Chetty, my brother. It's an honor having you on the run, Vishal. There's also so much that people like myself, motivational speaker, is all over the world constantly leaders all over the world have picked up from you. Firstly, congratulations on your book. It's come out. It's become a bestseller. And secondly, thank you. Men like you, I don't I'm sure you know the value you spread out, but I'm not 100 percent sure if you know about the magnitude of the value you spread in the world when I want to thank you, man.

Have been a fan of watching you and seeing what you've been doing, and it's really inspiring. And so I'm grateful to be alive with you, man. This is this is my honor. And keep doing what you're doing, you adding such a big impact to yourself. And I'm glad that we're getting to do something together. I can't wait to meet you in person. Likewise, brother, I'm sure if this whole pandemic situation hadn't happened, you would have probably been disappointed definitely with which is going to be a theme on this podcast.

There's a lot of Indian fans of yours watching this. The big question to you is, what has this country and this culture and this heritage given you that you carry through into your career and your work into the Giulietti who's staying in Los Angeles and talking to the Kardashians and athletes? What is Indian culture given to that person?

Yes, I was born and raised in London, but of course, my heritage is Indian. My father was born in Putney, but originally from Bangalore, and my mother was actually born in Yemen. But she's Gujarati. So there's a big Gujarati community that I grew up in Yemen. And for me, India has given me every piece of wisdom that I try and share that I'm trying to extend out to the world. All comes from the texts of India.

So whether it's the bulgogi to whether it's the Vedas, whether it's any of those amazing literatures, and I think also that incredible understanding of growing up in an Indian home with good hospitality, good values, the ability to welcome others into your life, to to want to serve others, to want to have a positive impact on others. So really, I would say that everything that I'm doing is fueled by the incredible culture and love that I receive from India, India through its books and texts, but also through the people.

So I want to ask you a lot more about the books, but I got to know about your time spent in an Indian ashram as a monk. How did you land up in that specific ashram and where was it?

Yeah, absolutely. So I was studying in London and I was really interested by people's motivational journeys, people who went from nothing to something. And it wasn't the material success I was impressed by. I was impressed by people who had sacrificed, who'd broken through depression, who who'd really worked on themselves. And so I was reading biographies and autobiographies and I would go and hear people speak because I was really inspired by listening to amazing people with great insights. And once I was invited to hear this monk speak and I thought, what am I going to learn from a monk, you know?

I wonder what the monks have to teach. And I went along anyway because I told my friends and I know your your your tag name is Big Biceps. So I told I told the team that I told my friends sorry that I would only go if we went to have a drink afterwards and they agreed with me. And so we went to this event to hear this monk speak. And the monk was from India. His name was Gongadze. He went to EITE, had given up his degree to become a monk.

And so I thought, you either have to be really crazy or really smart because why would you do that? Why would you give up your degree it to become a monk? And so I got really interested by his sacrifice and his choice. And so I started asking him questions and spending time with him. And at the time he was starting a new project, which was two hours outside of Mumbai. And I believe it's in the vicinity of Bolgar, but the area is called vadas.

And this new project was to provide villages with a proper functioning village, a sustainable community and a livelihood to actually give back to the communities, to teach people there about business agriculture, to really help them make the most of their lives. And it was being constructed by monks. And so I got completely blown away by the fact that these monks were not only going deep and doing meditation, but they were also serving and helping the world. And I thought to myself that how beautiful is that?

That you can do both. You can take care of your mind and take care of your own inner life, but that you can also try and make a difference in the world. And that's why I ended up in that monastery and that ashram, because I saw this perfect balance of self care and self mastery balanced with service and philanthropy and giving back to the world. Beautiful. I have to ask you this one question I've always thought about when I watch your content, which is that it comes out of an extremely deep place.

And often if a human being has the ability to think that deep or right, that deep, it's kind of almost always the case where the human beings also had like kind of a dark past. So has your past had any darkness in it? Like, have you gone through? I'm sure you have. You've had some baggage in the past, possibly. You know, you've let go of it now through all the meditation you do, through the work you do, because content kills the content creator.

But I want to I want to take you, like way before you became a content creator. Was there any, like, darkness in your life?

Yeah. So from a very, very early on, I remember being bullied at school and I was around I was probably around like five or six years old when I started to get bullied. And I used to get bullied because I was overweight and I was one of the few Indian people in my class. I think in my whole school at five, six years old, I was one of three Indian people, maybe maybe even just four of us. And so I was bullied for being overweight, for being Indian.

And people weren't used to seeing Indian people in my area. I was I was always overweight growing up as a child so people would bully me about the way I looked and and my weight. And that was that was definitely difficult to go through as a young person because, you know, for you, you don't understand any of that at that time. Like, to you it's like, oh, I was born with this skin and this color. And I don't I don't know if I should you know, you're not thinking at six years old about having a six pack.

You're just happy with whatever you have. And so that was definitely tough. And then even in my teenage years, I started to get involved in the wrong circles because I never felt I really had, like an older brother figure. I'm the oldest. I'm the youngest sister. I didn't really have anyone older that was guiding me or helping me or supporting me. And so I definitely felt that I got involved in the wrong circles. And some of those wrong circles ended up in getting involved in everything from drugs through to, you know, fights and that sort of scenario.

And that was very dark because I've always been a good person at heart and I never wanted to be into hurting anyone or fights or drugs or any of that stuff. It's not really my natural inclination. And so when you find yourself in those places and you don't know what's happening next, that was a dark place. And and beyond all of that, I think the darkest thing was just that I constantly felt like no one really understood my decisions. And I think for all of us, not just for me, I think the darkest place to live is where you feel people don't understand you.

And and I think a lot of people today that go through mental health challenges or depression or stress or pressure, it's because they feel no one understands them. And the truth is that those are sometimes the most powerful moments of our life, because it's when people don't understand you that you try to take the time to really try and understand yourself. And that's where so much strength comes from, is understanding yourself and taking the time to validate yourself. One hundred percent, man.

Now, you said that, you know, the books from India inspire you. One of the concepts that I've picked up from those books, it's kind of like a deep concept.

But it basically said that the rewards that you receive in life are equally a result of your hard work, but also your karma, how good you've been as a plus and how honest you've been as a person or truthfully have been.

You have broken out as a content creator all over the world, and there's a lot of other people who are trying to do what you're doing. There have been tons of other people. So I want to ask you from the perspective of this morning, what have you done that in life? Have you been guided by the right people? Have you constantly kind of held on to your own ideals, your own ethics, like what's gone right for you, according to yourself?

Yeah, good question. I'd say that in my heart and my intention, I've only wanted to do good for others and serve others and support others. So whenever I even when I started creating content or even when I worked in the city or when I became a monk, my my intention was always to serve and to help others. My intention was never motivated by big results or anything that's happened in my life today. I never thought it would happen. And and I never even believed that that was the goal or that was the reason I was doing it.

The reason I was doing it was I believe that I uncovered this incredible wisdom and I wanted to share it. That was it. And so I think sometimes our intention gets dirty or messy. Sometimes really our intention is ego driven or sometimes it's money driven or sometimes it's results driven. And none of those things are bad. You can have money, you can be famous, you can be successful. But if that is your reason for doing it, if that is your intention for doing it, it won't satisfy you even if you get there.

And actually, if you do it for a deeper reason, you'll probably get there faster and you'll be happier when you actually receive it. And so one thing for me is and I work on this every day, it's not that I've mastered it, but every day I'm working on my intention to always be of service, to always want to help. So that's one thing. The second thing I'd say is that I met all the best teachers and mentors in my life, the coaches and the guides that I had in my life.

They all always remind me of how far I have to go. So I'm not surrounded by yes people. I'm surrounded by people who will say, gee, this is great, but how deep is your meditation? Oh, this is great. But how much have you really overcome your ego? So they're always checking me in a positive way. They encourage me, they give me hope, but they also humble me at the same time. And I think that having people like that in your life who know your passion and your purpose, but they also know how to bring out your greatest potential is really important.

And the third thing I'd say is that I've really worked on my craft. I think people forget that, you know, I was fortunate enough to go to public speaking school from age 11 through to age 18 because my parents forced me. So I've done seven years of public speaking training from the age of 18 to 28. I gave lectures and classes for three hours a day when I had zero followers and made zero money and had no online following. So I was doing it because I loved it and I didn't even know that anyone would ever care.

But for ten years, from age 18 to 28, every day I was studying, learning, speaking, sharing. And most importantly, it's only sharing what you're applying in your life. So sometimes we we try and share ideas that we haven't experienced yet. And for me, it's always been to try and share ideas that I'm practicing and experimenting and trying to learn. And I and I think that works. So these are all things that I haven't mastered, but there are things that I'm constantly working on.

But I think they're sometimes forgotten when people see the last four years. But we don't look at the last 15 years. And then you miss out on that journey. Hundred percent, according to you, is your life easy or difficult today? That's a good question. You're brilliant, by the way. I love watching. So I've watched a lot of your interviews. I think you're great. Is is my life easy or difficult? I would say that my life is.

Can I I mean, OK, I don't want to give you the answer, because I would challenge if someone gave me the answer, I would challenge them as well. I would say that my life is.

I would say my life is purposeful, which has both elements, so so what I mean by that is my life is easy because I know what I want to do, what I stand for. I know what I believe in. But it's difficult because I have to put in hours, I have to put in work. I have to be organized. I have to live a disciplined life. But discipline, funnily enough, actually makes life easier. So people think discipline is difficult, but the result of discipline is that life becomes easier.

And so waking up every day and meditating or going to the gym is difficult. It's difficult. It's not easy. It's challenging. But the result of that is life becomes easier. So I'd say that I'm dedicated to difficult discipline, but that because it's purposeful and it has meaning become makes life easier to live if that answers your question. It does, it does, but I'm asking you this for selfish reasons, because I have I have difficult days even today, you know, with with so many blessings around me, established businesses that are days where I wake up not feeling completely motivated and not feeling completely worthy.

I'm just asking you this.

I know. As a younger brother. Oh, yeah. For sure. You for sure. I still have that. I wake up days where I feel stressed, where I feel under pressure, where I feel like I've just got so much to do and, you know, I haven't got the support I need or, you know, all of that.

Like, I experience all of that. And and what I say to people is that training your mind in your body is not about never feeling that way again. It's not that one day that won't happen. It's that you let it affect you for less time. So in the past, you and me, maybe when it had when bad things would happen, you'd be thinking about it for like a whole month. But now when something happens, you think about it for a week and then in a year from now, you'll think about it for one day.

And then in a year from now, you'll think about it for one hour. And then a year from now, you'll think about it for one minute. And that's the goal. The goal is not to never feel stress. The goal is to feel it for less and less time, because the point is that most of us allow stress and pressure to consume us.

And so the less you let it consume you is the goal. But the problem is that when you have the goal that I should wake up and feel perfect every day, that goal puts its own pressure and stress into your life. So I wake up, man, I'm with you, like as you said, as a younger brother, which I appreciate you saying that means a lot to me. But as as an older brother, like I would say, dude, I feel stressed, I feel pressure.

I still have bad mood swings sometimes, but that's part of it. And that reminds you how far you have to go.

And it keeps you humble and it keeps you grounded. And also it helps you empathize with people more, because if you never felt that way and then someone tells me if a young person comes up to me and says, I feel stressed and I'm like, oh, come on, just get over it. Like, there is no such thing as stress. That's not true. And so I find that when I feel stressed or fearful or anxious, I explore it a little deeper so that next time someone says that to me, I can actually feel empathy and compassion for them because I know how it feels.

And so actually, I actually feel like going through pain is the best thing for a content creator, because that's how you truly empathize with people. If you don't go through pain, then you can never relate to anyone. I've got to ask you another tough question now, where do you see Jayesh at the ad age 80?

So hopefully I'm still somewhat healthy and alive. That's that's the first thing I would like to see myself as healthy and alive. And I would hope that I have truly been able to. Serve and support the leaders of the next generation, so I truly believe that I'm not the smartest person in the world and I'm not going to invent everything that's needed in the world. But if I can be someone who is behind those people and support them and encourage them and guide them and and keep refining their intention with them, then that would be my greatest offering, that if if we can discover the talent of this world and encourage those people to become leaders, to really build a just world, a collaborative world, a world where humans recognize their similarities more than their differences, but celebrate their differences to me, to me, if we can find those leaders and invest in them and nourish them and and support them and serve them, then we'll see some amazing changing the world.

So at age 80, I hope that that's what I get to do. And I hope that I'm surrounded by lots of people who want to change the world and in a positive way, and that I can be of some use to them. That's gorgeous, and you're already on that path, I'm sure you've already affected a lot of lives. I was reading this book yesterday.

It's called 21 Lessons from the 21st Century. It's by you all know. Yeah. And he's he's got a chapter in there about God. And he's spoken about how the God is kind of got a negative connotation in the modern day, often because people associate the term God with really radical religious groups that, you know, will use the term goals to put their own intense ideals out there. So firstly, what's your sense of God like? What's your definition of it?

And secondly, like, how do you think the world is going to change its own definition of God going forward?

That's a great question. So Yuval Noah Harari came on my podcast. Actually, I spoke to him and he's phenomenal. He's actually a really incredibly deep person as well. He meditates strongly about I think he goes away into hiding for about 60 days a year to just meditate. So he's phenomenal. And we've had we've had some really nice conversations offline as well. So, yeah, big fan of his book and big fan of him. But yeah, I think your question is really good.

And I think what he's saying is really important to me. God is at the very essence of it. God is the recognition that there is a source and a power and an energy that is divine and there's something beyond us, something beyond us, something inside of us, and something that connects everything in the universe. And so at the very essence of that, God is God is has has that recognition of the understanding of something beyond us, something within us and something around us.

And to me, whether you then for specific people giving got a name, given that those are beautiful things, I truly believe that God is a supreme personality and and is someone that you can have a relationship with.

And so I think that to me, whether you have a relationship with the universe, whether you focus on having a relationship with your inner self or your focus on having a relationship with a supreme personality or a divine source, it's all about a relationship. It's not about fear. It's not about anxiety. It's not about pressure. It's not about being scared of God. It's not about it's about building a relationship with something that is beyond us.

And I think that the reason why the definition of God will change is as the world goes on, is I think people got really affected by the rules and the ritualistic practices that made people lose the essence of what this really was. And I think for all of us in our generation, you know, I think we all want to be more spiritual and conscious, but we want to do it from a deep place, not just of following rules, space.

And and I also think that.

It will change because we have to find a. We all need a path. If you look at some of the most successful athletes, musicians, most accomplished people in the world, they all have a deep faith or spiritual practice. So you'll see that meditation, prayer, all of these practices are deep parts of some of the most happy and successful people in the world. And so for me, the more personal it becomes, the more the more individual it becomes.

It will become a really, really beautiful thing in people's lives. Yeah, that's the big hope, honestly, like I remember on a very personal level, I had an ayahuasca experience which completely changed my definition of God when I was 22.

I was very lucky to have that experience really early in life, shifted a lot of things for me. And as my career has kind of gone forward, I've honestly seen miracles happen around me that are only believable when it happens to you. And you're in my shoes and you've seen my journey.

But even today I have like some fantastic kids we recruit for our companies and all who maybe initially don't have a sense of God. And slowly they develop it kind of becomes a huge and go for them through their own journeys. So that's my big hope, man. Like, I hope that content creators are kind of able to put that idea out there, not in a forceful way, but in exactly the way you did it.

So from this question, I got what I wanted.

But, man, I got to move on to the next big question, which is meditation. Firstly, what kind of meditation do you practice today and what's the end goal of meditation? This is a very common question on the Internet, like what happens at the end of it?

Yeah, OK, so I practiced three types of meditation, breastwork, visualization and then mantra because I think all of them have different uses in my life. So breastwork I practice when I feel stress, pressure, any sort of anxiety, breath work is the best way to have an immediate response. So, for example, let's say I'm going on stage in front of thousands of people and I'm feeling a little nervous, then I will just breathe in for a counterfoil and I'll breathe out for more than four and I'll feel absolutely set and I'll feel ready to go out.

And I've done that time and time again whenever I'm in that situation.

Visualization is is really powerful. It can be used for a few things. So one of the first things I use visualization for is if and I've worked with clients with as well. So let's say someone is upset about the last thing they said to someone who passed away. I was not in their life anymore and they can't say what they wanted to say. Visualization is an incredible way to revisit the past and change how you behaved in that situation. It doesn't change your life, but it changes the experience of that memory.

So that's one way of using visualization. The second way of using visualization is if you think that something's difficult, if you visualize yourself doing it over and over again, it starts to become easier. So I often say to people, visualize yourself waking up early, visualize yourself working out in the morning, don't visualize yourself with a six pack or or biceps. Well, that's a waste of time, but visualize yourself doing the work. And when you visualize yourself doing the work, you'll start to make it happen in your life because everything that you've created existed here first.

And the third way that I use visualization is often I will visualize if I'm doing something today, like coming on this podcast. Then what I do sometimes at the beginning of the day is I look at my schedule and I visualize what will be my intention when I come to each thing that I'm doing and so that I'm already prepared, so that when I come to you, my intention is already set and I'm ready from that standpoint. So that's visualization and a mantra.

I mean, there are so many beautiful mantras in the very literatures and in the guitar. And I always recommend to people that to find your own mantra, to find your affirmation that becomes your anchor is is truly, really beautiful. And for me, one of my favorite ones that I've been sharing a lot recently from a mantra point of view, is the service and kind given to mantra, which is so beautiful because I think the world needs a lot of peace and love.

And and then my favorite affirmation for myself is I'm exactly where I need to be. And the reason why I repeat that to myself is because I think we always think we're ahead or behind. We always think like we're late were rushing. And so I always repeat myself, I'm exactly where I need to be. This is where I'm meant to be right now. I'm meant to be with you right now. This is this is where I am. And when you remind yourself that, then you're very present.

Now, the end of meditation is an interesting question. And and the way I would like and that is imagine saying, well, what is the end of eating food? What is the end of eating food? When when will it be a point where you never need to eat again because you've eaten enough food? And the truth is there is no end to eating food. You eat food every day because it fills you up and it nourishes you and it takes care of your body.

Similarly, you meditate every day because it gives you more clarity of mind, more connection with your soul and more stillness. And so in one sense, there is no end to meditation, like there is no end to anything good in life. And I think we we sometimes mistake meditation or anything in our life as having an end. But the best things in life, we eat every day. We sleep every day. You know, you have to shower every day.

Like these are habits for daily life. And if you say, what is the goal of meditation? The goal of meditation is to connect to God in your true self without any other unmotivated or uninterrupted agenda. And so the problem right now is that I give this example in the book. This is a beautiful, beautiful from up from a prayer. And it talks about how when you first come across a mirror, if you go to a mirror in your loft or in the basement.

You'll see that it has lots of dust on it, and sometimes when we're looking at ourselves right now, we don't know who we are because the mirror is dusty. And when you start to clean the mirror, that's what meditation is. Meditation is cleaning the mirror. And when you start cleaning the mirror, the first thing that happens is the dust comes in your face. So when you first stop meditating, you might even be like, oh, God, this is so difficult that I can't see anything and I don't understand anything.

But after cleaning, you can see yourself clearly. So that is the goal of meditation and meditation is that process of inner cleansing and healing. So you can truly see yourself.

That's a god. Yes. And so if someone wants to get deeply into meditation in general, other than, you know, just creating a habit and focusing on your breath, what's your advice to that? And how do they jump into those advanced meditations?

Yeah, my biggest advice would be and I know that it's difficult right now, so I appreciate that. But it's really important to go on a one day retreat or a one week retreat and just go deep because we live in this world right now where it's like do this for five minutes a day, do this for three minutes a day. And even sometimes I recommend people to do things for sure amounts to make it easy for them. But the truth is, let's say you like a guy or a girl like you're thinking about dating them.

And let's say someone said you just spend five minutes with her every day, just spend five minutes with him every day. How long will it take you to figure out whether you love her and whether you want to marry her or whatever it is it will take you your whole life? Because what are you going to learn in five minutes? So similar to meditation. The more immersive you get, the more deep you get in a in a consistent period of time.

So I always say to people, instead of trying to do meditation once a week for the whole year, do it for one week in a full year, like in a full go. And when you do that, you'll feel the benefits like you did in your own experiences. You'll feel the benefits and then you will keep it going for five minutes a day. So the biggest mistake we make is we say, I'll do it once a month, I'll do it once a year, do it for seven days, and you will feel the benefit if you exercise.

I know that you're into fitness if you want to get fit, if you exercise for a week, you will see and feel the benefits and then you'll keep it going. But if you say I'll go to the gym once a week, once a month, you'll never feel the benefits, you'll never see the experience. And so you'll never get committed to the activity. That's gorgeous. You mentioned marriage and love and relationships. I've got to get into that domain with you.

There's a lot of, again, brotherly questions I want to ask you before we get to the marriage questions. I've got to ask you three marriage questions.

Do you believe that men and women have different thought processes or different ways of perceiving the world?

I believe that there are definitely masculine and feminine energy and you may find both in both men and women. So it's not necessarily that all men think the same men or women think the same, but I believe there are more masculine energies and thoughts and more feminine energies and thoughts. And we all have a mix of all of them. But I do think that we think about things differently. Yeah, for sure. I think psychology is far more individual than we try and think it is.

Yeah, I think in meditation kind of balances you out in terms of if you have too much of a masculine thought process, it'll give you that feminine perspective and vice versa. And that's been an experience I've had. I think I just develop things like empathy, compassion, endurance, you know, love, emotional expression, all these very feminine aspects of thought, little after of meditation, meditation. And before that, I had like much more masculine kind of thoughts, which are also great bravery, determination, you know, just strength going forward, like taking risks.

But you'll only be able to live a balanced life when you balance out those two energies inside you. Yeah, that's what I feel.

Do you do kind of agree with that? I agree with trying to find both of them inside of us for sure. Like, I think they have such powerful uses at different times. And actually, when you notice them inside yourself, you start to appreciate other people want you know, I think we all we all grew up in this mindset, this negative mindset of like stop being a girl. People would say things like that, like stop, stop being so soft.

And that's a mistake there, because when you say that you are now not noticing the value of that quality. And so when you notice both in yourself, you start to celebrate that outwardly as well. The question about marriage is, as a man, what do you have to do for your wife? Like, what do you have to change about yourself? And I know it's a very broad question. I'm asking you everything from, you know, like, do you have to give up on some of your own space?

I'm sure you have to give it time off to give it energy. But one of those things that you only realize as a guy after you're married.

So the first thing I'd say is and I talk about this often, that there are four important decisions you make in life. And so anyone who's listening or watching right now when you're making any of these decisions, don't rush them, don't do them out of pressure and don't do them quickly, like, really think about them. So the first one is how you feel about yourself. That is one of the biggest decisions you make is how you feel about your own self.

The second most important decision you make is what you do for money. The third most important decision you make is who you give your love to and who gives you love. So this question that we're talking about and the fourth one is how you serve the world. These are not decisions that should be made out of any other reason, apart from personal contemplation. So the first thing I'd say is when you like someone. That's the time to really think about it.

So let's go right to the beginning of it, right? It's like don't wait till marriage to figure out what you're going to have to change, because maybe then you'll have to change something you don't want to change. So when I met my wife, Roddy Irani Revolutionary, if anyone follows on Instagram, then I follow on Instagram and no content.

She's amazing. She's the best. And so when me and her met, so we met. We actually met before I became a monk again. We weren't dating. I just knew her. And then we've been together now for seven years and married for four years. So we spent a bit of time together in our life. And when we first met and we were attracted to each other and we liked each other, I was really honest with her about who I was and what was important to me in life.

And this is the first step. If you don't know who you are and what's really important to you in life, then you never know who's right for you. And no one can ever know if they're right for you either. And so I was really honest. I said to I said my purpose, even though at that time I wasn't a content creator, I said, my purpose is to serve people. I want to teach. I want to share.

I want to focus on developing this part of my life. And this is my number one priority in life. And she said to me that her number one priority was her family, her parents, her sister, her she loves her mom and dad and her grandmother. And she was like, that's her heart in life. And I said, I promise you that I will always help you get closer to them. And you promise me that you'll always help me get closer to this.

And so it was a really honest conversation. Now, that doesn't mean that it's been easy, but it means that we had a direction from the beginning. So now if I had a priority with my with my purpose, that was coming up. And I couldn't go to her family event. She respected that and supported me. And if I had a big event and she couldn't come with me because she had family stuff that I respected and loved her because the goal of the relationship was get her closer to her goal and she helps me get closer to my goal.

Not that we trade our goals and just work on each other. And so actually what you're giving up on is your ego and your sense of control. That's really what a relationship is, because the ego says, well, she's my wife. She should come with me to this event and see me on stage and me giving these lectures and blah, blah, blah.

But that's not true. The truth is, if I love her, I should be helping her get closer to what she matters to her and and same with her. She would support me.

So really, what you're giving up is that sense of proprietorship, that sense of ego and control, because love means understanding the person's goal and love.

So to me, that's what really has been the the guiding force of our marriage.

And that may change also. So I check in with Ravi and check in with me. Like my my goal is pretty much stayed the same. But if hers changes or evolves, I have to change and evolve with that.

If I love her, that's the point. And then obviously there are day to day things like space and all of that kind of stuff. But again, if you have a very clear guiding light, if you have a very clear direction, all of these things kind of just what themselves out.

And those are the things, again, you have to discuss, like I always said to Riley, that I'm a terrible cook. You don't even want me to try and cook like I'm just terrible. And that's not my strength. It's not my skill. And and that was just me being honest with her. That doesn't mean I wouldn't if she wanted me to, but because that's her passion, she that's that's her purpose and her passion.

So she's happy to to do that. And so I think it's really important in a relationship beginning or middle or wherever you are, to just be honest about who you are and what you want and that person to be honest about who they are and what they want. And remember, you're just trying to help them get closer to their goal.

It's not about you compromising, because what ends up happening in relationships is both the man and the woman or the man in the man or the woman in the woman. Everyone compromises. And when you compromise, then you always feel in your heart like, oh, because of them, I gave up what was important to me. And that doesn't build a loving relationship. Yeah.

One hundred percent. Correct me if I'm wrong, and this is something that someone once told me, I'm still coming to terms with it and I don't know if it's an actual thing, but is it true that your growth rate needs to match as a partnership? Because, I mean, honestly, the blessing and because of content creation, Gourriel is that behind the scenes, you've got to keep studying, you've got to keep growing. You've got to keep adding things to your own mind.

So it puts you in this very weird position of you have created your own championship belt and to earn it every day, you live up to it. Now, that puts a lot of load on your relationship and your partner in terms of, OK, keep up with me.

So what do you think of this whole. Growth rate theory, yeah, so I've I've found or I've noticed and I was I was thinking about this a couple of years ago that I've seen three types of relationship. So one is where you are the parent to your partner. So it's almost like you're like their dad or their mum. So they need handholding, they need support. They need you to guide them and show them the way. And you have to decide, is that something you want in life?

The second type of relationship I've seen is where you are, the child psychology. You need the parent. You need someone to guide you. Right. So that's another type of relationship. And the third type of relationship I've seen is where your partner's where you're both equally balancing out the parental and the child aspect and you both support each other.

The point is, which one do you want? I want the third one.

So that's that's thankfully what I have is that Raddy carries me and I carry her and we support each other and we balance each other out. But some people want to be the parent, the nurturer, the support, the provider, and some people want to be the child. And we have to ask ourselves which one of these is sustainable for us? And the truth is that being a child is not a sustainable relationship because eventually someone will get tired and bored of you and will feel overwhelmed and just exhausted taking care of you.

And also you may find that you get exhausted taking care of someone else.

So I believe that trying to find a partnership where you both carry and both serve and support gives for more sustainability, and that also requires more work like me. And you haven't figured it all out. We've had to have so many tough conversations over the last few years and communicate about expectations. And we also have to realize that people are growing in different ways at different times. So when I met Ravi, I was more spiritual. And today I would say that Ravi is far superceded me in so much of my own spirituality and she teaches me.

And so the point is that you have to recognize as long as that person is growing, their growth may not look like your growth. Their growth may not be the same. So, for example, your growth and my growth may look like studying books, but that growth may be doing charity work. And so everyone's growth looks different. So you can't judge someone's growth based on how you're growing. And so it's important that you're both growing, but you may look very different when you grow.

You mentioned spirituality.

Very simple question. What is spirituality for a human being? What is the spiritual journey? What does it mean to be spiritual?

The monk definition that was taught to me is that spiritual means where the spirit is behind the ritual. So where this where the ritual is done with understanding, intention and depth, that it is done with a deeper sense of understanding. The ritual is just the the pooja, the art. That's the ritual. But when it is done in a spiritual way, with the spirit of love, of compassion, of devotion, that is what spirituality is. So spirituality is infusing these very powerful acts in these very powerful, these very powerful activities of devotion, but actually doing them with devotion that is spirituality.

Gorgeous. I got to ask you about veganism, because Roddy's of one of the famous vegans all to come. And honestly, it's something I've turned vegetarian since the last two and a half years. I felt like getting deeper into spirituality. My body just rejected meat and I'm Punjabi, so I've grown up eating more meat than you can imagine. But just one day I was looking at the chicken breast and I said to myself, you know, there's not going to happen gradually gave up all kinds of meat over the next year.

And I've reached a stage where I don't have eggs. I do have a little bit of milk. And I don't know, milk is something that I will give up in the long term.

But vegetarianism is something that gave me a lot of gifts and it's something I only understood after actually took it up with full force. So I got to ask you about your are in this vegan vegetarian transformation.

Yeah. So I grew up eating meat as well. Ronnie grew up vegetarian. She's vegetarian our whole life.

And vegan Fanelli maybe about ten years now, maybe something like that. But I, I grew up eating meat so I've eaten everything and I became vegetarian at about fifteen years old out of choice. So for me it was very simple. I would my school Jenny on the way back from school, I would walk past a butcher's every day and so I would see the animals hanging in the window. And when I saw that that was the first time I registered, I was like, oh, that chicken that's hanging there, that's the chicken that I'm eating in my chicken sandwich from McDonald's and I.

I remember the first time I came to India was it just opened in Bundarra and so I'd gone to I'd gone to McDonald's and, you know, I was like nine years old at that time or whatever, but it was such a direct link for me. And so I was like, OK, well, I don't want to do that anymore. So I became vegetarian at 15 and then I became vegan when I married Rally because it was easier to do it with someone who is educated in how to do it in a healthy way.

And so what I've I'm not a I don't consider myself to be a proponent or a ambassador.

I consider myself to be someone who's trying to practice it themselves. And for me, my my recommendation to everyone like you, like you did for yourself, is to do what is right for you at the right time when you really reflect on it and to do it in a way that's healthy and sustainable so that you feel the physical benefits as well as the moral benefits of it, because there's you know, some people become vegan or vegetarian for health and some do it for morality.

And for me, it's benefited both. For me, it's benefited from from me on both levels. But I really just allow people to come to their own time because I grew up eating meat as well. So I don't I don't judge anyone or I don't feel anything negative towards anyone who eats me. I think it's a personal choice. And you have to get there in your own time.

Yeah, 100 percent. That's something I agree with. And that's also I mean, me speaking as a former Medidata, if someone told me to give up meat, I'd probably get his stuff back then.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So as as a new little vegetarian, I never throw all my ideas on anyone. But what I do like doing is I like sharing honest experiences. What I felt like I did have a change in my thought process or the way I perceive the world and of course my health as well.

I definitely lost some amount of muscle, but in retrospect, it's a decision I would never change if I if I if I ever go back.

That's beautiful. What's it what's it done for you?

Like physically, mentally, spiritually. What's what's that effect been like for you.

Yeah. So, so sophisticating physically. I actually found that giving up dairy products stopped me from getting ill as often. So like the flu or mucus or bad throats and sore throats and aches. And I used to get a lot of, I used to find myself feeling a lot of mucus and just feeling quite I would get unwell more regularly since, you know, thankfully by since I've gone vegan, have thankfully not not not experienced too much physical, ill health.

So that's been great on a mental level. I definitely feel lighter. You know, I feel lighter and clearer. I feel I have more clarity and more I feel like I have more stillness and less less kind of aggression in my life. I've never been a very aggressive person anyway, but I definitely am a lot more even more calmer and spiritually. It's just given me a love for really appreciating animals, you know?

I mean, it's so beautiful to see equally these incredible creatures and creations and to appreciate them and to appreciate the life in them and to appreciate that source of energy in them that, you know, that lion or that that chicken or that, you know, cow or whatever it is, has life.

It feels pain. It feels love. It feels motherly love. If you've never if you've never seen a cow caring for its calf or if you've never seen a kangaroo caring for its baby kangaroo, you know, it's I think is a beautiful joy to watch that. And when you when you deeply look at that, you start really appreciating that there is that beautiful living force that we have inside of us, inside of them as well.

That's a gorgeous answer because we're running out of time.

I've got to ask you a bunch of social media business questions, but let's let's begin it with, you know, when you meet people like Kobe Bryant, when you meet all these amazing human beings that you've already had on your show, Felicity, how does it change you?

And secondly, how have you seen the world's perception of you changing?

I think the way it changes me is that. I genuinely think that sometimes we often look at anyone who is successful or who has achieved something in life, we sometimes sometimes I remember at least in London, I don't know what it's like in India, but I remember sometimes our friends and everyone would be like, oh, yeah, who cares anyway? And like, you know, maybe they didn't do it properly or they got lucky or, you know, that or they just they just got the right introduction and you kind of try and pass it off like there was there was no depth there.

And sometimes we do that about musicians or whatever it may be.

And from everyone that I've met, I've seen people who have really sacrificed, who really worked to really discipline themselves, who've meditated daily, who've invested in their self growth. People have really done the work.

And so the way it impacts me is that it gives me more affirmation and gives me more confirmation that the work you and I are doing is deeply important and is deeply needed because all these people who have achieved impact in the world, they've all done it themselves. So for me, it's just a very grounding and humbling feeling that we're so lucky that we got introduced to these themes and subjects at an early age, because these are the things that have kept these people grounded in themselves.

And, you know, I haven't given much thought of how it affects how people see me because, you know, for me, I've been living such a follow my heart, intuition, life my whole life. And I've been really grateful that a lot of these people have been on the show as well. They're not just people on the show. They've become friends like dear friends. And so for me, it's it's it's never been about the PR or the the kind of angle it's it's been the fact that I've wanted to learn from these people.

And so I hope that it's I hope that it's helped people understand that I'm a student, a student of of life and of all these people, and that that would be the best thing that people could take away from it to show that, you know, even though people may think that I'm sharing and I'm just always learning like that, that's the goal. And so so I really hope that that's what people see is my intention.

Yeah, I think that's what you're spreading out there, spreading that student loan mentality. And finally, I've got to ask you about the social media game. What's your intuition about the future of the world of content? What's going to happen in the next 10 to 20 years? What are you planning for yourself? How do you think someone can grow?

And secondly, just, you know, what have been your hacks for growing this fast on social media?

Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I'd say about where social media is going. I think the biggest thing we all know is that there's going to be new platforms and there's going to be new yeah, new platforms, new apps.

We've all seen the rise of tech talk and now we're seeing this awkward moment where they're trying to figure out whether it's going to stay or not. And then we've seen the rise of Real's on Instagram. And, you know, you've got these platforms and platforms. So the first thing you have to realize is if you want to be a content creator, don't be choosy and picky about the platform that helps you grow. So when I was starting out, YouTube was the hot platform and Facebook was considered the not hot platform.

But for me, my work grew on Facebook, which then grew my YouTube and grew my Instagram. And so I wasn't picky about, oh, I want to be cool on and big on YouTube. I was just like, wherever you feel the love, be there, you know. So you may start feeling some love on Tick-Tock. Go all in on tick tock. You may feel the love on Twitter. Go all in on Twitter. Don't don't think in your mind that oh this is not the cool platform.

I want to be on this platform. And so I knew a lot of people at the time who are thinking, oh no, no, I want to be big on YouTube, forget Facebook. It's a waste of time. And, you know, for me, Facebook was a platform that changed my life. And so it's really important in the beginning to find a platform that works for you and your content and go all in on that platform.

And then you'll see the outpouring of that platform onto all of your platforms. We saw that when my Facebook platform grew exponentially, the Instagram, brou, YouTube grew Twitter, everything grew because of that one powerful growth.

And so often we spread ourselves too thin and we stopped making content that doesn't work on any platform because we're trying to deal with all platforms. And my advice is in the beginning, when you can do very less, just try and make content that wins on one platform and just go all in. So what some of the strategies to share with you? The first strategy was we always tested lots of different styles of content, so you never know what's going to work.

And even now I'm always testing and experimenting styles. So recently I started this new format, which is putting me into movies. So was me giving advice to Spider-Man, me giving advice to Jennifer Aniston, me giving advice. And it was just all in this movie format. And I did that because I wanted to do more comedy and I wanted to do something more lighthearted. And people aren't used to seeing me do that. And we made three videos as a test.

We just made three videos and we put them out and they did really, really well. And people love them. So we're going to do more of them. And so the first thing is you have to be constantly experimenting. Sometimes I'll experiment and no one will like it.

And so then I have to ask myself that did do I still want to do that? Does it fulfill a part of me? And if it makes me feel happy, then I'll keep doing it. But if it's not making me happy and no one likes it, then why am I doing it anymore? So that's that's the experimenting mentality. The second is, and I can't stress this enough is get to know your audience and your community. If you have a hundred followers and you don't talk to them and you don't message them and you don't read the comments, then you will never know what people are really looking for and what they're appreciating.

And so for me, I'm on the I mean, when I was doing you like we did, it was it was us talking. It's not like we're seeing or some team member can do that. I'm commenting. I'm replying. I'm reading people's comments. I think that that's a really important part of getting to know your audience and then knowing topics and understanding what they're looking for. The third one that's been really, really important to me is collaborations and support.

And I think too many people are trying to compete. And I really believe that it's far more collaboration and collaboration happens on an equal level.

So when I was growing, there were a lot of us growing at the same time.

So his goal cost me princi a who else was there at the time. Those those are probably the three people that were growing and we all supported each other. We all helped each other. So we became friends. And to me, it's like we all started around me. And Gold Coast especially started around the same time around four years ago, three or four years ago. And we just supported each other. And then you saw, like, you know, Gold Coast is really well known.

And but I saw them at, like, ten thousand followers. Twenty thousand followers like and they've seen me at that, too. But we always realized that our strength was in working together. And so when you're starting out, look for people that are on your level and say, hey, let's support each other rather than competing with each other. And so we would share each other's videos, we would share each other's posts, and then we all grew at the same time.

So that was really important. And then the biggest one is just you have to get addicted to data. You have to look at the data.

You can't just keep creating and not looking at what each time you have to look at other people watching the whole video, or are they stopping at this point? Why does it come? In America, some one of my team members used to work for this company and he was telling me about it and they had something called the board test boring test. So what they would do in their company is they would watch the new video as a team. And whenever someone got bored, they had to put their hand up.

And so then they would look at like, why? Why are we getting bored at this point? What can we change? And so you have to get addicted to data and look at, OK, if I grew X amount of my audience last week, what did we do right? What did we do wrong? How do we repeat it? And so you have to get focused on the data and all of this should never become one of two things.

Content creators make two mistakes. We either become selfish or we become sellouts. And what that means is sellout means you just make whatever content your audience likes and you're not. No, not growing anymore. And selfish is where you just make content that you want to watch, but no one wants to watch it. And so that's not there's no point in that either. And so the real content really is someone who looks at insights but then follows their own intuition, someone who looks at data and then tries to be dynamic.

That balance is what creates the content creator of the future.

That's beautiful. So I want to end the podcast by asking you your three weakest pieces of advice from the Bhagavad GitHub, because I know you've mentioned it a lot in your book.

So what do you have to share about the Bhagavad Gita?

Yeah, so what am I going to share? Three verses. So one of the first verses that I absolutely love is better to follow your own path imperfectly than to follow someone else's path perfectly. And I think this verse is the embodiment of the disease of comparison. We see in the world today that we start chasing something because we see someone and we think, OK, I want that to you know, if I was honest with you, bro, like, I love football, like soccer.

Football is my my like life. I love it. Like, if I could have been Cristiano Ronaldo, I would have loved to have played football. But I noticed very early on that I didn't have the work ethic or the talent to play at a professional level.

And so being honest with myself has allowed me to create this life that I have today. But if I keep trying to lie and trying to do that, you just get lost. So that's the first piece of advice from the guitar. The second piece of advice, which is the famous quote from the guitar, is Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I think learning to befriend your mind is the most important skill in life, because whether you want to develop habits, whether you want to become successful or happy or joyful, if you don't know how to befriend the mind you'll struggle into.

In the book, I have a whole chapter dedicated to befriending the mind and the third and final verse that I would say our message is that ultimately it's all about service, it's all about devotional service. And when we find a way to serve, whether you're an accountant or a lawyer or a businessperson or an engineer or what me and you do, if we can find a way to serve and improve people's lives, then we'll be truly happy and successful.

See, if you just have things you may be successful but not happy. And if you're just happy inside, then you may be happy, but you won't be successful. But when you do something you love and you serve people through it, you can be both happy and successful. And that's the goal. The goal is to be both. You don't have to you don't have to choose. And so those would be the three messages from the that you're an embodiment of that thought, JJB.

Thank you, brother. I really appreciate you being on the show.

Think like a monk out. Now, the link is in the description James handles and the description works.

Thank you, brother. I really, really, really appreciate this. And it's a huge honor and a huge pleasure talking to you after seeing so much of your content, reading so much of your content over the years.

Man, bro, I'm grateful to you for doing what you do, for reaching out, for being in touch, for allowing me to share with your audience. I know that, you know, people absolutely love you and do what you love what you do. And so I'm really grateful and honored to be with you as well, because you're having such an amazing impact. And I want to thank you for being patient with me in the beginning while I was setting everything up today.

And you are so kind and gentle and and supportive and, you know, it just shows who you are off camera to. And I appreciate you for that, Matt. Thank you, brother. I'm learning a lot from you every day.

Every day. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so for sure.