Jay Shetty


Ryan Serhant:		What’s up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Big Money Energy. As you know, on this podcast, I’m talking with super successful and self-made people to learn exactly how they did it, how they went from nothing to something. Covering all their intimate stories, their path to success, and how they overcame obstacles on the way. And specifically, though, I’m going to be talking to people who not only have big money energy, but those who understand what it means to wake up and actually get things done. And today, we’re talking to Jay Shetty.
		So if you care about the power of wisdom, if you care about how money is energy, and if you want to know what it’s like to live like a monk; and more importantly, to think like a monk; so that you can find true happiness and peace and cut through all the bullshit that we have to deal with in life and all the pain and all the anxiety that we deal with. And all you entrepreneurs who are listening right now, you better stay on this episode because it is going to completely blow your mind. Welcome to another episode.
		Today’s a very, very special day because I’m sitting down with none other than the Jay Shetty. Jay, thank you so much for coming in.
Jay Shetty:		Ryan, thanks for having me. This is awesome.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Now, if you don’t know who Jason Shetty is, then you probably don’t have a phone or a computer. You’re definitely not on Facebook. You probably don’t read books. You might not even have a pulse. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you, Jay Shetty is an Indian British internet personality, podcaster, author, award-winning storyteller.
		He’s a former monk, which I find really interesting. And he has a lot more patience than I ever will have. He’s interviewed some of the most amazing people in the world like Deepak Chopra, Russell Brand. He’s been on the Ellen DeGeneres show, Forbes 30 under 30. Total game changer. He had a video on Facebook that was watched by 360 million people. Were you naked and dancing? No. I’ve seen the video.
Jay Shetty:		There were a lot of cats.
Ryan Serhant:		Yes, yes. Cats, naked-
Jay Shetty:		Dogs.
Ryan Serhant:		… and dancing with Will Smith. That is what you need. And Ellen, right? That’s what you got to do. I want to know how you create some of the greatest content in the world.
		And overall, you have an insane amount of energy, which I really, really care about. And I think in the world, there are two types of people. Everyone can be a hard worker. Everyone could be good or bad. But you either wake up every day determined to get shit done and have great energy, or you don’t. You’re either making things happen or you’re waiting for things to happen.
		And you are the pinnacle of somebody who’s made things happen, starting from when you were probably a little kid and going all the way into when you traveled around the world, and your journey, and even just being a monk. So the first question I have for you; and I was trying to think about how I was going to start this because I have 50,000 questions for you; one, New York versus LA?
Jay Shetty:		Oh, New York versus LA?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Which one?
Jay Shetty:		LA.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, get out.
Jay Shetty:		I lived in New York for two years. I loved it. It was very good to me. I’ve lived in LA for two years. I loved it. It’s very good to me. I prefer LA. I grew up in London. I’m used to gray skies, rain.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. It’s raining today.
Jay Shetty:		Exactly. And so this reminds me-
Ryan Serhant:		You’re dressed in your cool, little Burberry thing.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. No, no, no. I’m very happy at LA. I love New York. I love visiting. It feels like home. I love the people here. It’s great. But LA is home.
Ryan Serhant:		Where did you live in New York when you lived here?
Jay Shetty:		I lived on 23rd Street between 1st and 2nd.
Ryan Serhant:		Interesting location.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Definitely first time New Yorker to pick that location.
Jay Shetty:		I had no idea.
Ryan Serhant:		Of course.
Jay Shetty:		I moved to New York, I think I’d come here once with my family when I was 16-years-old. I’d never been back since. And then I had a realtor show me around. And I worked for the Huffington Post when I moved here. And so I wanted to be close to the offices. And the offices are 770 Broadway. So I was trying to be close to there so I could walk there because that was the easiest thing I could think of. So it was very strategically chosen.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, always. Yeah. My first apartment was chosen where I could be on top of every single train. And I lived right in Koreatown, right on 31st and Broadway. And it was, “I want to be able to walk outside my door and get to any apartment showing that I could.”
Jay Shetty:		Nice.
Ryan Serhant:		How did your realtor do, though, by the way?
Jay Shetty:		I think they did pretty well.
Ryan Serhant:		Did they?
Jay Shetty:		Except-
Ryan Serhant:		Oh shit.
Jay Shetty:		… when I moved to New York for… I believe it was about a month. I had to live out of hotels because my apartment wasn’t ready and I was struggling. So I literally would check the hotel prices every day to get the lowest price. So I was shifting hotels like three times a week. So I go to paying $65 a night to $50 a night to $70 a night. And I kept trying to shift. So I had to switch hotels multiple times per week for a month.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Huffington Post should have paid you more money. Is that what brought you to New York? That job?
Jay Shetty:		That’s what brought me to New York. I’m really grateful. Arianna Huffington and the team at HuffPost at the time, 2016, they got my visa, they brought me over. They’d seen my videos and they wanted me to create the same content for HuffPost. It exposed me to this incredible world that’s out here and really kicked off my journey.
Ryan Serhant:		And so you credit those relationships and that platform to where you are today?
Jay Shetty:		Definitely as a first tipping point. I think in everyone’s life, and you’ve probably seen this in yours too, everyone has multiple tipping points in their life. And so there were tipping points before that. That was a really important tipping point from a content creator standpoint.
		And then meeting Ellen last year was a huge tipping point as well. Going on Red Table Talk and doing stuff with Will Smith this year was a huge tipping point. So I feel like you always have more tipping points.
		And I think I’m grateful to anyone who’s been a tipping point and everything in between. Because guess what? There are a lot of people who led to that big tipping point. And so I think you got to be very careful to not forget the in-betweeners because the in-betweeners can often be forgotten and left behind.
Ryan Serhant:		100%. You’ve built a massive brand that’s known around the world through creating content. What was your first piece of content you ever made? Do you remember?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Yeah. I do. I do. As a video content or content period?
Ryan Serhant:		Video content.
Jay Shetty:		Okay. So video content was I made a video called Three Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita. Now that’s the book that I talk about in this book. So that was my first ever video.
Ryan Serhant:		In Think Like a Monk?
Jay Shetty:		In Think Like a Monk. The first ever video I made was called Three Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the oldest, most spiritual wisdom in the world. It’s based out of India. It’s 5,000 years old. And so I made this video and I uploaded it onto YouTube on 3rd Jan, 2016. I still remember it really, really well.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, man. Etched into memory.
Jay Shetty:		I was refreshing away. And I’d made it like three days before that. Right?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		I’d filmed, edited, it, shot it all myself with my team; my friend, who’s a videographer in London. We were just out in London on the streets. I think we were out on like… We’re still trying to remember if it was New Year’s Day or New Year’s Eve, but all I remember… Probably New Year’s Day because the streets of London were empty. We could shoot in any location. This was proper guerrilla style. We had no permits, no license.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, good.
Jay Shetty:		We were just shooting next to St. Paul’s Cathedral and London Bridge and all this stuff. And we put the video out there and I remember seeing the views go up. And then I realized I was just refreshing and-
Ryan Serhant:		That was you.
Jay Shetty:		… watching my own video. And then probably my mum was doing the same.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jay Shetty:		And I was trying to get all my friends to see it. I think my first video did 5,000 views in 24 hours.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s not bad.
Jay Shetty:		It wasn’t bad at all.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		But it was just consistency, perseverance.
Ryan Serhant:		Yes.
Jay Shetty:		And a lot of negative feedback initially, too. There are a lot of people who were just like, “Jay, you talk too fast. Or maybe you need to edit a bit better or maybe the music’s a bit off.” And I used to get a lot of that, and I took all of it in that I could. And at the same time, I was like, “I’m not listening to that bit because that doesn’t make sense.” And I have to try and find my way.
Ryan Serhant:		What did your parents think of it?
Jay Shetty:		When I started making videos?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Your first video.
Jay Shetty:		I don’t think my parents even cared.
Ryan Serhant:		Really?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. They didn’t even have an opinion.
Ryan Serhant:		They didn’t think it was like a thing?
Jay Shetty:		They didn’t think anything of it. They didn’t think it was good or bad. I don’t think they even watched it.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		I don’t think they cared at the time.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s so funny. I remember my mom, when Million Dollar Listing first came out on Bravo, my mom called me after the first episode. I was like, “What’d you think? What’d you think?” She was like, “Well, let me just say, the things that you think are funny are not funny to other people.”
		I will never forget that because it was kind of like she was smacking me down, but it was kind of a compliment. Because I was like, “Oh, maybe I am funny on there,” but then it wasn’t. And then I could see, just what you were saying, some people thought… Some people have a sense of humor, some people don’t have a sense of humor.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		And it’s funny, people in my mom’s demographic did not think everything that I thought was funny.
Jay Shetty:		Interesting. Have you kept making those jokes?
Ryan Serhant:		It was funny.
Jay Shetty:		Have you kept them in?
Ryan Serhant:		To be honest, it’s interesting once you start seeing yourself on television or you make content and you see what people’s feedback is, I don’t care what anybody says, it does affect you. You do realize like, “Oh, I should probably carry myself in a way that doesn’t derive insanely negative hate. I want to do good in the world. I want to do the right thing. I don’t want to say anything offensive. So I’m not going to totally filter myself, but let me think things through just a little bit more.”
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		You know?
Jay Shetty:		Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ryan Serhant:		I don’t know. Have you thought about that at all? Do you do content with a filter? Or no filter?
Jay Shetty:		When I started creating content, we do a lot of different styles of content. So I think there’s different styles. So I have a series called Inside the Mind on YouTube, which is very much behind the scenes, follow me around. It’s super open-
Ryan Serhant:		It’s blog style.
Jay Shetty:		… honest and transparent. Exactly.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		And then I’ve got content that is scripted and casted, and really created so that people can have a really amazing experience. Now, when I started making content, I had no idea that we were ever going to hit a million views, let alone billions of views.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		And so, for me, I was just sharing my message to help the world, like you said, and serve the world in any way I thought. And I’m doing the same thing now. I don’t see it’s that different. Bu my big goal when I’m creating a piece of content is, “How is someone going to feel after watching this?”
		That’s the number one question I ask myself. It’s how I feel about every podcast, every video, “How is someone going to feel?” And if they’re not going to feel uplifted, if they’re not going to feel like they’ve learned something, if they’re not going to feel motivated or amped, then for me, I’m like, “Okay. Well, I’m doing something wrong here.”
Ryan Serhant:		Why do you care so much?
Jay Shetty:		Why do I care so much?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Why? That’s a real question.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Absolutely.
Ryan Serhant:		Why do you care about what people feel? Not just to create good content that gets good views. Because in the influencer world that we live in, we live by view counts.
Jay Shetty:		Yes.
Ryan Serhant:		It is what it is. But why are you making videos changes people’s lives? Why are you making videos that are influential for people? Why don’t you just do vlog type stuff, put stuff out there, let’s see what happens? Why do you care so much about other people?
Jay Shetty:		I think when you come across something in your life that you think transformed your life and it was extremely valuable, I feel like you have a responsibility and a sense of compassion to want to pass it on. And I think we are the same as humans with everything. Like if you saw the best movie in the world this week, I guarantee you’d be recommending it to all your friends.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, for sure.
Jay Shetty:		If you’ve just heard a new album or discovered a new artist on Spotify, you’re going to tell everyone. It would just so happened that the artist I met was a monk.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		Right? And I talk about the experience in the book Think Like a Monk, where, for me, meeting a monk, it’s just one of those things. I met someone who I believed had the habits, the routines, the lifestyle, the thoughts, the ideas that transformed my life. And I really believe they have.
		And I feel it’s a responsibility to pass them on because I see people suffering, I see people making decisions and then regretting them, I see people getting 30 years in a career and then feeling dissatisfied. And I’m like, “That can all be avoided. Or at least if it can’t be avoided, it doesn’t have to be as painful as it seems.”
		And so if we can do that in the same way as I’m sure you are helping people find real estate quicker and easier and making it simple, it’s like all of us are solving a problem. And, for me, if you’ve got some good advice or you’ve had a good experience, it’s your job to pass it on. And that’s all I’m trying to do.
Ryan Serhant:		What was your first impression of the monk? Tell me about the monk.
Jay Shetty:		So my first impression was, “Here’s a guy with a thick Indian accent. He’s wearing robes. He’s got a shaved head. He does not look cool. He’s not trendy. There’s nothing about him that’s attractive. I’m going to get really bored in this speech. I’m going to go to a bar afterwards and it’s going to be great. And I’m just going to sit through while my friends go through this pain.” That’s my first experience because I’m a kid growing up in London who thinks he’s really cool, listens to rap music.
Ryan Serhant:		How old were you?
Jay Shetty:		I was 18. And I’m thinking I’m the best thing ever. And what am I going to learn from some monk who went from nothing to nothing? And what’s he going to teach me?
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		And that’s what I love about writing this book now, is I was the person who looked at that monk and looked at it probably even as title and go, “What am I going to learn from this book? What am I going to learn?” It’s like that skepticism, it’s so ironic when you take that skepticism and it gets turned into this amazing belief system where you’re like, “Oh, wow.” I learned so much from that one hour that he spoke that I was so inspired that I was almost surrounding him like he was the CEO of Apple or something, and wanting to shadow him and spend time with him.
		And I think this is just a lesson that I feel for anyone and everyone, it’s like when you get in, I’m sure there’s a ton of people who approach you or are inspired by the work you do and would love to spend time with you. But maybe they’re not saying the right thing, maybe they’re not doing the right thing, maybe they’re not getting the access because someone else had a better way of getting through to you. And, for me, I was doing the same as wanting to shadow this monk. I would just believe that he had something that I’d never seen someone have, which was joy, which was happiness, which was genuine authenticity.
Ryan Serhant:		I was just going to say that, authentic joy and happiness.
Jay Shetty:		Just authentic joy of just like-
Ryan Serhant:		Not fake.
Jay Shetty:		Not fake. He’s wearing saffron orange robes in the middle of a university and speaking so comfortably without any inhibition that he’s being judged by a bunch of London kids who think that they’re really cool. And he’s just so effortless. And I’m like, “Why am I not like that?” And so, that’s what attracted me to him.
Ryan Serhant:		So what was your journey with him after that?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. So I took the very bold move of saying, “I’m going to spend all of my summer vacations, half of them, interning at corporate companies in London,” because that’s what I thought I was going to do. And so I was at financial companies and corporate companies doing analyst roles or whatever it was.
Ryan Serhant:		Regular stuff.
Jay Shetty:		Regular stuff. Fairly successful regular stuff, but regular stuff. And I’d spend the other half of my summer vacations living with him in India as a monk. So I’d literally go from suits-
Ryan Serhant:		As you do, right?
Jay Shetty:		Yes.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		Suits, steak houses, and bars. Doing the full works. And I was like, “I’m going to test each lifestyle to its extreme.” Because, to me, that’s what the joy of life comes from. I don’t think you ever have fun in life when you do something in a mediocre, half-hearted, in the middle kind of way.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, no.
Jay Shetty:		Right? I feel like you have to dive deep. It’s like the analogy’s always given to the ocean. If you really want to see the beauty of the ocean, you’ve got to go deep. On the surface, all you’re going to see is some little fish and some random colors. But if you go deep, you’ll see more.
		And so, for me, I’ve always been that way. And so I was like, “Okay, I’m going to be the best finance person in London. And then I’m going to be the best monk in India. And I’m going to test which one works.” And then I found out very quickly that you don’t become the best monk, and I didn’t necessarily become the best finance person in London.
		But I went through that process of testing. And after three years of doing that, in my breaks, I’d realized that I found the life of a monk more attractive, but I genuinely done the test. And the reason it was more attractive is because I felt that I was actually useful to humanity.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		We weren’t just sitting there all day doing nothing. We were serving the homeless. We were helping young children. We were helping the needy. We were doing service out in the world. And I thought, “Wow. This is the best use of my skills. This is the best use of my abilities.” And when I’d come from working a long day in a company, I’d just feel hungry, tired, bored, de-energized and drained. And I was like, “I don’t want to feel like that.” Every time I’d come back from the ashram, I’d feel like I’d found my purpose.
Ryan Serhant:		How did that affect your relationship to material goods, though? And to money and to success? How do you go from London banking world to living with the monk to coming back to London and then going to New York and then going to LA, and still having to make money and create content for a living, and write a book and do the tours, and all the things you do? How are you okay with that?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Absolutely. And I think when I first came back, it took so much time to reintegrate and to recalibrate what my mind said about these things. So I’ve learned this beautiful principle as a monk, which I think I’ve had an opportunity to play with and experiment with more since leaving. So we learned about how nothing is inherently good or bad. It’s given meaning and purpose by how you use it.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		So we know that. This microphone, it’s inherently neutral. It’s not good or bad. You can either speech hate abuse and violence and racism, or we can use it for talking about what me and you are talking about. And that’s a choice. And so, similarly, I think we’ve either tried to idolize or demonize things.
		Money is one of them. People either idolize it or they demonize it. So they go, “Oh, money is everything. Money is God. Money will change your life.” And then the other option is, “No, no. Money is evil. Money will make you bad. If you’re rich, you stab people in the back.” And so we’re very good at, as humans, is labeling stuff as idolized or demonized.
Ryan Serhant:		Completely.
Jay Shetty:		And actually, it’s neutral. It’s totally what you do with it. And that’s why I love the title of your podcast, Big Money Energy. Because from a spiritual monk perspective, money is energy.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, blast.
Jay Shetty:		Money is energy.
Ryan Serhant:		There we go.
Jay Shetty:		There we go.
Ryan Serhant:		There we go.
Jay Shetty:		And so you’re already thinking like a monk.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh man, I had no idea. This whole time.
Jay Shetty:		But money is energy. And so if money is energy, are we using that energy for good? Are we using that energy for bad? And I think when you can live in that way… And in the book, I talk about three relationships you can have with money. So you can either have a selfish relationship, you can have a sufficiency relationship, or you can have a service relationship. Simple.
		Selfish, we know what that feels like. “It’s all about me. Money’s for me. I’m just going to get really greedy and rich. And supposedly, it’s going to make me happy.” We know that doesn’t work. Sufficiency, “I’ve got enough. I don’t need more, but I’ve got enough for me and taking care of the two people I take care of. I don’t care about anyone else.” And then service, “I don’t mind having more if it helps me serve. And I don’t mind creating more opportunity if it helps me serve.”
		And so, for me, the way I’ve been able to do it, and it took me a while because I grew up in a family where we always said we had just enough money, and so the mindset was always like the amount of times in my teens where I had zero in my bank account because I had just enough. I always had just enough to make the purchase and then I’d be back at zero again. And I realized, I was like, “That’s just not a healthy relationship with anything. It’s like me saying, ‘I have just enough love for my family. I have enough love for my wife.'” That doesn’t make sense.
Ryan Serhant:		Just enough gas, just enough energy.
Jay Shetty:		Just enough gas. Exactly. Just enough gas, great example. Yeah. Like just enough. And I have just enough data.
Ryan Serhant:		Exactly.
Jay Shetty:		No one wants just enough. And so I had to really remold my relationship with money, and with success, and with achievements to realize that I was simply an instrument to realize that I was doing it for service. And guess what? Hey, I’m not pure. I’m not saying 100% of my life is just lift for others. I need significance. I need to feel like I matter.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		I need to feel like I’m making a difference. Those are all personal things that I need. I’m just trying to engage them in a way that is helpful to other people.
Ryan Serhant:		But you also seem like somebody who’s not okay with just being okay.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		Right?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		And you have that energy.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Absolutely.
Ryan Serhant:		Whether that energy is tied to money or to faith or just to your ability to wake up and make things happen.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I think we die when we don’t learn.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		I think you can just die early because you’re not growing, you’re not learning, you’re not moving. We were just talking about it just now, actually, over lunch. Me and Matt were talking about it that it’s not so much about a number. Someone always says to me, “What’s the number of books you want to sell? What’s the number that you want to reach?” I actually have never had a number.
		What I know is that I want to wake up and do everything within my reach to do what I’m trying to do. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Like have I really gone to every corner of the world, have I really tried to touch and help every single person I possibly can? If I’ve done that, then I’m satisfied. And that’s my personal metric of, “Am I doing my best?”
Ryan Serhant:		Have you ever failed at anything?
Jay Shetty:		Oh, loads man.
Ryan Serhant:		What’s your relationship with failure?
Jay Shetty:		So many. I have failed so many times. So I talk about this. When I came back from living as a monk, surprise, surprise, 40 companies rejected me.
Ryan Serhant:		Really?
Jay Shetty:		Right? 40 companies.
Ryan Serhant:		Shame on them for turning down a monk.
Jay Shetty:		I’m really grateful to them that they did that. But 40 companies said no. Because guess what? My resume said monk for three years. What’s your transferable skills? Silence? You know what I mean? It’s not even like, “What’s your transferable skills? You can sit around for eight hours a day?”
		In Think Like a Monk, I’m talking about how monks scientifically; and there’s a ton of science in the book; have the happiest, calmest, and most focused brains on the planet of any human. There’s been studies done on countless humans. Monks and meditators have healthier, happier, calmer brains. Who doesn’t want to be healthier, happier, and more focused?
Ryan Serhant:		But they don’t get to do anything.
Jay Shetty:		No, they do. That’s the point. We do.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, we do.
Jay Shetty:		That’s why thinking like a monk. You don’t have to live like one. And that’s my point, that we get to use all of that to actually make an impact, making it grow our businesses, whatever we want to do. We can all do that.
Ryan Serhant:		And you meditate every day?
Jay Shetty:		I meditate every single day. Yeah. I’ve meditated every single day since I was 18-years-old for two hours a day. So that hasn’t changed.
Ryan Serhant:		When do you do that?
Jay Shetty:		Usually in the morning. But I travel a lot, so it becomes flexible. So I wake up at about 6:00 every day. I meditate from about 6:30 to about 8:15, 8:30. That’s usually my time. But I miss that sometimes. So I’ll do an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. And nowadays, it can be split up into 30 minutes slots because my life’s just changing all the time.
Ryan Serhant:		You just gave a speech about stress and anxiety. And is thinking like a monk… Obviously, common sense would say that if you were at peace in your mind and at peace with your body, then stress and anxiety can just be something that comes and goes.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Well, see, look, no one can avoid stress and anxiety.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		But what the wrong mindset does is you actually just deal with stress, anxiety for less time.
Ryan Serhant:		Okay.
Jay Shetty:		So one of my favorite examples is-
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, super productive.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. And you’ve probably heard about this before. Exactly. There you go. So you’ve probably heard about this before, but I don’t know if you’ve heard of Roger Bannister and the four-minute mile.
Ryan Serhant:		No.
Jay Shetty:		So up until, I think, it’s the 1850s to 1954, there was no one had broken, running a mile in less than four minutes.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		For 104 years, no one broke that record.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s super fast.
Jay Shetty:		Roger Bannister comes in 1954 and he breaks the four-minute mile. He runs it in three minutes, whatever, just underneath. And since that day, everyone broke his record. And it’s that kind of thing of like you may never get rid of stress and anxiety. But before you stressed out for seven days, now you stress out for one day, now you stress out for one hour, now you’re just stressed for one minute.
Ryan Serhant:		It becomes relative?
Jay Shetty:		Totally. And you’ve become able to actually process and reflect. So one of our biggest mistakes with stress and pressure is we just keep moving and pushing. And one of my favorite examples of this is just like your marriage. You know what this is like. And I’m guessing, I don’t know who’s more ambitious or driven out of you and your wife. You’re very ambitious and driven, but she could be more driven. How many times do you feel like you just need to grab their hands, or their shoulders, or whatever it is; anyone who’s listening and watching, you know what I’m talking about; and you just go, “I need you to slow down so I can just talk to you so that we can just connect”?
Ryan Serhant:		You sound like my wife.
Jay Shetty:		Do I? Yeah?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		Great.
Ryan Serhant:		That moment right there, staring into her eyes.
Jay Shetty:		I was going to hold your hands, too.
Ryan Serhant:		That was last night at 10:00 PM. And I’m like, “What do you want to talk about?”
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		“Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’ve got a lot going on.”
Jay Shetty:		Exactly. So exactly that is happening with our mind and body. Our mind and body is stressing out to hold your hands and just say, “Hey, I need to talk to you.” And we go, “No, no, no. I’m busy right now. I can’t listen to you right now. I’m so busy. I’m just going to keep moving.”
		And so when you meditate, when you’re still, when you take a moment, that’s allowing your mind and body to actually go to you, “This is what you’re stressed about. This is how to deal with it. Take care of it. And actually, you can be more productive.” Otherwise, we can’t hear that voice in all the noise of rushing around. Right? It just doesn’t happen.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, for sure. Tell me about a time maybe when you didn’t have all this confidence and this courage that I see sitting in front of me right now, bright-eyed, and awesome, and full of energy. Do you even remember a time like that?
Jay Shetty:		Loads, loads, loads. Loads of times. The best one that I can give the example of this is when I just came back from living as a monk. So when I came back from India, came back from the ashram, and I moved back in with my parents. It was probably the most depressive time of my life.
		This is 2013, so it’s seven years ago. So it’s not that long ago in one sense. I moved back in with my parents. I’m 25 going on 26. I have $25,000 worth of debt because I went to University in London. And thankfully, it’s not as expensive as it is here, but it’s still expensive.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s a good semester here.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, exactly. I know. I know. It’s painful out here. When I think about having kids here, I’m like, “Wow.” I get it. It’s hard.
Ryan Serhant:		It’s crazy.
Jay Shetty:		It’s hard. And so, I came back and I’m lost. I got rejected by 40 companies. No one would give me a job. I’m too overqualified for another job. And I’m now underqualified for the jobs that I would have walked into three years ago. And I’m feeling stressed and I’m feeling anxious. Because guess what? All my friends are buying nice cars, getting their first mortgage, and in a great relationship. And I’m five years behind them because-
Ryan Serhant:		So you felt left behind?
Jay Shetty:		I felt really left behind. I felt lost and I felt confused. And guess what? I didn’t know where to start. I would literally come home and talk to my dad and I’d be like, “Dad, I know that I can’t rely on you guys forever,” because my parents aren’t well off. And I’m like, “I don’t actually know what I’m going to do. I have no idea.”
		And so, I remember being completely unconfident at that time and completely feeling like all my charisma and energy had just been snatched from me because I thought I was going to become a monk. And then my health was taking a toll on me too because of the amount of pushing I’d done, all my sleep and experimented with so many things.
		So I’m just both physically emaciated and mentally. I’ve lost it. I really had lost it. I would’ve struggled to look you in the eye and have this conversation. I genuinely would have. And I know now it’s hard to believe. And I was like, “Oh, Jay. Yeah. I’m sure that’s true.” I’m like, “No, trust me.” Literally, if you talk to my friends from that time, they’ll tell you that I wasn’t confident at the time.
		And the thing that helped me build my confidence back up is I went to the library every single week and I would read self-development books. I would read the books that I studied as a monk again. I was so deep into like, “What do I need to learn? What is it that I don’t have now that’s going to help me feel confident again?”
		I had to write 40 individualized, personalized resumes to finally get a job at Accenture that I broke into. And guess what? I was 26 and everyone’s 21. So I was already up against everyone who was younger than me who’d just come out of college.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. But you were a monk.
Jay Shetty:		I was a monk. It helped.
Ryan Serhant:		Screw those 21-year-olds.
Jay Shetty:		It helped. It helped.
Ryan Serhant:		You know?
Jay Shetty:		It did help. It did help. And what it helped with… And that’s why those three years, I call them monk school. And the last seven years have been the exam. And I’ve passed the exam so far because everything I learned as a monk does prepare you for the life we all lead. So actually, I got to test all of it. And that’s why I’m sharing what I tested in Think Like a Monk. Because I’m like, “I’ve literally tested all this for the last seven years-
Ryan Serhant:		That’s your blueprint.
Jay Shetty:		… and that’s why I’m telling you about it. Because I had to put it into practice.”
Ryan Serhant:		Literally, for those of you that are watching this, the cover is blue. It is literally your blueprint.
Jay Shetty:		I love that. You’re the first person who’s said that.
Ryan Serhant:		It is.
Jay Shetty:		And I never thought of that.
Ryan Serhant:		Blueprint, you know?
Jay Shetty:		I’m going to say that in every single interview after this one.
Ryan Serhant:		Fucking steal it, man.
Jay Shetty:		I’m going to say, “Ryan did it.”
Ryan Serhant:		It’s a blueprint.
Jay Shetty:		No, that’s great. I love that. Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		It’s a blueprint for how to think like a monk, obviously.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s a blueprint of life’s real exam. The real exams.
Ryan Serhant:		Listen, I can say thank you so much for going through that so that we don’t have to. Right?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Absolutely.
Ryan Serhant:		It’s super helpful. We’ve got stuff to do, man.
Jay Shetty:		Absolutely.
Ryan Serhant:		I’m on the 15-minute mark over here.
Jay Shetty:		Absolutely. No one needs to go live like a monk. You can just think like one and it will change your life.
Ryan Serhant:		If someone’s listening to this right now and they’re at a tough place in their life, or they just came out of school and they don’t know what to do, or they got out of a bad relationship or they fucking hate their job, would you recommend going to India?
Jay Shetty:		I don’t think you have to go to India. What I will say is you’re going to have to do something different to what you’ve done so far.
Ryan Serhant:		Right. Because what’s got here won’t get you there. Right?
Jay Shetty:		Correct. And so what thinking like a monk means is how can you become more curious, open, and expand your mind to maybe entertain the idea of something that you have never entertained.
Ryan Serhant:		Sure.
Jay Shetty:		Right? I would never have thought of becoming a monk if I didn’t meet a monk. Who have you not met yet that could inspire you to do something you haven’t done yet?
Ryan Serhant:		I love that.
Jay Shetty:		Right?
Ryan Serhant:		When people ask me what my job is, I say, “My job is meeting five new people every day.”
Jay Shetty:		I love it. There you go.
Ryan Serhant:		I don’t sell houses, right?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		Selling houses for me, and selling buildings, and everything we do, and even making content and all that stuff, it is the byproduct of what happens when I, Ryan Serhant, happens to meet people. I know how to sell real estate. So when I meet people, I instinctually say, “Do you need to buy a new home?” If I had your life, I would do what you’re doing. Maybe something totally different.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Ryan Serhant:		And meeting more people on a planet full of 7 billion of them is our lifeblood. That’s our job. I want to ask you one more question-
Jay Shetty:		Sure, man. Go for it.
Ryan Serhant:		… before we finish.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		Because now I have you in my mind living on 23rd and 1st, between 1st and 2nd, trying to manage, even before that, your hotel bills; 50, 60 bucks a night. That’s crazy to me. Even seeing you sitting here and what I know of you over the last couple years, the fact that you were ever at that point with money, and with your own success and your life, how did you go from nothing to who you are today? What was that journey? And I know it took a long time. It took a lot of hard work. But what is that? What is that mechanism? What did you do differently?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. I decided that whatever I was going to do, I was going to get really world-class at it. So it wasn’t good enough to be an okay public speaker.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, you’re not okay with being okay.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. I was going to go out and become one of the best public speakers in the way that I saw what best meant. So that means I was studying standup comics. It means I was studying the best speakers of all time. It meant that I was trained from 14 to 18 at public speaking in drama school because my parents forced me to go. Same in social media. I didn’t want to be okay with social media. I need to really become and excel at it. And so, for me, that’s the second step. And I think that’s the difference between following your passion and actually investing in it and actually focusing on it.
Ryan Serhant:		That sounds like living with conviction.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, living with conviction. So that was a big part of it. And then when you’ve done that, so much more opens up. We don’t realize that when you genuinely excel at something, when you put yourself in the upper group of a expertise, that naturally opens up connections because everyone now all of a sudden is confident to say, “Hey, have you met Ryan? Did you know that he sold that property worth whatever it is?” It’s like, “Oh, yeah. No, no, you should meet Ryan.” Right?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		You get recommended more. So that was one thing. The second thing I did was I’ve always, like you said, built relationships. And I would never ask unless there was a very clear ask, and there was a very specific ask, and that person was the most specific person to ask for that. I think half the time we ask for stuff, we’re asking the wrong person at the wrong time.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, for sure.
Jay Shetty:		And my point is a good ask is eyeing the right person for the right thing at the right time. And if those three things don’t align, don’t ask. I’ve never not followed that principle. So if I wanted to ask Ryan for a favor, I would wait until it was the right time, and it was the right person, it was the right thing I was asking for.
Ryan Serhant:		You can ask me whatever favors you want.
Jay Shetty:		I appreciate that.
Ryan Serhant:		Don’t worry about it.
Jay Shetty:		I remember at one point I emailed 100 people the day after I decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I was like, “Hey, these are my skills. This is what I think I could do for you. This is how we could work together. What do you think?”
		Right? And so it’s like I went all in and asked a ton of people how I could support them. That year, when I first became an entrepreneur, I tested seven different revenue streams. And there were two things I was testing. Which one did I enjoy? And which one worked? And I wanted to find the ones that matched.
Ryan Serhant:		That is hard to do.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		It’s so hard to do.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. And we test seven. Out of the seven, all of them worked financially. I only enjoyed four of them, which became the bedrock of what I did. So one of them was my group coaching program online. So I have my coaching program, Genius, where we have thousands of amazing members from over 140 countries that every week are learning with me. And I’m live with them, coaching them, training them, guiding them. And it’s been the most fulfilling thing that we’ve done. We even have meetups now-
Ryan Serhant:		Nice.
Jay Shetty:		… in 100 cities in the world. So we have groups of people meeting up every week without me there and they’re discussing these themes, networking, building enterprises and growing together. So that was one of them.
		The second thing that came out of it was videos. I love making videos, and Facebook finally kicked in with its ad strategy in 2018. So that’s been great. And then I had my podcasts. We launched my podcast. I love interviewing people. It’s given me a great excuse, like you said, to sit down with people I wouldn’t otherwise. And then, fourth, we have my book.
		So I chose things that I love doing the process and that it worked. And that was a big part of it. So, for me, it’s always been a rapid growth, try everything, test everything, make mistakes along the way and just keep moving. And as soon as you find yourself being uncomfortable and you don’t like something, you don’t have to do it anymore. I don’t want to make money doing stuff I hate.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		I just don’t want to do that. And that means I’ve got to test more of what I love. So I’ve got to work harder on that front.
Ryan Serhant:		I have just a few final questions that I want to ask you.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		It helps me get to know you just a little bit better, and I think everybody else. What’s your favorite movie?
Jay Shetty:		Okay. My favorite movie is The Prestige by Christopher Nolan.
Ryan Serhant:		Oh, that is such a good… Yeah. That is a good movie.
Jay Shetty:		Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlet Johansson.
Ryan Serhant:		Yes, man.
Jay Shetty:		It is amazing.
Ryan Serhant:		Christoper Nolan. That is a great, great movie. With the light bulbs when they’re turning on and everything.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. It’s got Tesla. It’s got a bit of history in it.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, it’s cool.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s so funny.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. That’s my favorite movie of all time. 2006. It’s on the IMDB bucket list of movies.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. It came out at the same time The Illusionist came out at with that recording.
Jay Shetty:		I love that movie, too.
Ryan Serhant:		Which is great. It came out at the same exact time. It’s like Hollywood always does this. Right?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		They come up with an idea and they’re like, “Oh, we got to do it.”
Jay Shetty:		That’s a really good movie.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		It was just as great.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		But The Prestige is a little bit… And Christian Bale…
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. Christian Bale is one of my… I’ve got two favorite actors, probably Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. What’s your favorite quote?
Jay Shetty:		My favorite quote? That is a good question. Yes. It’s probably from the Bhagavad Gita. Oh no, no. Oh God. I’ve got a debate. Yeah. Okay. From the Bhagavad Gita. It says, “Better to live your life imperfectly than to imitate the life of someone else’s perfectly.”
Ryan Serhant:		What’s your favorite artist right now to listen to?
Jay Shetty:		Right now?
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		I’d say the person I listen to most is Drake. I’m a big Drake fan.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, same.
Jay Shetty:		I can listen to Drake in the gym, in the car. I actually love listening to Drake.
Ryan Serhant:		That’s all I listen to at the gym. It’s like Drake, Future, and then Drake plus Future. You know?
Jay Shetty:		Yeah.
Ryan Serhant:		It’s like every song.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. I say Drake. I’m a big Belieber, too. I like Justin’s new album. I’m a big fan of Justin Bieber.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. The whole Changes.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s great.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah, good.
Jay Shetty:		It’s a good album.
Ryan Serhant:		Well, this has been awesome.
Jay Shetty:		Yeah. This has been great, man.
Ryan Serhant:		Thank you so much for coming. Your book, Think Like a Monk. By the time this comes out, it will be out everywhere. You are everywhere. Where else should people find you?
Jay Shetty:		Find me on Instagram, find me on YouTube, find me on Facebook. Wherever you are, I’ll try and be there.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. Good. And find all the wisdom. Man, you’re the best. Thank you so much for coming on, dude.
Jay Shetty:		Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah.
Jay Shetty:		I can’t wait to interview you, man.
Ryan Serhant:		Yeah. It’s going to be fun.
Jay Shetty:		I’ll let you know when I’m in LA.
Ryan Serhant:		Absolutely. Please.
		If you’re ready to take action today, based on Gary Vee’s entire blueprint for how he got to where he is, go to bigmoneyenergy.com/podcast to download an action plan that I put together for you, as well as the show notes. That’s bigmoneyenergy.com/podcast. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
		Big Money Energy is hosted by me, Ryan Serhant. It’s produced by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Laresca, and executive produced by Cristina Everett.

Download the Jay Shetty Action Plan

Explore

Join the Big Money Energy Newsletter