00:00:14
purpose the number one Health and Wellness podcast
sold like a million and a half books Jay you know
00:00:19
how much I love you I think we live in a world
where we think sacrificing our purpose makes us
00:00:25
a better partner when actually it makes us more
resentful guilty more upset so I believe that
00:00:30
there are four important decisions that we all get
to make in life if you can do that everything else is going to work the first one is Let's Talk About
Sex the truth is most people are not getting any
00:00:41
we've lost Intimacy in relationships great sex
is a byproduct of great connection and intimacy
00:00:47
it's not a replacement for or a sore song I
promise you that relationship is not growing
00:00:52
it's actually falling apart slowly and you have no
idea the only thing that makes you feel close to
00:00:57
someone is venue what have you struggled with
this year big question a lot of the time when
00:01:06
I come up against any resistance it's like no Jay
you used to be a monk if you do anything else your
00:01:11
faults and you're lying and you're not allowed
to be anything else every time I do an interview I'd feel like people wanted me to fail I was just
waking up feeling sick and I just had to be alone
00:01:21
but I didn't think I've shared this
with anyone I'm at a point where
00:01:30
I just want to start this episode with a message
of thanks a thank you to everybody that Tunes in to listen to this podcast by doing so you've
enabled me to live out my dream but also for
00:01:40
many members of our team to live out their dreams
too it's one of the greatest privileges I could never have dreamed of or imagined in my life
to get to do this to get to learn from these
00:01:48
people to get to have these conversations to
get to interrogate them from a very selfish perspective trying to solve problems I have in
my life so I feel like I owe you a huge thank
00:01:57
you for being here and for listening to these
episodes and for making this platform what it is can I ask you a favor I can't tell you how much
you can change the course of this podcast the the
00:02:06
course of the guests we're able to invite to the
show and to the course of everything that we do here just by doing one simple thing and that
simple thing is hitting that subscribe button
00:02:15
helps this channel more than I could ever explain
the guests on this platform are incredible because
00:02:20
so many of you have hit that button and I know
when we think about what we want to do together over the next year on this show a lot of it is
going to be fueled by the amount of you that are
00:02:29
subscribed in that tune in to show every week so
thank you let's keep doing this and I can't wait
00:02:34
to see what this year brings for this show for
us as a community and for this platform [Music]
00:02:46
what's up Stephen it's good to see you
this is a this is a question that people
00:02:52
are so flippantly right because that's just
the way Society is and the way we all are
00:02:57
but I mean this question in the most
deep possible way um which is how are you
00:03:08
big question I'd say that I'm at a point
00:03:14
and I'd only give this answer to you I
don't think I've shared this with anyone
00:03:19
publicly at least right now I'm at a point where
I'm really reflecting reviewing and reassessing
00:03:28
where I want to be what I want to do how I want
to give my energy and so I'm in this really
00:03:36
evolutionary stage in my journey which
I probably haven't felt like this for
00:03:41
six years which is when this all kind of started
externally and so it's been a really interesting
00:03:48
six-year cycle and I feel like I'm back to
where I started I definitely feel like this year
00:03:55
I pushed myself to limits that I never thought I
could when it came to work productivity efficiency
00:04:05
Effectiveness impact like the quality of the
impact this year was higher because everything
00:04:11
else was booming higher and at the same time
there's this natural sense of wanting to renew
00:04:19
wanting to reinvest in myself and grow again it's
almost like I feel like I did a lot of growing
00:04:26
and I poured it all out and now I'm ready to grow
again and pour that out again but I've got to go
00:04:33
and refill that cup got to go and ReDiscover what
that is and what that next thing is that excites
00:04:40
me that drives me that moves me to that level that
brought us here today so when you ask me how I am
00:04:47
really or how I am deeply I'm in that regeneration
stage but what's beautiful about it is that when
00:04:54
you've been there before it's a familiar feeling
whereas when you were there for the first time
00:04:59
it was scary now I'm like I've been here before I
know what this feels like I know how to find the
00:05:07
tools and skills that I need so what are the
symptoms of that how do you know you're there I know I'm there because what have you been
feeling yeah I've been feeling like I want to know
00:05:19
where I want to be in five years or which
direction I want to move in five years and
00:05:25
I've been looking at that question and I've
been trying to answer and I was speaking at a conference recently in Mexico
and one of the answers was
00:05:34
Jay what's your goal for what you want to do in
the next five years and I was like my goal right now is to figure out what I want to do and what
I want to put my mind to for the next five years
00:05:42
and so I'm feeling a sense of accomplishment
I'm feeling a sense of arrival I'm feeling
00:05:49
a sense of satisfaction and then I'm feeling
a sense of hunger and I'm feeling a sense of
00:05:58
a search for clarity and almost like I can see the
next few steps but then there's a bit of fog and
00:06:06
Haze and that excites me so there's a feeling
of excitement that comes with that search for
00:06:13
clarity of that if that helps so in the short
term you can kind of see what how things look but then as you look at the maybe the north star
that you're aiming at that's a little bit less
00:06:20
clear yes yes that's exactly it and and but it's
coming at it from a point of that's what I need to
00:06:26
do right now not what I have to I think if I felt
clear about it all I don't think I would actually
00:06:34
achieve what I want to achieve I think I'd waste
time waste effort I think we'd spend time being
00:06:42
doing stuff that didn't really excite me or move
me I think that I think you get to a point where you know you can do something well and you don't
just want to keep repeating that because that
00:06:52
doesn't fuel your soul or that doesn't make you
into the person who you want to become and so
00:06:58
while I know that I can do that that's just not
who I would set out to be and that's not how we
00:07:03
got here and so I don't want to repeat a cycle
that I know I know how to repeat just because
00:07:08
I can when that isn't why I set out to do this
what is that cycle let's get really specific on
00:07:16
what is that cycle that you've mastered that you
think you know that will no longer give me that same ah you know I'm probably different to a
lot of people who set out and say I believed
00:07:26
I would achieve this or I had a certain set of
goals and I did that I I didn't come from that I came from this raw passion to want to serve and
hopefully uplift the World by sharing ideas that
00:07:39
people would listen to that and go oh I have that
conversation with my friend but I never thought it
00:07:45
was okay to say it out loud or I was just thinking
about that last night but Jay just put that into
00:07:50
words and now I feel comfortable sharing that with
my partner and so I came at this whole thing from
00:07:55
the approach of how do I help the individual
and the micro and then all of a sudden it took
00:08:02
off and and became this thing that was Far bigger
than I ever imagined and far greater than I could
00:08:07
have ever dreamed of or Bill and so what I mean by
the specifics is you've now learned how to create
00:08:15
value for people in a certain way whether that's
with an algorithm whether it's a pattern whether
00:08:21
it's the ability to communicate an idea and then
you go yeah I can either get lost in that cycle
00:08:28
and keep delivering because it delivers but no
that actually came from a raw desire to serve
00:08:34
that actually came from a place of abundant
creativity that actually came from a place of
00:08:41
genuinely listening and genuinely compassionately
giving it didn't come from a place of patterns
00:08:49
algorithms studying and research like that's
not why the impact happened if that makes sense
00:08:55
do you ever feel like you've lost yourself in the
algorithms I don't people know you as a master of
00:09:00
social media of delivering ideas via social media
value thoughts thinking um you became you know
00:09:06
people see this across their lives they become
exceptionally good at something whether it's being a lawyer or whatever and they end up climbing
and climbing and then they kind of reinforce
00:09:14
to continue to do that thing Publishers give them
money and say do that thing you did yeah and then they can get so far down that path that they go
wait a minute like how did I get here it's a great
00:09:23
place yeah effectively but I think I want to give
myself credit and I don't do that often but I will
00:09:28
for this I think I'm going to give myself credit
and it was something you actually raised to me last time we sat down which by the way I got so
much phenomenal feedback from that conversation
00:09:35
so thank you for letting me go there but you
said something to me last time and you said Jay
00:09:41
you're really good at knowing when to quit
and you said that I Was a Serial quitter and I'd never thought about it that way and
so you actually planted that seed in my head
00:09:49
and so I think what I've been good at doing every
time that that's happened is I've chosen to break
00:09:55
the cycle so when I first started out I was the
number one page and number one Creator on Facebook
00:10:02
and we literally left Facebook and when I say
left Facebook what I mean is I stopped creating
00:10:07
the content that Facebook was encouraging me to
create so we used to create these sketch-like
00:10:13
videos where we had actors and we would cast them
and there would be this scenario and when I first came up with that idea it actually came from me
watching comedians who were creating sketch comedy
00:10:23
and I was like oh wait a minute if we applied
that to inspiration and motivation that would be phenomenal so when I came up with that idea it
fueled me I was excited I remember we made this
00:10:31
video where this couple was arguing and I gave
them advice and it was it went super viral and I was so excited by it and then after doing that
for a couple of years and seeing this incredible
00:10:41
growth on Facebook that format didn't fuel me
anymore and so we left it and I said I don't
00:10:47
want to be known for that format anymore why
because the format was owning me right I was
00:10:55
being owned by having to be a specific Creator
giving specific four minute pieces of advice and
00:11:03
thought and I didn't want to be that I wanted
to dive into building a podcast and writing a book because I wanted long form I wanted quality I
just felt like I felt like there was only so much
00:11:13
I could say so there's two angles to this there's
two sides to this one is can I just yeah yeah of
00:11:20
course the reason I'm asking one yeah I love this
I'm thinking of Jenny who is in a similar role in her job who's listening to this and it's got like
she's just lost the love of the thing which she
00:11:30
once loved so I'm trying to answer this for her
yeah yeah I love the question I I think that so
00:11:37
anytime you discover something anytime something's
new it's attractive you fall in love with it and as it gets old we only keep doing it because
there's some part of it that becomes performative
00:11:49
so what was raw passion becomes performance and
I think performance is what drains us because
00:11:55
performance Now isn't a natural injection of
the Soul into whatever you're creating it's this
00:12:03
false acting version of that same thing and
so I find that when I feel like I'm performing
00:12:11
I worry and get scared and then I scale
back and so I think at that point I got
00:12:16
to a point where I was like if I keep feeding the
algorithm and feeding this it's performance and
00:12:23
the quality of what I want to give people has
changed the four minutes videos were a great window into all of the wisdom that I'd learned
and all the studying I did as a monk and all
00:12:33
the ideas that I'd gained but I was like if I
can't give that to people in a way that they
00:12:39
can practice it like a four minute video can give
you motivation and inspiration but a four minute video can't help you build a habit a four minute
video doesn't practically change your life a four
00:12:49
minute video is the injection the spark the the
buzz but it doesn't transform someone's being
00:12:55
whereas a program can do that a book can do that
a podcast that people listen to religiously and
00:13:01
build a habit can rewire parts of themselves and
so to me I was like I'm more interested in habit
00:13:08
change and transformation than I am in ideas and
information I was I was just thinking about why
00:13:14
I quit Facebook as well you I mean you you quit
Facebook I think later but I understand why your
00:13:20
success on Facebook was you're getting
billions and billions of views a month right um I was making some money but it would do
the point the thing that I've realized from what
00:13:28
you just said there is when I was making those
Facebook videos I actually think they they might
00:13:33
have been doing something for someone else it's
not the same as a podcast which has the depth but I think it might have been doing something for
someone else but I tell you why I quit because it
00:13:42
was doing nothing for me yes and you think about
what you were doing so at the start maybe it was doing something for you but then as you do it a
thousand times it feels like work and I was just
00:13:51
thinking about that then because I was reflecting
on a study I read that when they pay people to do something they loved they lose the love of it the
minute the motivations become extrinsic cash or
00:14:01
punishment or reward they people lose the love
of the thing they once considered a hobby um and
00:14:07
do you know why I was thinking that because I've
not been able to get bored of doing the podcast and I thought well why because it does something
for me I get to meet you we get you know so if
00:14:16
it was just this podcast was going out to the
masses and it required three hours or six hours of my time every week but I didn't get to have
the conversation I didn't get to be privy to it
00:14:25
maybe I'd lose the love for it yeah and I think it
comes back to a part of the definition of success which for me is doing something that gives me joy
and makes me happy that as a byproduct gives other
00:14:37
people joy and makes them happy exactly like if I
can do that every day then then that's phenomenal but I don't want to keep doing something as you
said that has the diminishing returns for me
00:14:46
only to live off the validation and attention that
comes from the other and I think too many people
00:14:52
have got caught in that cycle for too many decades
and I would like to say we've redefined find what
00:14:58
we do every two years part of why I dived into
love as a Fascination and a subject matter a
00:15:05
lot of people said to me they were like Jay why
are you going from meditation and mindfulness and think like a monk to talk about love like why
why would you even do that and I was like because
00:15:15
that's where I'm at like that's something that
I'm I mean there's lots more reasons to it that I can share more philosophically but on a very
raw emotional level this is what I'm fascinated
00:15:26
about right now and I trust that my audience
my community the people that are following and
00:15:34
listening and sharing and observing can trust
that the journey I'm going on is one of true
00:15:40
Fascination uh one of the reasons why I fought to
have the cover I wanted the fonts that I wanted to
00:15:45
not have my face on the cover of the book was all
of these reasons I know if I put my face on the
00:15:51
cover of the book that my publisher is going to
be happier they believe it's going to sell more they believe that the less artistic it is the more
on the nose it is the more people are going to buy
00:16:01
the book my take is I want everything I do to be
r i want everything I do to be an extension of my
00:16:07
heart and this is that and so I think I'm just at
a place now where I've learned that I can trust
00:16:15
my intuition every single time and I want to keep
doing that I don't want to now become more scared
00:16:21
of trusting my intuition someone said to me they
said Jay like don't haven't you got to a point now where you can't take any risks and I was like
no that's completely the opposite of how I see
00:16:31
it I've worked this hard by taking tons of risks
this is not the point to stop taking risks this
00:16:36
is the point to continue to take risk because
that's what creates joy happiness abundance
00:16:42
success and everything else I'm looking for what
have you struggled with this year what have I
00:16:47
struggled with this here this year like over and
over again like [ __ ] why can't I change that
00:16:53
so it's a bit of an oxymoron and and I kind of
lit I kind of love paradoxes and kind of feel
00:16:59
like it's always this way it's kind of like
at one point you know that reinvention and
00:17:04
rediscovery is constantly needed and then
there's the other side that I've probably
00:17:11
bang my head against the wall a few times on
is accepting that I can't always be Scrappy
00:17:20
as I was in the beginning all the time and
I'm and I'm intrigued at how you feel about
00:17:25
this especially having built something so huge
and now I know you're building something again I can't that you know a few years ago when I was
starting out and we're building lots of things we
00:17:35
built things in a really Scrappy quick fast way
we made really quick decisions some of them were great some of them were terrible things went wrong
things went awesome obviously you know you know
00:17:45
the rest of it is is history and all all of that
but there's a part of me as much as I need to be
00:17:51
reconnecting with that scrappiness there's a
part of me that needs to accept that we're not
00:17:56
that small anymore and that things do have impact
and influence and I think that that's that Paradox
00:18:01
is something that I find myself constantly going
back and forth on because I want to be able to be Scrappy I want to be able to start things at the
drop of a hat because I feel like I can and at the
00:18:11
same time I realize well no now I need to think
about a lot more people and a lot more things are affected and this can negatively impact this and
someone here could do this and all of that kind
00:18:20
of stuff and so I think that's something that
I struggle with is the balance between saying I
00:18:27
want to be the J that I was six years ago when it
comes to starting new things but I have to accept
00:18:33
that we're not there as well how many people
are in your team total globally full-time 50
00:18:38
people so it's not huge um but when you look
at the people that work with us and the number
00:18:44
of people it impacts and then the the scale
of all the content we create and everything there's billions of people every month still in
in some capacity and so there's a sense of and
00:18:55
and also there's a sense of you know you become
a Target like you're not you weren't a Target six
00:19:01
years ago like no one cared I mean people took
shots day one like that wasn't the hard part
00:19:06
it's just you become more and more vulnerable
in some areas in some capacities because now
00:19:14
people are not looking at it as if you're
starting out they see what you have and what
00:19:20
they can pick apart so you're you're a you're
observant and aware of that vulnerability in a
00:19:25
way you never were before that doesn't make
me more scared or more uh fearful it just
00:19:32
means I can't ignore it and I think that's the
balance that I'm always going on it's like how
00:19:37
much do you want to operate from a place of
ignorance versus awareness and proactivity
00:19:44
what's your biggest um fear is an interesting word
but I'm going to use it what's your biggest fear as it relates to being a Target like what if you
because I mean I've seen this similar thing in my
00:19:53
life obviously the big change in my life was when
I became a dragon on Dragons yeah yeah because then you're then you're like a press Target before
the newspapers wouldn't write about Stephen in
00:20:01
his podcast or Steve on social media but now it's
Dragonstone star sneezes yeah on summer you know
00:20:07
what I mean it's like because there's a show there
which everybody knows and recognizes there's a way
00:20:12
to write the headline yeah so that I became much
more of a Target you know and that that's kept me up at night I've got emails from reporters and
I [ __ ] [ __ ] myself about things that you know
00:20:22
they said they're gonna say about me or whatever
but just being honest yeah yeah you know I think
00:20:28
my life has just changed so much in the sense of
literally I was thinking about this 10 years ago
00:20:35
I left the monastery and when I look at my life
over the last 10 years and then if I look at it
00:20:41
13 years including the three years I spent in the
monastery I live like a completely polar opposite
00:20:46
life today I went from having no money no idea
of a business no relationship two sets of clothes
00:20:54
uh robes and living and sleeping on the floor and
having nothing and thinking that was the rest of
00:21:00
my life to now being in the complete opposite
point of view where we have multiple businesses I'm married uh I I enjoy fashion in my wardrobe
I uh I really enjoy building teams I love the
00:21:14
world I'm in and I've grown and embraced all of
that transform transformation because I realized
00:21:21
that I could only give myself or I I had to be the
only person in the world who could give myself the
00:21:28
permission to be all of these things all at the
same time so I see myself as much as a monk as I
00:21:36
do as a manager as I do as a marketer as I do as
a mindfulness coach like I'm all of those things
00:21:43
and I'm very happy being all of those things but
I think that a lot of the time when I come come
00:21:49
up against any resistance it's like no Jay you
used to be a monk you should be a monk for the rest of your life and you can never be anything
else and if you do anything else outside of that
00:21:58
Circle you're false and you're lying and you don't
you're not the same person anymore and I'm like
00:22:04
well no I I get where you're and by the way I
actually don't disagree with that I get where
00:22:09
that's coming from and I can appreciate where that
sentiment comes from because we've all been forced
00:22:16
to be like I'm an accountant I'm a lawyer I'm a
dad I'm a mum we've been forced to be one thing
00:22:23
and I think for me I've been on the Journey of
accepting all of my complexity and all of my
00:22:29
interests and passions and I think that that
takes a long time for a lot of people to get their head around I'm not saying that my community
or my audience feels that way and I don't want to
00:22:38
alienate them I think there's a lot of people
who don't even care about that but I think when I when I think about the idea of being a Target
or being it's a lot of that where it's like well
00:22:46
you used to be this just be this like you're not
allowed to be anything else oh a white and it's
00:22:51
like well no but my life's changed like that was
a part of my journey I'm telling you a part of my story uh why can't I tell you the story that I'm
at why do I have to be the story that I was 10
00:23:02
years ago does that and this uh you know there's
several ways to answer this question but I just
00:23:09
want the most honest answer which is does that has
that ever bothered you have you ever have you ever
00:23:14
received received that kind of critical feedback
and it's bothered you yeah there was definitely a
00:23:20
couple of weeks where I woke up every day in the
morning feeling sick and I've never experienced
00:23:30
deep bouts of anxiety or I've definitely
experienced depression when I left the monastery
00:23:35
and that whole period was a depressive moment
in my life for sure but post that I was just
00:23:42
waking up feeling sick and for a week I just had
to be alone and I just had to be alone and not
00:23:48
see my friends and not see anyone my wife was
in London at the time so I wasn't with her and
00:23:53
I literally just sat alone for seven days making
sense of how I felt about myself what happened
00:24:00
it wasn't anything specific it was just feeling
that there was a lot of because I wrote a book
00:24:07
called think like a monk which I still stand
by the title I still stand by the whole book The reason I wrote the book called think like a
monk is because I didn't want everyone to have to
00:24:15
live like a monk and my whole point was that when
you learn to think like a monk you don't have to live like a monk and that you can adopt the same
mindsets and practices that monks have in your
00:24:24
daily life which is what I believe I took with me
but I found that when I would do an interview you
00:24:31
know the interview would be oh Jay Shetty you know
tells you to think like a monk but he's selling
00:24:37
millions of books or whatever it is right or like
you know um oh yeah Jay Shetty made x amount of
00:24:43
money through ad revenue on Facebook and YouTube
but he's talking about being a monk and so there was this constant like comparison that those two
things weren't allowed and you were getting that
00:24:53
straight away every day correct and I was just
like why is it that I feel like when someone's sitting down with me I constantly feel like
they want me to fail they want me to not be
00:25:05
who I truly am and they want to find that angle
on me constantly because they don't want to accept
00:25:11
that someone who is trying to be good at heart
is doing good in the work and winning is okay
00:25:17
and that's not a story though isn't that's not
a story exactly and I think that was hard for me
00:25:22
because I'd always believed that people would feel
your genuineness and and and they'd respect that
00:25:32
um you know I think me and you have Notch
we've we've had deep time together even though we haven't had a lot like yeah yeah we wouldn't
say we've had the amount of time together but I
00:25:42
felt very early on that I could just be myself
around you hence why I've never talked about any of what I've just said to you anywhere
else anywhere ever even on my own podcast
00:25:51
um because I don't like meeting people thinking
they want me to fail and I and I and if anything
00:25:58
I close off to that because it's defense
it's defense from day one and I realize I
00:26:04
don't defend myself very well because I don't I
don't want to I I just want to be who I am and
00:26:09
I'm comfortable with that but that seven days
was me doing all that work to process it bring me into this bring me in good man Stephen only
Stephen only with you man only with you literally
00:26:20
bring me into those seven days um and what it
was like if I was a flower on the wall in your world what would I have seen the seven days for
me weren't mapped out in being seven days like
00:26:32
it wasn't like I'm gonna take seven days and
this is the program I'm gonna go on it just happened to be seven days and for me I'd say
the first day I spent reading everything that
00:26:49
was making me feel that way so you're reading
all the comments you're reading the tweets you're reading the Articles you're seeing articles
come in that you've just interviewed for and
00:26:58
you're like wait a minute that's been completely
misconstrued like you're feeling this way and and I'd say a lot of this was you know UK based
not really International to be honest at all
00:27:09
um and and you're feeling that way and I was just
reading all of it I was completely immersed in it
00:27:14
for a day and I gave myself a day I said I'm
gonna let myself do it today because I want to be informed I want to be aware and you know you
just said this to me you were like you know Jay
00:27:22
I didn't see any of this I don't even know about
this and we've talked about this before and that's what's really fascinating right like for me that
day felt like the worst day because it felt like
00:27:31
that's all there is that's all I'm seeing
even though there's everything else going on
00:27:37
so I I'd say the first day I spent just reading
everything and you feel terrible and horrific
00:27:42
and there's a part of you that feels defensive
and you're like but I'm not like that oh I wish they could just understand this and oh well they
just read that differently and I I wish I could
00:27:51
talk to this person who feels this way and like
hold their hands and look into their eyes and for them to feel my real energy I wish they could
give me a chance I wish I could actually talk
00:28:01
to each one of these people maybe I should maybe I
should actually like book a room and just line up everyone who feels this way about me and actually
sit down with each of them and talk to them about
00:28:09
what my passion is and who I really am as a
human being maybe maybe that's what I need to do and you're kind of doing this whole defensive
and explaining and that all of that was day one
00:28:18
uh maybe even day two and I think day three and
four were really the hardest because you start to
00:28:27
believe some of the criticism so there's a part of
you and I think this is a good part of me I'm I'm
00:28:33
happy that this part of me exists where I have the
ability to be really critical and harsh of myself
00:28:42
to the point that I kind of embodied some of those
ideas and I was like maybe maybe I am maybe I
00:28:49
am not fully genuine maybe maybe I do have that
part inside of me like God maybe I am wrong like
00:28:57
you know maybe maybe I do need to take a look
at myself maybe I haven't maybe I'm maybe I'm
00:29:02
not doing that enough and so I'd say that was day
three and four and that was the hardest because
00:29:08
you're now taking someone else's words to
be your worth and you're taking someone's
00:29:15
writing to be who you are and so I think day three
and four were just kind of processing like do I
00:29:23
really agree with that am I that what part of
that is me I can't just sh I never I've never wanted to be someone who doesn't take something
as feedback like or doesn't look at something or
00:29:33
try and understand it more deeply and anxiety
how do you feel on these days you talked about I feel like throwing up in the morning really
like waking up and feeling like physically sick
00:29:43
uh and and wanting to throw up but trying not to
and how and that feeling lost all day or was it
00:29:49
just when you woke up I think it was mainly when
I woke up like it was it was a strong feeling when I woke up and I'd have to work through that
over the next couple of hours and then get over
00:29:57
that and then try and progress the day and I
think day five and six were making sense of
00:30:09
what was feedback what was
00:30:17
shots fired and what I believed about
myself run me through those three so
00:30:26
the way I and and and even deeper than all
three of those and I'll talk about those
00:30:32
three but even deeper than those three three
of those was this idea of compassion of why
00:30:41
do people feel the need to do this like what
role does it play in their life in our world
00:30:51
and why does someone feel the need to without
never having spent genuine equality time with me
00:31:00
to feel any way about me also not knowing
anyone in my universe either so you know
00:31:07
and so so trying to have compassion
and developing a sense of perspective
00:31:14
of what role does this play in our society that's
the most difficult Point um to understand which
00:31:21
is I remember someone tweeted something at me the
other day and they just like they just you know
00:31:27
because it's funny because we get you know so much
wonderful feedback and then some guy at 3am he's just like he just took a shot and he was like I
wish Steve was more authentic his PR team write
00:31:36
all of his posts and script his podcast and he's
and the the challenge of trying to make sense of
00:31:43
this this like statement where it's coming from
why they felt they need to tweet it at 3am what
00:31:48
I've done to them is an impossible challenge
to try and solve it's a riddle that doesn't make sense but the only way that I've come to
understand it is by looking at my own imperfection
00:31:57
yes looking at my own jealousy yeah looking at
my own envy and my exactly inadequacies and how
00:32:02
sometimes I'm ugly and then I go I understand
we all have it in US probably somewhere in the right context yeah especially if you've got a bad
day and the wife or the husband has given us a
00:32:10
hug you know and then I understand I'm ugly too
yeah you know um but going to those three those
00:32:15
three stages what feedback did you I I think the
feedback that I've taken on is that I definitely
00:32:25
have changed externally like in the sense of
it is true that uh my life is very different
00:32:33
externally very quickly that that's true to me
it's not quick because it's 10 years since I left
00:32:39
and 13 years since I was a monk and everything
but it is it is quick and it is a lot to you
00:32:48
know it's been a crazy Journey For Me internally
let alone everyone else who's just just watching
00:32:55
um and the feedback that maybe I should explain
and probably why I feel so open today doing this
00:33:05
with you and comfortable going there is maybe
I do need to explain my intentions more and not
00:33:11
just do the work and maybe I do need to spend more
time giving context do you think though because
00:33:17
there's so many people that do the content the
helping people the you know the genius stuff you
00:33:23
do there's so many people that do that and they
don't get the same criticism it's the monk piece isn't it it's it feels like it's contradiction
it's the monk piece and it's also the um the scale
00:33:36
there's people I'm thinking like the biggest
in the world in in the in that game you're the
00:33:41
biggest in the world I guess in what you in the
specific thing that you do I guess but is it the apparent contradiction of two labels that the
society have given you where they go successful
00:33:51
rich nice stuff but then because it's
the same with me no one's ever going to do it for me because they think of me as
businessman yeah yeah so if I was balling
00:34:00
around in private jets and helicopters people
are going to go yeah yeah and I'm not being private yet by the way but yeah no I think
yeah I think that's I think that is a big
00:34:11
part of it and and I recognize that that's
a massive Paradox and by the way I'm living
00:34:17
that Paradox which is even crazier because
it there's all that there's so much of that
00:34:25
self guilt and transformation that I've had to go
through I've had to rewire my deeper relationships
00:34:33
with every aspect like and I've realized
that the monk teachings actually hold true they're just misunderstood or misconstrued it's
kind of like when we you know when we keep having
00:34:43
everyone who keeps saying oh money doesn't buy
happiness money doesn't buy happiness money you know so you've that that statement's just lasted
for so long and you and I know that that's not you
00:34:55
know when it comes to the Monk's philosophy the
Monk's philosophy was very much that everything
00:35:02
in the world was simply energy and it could be
used for something higher or could be abused pretty much anything in the world could could be
put into that way of thinking but the perception
00:35:13
is monks don't have money therefore it's bad but
that's a simplistic version of a far deeper idea
00:35:20
uh there's a beautiful story that I love that
we would often be shared in the monastery where
00:35:29
the teacher asks a student if you could give
one person a hundred pounds or give a hundred
00:35:37
people one pound each which would you do and
the student says I'd give 100 pounds to one
00:35:45
person because it would be really impactful
and the teacher says yeah that's that there's
00:35:50
nothing wrong with that answer and that's
totally fair another way of looking at it is I'd give one pound each to a hundred people
because it helps me learn how to become better
00:35:59
at giving and it gives 100 people an opportunity
to grow and so the idea is that the answer isn't
00:36:05
whether money is good or bad like the answer
some people say is well they shouldn't give any money out at all like I think the idea that
something is bad or evil or something is wrong is
00:36:16
a fall more simplistic idea than the depth of
the idea that anything can be used for good
00:36:22
or For Worse I remember that you know we've been
able to do so many beautiful things whether it's
00:36:27
things privately or even publicly when you
know my wife and I did this fundraiser for
00:36:33
covid for India um and I remember like it took
a lot of money to just organize the fundraiser
00:36:40
and it wouldn't we wouldn't have been able to
do that if we didn't have what we had and I was thinking to myself I was like this is a perfect
example of like how you you can't sometimes you
00:36:49
need the resource to pull off something that's
even more powerful and big but if I didn't have the resource and I didn't have the community
and I didn't have my audience and my fans and
00:36:57
the people that helped us do that it just wouldn't
have been possible and so it's kind of like this all comes in and of itself it comes together I
remember when we met in New York and you took
00:37:05
me to meet the uh rather than time yeah I could
not say that yeah yeah you met you met my monk
00:37:12
teacher yeah Swami is the like the pope title
like the equivalent of that do you remember the question I asked him I don't actually tell me it
was exactly what you've just said so I said to him
00:37:23
um there's a part of me that has always had
this sort of internal conflict where whether if what I'm doing what I consider to be selfishly
like building businesses enriching myself
00:37:34
is um is good or bad and I I've always
since I was 18 I remember being sat in my room and thinking you know if
instead of building this business
00:37:41
if I just went to Africa and saved one life would
that be more of a worthy cause than building a business that would enrich myself and your your
teacher said to me he said um I'll never forget
00:37:50
it I talk about it all the time on stage probably
every month on stage he said to me you can't pour
00:37:55
out for others that which you don't have in your
own bottle I always remembered that because it's entirely true the the impact that I would be
able to have now in many areas whether it's
00:38:05
the donations we've done for children's cancer
Societies or all of the things that we've done this year the money we've donated from we gave
away all of the money from our live tour um none
00:38:13
of those things even like this podcast wouldn't
have been possible if I didn't fill my bottle and my bottle isn't just Financial it's skills
resources knowledge it's Network it's reputation
00:38:22
um and that full bottle allows you to do so much
for so many others but I do want to zoom in on something you said yeah you said that you had to
confront your ugliest side yeah now this is an
00:38:32
uncomfortable thing to do because it really it's
for all of us it's a quite an uncomfortable place to go to actually consider faults in ourselves
what is your ugly side in your view oh hmm
00:38:49
I think whenever anyone does this activity you
have to be it's it's again that balance of being
00:38:56
highly self-reflective and open to
feedback but not getting into the harsh
00:39:03
like killing yourself basically because
it's and it's a really it's a really like
00:39:09
interesting balance I find because you can easily
do either like you can easily defend yourself and
00:39:14
be like no no I'm good I'm a good person I'm
great or you can do the opposite but you're just like I'm the worst that is yeah and it kind
of and that's why I'm you know as you ask that
00:39:22
question I'm like let me really look at it um
my ugliest side is that any and I believe this
00:39:31
is true of most people is that you're truly
capable of anything anything and I think my
00:39:43
practice and my daily habit is and has always
been to try and feed the good dog inside me
00:39:53
and so I don't think I associate that deeply with
my ugly side because I've just not fed it for a
00:40:02
long time and so I don't feel very close to it
in the sense of that doesn't mean it can't take
00:40:08
effect on me so so my teachers would always say
that if you feel like you're unaffected by Maya
00:40:15
Maya's the Sanskrit word for illusion an illusion
is considered ignorance and that which leads to
00:40:20
the dark side or the ugly side if you feel
that you're unaffected by Maya you're in Maya
00:40:28
right if you feel unaffected by illusion or the
dark side you're in the dark side right yeah that makes sense and it's the idea as well of like
if someone says they're humble or practicing
00:40:36
humility it's like they're in ego right now it's
yeah it's not possible to think to yourself oh
00:40:42
I'm I'm I'm humble at the same time as feeling
ego less you can go with it and so the idea and
00:40:49
I think you have to be aware of that because you
don't associate with my life you can easily fall for anything but I think my dark side exists
within this capacity of like you know the the
00:41:00
comparison the Envy the jealousy the the ego that
that's the kind of stuff that I would say that
00:41:06
mainly I would grapple with and I grew up with on
a daily basis and I choose to Grapple with it on a daily basis we in the monastery often talked
about uh relishing the battle Yeah that that
00:41:17
there was always going to be a battle the battle
was never won or lost it was a constant relishing
00:41:22
the battle you just had to re-pick up the sword
and have the fight every day and so I've learned
00:41:27
to relish the battle and the battle is accepting
that there is both inside of me and it's a battle
00:41:33
I have to have every day and the avoidance or
ignorance that I don't have one of the sides
00:41:40
isn't healthy right and in my case it's just not
healthy I can't accept that I I have only pure
00:41:46
intentions do you believe you'll get to a point
where you've won the battle I don't think so I
00:41:51
don't think that's the goal I I I think I think
the moment you think you've won the battle is
00:41:56
when you lose I mean there's that brilliant clip
on uh social that's always going viral and it's
00:42:02
literally like I forget what the line is but I
think the caption is something like it's never over until it's over and it's all the Moments in
Sports where someone's felt that the ball's gone
00:42:13
across the line or hasn't or the person's running
thinking they're about to cross the finish line they look over and they lose every single time and
I think that that's a great image and metaphor for
00:42:25
the idea that as soon as you think you've won
that's when you're most likely to lose because
00:42:31
that's when you put your guard down and I think
putting your guard down to your own Envy into your
00:42:36
own comparison to your own ego is unhealthy and I
think sometimes when we see the crazy things that
00:42:42
happen in the world it's not because someone
was made that way or built that way it's that they let their guard down to those things and so
when I'm saying that I sat for seven days with
00:42:50
my demons and my dark side and my unhealthiness
and checked myself I'm I'm glad I did that and I
00:42:58
shouldn't avoid that I shouldn't sit here and say
no no I know I'm an amazing human being and I'm a good intention I know all this thing I am good
intentioned I am someone who cares about people I
00:43:06
I am deeply compassionate I have only ever tried
my best to serve in love those are all true I'm
00:43:12
very confident in that but at the same time I have
a propensity to be egotistic to be envious to be
00:43:19
jealous to be comparative to be competitive and
unhealthy sense and if I'm more Vigilant of that
00:43:24
that won't ruin it and that's the Perfect Analogy
that was given to us in the monastery was we all had to plant a seed and tend to it every day
because you'd see weeds grow around it every
00:43:34
day and this was the exact concept that was taught
to us that when you plant a seed weeds are going to grow around it and the weeds often look like
the plant they often look perfect and you can keep
00:43:45
watering the weeds or water the seed and pluck the
weeds and that's the daily practice that each and
00:43:50
every one of us does so I think every day I sit
with myself in my meditation and I try and pluck
00:43:58
out the weeds and sometimes it's not plucking
sometimes it's ripping gripping destroying
00:44:03
uprooting like the weeds have gone deep some of
these weeds are not no longer little seedlings and
00:44:08
little plants some of them have been around for
years and so there's that work that has to happen
00:44:14
are you thinking about a particular weed um but
you've really had to like work on and unplug I
00:44:19
mean I've got loads in my life that I know that
you see the it continue to rear continues to show up in the the moments where you're maybe
complacent yeah about you know you think
00:44:27
you've got it all figured out and then [ __ ] over
here yeah I think the biggest one that I probably
00:44:33
monitor I mean I monitor all of them regularly
but I think it's the weed that we all have
00:44:43
that the way we live life is the right way to live
it like the belief that my perspective my opinion
00:44:51
my priorities my values should be everyone's and
that somehow because of that we should all align
00:45:00
and I think you see that as your partner the
most like for example my wife really values her my value my wife really values her mentor and
physical health and so her number one priority
00:45:10
today in the day is making sure she's meditated
and making sure she's gone to the gym like those are like massive priorities for her and sometimes
there'll be two workouts and more meditation and
00:45:19
I'm coming back off of a slog day of like working
podcasts meeting schedules all this other stuff
00:45:26
and I've meditated but I haven't worked out today
and I'm running around and I think at the end of the day that I've achieved more like that is a
weed because I'm saying that what I prioritize
00:45:36
is more important than what she prioritizes when
it isn't it's just different she her self-worth is
00:45:41
based on very different things than my self-worth
is based on do you ever find you know when you're saying all of this you're describing exactly
me and my partner I love that man that's good
00:45:50
she wakes up at seven or eight in the morning
yeah she's built like a temple and she goes to the temple people and if I woke up past two hours
later she's just stretching in the temple yeah you
00:45:59
know what I mean I'm like zooming past with like
you know late for some [ __ ] and she I just she's
00:46:04
just stretching in a temple she flows that's the
way she just flows nice and slowly through life um at her own pace a pace that I know
nothing about yeah a place I could not
00:46:12
relate to yeah same same so I was going to ask
you about this have you ever found yourself
00:46:18
making the mistake of exerting your your ambition
00:46:25
flows that you know that
pace because I have yeah yeah I think I think and I write about
this in the book but by the time I was
00:46:36
by the time I was with my wife and we moved in and
got married and like started really investing in
00:46:42
our relationship I think I'd seen a lot of people
do it to other people so my wife would always get
00:46:48
people around her she's a phenomenal chef and
cook and you know really really talented when it comes to food and health and nutrition so the
one thing she'd hear from everyone was you should
00:46:57
start a restaurant like that's all she'd ever hear
is you should start a restaurant you should start a restaurant and whenever I'd I'd see the like
sometimes fear confusion uncertainty on her face
00:47:07
when people would say that this is like you know
I'm talking about like seven years ago maybe eight years ago and I would always sit with Edward there
and be like how do you feel when people say that
00:47:17
like what is does that excite you does that you
know if someone told me that and I had her skills
00:47:22
I'd be like oh that's amazing people believe in
me right which is something I never really had and she was like no I just I don't know if I want
a restaurant like I don't know if that's what I
00:47:31
want to do with my skills like I she always wanted
to be in Pediatrics and she wanted to help people with their nutrition and diet and she wanted to
work with individuals and work with and now she's
00:47:40
working with people online and she does making
love making recipes but does she want to build a restaurant and so we'd always go through that
cycle and I started to realize and we'd have this
00:47:49
conversation often that just because someone says
something that's a good idea it doesn't need to
00:47:54
be your idea and you don't need to chase it and
so I'd say that I don't think I've ever pushed
00:48:01
my pace on her because I think part of being a
coach and this is why I value coaching so deeply
00:48:10
is because a coach is never meant to dictate
the pace of the person they work with and so
00:48:16
there's a chapter in the book called your partner
is your Guru and that's a really tough statement
00:48:21
to handle but actually a guru likened to a coach
never dictates the pace of the student so my monk
00:48:29
teacher who you met wouldn't that day in New
York would never ever say to me Jay you've been
00:48:36
meditating for 17 years now why are you not a pure
perfect meditator they would never say that to me
00:48:42
because they don't think that that's the pace at
which it works they know that I'm on my journey on
00:48:48
my timeline now at the same time I think opening
up conversations like I will have the conversation
00:48:53
with my wife and be like uh are you thinking
about setting goals or intentions for 2023 and do you want to talk about it because I'm going to
be doing that myself yeah and I've seen that she's
00:49:03
done that like where my wife has opened up to some
of my ideas and my ways of working because I open
00:49:09
up it as a conversation not as a oh by the way
these are my goals for 2023 what are yours which
00:49:15
where it's like a pressure and that's like an
insecure amateur version of trying to be a coach where it's like well look what I've achieved what
did you achieve this year or by the way let's look
00:49:24
at our 2022 goals and what we achieved like it
becomes an ego thing again so I think for me I've
00:49:30
really tried my best to embody being a coach in my
partnership because I see it just being healthier
00:49:37
when we've allowed each other's good qualities
to rub off and by the way she's done the same back to me so if I've coached her in like finding
her drive and her passion and her purpose and and
00:49:47
coached her in the sense of not like meticulously
but but as a friend uh she's done the same for me
00:49:54
like when I met my wife I was someone who's really
focused on mental Mastery but I hadn't really figured out what I did for my body I'd done a lot
for my mind and my heart but and my emotions but
00:50:04
but not for my body and when I met my wife like
she inculcated the belly for me working out more
00:50:10
regularly and eating more healthily and when I
met my wife I was addicted to Sugar I I still
00:50:15
love fried food I I still love sodas and my wife
was just like this ain't happening but again she
00:50:20
didn't call it out it wasn't like a oh you're
so unhealthy you just sit around and drink it wasn't like that it was educating me and it was
enlightening me and it was helping me change my
00:50:29
habits and so yeah inspiring me and and it's
setting the example right I think setting the
00:50:34
example is far more a beautiful there's a quote
I use of Saint Francis in the book which says
00:50:42
um you should always preach wherever you are in
everything you do and if you need to use words
00:50:51
right the idea that your example your your
practice is what inspires people if you're working
00:50:56
really hard and you're a wonderful human being
that far more makes someone want to work hard then
00:51:02
you working hard and being a miserable human being
quick one intelligent of our podcast sponsors and
00:51:08
I want to talk to you for a second about that
built for business vpro platform in today's Working World the office is pretty much anywhere
and Intel V Pro means you can remotely manage
00:51:18
repair and protect devices across your entire
organization no matter how large or small giving
00:51:23
me and my team peace of mind to work wherever we
choose to for my it team whether on premise or via
00:51:29
Cloud behind the corporate firewall or not Intel's
vpro comprehensive manageability has us covered
00:51:35
this is something that is so important to me I you
know I'm a huge believer in employee flexibility and Trust so having features like this are super
helpful so to find out more search intel.co.ukvpro
00:51:46
and let me know how you get on it is that time
of year again when my life becomes incredibly reliant on Hill I'm busier than ever I'm trying
to be nutritionally complete in all that I do I'm
00:51:56
trying to make sure I get all of the vitamins and
minerals that I need in my diet and heal has been for the last three and a half years the primary
reason as it relates to my diet that I've been
00:52:05
able to be nutritionally complete while also being
incredibly productive they've also been a sponsor of this podcast since we launched the podcast
and so I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for
00:52:14
enabling this show and in fact when we hit the
million Milestone on YouTube with this podcast I sent it to the founder because I've never
shared this before but he actually said to me
00:52:23
when I started the podcast he was like you're
gonna absolutely kill it you'll have millions of subscribers you'll be this big you'll be that
big so many people will listen and I don't know
00:52:30
if I believed it if I'm being completely honest
but he believed in Us in this show before we'd
00:52:36
released one episode which is a remarkable thing
and he gave me a huge amount of self-belief in myself so thank you Julian Hearn for that but also
thank you hewell for creating a product that has
00:52:44
helped me and helped my health stay intact in
my busiest days over the last couple of years
00:52:50
to the episode I've always wondered this I'm
going to ask you a really tough question here if your partner got to a state where you no
longer found them attractive at all you know
00:53:03
I'm gonna let the viewer decide what that might
look like right if your partner got to that state
00:53:09
what would you do I think because they weren't
taking care of themselves yeah yeah I I think my
00:53:15
honest answer would be I would like to approach
that and I believe I would because I think I've shown it in different areas of my relationship not
in the physical sense have been The Compassion of
00:53:29
are you happy with where you are right now with
that person are you happy in the direction that you're moving in is this the life you want is
has this been created out of pain or stress or
00:53:40
pressure or has this been created out of choice
and out of action right and I think getting to
00:53:46
understand that person's journey to that point
sets you up to understand where this is going
00:53:52
if that person then turns around and goes this is
exactly who I want to be and this is the person I want to be and this is how I choose to live my
life I'm your partner yeah what do you say to me
00:54:02
yeah so I'm going down the angle of trying to
get to understand right like that that's what
00:54:08
I'm trying to do in this area they are completely
cool with everything correct because it's you're you're the one that's Coast attraction yeah all
I'm trying to do in that scenario genuinely is
00:54:18
to understand where the person's at why they're
in that position and how long they think that's going to last and so my next question would be
like that sounds awesome that sounds like a lot
00:54:26
of fun how long do you feel like that's where
you want to be now your answer maybe I feel like that's how I want to live forever right
like that's that's the direction it's going in
00:54:34
I have very little control over that so what
do you do I would then if if I'd explored
00:54:40
that conversation try to understand first yes and
seeing that pattern for long enough because by the
00:54:46
way that pattern could last a week and it could be
over next week yeah and that person's now guilty and shameful of and they're dealing with something
far deeper so I don't think this can ever be
00:54:55
oh wow that person for a month has gone in this
direct it's never that quick right yeah if you're seeing over months and years that someone's
just going on a downward spiral they're not
00:55:05
opening up to you they're not opening up to a
therapist they're not opening up to their mum their parents their sister they're not opening
up to a coach they're not opening up to their
00:55:14
friends like if you're seeing no sign of this
person doesn't feel they're going in they're
00:55:20
doing anything wrong by their account now you're
out of options of of controlling that so I think
00:55:25
there's many more layers before I don't think
this person's right for me anymore but I think
00:55:31
those layers and levels are time how long has this
lasted I think it's who are they honest and open
00:55:37
with because sometimes they may not be honest
and open with you because they're embarrassed but they're being open and honest with someone
else their family their friends whoever else it
00:55:44
may be do you are you aware of that are you do
you even know the conversations they're having and then if you're not attracted to someone I mean
you're well within your rights to to move on and
00:55:55
and get on with your life I mean how are you gonna
force yourself to if that's an important value for you someone would say but physical attraction
isn't my number one value that's totally fine
00:56:04
too so you would stay with that person right like
if that's not your number one value is there a point where you express how you feel absolutely
absolutely I think I think after understand I
00:56:14
think the biggest mistake that happens so I talk
about this in the book where I talk about things that you find intolerable about your partner
right this comes under that category that you
00:56:24
find it intolerable that they don't take care of
themselves and now you're not attracted to them I talk about going on this journey if you love
someone enough if you care about someone enough
00:56:33
you will want to go on the journey from
intolerable to understanding to acceptance
00:56:40
to potentially even admiring them for
who they are and where they've gone that's the journey if you want this relationship
to last so if I find something intolerable The
00:56:50
Next Step isn't telling them how I feel the next
step is understanding why they're there how they got there what their reasoning is and that takes
time that person isn't going to on day one they're
00:57:00
going to give you answers like you just gave
me on day 73 chances are someone's going to say
00:57:06
I'm feeling really bad about how I am right or
maybe not when you tell them huh I'm interested
00:57:12
in is how you communicate how you're feeling I so
I would say and I want to use a real life scenario
00:57:18
with my wife because I think it's easier to
talk about a real conversation we've had if I felt emotionally disconnected from my wife
because we've both been traveling separately
00:57:27
we've both had a lot of work on we haven't really
found time to connect or be with us be without
00:57:32
the Deep be with each other deeply I often say
to her and I've said this throughout our whole
00:57:37
relationship I'll say to her is this relationship
going in the direction you wanted to go in and that's a really open and Broad question she
could say yes she could say no and then my second
00:57:48
question is if it is going in the direction you
wanted to go in what's going well and then I'd say
00:57:53
if it isn't going in the direction you're going
in what do you need and what are you willing to do
00:57:59
and then I'd follow that up with do you mind if
I share mine do you mind if I if I share with you
00:58:04
if I feel this relationship's going in the right
direction or how I feel and so once I've heard her out and seen where she's at I'm now going
to tell her exactly how I feel my way of saying
00:58:13
would be I've got to a place where I'm feeling
emotionally disconnected I'm feeling like I don't
00:58:20
feel like you're present with me I don't feel like
you're connected I don't feel like you want to
00:58:26
is that true and I'm checking if my emotional
instinct is real now in this case it's me saying
00:58:33
I honestly feel that over the last three
years I haven't been able to understand
00:58:40
I haven't really been able to gain context of why
you've made the choices you've made and I really
00:58:46
want to understand and deeply and there for you
to understand if these choices are aligned with your values if they are those are not the values
that attract me those are not the values that make
00:58:55
me feel good about being in a relationship because
what I'm saying is if you found someone physically attractive and now you find them physically
unattractive I promise you it's also based
00:59:05
on their values and choices it's not simply based
on how they look yeah that's too simplistic for a
00:59:11
modern day extreme powerful relationship so to me
I'm communicating my disconnect with that person's
00:59:18
choices and values I'm not simplifying it to just
how they look in the mirror that because that's
00:59:25
me isn't the truth because the truth is that
because they can change how they look in the mirror but they don't want to is my issue with
it they don't want to they don't want to build
00:59:33
they don't want to be better in all the ways I
think they can be better right that they don't see I don't feel like they want to improve I was I
was coaching someone who's uh partner was addicted
00:59:43
to porn right and they're addicted to porn their
partner found pictures and videos and all that
00:59:50
kind of stuff on their laptop and phone and all
the rest of it and we were working with them
00:59:56
and it was if that person didn't see a problem
with their addiction that's where you were at
01:00:01
but the the person's problem wasn't that they
were just addictive porn it was the lack of transparency it was the lack of honesty it was the
lack of emotional connection the issue wasn't that
01:00:09
they were watching porn their issue was don't
you trust me enough to tell me that there's a disconnect here that we don't have enough of a
relationship where you can share this with me
01:00:19
that was the issue that they were having so to
me I'm always trying to communicate empathy is
01:00:25
communicating at the root of the issue not with
the symptom of what you're experiencing and if
01:00:30
someone empathetically said to you Stephen I I
feel and this is my projection on you and you're
01:00:37
allowed to edit this I just feel that you're
worth so much more and I feel like you can make so many better choices for yourself and I think
you have the ability to get there but I don't know
01:00:48
if you want that and if you don't want that that's
totally fine but that's the kind of partner I want to be with would you never mention in that process
that you're not not attracted to them anymore
01:00:57
I wouldn't never not mention their direct thing I
just think that I'm more interested in Excavating
01:01:04
you're going around it's not going around it's
going under it's going deeper and deeper than
01:01:09
it's going deeper it's not going around going
around is saying like oh you know I'm just it's not working out anymore like oh you know I'm just
seeing other people now like going around it is
01:01:17
like you know going around it is just saying yeah
I mean even one sense of going around it is just
01:01:23
like yeah I'm finding other people attract
whatever like you're going to the roots as opposed to the leaves correct because I think
that not only helps the other person but it
01:01:30
helps me understand how to actually be there for
the person I love because I think that if you go
01:01:36
to the root that person has the opportunity to
say thank you that's how I feel but I just don't
01:01:42
know how to say it so I want to give the person
the opportunity to feel so heard when they can't
01:01:47
even hear their own voice but they can hear it
through my reflection on them where they can say you know what you're right that is exactly how
I feel I know I can be so much better but and if
01:01:58
I can't find that in them then we're not meant to
be but I want to be that voice for someone because
01:02:03
they can't find that voice within themselves it's
so interesting because I imagine almost everybody listening to this has those gripes with their
partner 100 whether you've been together for
01:02:11
five minutes or five years where you you go I just
she would be more like me or I just wish she would
01:02:17
do it like me I wish you would love what I love
and I've been there with my partner as well where um I I suspect she wants me to be a bit more
interested in the things she's interested in
01:02:26
yeah and maybe vice versa um but then also we
have a different style of communication and all
01:02:31
of these things and going back a couple of years
we had a problem with sex which we had to confront where one day she turned around to me and and said
that she was wasn't interested in sex we've talked
01:02:40
about this publicly before yeah um and the journey
I went on to understand all of that the question I'm trying to ask is like Dave or Rebecca who's
listening to this right now who wants to wants
01:02:52
to change something about [ __ ] Rebecca wants
to change something about Dave he's all he's
01:02:57
always he doesn't care about me he doesn't give
me the quality time all of those things what's the
01:03:02
path that Rebecca should take to deliver that to
Dave yeah at what point should she go [ __ ] Dave
01:03:08
you know what I mean because because it's a
success is a team sport in this record right first thing I'm going to say is stop trying
to change anyone because people don't change
01:03:21
for people they change for themselves like stop
trying to change anyone people do not change for
01:03:26
you they don't change for me they change for
themselves and if they don't want to change they're not changing and if you want to change
your partner chances are they're not the right
01:03:35
person for you and by the way anyone you date
you'll always want to change because somehow
01:03:41
deep inside of you you believe that the values
you were brought up with and what you think is right is what everyone in the world should do and
so the core issue again going to the route is us
01:03:50
and our projection like is my wife any less of an
amazing human being because she lives differently
01:03:58
to me no and I think that relationships are
so much more about learning to respect other
01:04:04
people's values than they are to make them
value what we value I think the biggest issue
01:04:10
we're having in relationships right now is we're
saying well I like this why don't you like it relationships are saying I love that you love
that and I love this you go do your thing I'll
01:04:20
go do mine why do I want to force my partner to
come watch a football game with me if they hate football I'd rather go watch it with someone that
loves football and why is she gonna force me to go
01:04:29
do something that I don't want to do I don't
think that that's compromise or connection I think that's ruining relationships quite frankly
so I think going to the core of the answer now
01:04:40
I'll coach through Dave and Rebecca but I think
going to the root of it it's just the issue of stop trying to change people if you're trying
to change them then you don't love them you love
01:04:48
their potential you love a version of them that
you think they can become that's not them and
01:04:54
stop trying to make them that version because
if you're in love with who someone could be
01:04:59
then you're not in love with them and accept that
and I don't think we want to accept that we want to think that we're better greater human beings
because we see something better for someone and
01:05:09
there are projects and they're a project and I
talk about that in the book the idea that you know the project or there are three roles we play in
relationships one is the fixer we want to find
01:05:22
someone to fix and the other is we play the role
of the project so we want to be fixed by someone
01:05:28
else so we're looking for that person and really
the right thing we want to be is the supporter the partner the true equal the true person who adds
value to the other person sometimes takes on the
01:05:39
role of the fixer sometimes is the project but
overall is coming at it from a point of working on this together as you said a team sport and
so when it comes to Rebecca and Dave ultimately
01:05:49
the deepest most beautiful question your
partner can ask you is where do you want to be
01:05:54
and do you want my help getting there and if the
answer to that question is something you don't like then it comes to the end of it because you're
not going to change them by manipulating them by
01:06:04
controlling them by forcing them by coming up with
a magic trick it's just not going to happen like I
01:06:10
think so many people say to me Jay just you know
my my partner just won't read your book I really
01:06:15
want them to read your book and I'm like please
don't do that to them you're about to push that person over the edge and guess what not only are
they not going to read my book They're not going
01:06:24
to be interested in personal development or
growth because now you've given it a bad taste half the atheists in the world exists because
religion failed them it wasn't that they became
01:06:33
an atheist out of choice because they were like
oh I'm just going to be an atheist it's because they saw someone as part of a religion that failed
them and so when it whether it's personal growth
01:06:41
whether it's Health whether it's mindfulness
whether it's yoga whatever your latest trend is that you're into forcing your partner to get
into it is going to push them away far more then
01:06:52
it's going to excite them and entice them and
there's a message underlying there which I which I felt in my life where someone's pushing you to
do something or to check something out and they're
01:07:01
doing it very aggressively yeah I'm I'm trying
to read between the lines yes I'm saying you know
01:07:06
Steve please read this book I go oh this is where
I'll read that as here is she's presenting me with
01:07:12
a flaw that I have totally because the book is
about I don't know how to be great in bed yeah and she's like babe please read this book I'm
thinking well what you're actually saying to me
01:07:21
is I'm not good in bed yeah yeah totally totally
so there's always that's the problem when you're dealing with love again isn't it totally and
you're not love means to understand why someone
01:07:31
makes the choices they make and most of us don't
even know why they make those choices and we want
01:07:37
them to make our choices that's as simple as it is
you said something so amazing which I thought was
01:07:42
um that question that Rebecca should be asking
Dave which I've never really thought about before which is the first question you should ask them is
like where do they want their life to go and where
01:07:51
do they see this relationship going and then
instead of trying to interfere with that and design it yourself and muddle with it just see if
it matches up to your vision of the relationship
01:07:59
I imagine most people listening to this now
haven't done that exercise with their partner where they they haven't asked their partner by the
way like what is your vision for this relationship
01:08:06
in US yeah and even your own life yeah it'd
be interesting you know yeah I think also just
01:08:12
trying to I think the reason why we haven't had
that conversation is most of us don't even know our vision so the reason why we haven't done that
with a partner is because we don't know the answer
01:08:21
to our own question and so before you ask that
question you should have your own idea I know what I want my vision of a relationship is we wake up
excited to see each other every day we go to bed
01:08:32
uh feeling accomplished and fulfilled throughout
the day we make time to connect on understanding
01:08:38
where each other's lives are going where
they intertwine and where they separate and we support each other in the goals I break it
down into three things in the book I talk about
01:08:47
uh liking each other's personality and the way
I Define that's the first one of the three what
01:08:52
I mean by that is there's an amazing study that
was done that said that in order for someone to be considered a casual friend you have to spend
40 hours with them in order for someone to be
01:09:03
considered a friend you have to spend 100 hours
with them and for someone to be considered a good
01:09:09
friend a great friend you have to spend 200 hours
with them what are we so we're we're nothing right
01:09:16
now Stephen we we're we're not doing very well on
that list now having said that we've also had very
01:09:22
deep time like we're always opening our entire
souls and hearts to each other so it's it's a different type of relationship but the point
is liking someone's personality is do I want
01:09:32
to spend 200 hours with them that's how I like
to break it down is do I see myself spending 200 hours with this person trying to understand them
the second is do I respect their values you will
01:09:43
only know their values if you ask them if you're
aware if you can see how they spend their time and money most people don't like the way their
partner spends their time and money which means
01:09:52
you don't like their values but you're still with
them because you like something else about them but the values are the core of who that person
is as a human being and then the third is do you
01:10:03
want to help them achieve their goals that's love
love means that you want to help them get to where they want to get to but most of us don't even
know where our partners want to go or where we
01:10:12
want to go so we're struggling with like three
fundamental things that define love and we'll
01:10:18
never know because we're trying to patch it up
with all the other stickers that come up uh in
01:10:24
making us feel good yeah you said Point number
one there which was waking up to them every day now when you when you said that I thought [ __ ]
every day like well not every day but I'm saying
01:10:33
whenever you're in the same yeah but that's what
my brain did well every day like yeah and then that brought my mind to this point about the
role of distance yes in your relationship yes
01:10:43
I've tested this love big time both ways okay tell
me what you've done so my wife and I have been
01:10:48
together for 10 years so it's not long and it's
not short it's like you know it's a good amount of time uh and we've spent up to six months apart
a year sometimes and we've spent as little as
01:11:06
two months apart a year so we've varied in
those 10 years anywhere from two months to six months a year I've not seen each other based
on work schedules priorities Etc and I was always
01:11:20
someone who believed that distance was really
good for relationships I think it's healthy to
01:11:26
miss each other I think it's healthier if you have
a plan of how you're going to be apart and I think
01:11:32
it's even healthier if you have a plan of how to
reconnect after the time apart and I think that's
01:11:38
where relationships and distance go wrong most
relationships in distance are either by default or with no consciousness so we just ended up not
seeing each other for x amount of time whether
01:11:47
that's one week one month or whatever it may
be that unconscious time of not being with each
01:11:53
other is not healthy for a relationship you don't
know why you're disconnected you don't know for how long you don't know how you're reconnecting
and you don't know how you're staying in touch
01:12:01
that's not good quality time away so that's how to
make time work for you six months is too long six
01:12:08
months doesn't work I've tried and tested it it's
really bad uh it took six months after six months
01:12:17
to reconnect and I'm not I literally felt like
it was like a rule that for every day I was apart
01:12:25
I had to spend a day of quality time with that
person to refine and ReDiscover and to sustain
01:12:32
and to evolve and grow a relationship and I
literally felt that six months apart took me six months with my wife to get back to where we
were before those six months especially because
01:12:43
some of those six months happened unconsciously
and so unconscious time apart isn't healthy and
01:12:50
unconscious reconnection isn't healthy and that
was six months of conscious reconnection after six
01:12:56
months of unconscious disconnectedness that helped
us connect again and I'd never want to do that
01:13:02
again it was it was too painful to look at someone
and someone you love and someone you feel you've
01:13:09
really achieved something with to kind of feel
like you had to rebuild it all again it was it
01:13:16
was too much and and I don't want to do that again
and so I'm changing the way I feel about distance I'm always going to make it conscious it's always
communicated and some of the habits I've set up
01:13:25
that have been really helpful is I also set
up not even just disconnection physically but
01:13:32
time poverty and emotional so
I'm going on tour this year and when I go on tour this year I'm going to be on
the road in the US for three weeks in total which
01:13:44
is quite normal for me and my wife to be apart for
three weeks so but it's communicated it's in the calendar and then I come back to LA for a month
and I've kept that whole schedule free because I
01:13:54
want to plan a few trips with my wife we may even
go on a vacation whatever it may be and then after that I go on my world tour which is another four
weeks or five weeks of cities all across Europe
01:14:06
India Asia and Australia and my wife will pop into
a couple of cities but she's not going to come on
01:14:11
the whole tour with me and so again I'm like okay
which cities are you going to be in which weekends am I going to take off which nights am I going to
be with you and then what are we going to do when
01:14:20
I reconnect after the world tour it's now coming
from a completely conscious organized space just
01:14:25
as I would organize work just as I would deal
with a business partner you just can't take
01:14:30
a relationship for granted it just will break it
will Wilt Away Paul Brunson taught me something um
01:14:36
he he was on the podcast and he he said that him
and his wife had to make a rule he's from America he's had to fly all over the world to do these TV
shows Etc he said we have a rule where if we're
01:14:46
if an opportunity invites us to be a part for more
than two weeks we either go together or I don't go
01:14:53
I know he's obviously got you know kids and
things like that and I really thought that was really amazing yeah difficult that's difficult
it's very difficult yeah I don't disagree with it
01:15:02
I just think that so he posted on his Instagram
the amazing I've just been given an opportunity of a lifetime but for practical reasons me and my
partner can't go together yes I've turned it down
01:15:10
and I think everyone needs to come up with
their own version of that rule yeah because that's such a it's a great Rule and if him and
his partner have committed to that and that's
01:15:18
my hope with the book with the rules it's like
come up with your own relationship rules like one of ours is every 30 days we spend three
days together without our phones and we drive
01:15:31
somewhere three hours away from our home in La
and spend that time together and that's been a healthy habit for us every month because I don't
think I want to wait for our annual vacation to
01:15:42
spend quality time together and so whether you're
spending one hour together every week undisturbed without your phones I also think that one of the
things I talk about is the levels of connection so
01:15:55
I had a friend who just got back from vacation
with her partner and straight after that she was
01:16:03
like but I didn't feel like we spent any time
together and when she told him that he said well we just spent three days together what do you
mean and when I asked her well if you spent three
01:16:12
days together what do you mean she said well
he was on his iPad or he was on his phone or he was on his laptop we weren't actually together
and I said well you're not asking for time you're
01:16:20
asking for presents and you're asking for energy
so often our vocabulary is wrong you know we're saying I want you to come home from work on time
that's not what you're saying what you're saying
01:16:29
is I want to spend time where we share energy
and interact together but we're using the wrong
01:16:34
language and so a we're not communicating what
we want but more interestingly I found that and
01:16:40
everyone can do this and I and I really want
people to take this in and really let it sit
01:16:46
most of us only do one thing with our partners
and it's watching TV and that is the lowest form
01:16:55
of intimacy that you could possibly ask for with
any human being if you and I watch TV together
01:17:01
for 200 hours a year we would potentially be no
closer than we were before yet with our partners
01:17:08
all we do is stay glued to a box for hours every
day waste minutes searching for what to watch and
01:17:16
then maybe having a quick little chat about it
and switching it off so I have this pyramid of intimacy and entertainment's on the lowest rung of
the ladder but that's what the majority of couples
01:17:26
are doing so if we're only watching TV together I
promise you that relationship is not growing it's
01:17:32
actually falling apart slowly and you have no idea
and I know that's a painful truth to accept but it is it is An Inconvenient Truth so higher than
that and that's why it's a ladder there's there's
01:17:44
other steps instead of entertainment I'm really
interested in people doing experiences together
01:17:51
something new something fresh and experiment
together what I mean by that is how can you
01:17:56
both do something that you both are not experts
at often what we do in relationships is we say
01:18:02
oh well I love football come watch football with
me or I love this come watch this with me I love this band comment experience this band with me
what we're doing is we're creating an expert and
01:18:10
student mentality I'm going to teach you what the
offside rule is I'm going to teach you about uh
01:18:16
this this this music and this whatever else it
may be right we're we're kind of creating that idea that I know something you don't and what
that does in a relationship is it doesn't create
01:18:25
a shared experience a shared experience is when
we both go somewhere where we both don't have a
01:18:30
lot of experience and now we get to discover new
things about our partner now we get to see them in a new scenario now we get to make ourselves
both feel vulnerable TV is not vulnerable so when
01:18:40
we're talking about creating vulnerability it's
not just in conversation it's in us both doing an escape room that we've never done before now
we're vulnerable without even trying right we're
01:18:49
both going to go and be part of an experiment
experience that we've never done before because it helps us be vulnerable maybe we're going to
try a new sport that we never play together me
01:18:56
and my wife tried surfing last year never done it
before this year we tried wakeboarding never done it before we both look like fools both can't do
it to save our lives actually she's much better
01:19:05
than me so I'll give her the credit but the point
is that the more you put yourself in uncomfortable
01:19:10
new experiences and experiments and by the way
I've given a range of examples it could literally be you know going to an art class together or
going to Pottery together or whatever it may
01:19:19
be it can be the most basic thing do something
where neither of you know anything about it your vulnerability skyrockets without having to have a
heart-to-heart conversation higher than that level
01:19:30
is education go and learn together maybe there is
a book that you can both read together maybe there
01:19:35
is a podcast you can listen together maybe there
is a retreat that you both want to go on maybe there is a course that you both really want to do
or alternatively you both commit to doing separate
01:19:45
things but you report back and talk about it
one of you is learning an art one of you is learning self-development now you're sharing your
exclusive learning Journeys with each other you're
01:19:55
both growing together and then the highest thing
is serving together go to a soup kitchen go to
01:20:01
a homeless shelter go somewhere that inspires you
both that affects you both and go and help go and serve go and improve the world together when you
think about any of those three out of the four yes
01:20:10
they take a bit more planning yes they take a bit
more time than watching TV actually maybe you know
01:20:15
I had argue that takes the same amount of time
the quality of your relationship will Skyrocket
01:20:22
immensely by doing any of those three out of the
four then just switching on the Telly and I think
01:20:29
too many of us are you know losing our partners
losing ourselves and losing our relationships
01:20:35
because we're expecting a TV show made by people
who don't really care about your relationship uh to entertain us it brings me to chapter five of
your book where you say purpose comes first yeah
01:20:46
and there's a quote I wrote down which is for any
of us to bring the best version of ourselves to our relationship we have to pursue our own purpose
in Hinduism it's called our Dharma yeah what is
01:20:56
our Dharma what are the four you know you talk
about these four fundamental Pursuits that drive us forward in life yeah so The Vedas talk about
these four Pursuits in life who's Vedas The Vedas
01:21:06
v-e-d-a-s are the uh kind of umbrella scriptures
the umbrella spiritual texts that have all of this
01:21:16
life advice and wisdom that I share from from that
context so The Vedas are the particular texts and
01:21:22
they have these four Pursuits of life and they are
Dharma artha Karma and Moksha and I'll describe
01:21:30
each word because those old Sanskrit words so
Dharma is purpose uh we'll dive into that one
01:21:35
more deeply Arthur uh and and all of my work is
pretty much dedicated to this and I'll break it
01:21:41
down to my own language to make it to make it
simpler for everyone I believe that there are four important decisions that we all get to make
in life the first one is how I feel about myself
01:21:55
the second one is what do I do to make money we
all need money what do we do for it the third is
01:22:02
who do I decide to love and receive love from
and the fourth is how do I choose to serve the
01:22:08
world how do I choose to impact the world and
so these are the four main Pursuits that The
01:22:14
Vedas espouse Dharma is your purpose and who
you are Arthur is economic development karma
01:22:20
is relationships and connection and milkshake's
Liberation or service or like ultimate giving
01:22:26
uh and so those are the four Pursuits and it's
really interesting to me that Dharma is placed as the first Pursuit not love and it's really
interesting because you look at people they
01:22:37
did a study on uh people graduated from graduating
from college and they asked them that if you were
01:22:43
to get married in the next five years or stay
single what would be your happiness prediction
01:22:49
the majority of people predicted that if they got
married their happiness would be at eight but if
01:22:55
they remain single their happiness would be at a
three that perception is mind-blowing to me they
01:23:00
believe that if they're in a relationship their
happiness would go to an eight if they were single would be a three the reality is if they stayed
single and they did the happiness stayed at a
01:23:10
seven and so their perception of loneliness their
perception of being alone was far greater and so a
01:23:15
lot of us skip purpose because we find connection
is an easier solve to our internal unhealing so
01:23:24
we feel that if I'm with someone I'm gonna feel
better about myself than if I have to do that work myself and is this in order yes okay so karma is
essentially pleasuring connection correct this is
01:23:35
your relationship with others people prioritize
that as being number one number one exactly and that's what I'm saying is the mistake that you're
hoping that someone is going to come and heal your
01:23:45
wounds without doing it yourself which is why
we're living in a world where you know the right
01:23:51
person could come into your life and reduce drama
and the wrong person comes into your life and
01:23:58
increases trauma and that's the experience that
we're having that we're coming from these unhealed
01:24:03
places where we don't know our purpose we don't
know our values we don't know our goals we mesh with someone else who doesn't know their purpose
doesn't know their values and doesn't know their
01:24:10
goals and it leads to confusion it leads to broken
hearts it leads to abuse it leads to manipulation
01:24:16
and control and so I do this very simply and
I ask couples that I work with and I've worked
01:24:22
with I've been coaching a lot of couples over the
last few years especially while writing this book and I ask couples that I'm working with to rate
their top three priorities in order including
01:24:32
themselves and I remember doing this with a lot of
couples and one particular couple and the man said
01:24:41
you the kids me and the woman said me the kids you
and when we had this discussion he was heartbroken
01:24:55
he said how could you put yourself above the kids
he goes I'm not mad that I'm number three I'll
01:25:02
take that all day but how did you put yourself
above the kids how could you even do that sounds
01:25:08
like he's mad at being number three he's just
using the kids in this game what about me yeah
01:25:13
and it was really interesting because she she gave
the answer that I think me and you would you know
01:25:19
validate and agree with that she was like but if
I don't fill my own bottle if I don't film my own
01:25:24
cup if I'm not my best self what am I giving
to you guys I'm giving you leftovers and she's saying that it's not that the kids are second
on my list because I don't care about them and
01:25:33
if they needed me they're going to be second it's
more that I know that I have to invest in myself and so I think we live in a world where we think
sacrificing our purpose makes us a better partner
01:25:45
we think the self-sacrifice and the self-sabotage
of our own goals and our own Pursuits makes us a
01:25:51
better person when actually it doesn't
it makes us more resentful more guilty more upset and I'm saying that because
I've seen people who gave up their dreams
01:26:01
for decades only in their 50s and 60s to look
back and go when the kids left to go I wish
01:26:08
I never gave up on my dreams so I'm not saying
this as Theory I'm saying this is sitting down with people working with people and seeing people
throw away their own purpose in the pursuit of
01:26:21
I think that sacrificing it makes me a better
human being it really reminded me then of my
01:26:27
best performing quote ever okay I want to hear it
this is the best performing quote I've ever had
01:26:33
so much so that actually when I Googled it
it's attributed to someone else which is really oh it's crazy I just Googled it right and
this person is too exact same thing which I
01:26:44
actually wrote about my ex-girlfriend and
it's got 150 000 likes on Twitter and 75
01:26:49
000 retweets it did better than what I posted
that that's crazy isn't it that's amazing but um the quote is I'm actually just going to read
those yeah because um I'll read mine yeah it's
01:26:57
the exact same thing word for word is if we're
dating I want to be your second priority I want
01:27:03
your first priority to be you your Ambitions your
life and your future because my priority right now is me and mine and finding happiness and security
alone is crucial to us finding it together
01:27:11
and I wrote that actually in response to my my
ex-girlfriend who made me really realize that that
01:27:17
um we're gonna have no relationship we're
gonna have no security We're not gonna have any happiness if we haven't first found that to some
extent together and I've always almost criticized
01:27:26
that perspective of my of mine I thought Steve
is that because you're selfish and you're into you know and you're ambitious you just want to
be or is there truth in that and I and there's
01:27:35
this in during question I have which is what role
is your partner meant to play and we've kind of
01:27:41
talked about a little bit but in fixing you do you
have to be completely happy before you meet them
01:27:48
or do you do you have can you rely on them
to make you happy yeah and by the way it's
01:27:53
only not unselfish so yes what you just said
in self-reflection it is a completely selfish
01:28:00
idea if you don't afford your partner the same
flexibility and openness to live that way right
01:28:07
so it is selfish if you say I'm gonna go achieve
this I want to go build this life and by the way
01:28:14
you've got to come with me you've got to be if I
was saying this hypothetically to my wife you've got to be on every flight I take next year I I
my work's really important I'm saving the world
01:28:24
I'm doing a world tour you come with me if you
have that belief that is completely selfish and ego based but if my belief is yes this is
my calling this is what I'm meant to do on
01:28:33
this planet and I'm really moved by that but my
wife's got an amazing calling herself and I get
01:28:39
so much more attracted to her watching her live
her calling my wife becomes more attractive to
01:28:44
me amen the more she lives her purpose not your
wife I'm talking about mine yeah yeah yeah yeah
01:28:49
like my wife doesn't become attractive to
me because she's helping me in my purpose by just following and tagging along do you know how
she'll become even more attractive if she opens
01:28:57
that restaurant yeah I know that would like you
know put it right up there but yeah the idea that
01:29:02
you know I and so I think there is a selfishness
right and I wanted to caveat that um so I'm not saying you need to be perfectly happy I'm saying
you need to know who you are yeah you need to
01:29:14
know your values currently and you need to know
your goals currently all those things will change
01:29:19
and evolve as you grow and evolve but if you've
done the practice of understanding that at this
01:29:26
point you're going to be better at communicating
articulating and evolving and sharing it again
01:29:32
when it changes what if I'm really hurt I was
cheated on I was in a seven year relationship and thinking about one of my friends I was in
a seven year relationship I was cheated on now
01:29:40
I'm insecure I you know I've low self-esteem is
it relationship time no not at all not one bit
01:29:48
because that's the point that we're talking about
where you skip step one you've skipped Dharma and
01:29:54
you've leaned into Karma because you don't want
to sort Dharma Dharma is making sense of who you are and who you want to be and and what your
role in this world is and I feel that when you
01:30:03
walk into a relationship with that insecurity it
now ruins potentially the safest secure person
01:30:10
that you could have been with and so I'm going
I was just going to say you know this is this is
01:30:16
who am I to judge I had all of my own BS to deal
with and overcome and understand about myself
01:30:21
um much of which I've talked about many times
before but if I if I was to take a cross-section of the people in my life that are struggling
relationships almost every single one of them
01:30:31
has skipped the first stage which has the hard
stage you know the thing about that first stage
01:30:36
is a lot of people just don't feel like they
have the time yes especially we're all getting a little bit older you know things have changed
in society which means people are getting in less
01:30:46
relationships and they're getting in them later
in life so some people feel that they have a clock and that means that when they think look Jay
I'm X years old today and you're telling me
01:30:55
to do this Dharma and this Arthur I need
to get to Karma I need to find this guy
01:31:01
and what we don't realize is that the work that
you skip in step one and two you're gonna have
01:31:06
to do with another person yeah and that work doing
it with them is going to slow the quality of that
01:31:12
relationship down potentially ruin a great thing
and push someone away amen and and actually make
01:31:17
a mess of the situation and so it's kind of like a
game where it's like you could have the cheat code that skips you to 10 but the skills of levels one
to nine help you win at ten yeah but if you skip
01:31:28
the game because you had the cheat code or you
tried to rush it or you got a pirated version or whatever it is you now can't win at level number
10 and I think we don't realize that what the Game
01:31:38
of Life does is it pushes you back to learn the
lessons you haven't learned yet so you get into a
01:31:43
relationship out of insecurity that person breaks
up with you you're back to being insecure again then you get into another relationship to solve
your insecurity that person breaks up with you
01:31:51
and then you get insecure again you're constantly
pushed into saying deal with this insecurity alone
01:31:57
fix it figure it out learn about it get curious
about it and by the way when you do that next
01:32:02
time you walk into a relationship a you'll
know or have more chance of knowing whether that person's going to be right or wrong but if
it's right you're going to be able to make it work
01:32:11
and you're not going to push away something that's
powerful and to summarize these steps so Dharma is
01:32:16
um as written here in the book purpose clarifies
your values and priorities um to yourself and your
01:32:21
partner that's really working on yourself step two
Arthur is working towards stability in terms of your finances health self-development and personal
growth and once you're there you're ready for some
01:32:30
comma which is pleasure and connection um which
is basically relationships with others it's so
01:32:36
interesting one of the questions I did want to ask
you today before we um before you even got here was exactly this I actually had a conversation an
hour before you arrived with a friend of mine who
01:32:45
is um in her mid-30s and is really struggling with
relationships and um I was having a conversation
01:32:53
with her about it and it's all the things we
just talked about which is like she feels like she's running out of time yeah she feels like
there's the world has changed and it's now all
01:33:02
digital and like she's not meeting enough people
she thinks maybe if I go get my hair done and this done and I get that done or if I get a membership
to Soho house maybe then I'll [ __ ] meet a guy
01:33:13
and like what you must encounter these people
in your DMs over and over again that are saying that I'm nearly 40 years old I'm single it's
not working for me what's your advice to those
01:33:24
people well I think the first thing I'd say
is it is hard it is a really tough time to
01:33:31
be single right now compared to what it was
like a few years ago like it is much harder
01:33:36
with the landscape and how it's changed like
25 50 years ago you'd meet someone who lived
01:33:42
in a one to five mile radius from your home you
wouldn't even be thinking about having a long
01:33:49
distance relationship in the same way whereas
today you're meeting anyone and everyone all across the world you have an app that connects
you to anyone in that location an area wherever
01:33:57
you just got off a plane so there is complexity
there's more choice now there's the Paradox of
01:34:03
choice of well there's plenty of fish in the
sea and if this doesn't work out there's so many more people and other people that are
thinking about you and you're worried about
01:34:10
that so it is much harder and so I don't want to
get away from that like I don't want to negate
01:34:17
the fact that dating today and finding love is
hard it's why I wrote the book uh I think that
01:34:26
what I'm encouraging for people to understand
is that a having all those insecurities
01:34:34
around relationships doesn't put you in the best
decision-making profile to make the right decision
01:34:41
so all of that stress and all of that insecurity
and all of that anxiety is more likely to push you
01:34:50
into a relationship that is unhealthy and toxic
than it is to help you move in the right direction
01:34:56
so first of all I just want you to accept that
making a decision from your current mindset is
01:35:01
not going to help you make a good one it's just
not going to work you're more likely to settle for someone you're more likely to give in for
something less than you deserve because right
01:35:10
now you're just happy with anything you're
just happy with someone who texts you back and that's not the relationship you want to be
in so first I would accept that this mindset
01:35:19
is not going to help you the mindset that is
going to help you is okay let if I figure out
01:35:25
three simple things just what I like and what I
don't like about myself and in life not about a
01:35:31
person I'm not asking to even think about
a person what do I like and not like as me what are my values personally right now like
what's valuable to me not about this person
01:35:40
what's valuable to me and what are my goals if you
figure out those three things you're more likely
01:35:46
to meet people how if you know what you like and
dislike you're gonna spend time in places that
01:35:52
you like and dislike where you're more likely to
meet people that have similar likes and dislikes or that at least you can connect with second if
you know your values you're more likely to know
01:36:02
who to ask for an introduction to someone because
you know who knows who you know that that friend
01:36:07
of yours is more likely to know someone who has
a similar value because they're of that value and then goals make it easier to figure out whether
it's going to go somewhere so you actually speed
01:36:16
up and simplify a really tough selection process
because our whole society has set us up to say
01:36:23
right list of what you want in a person write a
list of what you want in yourself like just write a list of like who are you what my values and what
are my goals and you figured that out it becomes
01:36:33
so much more easier to weed it out and so I would
encourage you to say this isn't uh you don't have
01:36:39
to become a monk for three years you don't have to
go and like live in a Mountaintop you don't have to go on a yoga retreat like I'm not telling you
to do this for like decades you could do this in
01:36:48
three months if you wanted to like this isn't like
a decade-long process there's something really interesting here about like delaying gratification
just generally I was actually reading yesterday
01:36:58
um about the people that delay gratification in
their lives and those that don't and why from a physiological standpoint some people don't delay
gratification I was reading about the marshmallow
01:37:06
test yeah yeah which I'm sure you've heard about
um and some of the factors that are at play there is when people are stressed you know um in the
case of a marshmallow it creates a dopamine hit
01:37:16
which is a feel-good you know chemical for
the reward center in your brain so one can understand why you would reach for the marshmallow
if you were feeling stressed and you needed that
01:37:23
dopamine hair one of them is also self-esteem
yeah which is if your self-esteem is low and you're looking for the same kind of dopamine
hit you get from having a [ __ ] bad one-night
01:37:32
stand with the wrong person it's much harder to
delay your gratification and make good long-term
01:37:37
decisions in line with your values if your
self-esteem is low so all of these things point to this like fundamental which I think people Miss
in our society because we live in a society where
01:37:46
I'd rather have it now I'd rather go to a surgeon
and get it fixed I'd rather you know do it on Photoshop than actually do the work it's like
doing the work a you don't see but who the [ __ ]
01:37:55
wants to do the work totally is like doing that
the foundational stuff is the answer to all of the
01:38:00
stuff you see on the outside like and and you know
what you're saying with that example is that you also you also attract what you use to impress so
if you use something specific to impress someone
01:38:15
that's the quality and vibration of energy you're
attracting so if I use money money like I did
01:38:22
yeah to attract someone which works perfectly
well you're attracting someone who values that
01:38:28
about you yes if you use your only your physical
appearance obviously we're all attracted to each
01:38:33
other and that's fine like but if you only use
your physical appearance and you believe that's your only asset and you're playing the game of
just showing off that guess what you're gonna
01:38:43
try that's a really important question because
that solves something for one of the people I'm thinking about in my head this person she's
obviously she's a friend but somebody that I
01:38:50
know and um she's using her outstanding Beauty to
attract people yeah and it's failed to over and
01:38:58
over again because she's attracting the wrong type
of person with the wrong type of values in her own words and in my to bring this back to myself there
was this phase between 18 and 23 I'm gonna say
01:39:07
where all I used to attract girls was bottles of
Dom Perignon in a club I would buy five bottles of
01:39:13
Dom Perignon at night you know bring the sparklers
and it was like a mousetrap yeah but I was I was
01:39:19
attracting the wrong type of values yeah because
I was the wrong type of values correct and you and
01:39:25
you don't think that and and the worst part
about that for your friend is that it's not
01:39:30
just an issue that the guy she attracts value only
that about her the biggest issue is she's setting
01:39:36
herself to only value that about her amen which
means when someone leaves her for that reason
01:39:43
it just plays into the belief of I'm not good
enough there's this beautiful uh Fable story
01:39:49
that I love to share and it's about a kid who
finds like a gem in his house like a stone and
01:39:58
he goes up to his dad and he says how much is this
Stone worth Dad what's the value of this Stone
01:40:04
and the dad says I want you to go out to the
baker and when you go out to the baker say
01:40:10
that you're selling the stone and when they
ask you how much it is hold up two fingers
01:40:16
and so the kid said okay I'll do that the kid
ran out went to the baker the baker said oh that looks nice how much are you selling it
for kid held up two fingers the baker said oh
01:40:25
two dollars I'll take it so the kid ran back and
the kids said Dad their Baker off for two dollars
01:40:31
the dad said okay now I want you to go to an
antique shop and I want you to show them the jewel
01:40:39
uh the the stone and when you show them the
stone I want you to hold up two fingers again so the boy runs off and the antique person says
oh that's a nice Stone how much is it and the boy
01:40:49
holds up two fingers and he says oh 200 200
okay yeah I'll take it and the boy runs back
01:40:56
and then and then Dad says okay now I want you to
go to this jeweler in this rare store of gems and
01:41:04
stones and jewels and go up and do the same thing
the boy runs back goes to this shows the stone
01:41:09
holds up two fingers and the Jeweler says oh two
thousand dollars I'll take it and you know that
01:41:16
story to me is really the story that we're all
going through where we're letting someone else Define our worth by what we showed them and how
all those people are going to rate you based on
01:41:28
their own knowledge and their own experience so
if you're a person of low vibration and insecurity and anxiety and you're letting someone Define you
at two dollars worth that's what you're getting
01:41:36
whereas if you've already priced yourself and
this is my worth this is who I am this is my value
01:41:41
you'll never let someone undervalue you and that's
the challenge today is that because we don't value
01:41:47
ourselves and we're letting someone else value
us we are being undervalued by every person
01:41:53
we date and meet and that's how everyone feels
everyone feels like that stone that is undervalued
01:41:59
because you're not being perceived by the right
people for the right things it's so true and
01:42:05
um it you know I wasn't going to ask this question
but it tees up because I always think about you know Sophia who's listening to this and it's just
heard you say that and she's going I completely
01:42:14
agree Jay the next question is how do I genuinely
not [ __ ] how do I genuinely value myself more
01:42:21
I'm not just saying it in the mirror and writing
it down how do I genuinely value myself more so that I can get better from the world so so this
is and I love what you just said I don't believe
01:42:31
that value comes from a journal or a conversation
with yourself in a mirror please buy the diary
01:42:37
and I love Journal
01:42:45
journalists what's really interesting is self
value real self-worth comes from doing hard things
01:42:58
we keep talking about self-love we keep talking
about loving yourself believing in yourself
01:43:05
that happens naturally when you go through
something difficult everyone who's listening right
01:43:11
now I guarantee you has been through something
difficult maybe they lost a friend maybe they've been through cancer maybe they lost their job and
had to rebuild maybe they completely got destroyed
01:43:22
during the pandemic and had to figure everything
out with their health the point is we've all done
01:43:28
hard things and self-worth and self-value comes
from recognizing the hardship you've been through
01:43:35
and the growth that you made during that time
now if you're someone who's listening and saying Jay well I'm not sure I've been through anything
that challenging well that's your challenge go and
01:43:44
figure out what it is that you want to do that's
hard is it developing a new skill is it getting
01:43:49
a qualification is it starting that business or
dream that you've always wanted to do what's that difficult thing you're gonna do on your own with
your friends with the support of whoever's around
01:43:58
you but not with the crutch or the handicap of a
partner what are you gonna build as a skill as a
01:44:05
tool as a value yourself that's going to make you
say I've done something and that's the beginning
01:44:11
of it the beginning is I've done something and I
did that and I can do that and when you do that
01:44:17
yes there's going to be you're going to validate
the wrong things you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna give yourself praise for the wrong things
you're gonna go through ego you're going to do
01:44:24
all of that but there's still a belief if I can
do hard things I can do hard things by myself and I know what value I bring to a relationship
you were just talking about doing hard things
01:44:35
so let's talk about sex sex is a huge part of
relationships yeah and one of the one of the
01:44:41
really interesting things I want to talk to you
about is if again if I look at my friendship group my small friendship group of maybe six guys
right my best friends I'd say three of them are
01:44:53
currently having a really really hard time as it
relates to sex with their partner um for a variety
01:45:01
of reasons reason number one that I've heard my
partner doesn't like having sex we have sex once
01:45:07
every three months reason number two I've heard
my partner doesn't like the way that I have sex
01:45:13
on those first two points I'm horrified surprised
that so many people I speak to are struggling in
01:45:20
that department yeah with sex and there's not the
conversation around sex is either non-existent or
01:45:27
porn influenced yeah what's your take on sex
and what's going on I'm so glad you brought it
01:45:32
up because I I think that because of social
media there's this image that everyone else
01:45:39
is having sex and I'm not like I feel like that's
like a very big feeling that a lot of people have
01:45:45
and all the stats show the people having less
and less sex there are more and more sexless relationships and marriages every single year
and it's so much more common yet in our groups
01:45:56
and online everyone feels like oh they're getting
some and they're getting some and they're getting some but I'm not and the truth is most people
are not getting any and and that's just I don't
01:46:04
have the stats offhand right now but whenever I've
looked at the trends that's what the trends show to me it comes back down to everything
we've just been talking about
01:46:15
sexual chemistry and attraction and connection is
all based on a how someone feels about themself
01:46:24
if someone themselves is not feeling
taken care of by themselves attractive
01:46:32
investing in themselves growing feeling like
they're becoming more and better it's very
01:46:37
unlikely that they're going to want to share
their body mind emotions and heart with anyone else in the most physically intimate way which
is sex it's just unlikely and chances are if
01:46:48
you don't think you're having those conversations
you want to have with your partner where you are being open where they are working on their
values where we do see each other striving
01:46:56
chances are that you're not going to want to
have sex with them either and so what we're seeing is that the challenge we're having in sex
is actually coming from everything else that's
01:47:06
going on that there isn't a sense of growth Joy
purpose like great sex is a byproduct of great
01:47:14
connection and intimacy it's not a replacement
for or a source of if I asked everyone who's
01:47:20
listening right now put your hand up if you've had
amazing sex but no connection in a relationship
01:47:26
right like that's that's been real we've all
used sex as a crutch we've had relationships
01:47:32
where every time we argued we had sex it solved
the problem every time something was going wrong
01:47:37
we had sex it was figured out somehow and the
study showed that the chemicals released during sex make you feel like you're getting closer even
though you're not actually emotionally closer
01:47:47
so when you look at all of the stats when you look
at all the research when you look at everything we've just described sex is a byproduct of a
healthy individual and a healthy individual and a
01:47:58
growing individual and a growing individual coming
together sorting out their differences having the fights they need to have having the conversations
they do that naturally creates vulnerability which
01:48:09
leads to being able to expose ourselves at the
deepest most um physical way that we possibly can how can you expose yourself that vulnerably if
if you can't even have a vulnerable conversation
01:48:20
with your partner because you just switch on
the TV every night and avoid that difficult conversation becomes like a transaction it becomes
a transaction and then sex becomes in the best
01:48:28
case a crutch and uh and a hopeful aspiration on
a special night or whatever it may be or something
01:48:35
we wait for and plan for and it never works out
as opposed in the worst case it just becomes
01:48:40
something we're both not talking about comfortable
about or even doing and so for an obligation
01:48:45
exactly yes yes yeah like an obligation someone's
just sitting there like you know come on three
01:48:51
minutes literally yeah all right let's get it
over and done with like that mindset and I'm like well like there isn't because we've lost Intimacy
in relationships there is no intimacy and so you
01:49:03
can't force it physically there's no Intimacy
in porn there's no Intimacy in porn for sure I don't like do the small talk I don't no pay
for that exactly there's no Intimacy in porn
01:49:12
there's no in and the problem is and this is
you know the book starts with this quote but it solves this problem very very neatly
and carefully and it's this idea that
01:49:24
the Buddha was once approached and asked what's
the difference between I like you and I love you
01:49:32
which is a brilliant question and the Buddha
replied when you like a flower you simply pluck it
01:49:37
but when you love a flower you water it every day and to me the one night stand the porn the
dopamine hit the release of chemical is the
01:49:46
plucking right that's what we're all plucking
all day long because that's all we can do but the watering the intimacy developing
intimacy growing from entertainment to
01:49:55
experiments to experiences to education to
engaging in service together all of this creates so much intimacy that physical intimacy is
a natural byproduct it's not something you have to
01:50:06
manage or engineer or manufacture like it's not
this separate thing it's it's based on how close I
01:50:13
feel to you and the point is when don't feel close
to our partners because we don't do anything that
01:50:18
makes us closer every day sleeping in the same
bed as someone does not make you close to someone
01:50:24
living in the same house as someone does not make
you close to someone the only thing that makes you
01:50:30
feel close to someone is when you feel you can be
open and when you feel seen heard and understood
01:50:37
in your most vulnerable darkest and open times
if you can do that everything else is going to
01:50:44
work but if you can't do that you can't just
make it happen in a moment because you're meant
01:50:50
to be together you're meant to be in love what
about masturbation do you think it do you think masturbation to porn helps or hurts relationships
I think in the long term it hurts I think it's
01:51:03
unhealthy because it's an avoidance and an Escape
right that's the point it's like what is it being used as it's not being used as self-connection or
self-understanding it's been used as escape and
01:51:13
avoidance of the actual topic and all that's doing
is rewiring your brain for false expectations
01:51:21
diminishing returns as well all the studies that
I did look at showed that porn is making you work
01:51:27
harder you're gonna have to find something more
extreme all the stats that I saw showed that you
01:51:33
had to watch more extreme porn to get the same
feeling so the most searched porn and the most
01:51:39
watched porn was abusive uh sometimes violent
sometimes rough hardcore all the Search terms
01:51:47
were more extreme to get the same feeling because
of the diminishing returns of the chemicals that
01:51:53
are being released and so now you're rewiring your
brain to not feel as much pleasure from normal sex
01:52:01
or more traditional conventional sex you're now
saying that I'm only going to feel pleasure from
01:52:06
sex when it's potentially abusive violent somewhat
rough hardcore whatever else it may be so I think
01:52:13
that's massively unhealthy there's something it
does to expectations as well and expectations of the key of that's what we're saying yeah your
expectations of sex become completely unrealistic
01:52:23
your expectations of intimacy are just thrown
out the window there must be so many people
01:52:29
listening to this both men and women because both
sexes do watch porn it's quite naive everyone to assume it's just men that are jacking off in
there of course in their bedrooms whatever but
01:52:38
um I bet there's people listening to this who
have a partner that's constantly watching it and they know they watch it potentially maybe
they've caught them a few times and they really
01:52:47
want them to stop they think it's maybe killing
the desire in a relationship it's a difficult conversation too oh good you know yeah it's
really tough and like I said when I was
01:52:58
you know I I think it'd be interesting to
look at this and I would be fascinated to see
01:53:04
whether the people that are watching porn and and
I need to talk to more people than I have about it
01:53:11
the people that I know that watch porn and that's
why I'm only speaking from my experience don't feel good about it they they internally deeply
at the root when we're in a coaching session we
01:53:21
get to the core of it they feel guilty they feel
shameful they feel embarrassed about it it doesn't make them feel good and they wouldn't openly admit
it in a community of people now I'm speaking about
01:53:31
a very specific group of people that I've that
have come to me for help or support in their relationships they don't feel good about it
that doesn't mean they don't feel good when
01:53:39
they're watching it I'm saying they don't feel
good afterwards when they think about it when they reflect on it they're like that's not what
I imagined would be my sex life that's not where
01:53:46
I thought I'd turn to for for satisfaction and
enjoyment so to me that's again comes back to
01:53:54
down the same approach and that's why the approach
is always the same we're always approaching the
01:53:59
problem from or The Challenge from empathy and
compassion we're not approaching it from judgment
01:54:04
and accusation of like oh you're such a waste
you're such a late you know like that mindset
01:54:10
doesn't ever make someone want to open up like
if you run up to your partner and said God you just watch porn all the time that you you know
you're one of the worst guys like haven't seen
01:54:18
all my mates they're doing this and they get
this from their partners and what are you doing that person's never gonna tell you when they
watch porn or what they're challenged with it
01:54:27
is or how embarrassed they feel or whatever it
may be was if you went up to them and said hey you know I know I know that you watch porn and I
wanted to know when it started like when did you
01:54:34
get into it like what like allow yourself to be
an interviewer about it not an interrogator and
01:54:40
I feel like one of the biggest mistakes we make in
our relationships is we interrogate our partners not interview them let's be curious let's let's
actually try and understand it let's look at it
01:54:48
because it's human it's natural like like we said
like 99 of people are doing it anyway so why are
01:54:53
we pretending like it's only in our relationship
why are we pretending that oh no one else does this but only my partner does this that's not
true so if it's that widespread and it's that
01:55:03
common and there's this huge industry that's
been built off of it why are we judging our partner and why are we making them feel less than
do you watch porn I don't I I've I mean when you
01:55:14
you know I mean three years of being a celibate
monk with no access to the internet or phone gives
01:55:21
you some good training uh I yeah I feel like so
I grew up and I'll explain why too I feel like I
01:55:28
started having sex early and so early in the sense
for me for me so I felt that when were the years
01:55:36
where most of my friends were watching porn I was
having sex and so I didn't get into it as a habit
01:55:42
early on in life which is where I found it Formed
for most of my friends and then by the time they
01:55:49
would get having real sex I became a monk and
so it was it was a really weird order of stuff
01:55:55
does that make sense yes for me it was that idea
of like yeah it was just I think I had I had the
01:56:02
real thing when my friends were watching porn
and then by the time they were having the real thing I was on such a different path three years
of celibacy three years of celibacy would do it
01:56:12
to you it was one of the hardest no thanks it was
one of the hardest and best things though because
01:56:18
one of the things we don't realize and
I want to address this and celibacy is really interesting thing to address I would
love to see more people and this may be
01:56:29
not a popular concept and I'm good with that
I would love to see more people date people
01:56:35
without having sex for a committed number of
months so committing with the new person that
01:56:42
you're dating to not make sex a connection point
so one of my good friends did this recently as
01:56:47
well and he found that it gave him the ability to
make better decisions as to whether there was real
01:56:54
intimacy whether there was real connection
and whether there was something real here
01:56:59
that could be built upon with sex as opposed to
God I'm just so attracted to her and she's so
01:57:06
attracted to me and we just have the best sex ever
or we don't and then that's what it's all hanging on and so I actually would go down that route and
say that celibacy doesn't have to be practiced how
01:57:16
I practice there's three years as a monk celibacy
can be practiced in small doses not because you're
01:57:22
trying to be celibate and you're trying to repress
yourself that's that's not what I'm encouraging what I'm encouraging is why not use it as a way of
making healthier decisions because studies show we
01:57:31
make don't make good decisions after we have sex
and studies show that we don't make good decisions when we've had sex with someone for a long time
because that's completely rewiring how we feel
01:57:39
about them so that's one way of looking at it and
the other way I'd say even going even more extreme
01:57:45
is being celibate as a monk allowed me to
redirect all that energy and the word for
01:57:52
monk in the tradition I stayed in is brahmacharya
or brahmacari and what that means technically is
01:58:01
proper use of that energy so celibacy is not
a repression or a suppression or a closing off
01:58:07
it's re-utilizing that vital energy in a different
direction if you think about how much money time
01:58:14
and energy you've spent chasing someone that you
liked the amount of time in your head the amount
01:58:21
of time on your phone text messages uh dating
apps the amount of money you spent I I would
01:58:27
have been so rich if I never took anyone out on
a date before 21 like think about all the money I wasted on showing off to women before I was 21.
yeah exactly take all of that energy think about
01:58:39
what you could achieve creatively if you used all
that energy used to pursue another person if you
01:58:44
use that energy to create because it's Creative
Energy so to me celibacy was far more about I got
01:58:50
to use three years of Creative Energy in doing a
lot of self work that I otherwise could have taken
01:58:58
years to do because of so many distractions and
Pursuits that kind of spread that energy across
01:59:07
we have a closing tradition on this podcast I know
I like it I like it it's interesting I've never done this before I don't usually tell people who
the person's been left the question's been left by
01:59:16
but I know you're a Manchester United fan huge
that's all I'm gonna say huge get a question
01:59:21
left for you yeah is is there a time in your
childhood when you could look back and think
01:59:30
this is the reason why I'm sitting here today plus why it's beautiful
01:59:41
I'd have to say it's um
01:59:47
I'd have to say it's getting to me the
monks because when I was 18 when I first
01:59:53
met a monk which I talk about in things like
a month and um I just don't think I've ever
02:00:01
visibly experienced or emotionally experienced
humility and compassion like I say these words
02:00:12
and we use them as a society but
I think there's very few people in the world that you could actually say display
boundless compassion and extreme humility and
02:00:30
sincere empathy and I'm really lucky because
I saw that all in real life like I've seen
02:00:36
it why does that make you emotional I can
see it in your face because it's I I feel
02:00:43
I feel that that's the biggest lack in
the world today that the reason why we
02:00:48
struggle with living these ideas is because we
don't have enough role models that live these
02:00:57
we don't have people that we could point to in our
immediate accessible life that we would say are
02:01:04
boundlessly compassionate or that we as we would
say are extremely empathetic or that we would say
02:01:09
are genuinely humble to the core like that's so
rare and I think if I hadn't experienced it I
02:01:17
wouldn't believe it was possible to achieve it and
to access it and for us to see the benefits of it
02:01:25
but because I got to do that at 18 and and
continue to do so now when I spend time with those individuals I really believe in the greatness and
the genuineness of humanity like I believe it's
02:01:36
there like I believe that that spark exists within
each and every single person who's listening and
02:01:42
I believe that it fully is who we truly are
deepest in our spirit that's who we are and
02:01:49
I just want to be able to help people uncover that
part of themselves and I'm here because I've seen
02:01:58
it and I'm here because I've experienced
it I'm here because I've lived with it
02:02:04
and so even if I don't have it to that capacity
I know it exists and I would like other people
02:02:11
to have access to it and so that's why I'm here
today that's a brilliant question well done Ria
02:02:18
or whoever it is all Cristiano Ronaldo if you
did that one that I would I would flip out
02:02:25
former Manchester United yeah
yeah Christian was dead to me yeah Jay thank you thank you once again every time
we spend time together it's such an honor and
02:02:33
a privilege um this time it's funny because I
never think we can it's always there's always a risk that we might not be able to top it per
se do you want to have that but it's not really
02:02:41
about that is it it's about like it's exactly what
this is which is the variety it's the depth it's the honesty it's the openness which I feel like I
can only do with someone like you who is willing
02:02:49
to reciprocate but also has done a lot of work to
kind of find those answers so yeah thank you for
02:02:55
always for doing this thank you for breaking your
your little month-long um sort of time out your holiday to come and do this as well means a lot
to me um thank you for writing a great Book on a
02:03:04
topic your book is so good that I've decided not
to write one on this topic I think we talked about this in La when we went for lunch like it's such
a great book and it's so hard to write interesting
02:03:13
unique things on a topic like love which has
been written a lot about um but you've managed to do that with this book I read things in this
book that I've never heard before that allowed
02:03:21
me to understand something that I'm that I'd been
struggling with or struggled to articulate from a Brand New Perspective and also I have to say I'm
exceptionally excited to come and see your world
02:03:32
tour which is on sale now I'm gonna come me and my
partner are going to come and watch it in London
02:03:37
yeah um extremely excited I I'm just generally
more more excited to see what you do live
02:03:45
um because I think there's huge huge potential in
your message delivered in that Medium on stage I know you've done lots of live things before but
I'm particularly excited by this and I implore
02:03:54
everybody to come and join me on the tour because
it's um I know if you do it then it's going to be it's going to be significant important and
valuable so I'm super excited to come watch you
02:04:02
on the tour um everyone can go buy tickets now and
the book is necessary so if anyone's looking if
02:04:09
anyone's had any struggles with some of the topics
you've discussed today all of them are explained in more detail in this wonderful book which
really is another pioneering book of our time and
02:04:18
say that on the back of it I'm actually so
happy I'm on the back of it that's amazing um so everybody go check out the book Jay thank
you Stephen thank you so much man and I do want
02:04:26
to say this and I do mean it and I message
you I can't remember maybe it was a week ago or whatever and I said to you like look we let's
just have the conversation that we can have like
02:04:34
I don't need you to you know I don't want to have
a conversation that ever with you or with anyone
02:04:39
but especially with someone that I know and I
feel comfortable with and I had no idea where today was going to go and I honestly like these
are probably things we would have talked about
02:04:48
if there weren't microphones and so I think
that and and I do feel I definitely feel like
02:04:55
I was because of our relationship and as and
as our relation is weird too but you know in
02:05:00
the sense of how open I do feel with you
sometimes but I would say that in my eyes
02:05:06
I feel we did something different to last
time in an evolved version where there was
02:05:12
even more vulnerability from me because of our
relationship yeah and and I think that that's
02:05:19
you know I hope I hope everyone who's listening
like receives that in that I I was that open
02:05:24
because I was with you and that was someone that I
feel trusted by it's also for someone that I feel uh understands me even though we haven't spent the
time together understands me in a different way
02:05:34
and sees me and hears me differently and so I can
allow myself to be that vulnerable huge compliment
02:05:40
thank you thank you appreciate you bro thank you
so much see you again soon absolutely man [Music]
02:06:06
thank you
