much understanding do you have of
yourself and what you need and what you
want that's my best advice for a
relationship in like a minute and and
then the third question i mostly get
asked is jay what do you read like what
are your favorite books because it seems
you read a lot what are your top three
books they're not groundbreaking in the
sense that people may not be like oh my
god that's the best book i've ever read
for me they changed my life so that's
where i'm coming at a point from
i love start with why by simon sinek and
not because i applied it to businesses
because i applied it to my life and even
today
i'm constantly refining my why that's
all i do every day my deepest morning
routine and practice is to refine why i
do what i do it's so easy for me to now
do it for money it's so easy for me to
now do it for followers it's so easy for
me to now do it for fame
and every day i have to refine that
because i know having lived as a monk
and what i practice that if those become
what i want then i'll forget who i need
to be
so
my daily practice and my daily routine
is refining my intention which in modern
language is why so for me simon's book
helped me do that
the bhagavad-gita which i would love to
do for vedic knowledge what ryan's done
for stoicism
and the bug would get over 5000 years
old and that book really
exemplifies human challenge third book
i'd say this one's going to be hard
because it's the last one
let me think
i'm gonna try throw something else in
there so i've done one like
self-development one more spiritual
enlightened man let me throw a
business book in seeing as i'm sure you
have a lot of business viewers i love
the book exponential organizations i
don't know if you read it
it's by salim ishmael and the
singularity university
and that book for me is an incredible
analysis of the success of all the
organizations we see ruling our phone
today the way it breaks down their
business models and how they were
created to me it's fascinating so if
anyone really wants to start up a
exponential business today then that's
where they have to go and that's when
peter diamandis said that
if you want to be a billionaire
redefining it is someone who impacts the
lives of a billion people
and and that's what that business book
is really about is how do you create an
exponential organization that positively
impacts a billion people so those are my
three for today that's pretty good uh
yeah so all right i've got one more yeah
i want to hear you talk about your three
e's oh what are they why do they matter
so for me my three e's are element
environment and energy everyone has an
element that they thrive in if you take
someone out of it their element they
won't be the same a modern day example
would be michael jordan he was
incredible at basketball he took him out
of basketball put him in the baseball no
one remembers his career we're talking
about one of the best athletes of all
time
your environment is the environment
around you you can take a fish out of
water and give it a beautiful mansion
and a bentley and all the money in the
world but it will die
and that's what we are like our
environment everyone needs an
environment which they thrive which we
have to craft your boss if you're at
work is never going to ask you hey what
environment do you succeed in right like
that never happens so we have to create
an environment where we thrive
and then finally it's energy we some of
us love high energy environments high
pressure
some of us succeed in low energy
environments and low pressure
figuring out your energy and the
frequency on which you operate best will
help you thrive as well so for me those
are the three e's to really create a
thriving environment know your element
know your environment and know your
energy and so at all times
if i see anything going wrong i'm going
is my element out of alignment is my
environment out of alignment or is my
energy out of alignment and that's a
great three question test you can do to
yourself when you don't think things are
going right and all you have to do is
bring that back into alignment for me
growing up in my 20s a monk was somebody
bawled in robes that maybe you bumped
into at the airport who gave you like a
flower and then asked for a donation
like that was a monk right so now seeing
somebody like you who's integrated into
the real world but you tell the story in
the book which i i really won you're
super um open vulnerable maybe has weird
connotations but you were just not
worried about whether the story made you
look cool or not you were just like this
is the thing i struggled with and i was
worried about that whatever and this is
my sort of recursive why why do i want
this what am i worried about
and you begin to realize the things that
are bothering you and one thing happened
early on when you got there and you said
that you were hurt that you were giving
yourself to other people and you didn't
feel like it was being reciprocated
and
the the way that
the monk came back to recontextualize
that for you i found
really important and this is staying on
the steam of the monkey mind which we're
gonna come back to here in a second so
but if you can tell that story i think
it'd be really powerful
yeah i think we all get into these
scenarios in the world where we think
we're trying our best to help and love
other people so i think majority of
people feel
like they give more than they get
and i think anyone who's an empath or
feels like they care for others will
feel i give out so much love but i don't
get as much back
and that's how i felt sometimes in the
ashram now the interesting thing is that
i had forgotten lesson number one in the
ashram and the first lesson in the
ashram was
this is a hospital
there are doctors and patients
but remember the doctors are also
patients
and sometimes the patients may teach the
doctors
but remember that we're all
in the same space in this hospital where
everyone is going through a process of
purification
so that was very clear the ashram was
not meant to be heaven it wasn't meant
to be this idyllic place where everyone
was perfectly zen and calm it was a
place where you had to
learn to develop that even amongst the
challenges that were there just like in
reality
so i'd forgotten that and i was going
well i'm giving out lots of love and no
one's giving me any love and it was
really emotional for me because i just
felt like i was investing in people and
helping people and supporting people and
and i'll never forget that conversation
and even till this day it's become one
of those conversations that
stays with me and i remind myself of
regularly hence i put in the book
the monk said to me said
just as there are people that you love
and don't love you back
there are people in your life
that are investing in you and loving you
that you've forgotten about
and it was one of those like
stop moments of just
is that true and i would encourage
everyone who's listening and watching
right now to really think about that
think about that person you've been
chasing whether it's a friend a
potential boyfriend or girlfriend a
potential husband or wife or whatever it
may be your job
and then ask yourself has someone ever
chased you in life or has someone ever
pursued you in life or has someone ever
tried to love you in life and you didn't
even give them a time of day
the answer is true i could agree with it
i can completely agree with that there
are people in my life who have done more
for me
than i could even begin to try and do
and that isn't just parents and family
members i'm talking about people
professionally that i just can't repay
and so
he spoke about it as a theme called the
circle of love that you will always
get the love you give out you will
always get it back or whatever you give
out you will always get it back you just
won't get it back from the same people
you give it to
and that was really fascinating to me
because i also realized that i may have
caused hurt to people
and they may not have hurt me back
but i've received her from people that i
never heard
and so it works both ways both with her
and love and when you see on both ends
and that's ultimately karma in a in a
tiny nutshell
it's
completely grounding
in saying yeah let me take a real look
at my life
and and where those blind spots are
about who i'm not being grateful to
who i'm missing who i'm not expressing
thanks to
i want to pull some of these threads
together now yeah okay so i love it
you've got the what i'm shorthanding to
the monkey mind which is beliefs that
don't serve you the nature of the mind
to want to covet to compare like all
these things that are
going to take you down we're probably
going to need to get into values of
values down values
but
putting that in the monkey mind category
the things that drive you nuts that
worry you that wake you up in the middle
of the night um
and then you've got this
idea of
beginning to unlearn like so much of
what is
the the lessons that you do in the book
and that you've been saying here today
are often not so much as as giving you
something but taking something away and
saying you're you're thinking about it
in a way that's not helpful that feeds
the monkey mind instead of feeding peace
to get back to your earlier the pursuit
that we're after is peace
tell me the zen story the pouring of the
tea which
is so illustrative of i think exactly
a large portion of what your book is
meant to convey
so
the zen story about the tea and i love
zen stories and the books full of them
as as you know
the zen story is where a student
approaches a zen master and a
teacher and is complaining about all the
challenges in their life
and everything they've got going on
and feels like they also have a sense of
ego if they know everything that's
happening
and the zen master sees a cup that's
full there
and starts pouring tea into this cup
and the cup just starts overflowing and
the students looking at it going like
what are you doing like how does this
make any sense
and and the zen master says well you're
just like this cup
right i can't put any more in you can't
take any more in because you're already
full like you think you're full you
think you're done
and and that's the point that you have
to always go back to that student
mindset you have to always go back to
that
emptiness and i think one of the reasons
why we struggle with that is we think
that when we're full we're safe
our ego makes us believe that when
you're full when you think you know it
all that's when you're safe
the craziest thing is that's when you're
at your weakest
and i think that's what we all miss that
when you think if you think of any
company that's ever thought that they
had figured it out that is when they
were at their most
weakest point if there's a fighter in a
boxing match that thinks that they have
perfected this game
that's why not their weakest when
you're in a relationship and you think
oh my life is perfect and everything's
going great that's when you're at your
weakest but we find safety in certainty
when actually that's what makes us
complacent and lose the plot so that
story illustrates
the need
to always reconnect not that we're empty
that we have nothing
but that there is so much more to gain
there is so much more to learn
yeah that that idea of
if you if you already think you have all
this figured out then i'm not going to
be able to help you so if somebody is
watching this right now with sort of a
cynical eye to yeah i've heard this
before been there done that tried that
you know i'm suffering from anxiety
depression
but jay doesn't know my circumstances
one of the things you talk about is is
how people can begin to slide into a
victim mentality
how how do you help people around that
why
some people really do have it bad so why
do you advise them still to not adopt
the victim mentality
yeah so there's a study that i talk
about in the book that looks at people
who have a victim mindset and by the way
that is a
condition that's adopted you are not a
victim person like you're not a negative
person you just have adopted a negative
sense of thoughts and habits and beliefs
and the study looked at people that had
those beliefs and looked to people who
didn't
and they were asked to think of a time
when they felt they were the victim and
the other people were just asked to
think of a time when they were bored
after that these two sets of people were
asked if they'd like to take part in an
activity of just helping the team that
had created the experiment
and
i think the people that were the victim
mindset were 25
less likely to offer to help and be a
part of this change
and to the degree that sometimes they
left trash behind and even took the pens
that they were given by the
experimenters to the point that you get
so lost in that mentality that you don't
even think about helping and getting out
of it so the reason why the victim
mindset
it is real in the sense that there are
definitely people
in the world
that have a harder situation than others
that's fact there's no
debating that point that there are
people who have it are harder than other
people there are people that have hired
it harder than me but there are also
people that have it easier than me so
i've had it harder than some and same
with you
and
in our small bubbles our hardship feels
like the worst thing that could ever
happen and that's the craziest thing
about pain is that you only think pain
is bad when you're really going through
it and we compare our pain with other
people's pain
we say oh that person's pain can't be
that bad
that person's pain
is probably a bit less than mine you
know we because we've never experienced
it
so the reason why i encourage people to
get out of that mindset
is because that's just a one-way ticket
to a lifelong commitment
to sadness disappointment
lethargy complacency and feeling stuck
and lost there's nothing gained out of
feeling sorry for yourself
i don't think there's anyone that i've
ever heard say saying i'm open to it but
i've never heard anyone say to me that
feeling like a victim my whole life
actually helped me find a victory in
life like i don't think i've ever heard
that i've never read that in a book i've
never heard in a documentary i've never
seen it anywhere so if it's out there
i'm open to it but
when you look at that and you go is this
the life i want to keep living do i
still want to feel this way you look at
someone like sindhutai you look at all
of these incredible people that have
broken barriers you look at people who
were told that uh wilma rudolph was told
she would never
walk again properly or run at age nine
and went went on to be a multiple
olympic gold medalist when you hear that
you're like what really
but that's what's possible
and so no one in the victim mindset has
ever
seen growth from that mindset
but everyone who has traded that victim
mindset for a mindset of acceptance
a mindset of healing
and a mindset of perspective
has found their way out
and the mistake we make is we take tell
people what it's almost like toxic
mindset advice it's like oh stop stop
feeling sorry for yourself just go out
there and do the work
that doesn't work either because that
person needs to accept that they've been
through something painful for themselves
so you can't belittle or devalue
someone's pain
and often people try and belittle and
devalue their own pain to get out of it
but that actually just slows down the
process and then they're back to square
one again so you've got to accept the
pain you went through you've got to
accept that you want to heal it one of
the best ways to explain this is
how what we search for in our partners
or in life
is what we did or didn't get from our
parents
that's interesting like literally what
we search for and i've i've analyzed
this in my life a ton and others if you
look for what you look for in your
partner or for what you look for in life
through your bosses any authorities
anyone who has a position of power in
your life is what you didn't or did get
from your parents
and so you're creating a life based on
your past trauma or your past challenge
that doesn't lead to a positive
relationship i found myself projecting
the patterns the negative patterns
that my parents had into my relationship
with my wife
that doesn't create a positive
experience and by the way i'm not
blaming any parents in the world
everyone's figuring it out so i'm not
even blaming my own but we need to have
the awareness of developing the
emotional skills that our parents didn't
have
so again reminding ourselves of being
aware
that we're literally creating lives
that will continue in the same direction
unless our mindset changes
all right so if we know that people are
struggling with the monkey mind they um
they're telling they're filling their
cup up with a lot of things that are
self-destructive maybe too big of a word
but it's directionally correct that
things that aren't leading them to joy
to peace um
how do we bring the ashram to them how
do we go about you know
beginning the process of healing i know
a big part of your journey was questions
questions questions questions questions
what are the right questions
do we have to meditate is that optional
do we have to give up sex like where
where did we fall when you got to that
part in the book i had to laugh out loud
so what how do we bring the ashram to
people how do we help them like now
start doing things specifically to empty
their cup to refill it with something
that's going to lead to to peace and to
joy and yeah the first thing i'd say is
i think everyone needs
the feeling that they can just come up
for some air
life can often feel like someone's
literally
drowning you and you feel like you're
drowning and floundering especially if
you're in an extreme case of anxiety or
stress or depression
and i feel like you just need to feel
like you can just come up for a tiny bit
of air so for that in the book i talk
about the 3s model which is your sights
sense and sounds
what we see
what we hear and what we smell has a
profound impact on our mental state and
we actually underestimate our sense and
i'll give you an example all of us have
been walking around with masks and
someone said this to me the other day
and it hit me
they were saying to me that now that we
all were lost and do this the whole time
i think my mom's over there they were
doing this all the time they realized
they couldn't hear people properly
and the reason they couldn't hear people
properly is they realize they don't use
their ears they use their eyes
to see people's lips
and so actually they're not even using
their ears that much they're using their
eyes to follow the lips and know what
someone's saying
so actually we depend so much on our
eyes
in every interaction
how many times have you been looking at
someone attractive and you forgot what
they were talking about
right you're just so engaged with your
eyes that you completely even forgot to
listen
right or you're so lost in in the vision
of something again and you're in a daze
you can't smell anything you can't taste
anything
so
we've got to learn to reactivate our
senses so i'll give an example of what i
mean as monks
our life was sight designed sound
designed and scent designed
what's the first thing you see when you
wake up in the morning for 80 percent of
people the first thing they see in the
morning is their phone and the last
thing they see at night is their phone
that is poor sight design because you
don't even choose what the first message
of the day your mind receives it
actually made my stomach drop
that's a gnarly thought it's true yeah
right imagine the last thing someone
sees is not their partner or their
spouse the person they sleep with they
see their phone and the first thing in
the morning they look at is their phone
and guess what it's not a good site but
you're looking at a message that you
didn't design for your mind you're
looking at a picture or an image that
maybe came through on your instagram
feed that you didn't choose for your
mind so now you've started your day with
envy jealousy comparison competition
collab like all of the all of the monkey
mind stuff and the monkey mind is
excited the monkey mind's on the monkey
might say yeah we're ready to go and now
you've started the day with the monkey
mind so my advice is
start your day with a quote that you
love
start your day with a picture of someone
that you love or your family start your
day with a work of art that inspires you
start your day with seeing the first
thing that you see make it so closely
connected to your soul and your goal and
your purpose
that your monk mind naturally comes
alive
so as monks the first thing that we saw
was sometimes a teaching that we'd keep
next to us it might be a spiritual text
where i just ripped it out of a book and
stuck it there next to my bed so i woke
up to that
just wake up to something that you
actually want to see when you wake up
and make it intentional and make it
focused it could even be a reminder on a
sticky note i remember for a long time i
had one when i was a monk that said i am
not this body
just to disconnect from the fact that i
was more than this body and because we
didn't have mirrors in the ashram it was
very easy to forget i was this body
or i've had other ones where that say to
me i'm exactly where i need to be and
i've read that in the morning and that
just reminds me because so often i wake
up feeling anxious that i'm behind on my
day or i'm late and then i actually make
up a mess whereas if i read i'm exactly
where i need to be and i remind myself i
can start my day there so that's sight
this and that's simple easy for anyone
to do you don't have to change your mind
you don't need to meditate you have to
do anything the second one is let's talk
about scent design now one of the things
i've been missing during quarantine is
going to a spa
or going to like a resort because i love
massages and i love spas and like me and
my wife love getting away
and if you think about it whenever you
go into a spa or a massage space or
whatever they're called or a resort
you can always feel relaxed from the
moment you walk in just through the
power of scent
it could be the most basic room in the
world
but a scent can literally illuminate a
whole room
so scents like eucalyptus lavender
sandalwood if you've got a diffuser or a
candle and you can make this a part of
your routine
before you start your work day just have
a candle that you breathe in for four
seconds and breathe out for four seconds
have a diffuser in your room
that just makes you feel calm because as
soon as you walk in one thing i've been
doing is putting eucalyptus drops into
my showers and turning into a natural
steam and i just feel like completely
relieving all my sinuses and and feeling
calm these are just really practical
things you can do to just ease yourself
into it
and the third one's sound this one's so
powerful
sound is underestimated because now we
just have
music playing all the time in the
background and the music may not even be
intentional and the lyrics are all over
the place and
you've got instruments that are not
being played well or in harmony and you
get a pump or like a
boost out of it and i've i learned about
sound in the ashram
and we had sound design we would wake up
to nature sounds
and nature's so aligned with your body
and mind if you look at nature if you
breathe in with the ocean
your breath will just be exactly where
it needs to be
if you
allow yourself to just be present with
the wind you'll feel your body just slow
right down and be calm nature just has
this amazing way of teaching so many
lessons
and so when i lived in new york city i
often found myself getting exhausted and
i started looking into it i was thinking
what is it i work out i do all this
stuff
and i realized that especially in new
york we deal with a lot of
insignificant sound you know something
called cognitive load where your brain
is processing irrelevant in significant
sound of trucks
horns
construction work and drilling
and so when your ears are trying to make
sense of insignificant sound you're
losing energy
in an irrelevant way
and so sound design means every room in
your home
have a song that plays or music that
plays in that room that gives you the
feeling you want it to have another easy
way to do that is before you start work
or while you're working
have a song or a playlist that really
gets you into the mode that you want to
be in when you're doing that
sound is a beautiful accomplice to any
activity you want so those are three
simple ways that anyone starting today
can bring the ashram to their home by
sight scent and sound design because
that's how our lives were designed
now what about things like
the
taking a chore washing dishes um
servicing the animals like
should people build something into their
day where it's like i'm gonna do this
thing that i don't necessarily like but
i'm going to imbue it with something to
remind myself that even in a task as
mundane as washing dishes i can be fully
present i can um you know find the joy
in doing it well and i think you talk
about watching it go you know from
grease cover to you know just sparkling
clean and just sort of
re-contextualizing is that a powerful
thing that that people should work in
like i want to create that like perfect
day like we're you know like how do we
how do we make full monk use of our
quarantine i love it i love it yeah no
absolutely i think i'm trying to think
of things that everyone does i think
washing your dishes is something
everyone does every day or it's a common
thing that people do
and
you've got to realize that what you're
doing is not washing the dish like in
terms of that's not actually what you're
doing what you're doing is training your
mind for presents
and the reason why that's so powerful is
because most of us when we're washing
the dishes i need to watch that netflix
show i've got 30 minutes before you know
like i'm gonna sleep late if i don't see
it so now you're already
trying to figure out what you're doing
next
and that bleeds into the rest of your
life
so now when you're finally on that guess
what this is it everyone's going through
quarantine and lockdown going i need to
travel i need to travel i need to get
out
and when you live like that when you're
traveling you'll be thinking i need to
do work i need to get back to work i
need to get my career back on track and
when you're at work you're going to be
like i need to get away again and that's
literally the repetitive cycle that
we're all living in so when you're just
washing your dish
in a present way you're not washing a
dish you're training your mind to be
where you physically are
and the best way to do that is give it
meaning like you said or do something
that makes you more present at the time
you could if you really wanted to
wash the dish
and listen to your favorite song you
could watch this and listen to this
podcast you could watch the dish and do
something that is good for your mind
that helps you be more present and
conscious at the time so you may say i
don't have enough time to wash the
dishes for 10 minutes like one dish for
10 minutes and i'm not asking you to do
that what i'm saying is
don't constantly be in a rush
to get onto something you want to do
because then when you're doing what you
want to do you'll be in a rush to get on
a thing you have to do
and that cycle never stops and and i
think that's the never-ending cycle that
we're in that we always feel
we're ahead or behind we always feel
we're never where we're meant to be
and that's the root of all of our
suffering in life
is that i don't feel i am where i
actually are meant to be what is up my
friend tom bill you here and i have a
big question to ask you how would you
rate your level of personal discipline
on a scale of one to ten if your answer
is anything less than a ten i've got
something cool for you and let me tell
you right now discipline by its very
nature means compelling yourself to do
difficult things that are stressful
boring which is what kills most people
or possibly scary or even painful now
here is the thing achieving huge goals
and stretching to reach your potential
requires you to do those challenging
stressful things and to stick with them
even when it gets boring and it will get
boring building your levels of personal
discipline is not easy but let me tell
you it pays off in fact i will tell you
you're never going to achieve anything
meaningful unless you develop discipline
right i've just released a class from
impact theory university called how to
build iron-clad discipline that teaches
you the process of building yourself up
in this area so that you can push
yourself to do the hard things that
greatness is going to require of you
right click the link on the screen
register for this class right now and
let's get to work i will see you inside
this workshop from impact theory
university until then my friends be
legendary peace out
so one thing i want to talk about
obviously having lived in london um
knowing a little bit about what it's
like to grow up as an indian kid in
england uh how on earth did you buck the
trend of you once said uh growing up in
in an indian household you're either a
doctor or a lawyer or a failure yes
that's right yeah so
how like how would you not fall prey to
that yeah those were my three options
right that was it there was no fourth
option so according to my parents family
or the community i grew up in i'm a
failure that's crazy and
how did i back the trend
i was really
really fortunate
that very early on i started to
experiment with what mattered to me
sometimes i got me in a lot of trouble
what people don't know about me is that
i was suspended from school three times
for
trying out all sorts of things like
things that people would never imagine
of someone who goes on to be a monk i
was experimenting with all the drugs in
the world i had multiple relationships i
was really trying to search for some
sort of meaning fulfillment and as far
as long as i've known i've been chasing
thrill i really value thrill and feeling
like you might not see that coming yeah
i know not many people do it's it's very
different from 14 to 18 i was like this
kid who just wanted to try new things
out
and my parents rhetoric would always be
well make sure you get good grades and i
used to think well if i can be bad and
get good grades then then it all works
right everyone's happy so that's that's
kind of what i did
and at 18 i was really fortunate when i
met a monk
and this monk was invited to speak and i
kind of just went because one of my
friends forced me to at that time i was
listening to ceos and entrepreneurs and
business people and marketers who who i
thought that's what i was aspiring to be
like and then i hear this monk
and he captivated me like no one had
ever captivated me before
it was like staring at the most
beautiful woman on the planet you know i
was completely fixated on him and his
message and that is the beginning
without going into too much detail
before we probe
that was the beginning of what changed
me
because i went from being someone who
did only want all those things to become
successful
and trying to but i started hearing my
own inner voice
much more in all that noise that i had
around me i remember one of my my
parents had a maths tutor for me because
they wanted to be amazing at maths and i
was i was pretty good at numbers and i'd
have this tutor and he'd tell me that he
goes the reason that you're struggling
with the next question
is because you're always worried about
what your parents think
and and that really stayed in my head i
was just like wow so as long as i'm
trapped by what my parents think i can
actually never find the answers to the
real questions of life
and there are all these little things
happening i lost two great friends when
i was 16. one girl died in a car
accident one guy died because he was
involved in drugs and violence
that that made me rethink everything i
just thought to myself wait a minute
these were beautiful people
people that i loved
people that in my opinion were good
people
and i just lost them in a moment and it
was kind of like this collation of
little things that just made me think
wait a minute having money
having fame
this that
just doesn't seem to add up and then and
then meeting the monk kind of made that
shift possible and as i said he was
completely captivating and then i found
out that he'd given up jobs in google
and microsoft to be a monk
and i thought to myself who does that
you know he's given up everything that
i'm chasing
and that all my friends are chasing
but he seems happier than anyone i've