759. The Best of Jay Shetty: What You REALLY Need To Know About Ego, God + Love
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Welcome to Almost 30 Podcast. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. It's Lindsay and Krista. We're so thankful you're here. Thank you for being a part of our lives throughout the years. I know OGs are listening. We've been doing this for about eight years now. And we really started the show when we were going through that very crunchy, seemingly chaotic time in your late 20s.

What we now know is our Saturn return. We all go through it. So if you're someone who's going through it right now, just know that it is purposeful and it is meant to transform you and your life and

hopefully you're able to create the life that you really love and become who you're really meant to be. And on the show, we've had amazing guests through the years from 2016, like Jay Shetty, who this episode is actually a compilation of some of our favorite teachings from Jay, some of our favorite quotes,

some of our favorite aspects of podcast episodes he's done with us. Jay actually wrote the blurb for our Almost 30 book. So if you're a Jay fan, Jay is also a fan of the Almost 30 books. We're so grateful for Jay for that. And he's been featured in our book,

in a section we like to call Pass the Mic. So we have Pass the Mic, which basically features our amazing podcast guests in the book and some of their lessons and teachings. And so because Jay's been featured so many times, we thought we would take back these episodes that have him in it and then bring them together for a masterclass of sorts of Jay Shetty on Almost 30. So if you enjoy Jay's wisdom, you will enjoy the wisdom from so many other podcast guests in our book. And Jay was generous enough to give us

his own love for the Almost 30 book that we featured on the cover. So Jay, thank you so much. It means the world. You can pre-order now, almost30.com slash book. We have some quotes in the book in the past in my section from people like Lennon Doyle, Marie Forleo, Jenna Kutcher, Gabby Bernstein, just the best of the best quotes.

You guys are going to absolutely love the Almost 30 book, almost30.com slash book. Pre-order it today. You get amazing pre-order bonuses and incentives that you will not get anywhere else. It's going to be great. And then you also get a resource you can use through all times of change in your life. So that is the intention of our book is to support you in times of change, giving you the resource that I wish I would have had during my trying times. Yeah. It all would have happened a lot sooner. I know. That sucks.

All good. Thank you so much, Jay. We love you so deeply. Jay's podcast is on purpose. You can find him jaysheddy.com, jaysheddy on all socials. You guys know and love Jay already. And if this compilation helped you, supported you, inspired you, motivated you, send it to a friend. That's how we've grown. It's always so nice to receive a little love note from someone that loves podcasts just as much as we do. And then you can go to almost30.com on Instagram. It's almost 30 podcast on YouTube. It's almost 30 podcast and same with TikTok.

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What is your relationship with source or how do you describe your relationship with God or whatever like what would you how would you describe that?

I think that everyone on the planet has a unique and extremely personal relationship with the source, the divine, the highest God, you know, whatever word everyone has for it. And for me personally, I feel like that relationship is a relationship of service. It's a relationship of communication. And I think there's a beautiful statement by David Lynch where he says that prayer is how you talk to God and meditation is how God talks to you. Oh, I love that.

And it's in that that becomes like this two-way communication where you feel you're not... See, if we all had to be the most compassionate ourselves, we'd give up any day. And that's why feeling finite...

And or not even realizing that we're finite is what limits us from being unlimitedly merciful and compassionate and loving. And I know that if I walk into a coaching meeting, just giving an example, even if I walk into this and I walk in and saying, I'm going to give my best.

And even if I give my best, that would be great. But if I allow the source to work through me and simply say, like, I'm just going to be an instrument of the source's love and compassion and grace, then guess what? This room can be flooded. It's almost like we as monks, we had this beautiful ritual where we

We would take, we would scoop water out of like a holy river and put it back in. And we were reminded that that's what all we do as humans, that the source of the ocean is huge. And when you scoop out a little bit of water and you may drink it or you may give it to someone else, that's you taking it from the source. So reminding ourselves always that the source is like full of flowing and full of life.

full of abundance. And so for me, it's, I feel like I'm fallible. I make mistakes. I'm not perfect. My level of compassion will always be limited if I rely on myself. But if I, and the word that's used in the Vedas is if I purify myself. So the way I like to explain it is if I, even if I have the best intention, if I'm not purified, I'm giving everyone muddy water.

And so it's like, imagine you want to distribute water to every place in the world that doesn't have access to clean water, but you're giving everyone muddy water. All you're going to do is give people more diseases and ailments. But if I say, actually, I'm going to purify this water and then we're going to distribute it to everyone else. So for me, the connection with the highest is a connection of purifying and cleansing myself so that what comes through me

is of genuine benefit to people and isn't me or about me or isn't my message. And I've always felt that, that I just feel grateful that I get to share wisdom that I studied in these ancient literatures and try and make them relevant and accessible. And I've realized them by living them in my life. So I've had personal experience with experimenting with them. But the wisdom is not mine. The ideas are not mine because...

they're not ours. They've, they've existed far beyond us. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I was curious about why a book on relationships and love. I mean, you could have done so many different things after, you know, your first book and then the second book of quotes, but why love and relationships? What could I have done? Tell me, I want to know what should I have written about? Best hair, how to be, how to crush entrepreneurship. I feel like it makes sense, but

You know, when I think about love and relationships, it's like a very kind of narrow focus when you usually are so broad. You're a purpose coach. You could have done purpose. Yeah. So I have, no, and I really appreciate that. And I think for me, I've always talked about how there are four important decisions you make in life.

And this is something that I developed a few years ago. The first decision is, how do you feel about yourself? That is one of the most important decisions you make every single day. When you look in the mirror, when you wake up, when you're talking to your partner, when you're talking to a friend, what do I feel about myself? The second most important question or the second most important decision we make every day or what we do is who we choose to give our love to and who we choose to receive love from.

The third most important decision we make in life is what do we do for money and how do we make money? And the fourth most important decision we make in life is who do I serve and how do I serve? How do I contribute back to the world? And so I am working through writing a book on each decision. And after answering, Think Like a Monk answers the decision of how do I feel about myself? That's what it's dedicated to.

I was just sitting down with so many friends, so many clients, so many people where their relationship was the cause of their greatest pain and suffering. So I knew people who were incredible entrepreneurs, but their relationship was on the back burner and they didn't feel fulfilled. Or I knew people who were starting something cool up, but because they didn't have a partner, they didn't feel complete. Or I knew people who'd

got divorced and broken up and they had a beautiful relationship with their kids they had great friends but they still felt inadequate because they weren't in a relationship and so i just saw relationship as like the core of so much human happiness and when i interviewed dr robert waldinger he talked about how this 75-year study at harvard he's the fourth professor to complete the study

I think he just told me it's now 85 years. They've been looking at humans and watching humans lives for 85 years. And the number one thing that human happiness came down to was the quality of our relationships. And so I felt as someone who loves serving and supporting people, I couldn't avoid this topic. And I think I was drawn to it because of my own mistakes in the space, my own successes in the space and looking at both those around me.

Something you and Roddy have talked about that I thought would be a beautiful way to sort of start the conversation was kind of understanding the landscape for how we understand love today. So I know you talked a lot about Bollywood culture and sort of like happily ever after. And I've been thinking a lot about that, too, as far as the programming around relationships. You know, I remember my life was once you get married and have kids, it's like.

Bye. You know, there wasn't any other resources or support and I, my parents separated and now I have so much compassion for them because I'm like, oh my gosh, like now I understand what it takes to build a healthy relationship and it's not just happily ever after. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your upbringing, the Bollywood experience and sort of where we are today as far as our understanding of love. Yeah. So for anyone who has never watched a Bollywood movie,

Bollywood is like Hollywood on romantic steroids, right? So if you take a rom-com and then you add music, dancing, more color, over dramatic stories of love and sacrifice and surrender, you get Bollywood. And I grew up on Bollywood and Hollywood movies. And to me, I loved rom-coms growing up. Like I love rom-coms. And I think that's a big impact of my mom, like watching rom-coms at home and,

you know, us getting together and watching them and me wanting that kind of fairytale love. And I can definitely admit openly that I wanted a fairytale kind of love. I wanted a rom-com kind of love because you start to realize that that's the only images of love that you see. And then I started to think about other images of love I saw. My family didn't have great relationships. So there were no good images of love there that I could say, I want that. If anything, I was saying, I don't want to repeat that.

And then if I looked at my friends' parents or I looked at extended family, I didn't see any great images of relationships there either. So the only happy relationships I saw were in movies. So then that became my image of that's a good love story.

And I think I pursued that and chased that a lot only to feel really disheartened every time because you couldn't recreate a movie in real life. It just wouldn't work. And so when I talk about my upbringing, I found a lot of habits that I didn't want to repeat in my own life. I saw a lot of things that I would never want to replicate. And I started almost making a mental note.

Saying I don't want to argue like that. I won't behave like that. I won't speak like that. Anything that I saw that was hurtful or damaging, I almost made a mental note saying I don't want to be a part of that in my life. I don't want that to be my behavior.

And then everything I saw in the movies, unfortunately, I wrote a list going, I want that. I want that. I want that. So I was like, I was getting 50% right. And then I was getting 50% wrong. And, you know, you have to let life humble you. I think that's what's so beautiful about this whole journey is that life shows you what reality is. And I think a lot of us are thinking, how do I get my relationship right?

Or what did I get wrong? Or how do I find the right person? Or I just met the wrong person. And I don't think it's about right and wrong. It's about reality. And reality is right in the middle of right and wrong. And so if you just go, what is the reality of what I'm experiencing? What is the reality of what's possible? Reality is a much healthier metric than right or wrong. Yeah. And I think...

So in addition to the media programming in Bollywood, there's also social media and that can also portray a certain type of love. So people nowadays are figuring out relationships from social media or looking at social media as kind of like the new TV. How do you think that impacts

people and their relationships. And do you have any advice for how people should sort of navigate social media if they're looking for relationship advice or expanders? Yeah, wow, what a great question. And you're right, social media is the updated version of rom-coms or Bollywood movies or whatever it may have been. So there's two sides to this. Everyone's allowed to share and show whatever they want to share and show of their own relationship. It's up to you to decipher and learn to understand

Create distinctions in what's reality and what's an image that you're seeing. And I think I like to take that responsibility on myself because I don't think you can expect everyone in the world to change how they communicate. And at the same time, when you take that responsibility for yourself, now you're in a position of strength.

And if you're someone who has real relationships and you're spending time connecting with real people, you will know that every couple argues. You will know that every couple goes to sleep sometimes not talking to each other. You will know that people wake up angry next to each other. You will know that people wake up the day after their wedding and have the worst argument they've ever had. You know people who are about to get married and are fighting the day before they get married because of all the pressure and stress.

If you have real friendships and real relationships, social media actually doesn't get as much of a hold on your mind as it could. Whereas I find that if we're not investing in real friendships and real relationships and no one ever tells you, like, I've been really fortunate. I've always had friends that are older than me. And I think that's been one of the biggest problems.

of growth that I've life hacked is that I've always had friends who are older than me. And having friends who are older than you meant that they made mistakes before you. They were able to share their learnings with you. They were always ahead of you in life decisions so they could come back and share their notes. And so I had so many friends who would say to me, hey Jay, I

I got married for this reason. I think that didn't work out for me. Or, hey, you know what? I think I rushed having kids. I wish I slowed that down. Or, you know, I wish me and my wife had that conversation up front. We should have talked about it then, not 10 years later. And so I was almost collecting all of these great pieces of insight. And then I was able to use their hindsight to help me.

And so again, if you have these real friendships and real relationships where you're vulnerable with each other and you talk about these things, you're not using social media as your frame of reference. You're looking at real life human experience as your frame of reference. In the same way as if I see a picture of Bali on Instagram or I talk to my friend who just went to Bali, who's going to give me a better picture?

insight on what that experience was actually like. And I think if you have a friend who just went to Bali, that's who you'd go to. And that's why I think our relationships, our depth of connection, our vulnerability with our friends and the people we love saves you from using social media as a frame of reference. That is like the biggest facts. I was thinking about this before, and I think it's something that a lot of people in my life have been experiencing is like the growing apart of being in a long-term relationship.

And two people that come together at a different period in time in their life. And then they find themselves after however many years being like, what the heck? Like we're so we've grown apart. And there's like a beauty in that. And then there's also can be really scary because you're like, OK, what are we going to do? Are we going to choose to grow together? So I'd love to talk a little bit about growing apart versus growing together. Yeah, I have a whole section in the book called growing.

you know, almost like you have to make that choice to either elevate or separate. And I think that couples that want to last the test of time and first, actually, let's take it back a little bit. First of all,

I don't think length of time should be used as a metric of success of a relationship. I think that's a really unhealthy way often of gauging the success of a relationship. I knew someone who was married for like 14 years. And then when they got divorced, everyone was so shocked.

But anyone who knew them closely knew that they were struggling for 10 years already. And so really it was a four year relationship, 10 years of pain. And then there was a divorce followed by that. And so I was like, oh my God, they were together for 14 years. I never thought that would happen to them. And it's like, well, no, it wasn't 14 years. It was four years and 10 years of pain. And so I think we have to start looking at how long was an actual relationship and a connection versus how long is a marriage or a partnership, which are often wildly different.

Now, if someone does want a long-term relationship with someone, if that is your definition of love and success in a relationship, you're going to have to grow together multiple times. And here's the hardest part. You always grow at different times. So everyone grows at a different time, at a different pace, in their own way.

And it rarely happens that you're growing at the same time, at the same pace, in the same way. So now you've got one of your partners going off on their journey. So I'm someone who, you know, was very aware about my passion, my purpose, what I wanted to do in the world. And when I met Radhi, she was amazing.

extremely talented she's always been extremely gifted but she didn't necessarily know what her purpose was or her passion was and so it's been really interesting for me watching her in that discovery and that requires patience on my part it requires support and it requires openness and

Because she has to find her own path. Now she's had to do the same with me. When she met me, she was already healthy. She ate well. She worked out. She puts in the hours. I was like staying up late to work. I love this. I love this, Jay. Yeah. I was staying up late to work. I was, I love eating fried food. I love like sugar. I was addicted to sugar when I met her. And so,

It's like I was also learning in a different part of my life just because I figured out my purpose and my mindset doesn't mean I figured out everything in life. And so she had to be patient with me. So Riley's given me so many insights on how to improve my health and how to have better like work hygiene and so many other things that I've gained from her. And I think that the challenge that most people have is ego.

We don't want to learn from our partners because it almost makes us feel weak and it puts them in a position of superiority. Not realizing that when you can trade, and I have a whole section in this book, a chapter called Your Partner is Your Guru. And it's this idea of if you really love someone, chances are they have something to teach you.

And if they can teach you in a way that isn't preachy, isn't projecting, and isn't critical, and if we can be that for our partners, you can grow together endlessly.

Now, if you feel you've grown together, you've learned everything you possibly can from your partner, now there's no more learning to do, it's wonderful to grow apart. But that should also be celebrated as a success. I think we often use words like divorce, ended. Like these words are so aggressive. Split. Split, exactly, yeah. Yeah, it was over forever. These words are so aggressive and they paint this picture of...

that animosity of, you know, of enemy kind of feeling, not realizing that someone could have a really healthy as the as the, you know, the famous book, like a conscious uncoupling, like the idea of uncoupling is so much more of a healthier idea for people. And and I think that's the language we need to trade that, yes, you could have a wonderful relationship.

And you could have a wonderful afterlife from that relationship if you both wanted that. And that doesn't mean the relationship failed.

It did its part. It's like, you don't go to college for three years and if you don't become a professor, it's like, no, you failed. You failed. Like you should have become a professor. No, you did. It served its path. Even for me, when I look at, I lived as a monk. I didn't become a monk for the rest of my life. It served its purpose. And I think relationships have to be seen in that way of like, did it serve its purpose? And if it's done, it's done. And let's not make people feel bad about that. Yeah. It's again, the,

Yeah.

It's like when you're talking to one another, you are listening to each other as if you are the guru. There's an openness to being taught by each other that I feel like sometimes can get lost in relationships. And I don't know if it's because there is a point. And the book is, it could be Conscious Loving by Gay Hendricks, or it could be...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we all slot into one of these. And I have a test in the book that helps guide you to figure out what you are and what your partner is. And so these are the three roles. Everyone who's listening, you can figure out which one you're in. And if and when you get the book, you can do the test to make sure of it. So the first is fixer. The second is dependent. And the third is supporter.

So some of us are fixes. We get our value in a relationship by trying to fix the other person's problems. If the person, we see them as broken and we think we can fix them and that makes us feel good. So we like to find projects. We like to find people who need help and we go and make a relationship with them because we want to feel really powerful and strong that we help them. What ends up happening is that a few years down the line, we get exhausted and

And then we go, oh, stop acting like a kid. You don't do anything. You're not really involved. You're not engaged. But we set them up to be that way because that's what we wanted in the beginning.

The second is the dependent. The dependent is someone who wants to be the child. They walk into a relationship looking for mom and dad. They want the other person to fix everything. They want to find someone who's going to take care of all their needs, provide for everything they need, take care of them mentally, emotionally, maybe even financially. And we go there in like a little kid. What ends up happening? You drain the other person. That doesn't end so well. And the third one is the supporter. The supporter goes...

Real love and real support is I'm going to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself. I'm not going to take care of you. What is care? Is care me saying to you, I'm going to take care of you? Or is real care, I'm going to help you learn the skills to take care of yourself?

That's real love. That's real care. Like, I believe in you so much that I want you to have the tools and skills. And I'm going to help you. I'm going to guide you. I'm going to introduce you to things, whatever you need, so that you feel safe.

Whether I'm here or not, that's love. One day I may die before you. If you only feel safe when I'm alive next to you, that's not love. Love is I'm going to protect you by helping you protect yourself. That's safety. Don't we want that for our kids? Don't we want that for our partners? Like if my kid, I don't have any kids, but if I had kids and if they only felt safe when I was in the room.

That wouldn't be a win. That would be a loss because you can't always be in the room. So I think we do that with our partners. So a supporter says, I'm here to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself. And I'm ready to develop the skills I need, whatever you need to teach me to take care of myself.

And so I set that up because the fix is almost like the parent. The dependent's like the child. And then the supporter is the collaborative one, the one who recognizes that the only person who can take care of me is me, and the only person who can take care of you is you. And so when I help you take care of yourself and you help me take care of myself, that's real care, that's real love.

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As you may have heard, Krista and I wrote a book. It's coming out June 3rd, and you can pre-order it right now. This book is something that we wish we had when we were going through that really interesting kind of crunchy transition between your 20s and your 30s. But honestly, we realized that this time, this experience, these learnings are helping us through times of change even past that almost 30 time. So whether you are almost 30 or beyond it,

Y'all, this book is going to be so supportive for you in times of change and transformation. It's called Almost 30, A Definitive Guide to a Life You Love for the Next Decade and Beyond. And we're just so grateful for your support thus far. Now, why you ask, should you order it now if it's not here until June 3rd? Well, it is important.

One, because it tells retailers that you want this book and it really helps us out to make sure this book isn't in as many bookstores as possible, as many hands as possible. We really want this to change people's lives because you can feel so alone during this time and so like, what the heck should I be doing?

And even better, when you pre-order right now, you get some bonuses. So if you buy one copy of the book, you are going to get a 70-page Saturn Return digital companion guide. This is a beautifully designed guide, basically a part of your survival kit for this astrological rite of passage. It's a tool to help you get specific guidance on how your Saturn return will impact you.

how it's like really hitting your chart. It's designed to help you see your Saturn return as a gift rather than a crisis. It's super supportive and I'm excited for you to dig in. You'll also get a ticket to Camp Almost 30. This is an event we do every single year. The lineup is

phenomenal. You can check it out. Go to almost30.com slash camp, but it is just the best. It's a incredible speakers. Kristen and I are going to be talking about the book and just our experience. It's fun. It's a great way to connect with other people. We know you will love it. And then finally, if you buy two books, you're going to get those two things I just mentioned and

you're going to get access to the Almost 30 mini workshop series, Navigating Your Saturn Return with Kristen Lindsay. It is a step-by-step guide. So not only do you have the digital guide and you're going to be getting the book, but this is really helpful to like be in conversation with us. We're going to give you examples from our own Saturn returns. There's going to be clarity and laughs and moments of like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. So I'm excited for you. You can go to almost30.com slash book and

and learn all about it, pre-order it there and get your bonuses. I want to talk about ego. And I think I'm going through like an ego death moment in my life right now. But just, I think everyone knows what the ego is, but...

I guess sometimes I struggle with some of the teachings are about, you know, ego death, having like no ego. And then some say healthy ego. So I guess what are your thoughts on healthy ego versus no ego? And what are some ways in which the ego shows up in people's lives where they may not notice it? Yeah, great question. Really deep question, actually. In the Gita, it talks about the difference between the real ego and the false ego.

So the false ego is what most of us have had experience of. And that is the feeling of I'm the best. I'm incredible. The arrogance that comes with ego. Everyone else is wrong. I'm right. Only my way works. And it leads to the, well, why are they successful? Right.

Why are they the ones that are winning? They're not even doing it right. So that's where ego shows up in that way. But ego is also the opposite. So ego has this inside out function where it's like, I'm the worst. I have to be the lowest of the lowest. I have to be the hardest treated person in the world. So ego shows up and I'm the best and it shows up and I'm the worst. And that's where the ego wants to be the most of everything it is. So even if it's the most worst, it has to be the most. It can't be like,

I remember one of the guests on my podcast was talking about how like, you know, oh, you've had pain? No, my pain is way worse. And that's ego too. You're competing now on how much pain you've had. And so the ego shows up in both arrogance and in low self-esteem. And it shows up in comparing and complaining and criticizing. And those are considered, in my monk teachers, the three cancers of the mind, which are complaining, comparing and criticizing. So when we...

When we compare ourselves to others, it's our ego showing up and not appreciating them and trying to find superiority by comparing. When we criticize someone else, our ego is trying to make us feel better by making someone else feel worse. When we're complaining about what we've been given, again, our ego is saying this is not enough. So our ego shows up in a multitude of ways.

And thinking that we're going to conquer or defeat our ego in one day, one week or one year is the issue of trying to overcome our ego. Ego is something that is going to last for a long time.

And the goal with ego is to steadily monitor it and let it gradually dissolve. It's not something that you have to shake off. It's not something you have to hate about yourself. It's almost like having a friend in your life, a toxic friend in your life, that's just got so close that you're now slowly trying to let it dissolve. And if you've ever tried to run away from a toxic friend, it doesn't work that way. You don't just shake them off or throw them away. You've got to naturally just let it be purified and dissolved. So...

Ego comes with a desire to control, to hold, to make sure that everything that I do, everything that I say works.

The only way that I've found, and I found three methods that I use consistently to monitor and be aware of my ego, is the first one is I constantly want to be around people that are smarter, wiser, better in many different ways.

And what that does is that it stops the arrogant side because I realized that actually some of these people that are really successful are actually also some of the most humble people in certain areas of their life. And I've seen that across the board that a lot of the successful people that I've met, they have a sense of humility in their life. I'm not saying they're completely humble, but they have humility to want to learn and to grow and to develop. And so that's what I'm saying. If you're surrounded by great minds, you'll always just be like,

wow, I can learn so much from them. The second thing I found is to be humbled by my goals. So I'm always expanding the goalposts, not because I don't want to celebrate where I am, but because I constantly want to challenge myself and see how far I can go. And so that keeps my ego in check. And the third and final one that I've found is to create a

what I call like a council of trust in the people's opinions that I value. See, if you value everyone's opinions,

your self-esteem will be destroyed. But if you only value one person's opinion, who's a yes person or your best friend, then you'll also be misled. And living in a world saying no one's opinion matters doesn't actually make sense. So what I feel is I've surrounded myself in each area of my life, whether it's spiritual, business, friendship, relationship, where I have a group of counsel, like a group of mentors whose opinions I value, who will tell me the truth, who can always make me aware of

of, of where my ego is at. So I was, I was, I was, uh, I was asked recently to coach someone. I was working with them and they were talking to me about ego. And I was telling my teacher, uh,

about this person. And my teacher said to me, "Oh, it's so lucky that you're getting to coach them on your own issue." And I was like, "Whoa." I was like, "That was deep." - I love that. - That's the kind of person you want. And I trust my mentor enough to say that to me. - Totally. - So I didn't feel like, "Oh, he doesn't get that I'm such a good person." It's like, I've chosen him because I know that if he says it, I will take it. If someone else said it to me, I might not take it.

And that's why you have to build a tribe, a community, a council of people in your life whose opinion does matter. And you have to select them carefully because you like, I don't want my mom in that group because my mom's going to tell me I'm amazing. My mom would never say that to me. My mom like celebrates everything in my life. Right. And so you've got to, you've got to choose them. So I found those really help. And on the low self-esteem part and the comparing and the complaining and criticizing, I genuinely believe this. When you find your,

Passion and expertise and compassion.

you start to value everyone else's passion, expertise, and compassion. The reason why ego beats us into low self-esteem is because we don't know ourselves, so now we want to be everyone. So if I don't know myself, I want to be an athlete, I want to be a singer, I want to be an actor. Whereas when I start doing those things, I'm like, oh, I don't want to be any of those things. I want to be me. And so actually the greatest antidote to ego is getting closer and closer to our real ego, which is who am I? What is my purpose? What is my passion, my compassion, and my expertise?

And so there's a beautiful story in the Vedas that says there's a gentleman who's asked. So the teacher speaks to two people. One's egotistic and one's humble. And he asked the egotistic person and the humble person. He said, go around the world and find one person. Right. Just try and find one person who's better than you.

And the ego person goes outside and goes, I found no one who is better than me. And the humble person goes around and goes, I found everyone was better than me in some way. And what that is, is an appreciation that we all have different skills. And actually, if I know mine deeply, then I'm really excited to celebrate yours. And that's what we're missing in the world is that our egos constantly defeat us.

Because we haven't uncovered our real ego and our real ego is our real purpose. Love a good ego. Yeah, ego is a good copy. Well, because I feel like it's constantly in every season of our life, it's kind of dying in a new way. Dying and being reborn. Totally. You know, it's like it dies and then we grow and then it's just about it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I've never heard the ego is our...

Say the last part again. The ego is our purpose. Yeah. I was saying that the real way of the real, the real ego is our purpose. The false ego is what we're living in right now. And so when you find your real ego, which is your purpose, uh,

the false ego naturally dissolves. So you don't have to like, I always try and, a good example is like, when I used to walk around in India, the things that would scare me the most is I would often come across shedded snake skin and think it was a snake. And I've seen a lot of shedded snake skin. But the interesting thing about snake skin is that

When a snake is growing a new layer of skin, it doesn't just fight off. The old one's not just ripped off in a moment. It grows the new and it sheds the old. And so our ego has to be shedded naturally and gracefully. And it doesn't have to be something that we fight every day because if you're fighting it, you're going to get exhausted. Yeah.

Like the ego will just find another crack in you to find another way. And so trying to fight it, you'll just get exhausted. But trying to just find your purpose, it will just naturally start to dissolve. Yeah, I was going to ask about your relationship container, like as far as communication goes. I'm sure, I mean, you have so much going on. And so to be able to be present and communicate and really hear her needs, her

her, your, your needs? Like, what does that look like? Do you have anything that you do that you're like, this works every time? Yeah, no, that's great. So I'm one of these people that needs to con. So I know, you know, Gary Chapman wrote a brilliant book called the love languages, which I'm sure you've talked about before. And what I'm really interested in, because I was reading a study by the Gottman Institute. So John and Julie Gottman, who are married, have an incredible research Institute. They're both wonderful people and they research relationships.

And one of the studies that they found was that the number one skill that kept relationships together was not it wasn't date nights. It wasn't grand gestures. It wasn't just communication. It was specifically learning how to fight. And that the number one skill that actually was the skill that kept relationships together was did the couple know how to deal with conflict?

And what I love about it, when I read that, I was just like, that makes so much sense. Because we've always been taught to be the couple that doesn't fight. Like, it's almost like seen as an achievement to say, oh, we never fight. And I'm like, that's just not true. Because whether what you fight about is serious or not serious, even my friends would be like, Jay, you and Radhi never fight. And I'm like, that's not true. We may not fight about big stuff. We don't have any, like, thankfully, you know, we don't have any big issues, but we have big

issues. We fight about stuff. We disagree on a ton of stuff. We're actually very different people. I'm like this go-getter, super ambitious, rebellious person. And she's like grounded, wants to be in one place, really simple life. You know, if she had it her way, we'd be living one mile radius away from her parents' home, which is what she wanted. We now thousands of miles away in LA compared to London. And so we're very different people. And the number one thing that's worked is whenever there's been an issue with

I've, I've, I think I've, I've been the one who's pushed it, but I've always been like, let's figure out what we want this to look like. Like, what do we want this to look like? And if we don't both want it to look like the same thing that we need to figure out what it will look like if it's different. And so for me, it's always like sitting down and going, not how to solve this issue, not how to solve this relationship. What do we want this relationship to feel like and look like? And are we both committed to getting there?

So for me, I told her, I was like, I never want to wake up next to someone that I don't feel excited to wake up next to. So if we're not creating that relationship...

I can't be in it. Like, it's not going to last long for me. Do you have the same vision? And if she does, then that's going to come with certain things that we're both going to have to do to get there. So for me, it's visioning what you want and realizing what that takes rather than getting so lost in the current issue and the current problem that, that kind of can be insignificant most of the time. And, and so I think creating a vision of what you want it to look like and being really specific. So one of my favorite ones is, um,

I really believe that the biggest miscommunication in relationships that we've had and something that's worked for us is defining words and language. So one of the biggest challenges in a relationship is someone says to their partner, I want more of your time. I want more of your time. Now, time is a huge word. Today, we've spent time together, but we've also given each other what's more important, which is our presence and our energy. Now, I could have given you my time and I could be on my phone right now.

And you could be on your laptops right now doing work. And guess what? We've all spent time together. And there's a reason why couples go away on a whole weekend.

And one of them is thinking, oh, we spent so much time together. The other one's going, I want more of your time because they didn't get any energy or presence. So to me, it's like when Raleigh's asking for something, I'm like, what does that mean? And what does that practically look like? Like, what is that? So male. What does that actually look? Yeah. It's Justin too. What are you saying? Yeah. What are you actually saying? And Raleigh, thankfully has been able to explain what she expects and

And it sounds like the most basic thing, but we don't push each other to be really expressive. So for me, when we were trying to figure out our dates in the beginning, I was like, what do we actually like doing together? Because every time we went to a dinner and a movie, it just didn't feel right. And then when we'd go shopping, like because we both enjoy...

fashion and clothes, I realized that I didn't love going shopping with her because I wanted to shop too. And, and maybe I'm one of the rare guys who really enjoy shopping, but I do. And, and then, so I'd be like, Oh, I'm just spending my day in a waiting room in a store that I don't want to be in. And so we still, and then we figured out that we loved, we love doing activities together. So we love going biking together. We love being outdoors together, or we love being, you know, doing something physical together. And so that came through just

the process of elimination and communicating. And there's a great study by Harvard, which you can Google. It's called the, I call it emotional vocabulary. I think Harvard call it their emotional table. And what it does is it shows like when people ask us, like, how are you doing? Most of us define our life with five words, good, bad,

Bad, okay, fine, hmm, right? So it's like, how's your day been? Good. How's your week been? Bad. How are you doing? Fine. And so our emotional vocabulary with our partners and everyone is so limited. And so the Harvard table shows you the synonyms and the breakdown of every core emotion.

So instead of saying, I'm feeling sad today, are you offended? Are you irritated? Are you upset? Are you confused? Are you anxious? Like there are so many other words to describe the word sad. And with our partners, that's the place where we really need to experiment with this, where it's like, let me really articulate because the problem is you're saying sad because you don't even know what you're feeling.

And so getting really connected to our emotional state is the only way I think you can have really clear ways of dealing with conflict in a relationship and having a really clear vision of what you're both expecting. And that vision, if it doesn't align, you have to ask yourself if you're both okay with that. And if you are, great. But if you're not, you've got to accept that that's still what it's going to look like. Yeah, that is so true. I think sometimes when...

What in a relationship conflict comes up because we put so much on the other to tell us how we're feeling, make us feel better. Yeah, just so much on the other person. And I've realized in my relationship now.

I know it's healthy because it's making me, it's like kind of putting it back on me, which is good. You know, like understanding that there's so much that I've always put on other people to define for me. Yeah. And now it's time to define it for myself. Totally. And that's the thing. You're spot on that. If you define it for yourself, someone else is going to understand you better.

And when they understand you better, they may actually give it to you. And that's the point, that if you can't articulate what you're going through to yourself, then there is no chance your best friend, your husband, wife, partner, whatever it is, is going to understand you. Totally. And then on RTT, you said...

It's us versus the problem. Yeah. So that's just so. Yeah. That that that insight is, you know, something that I realized with Radhi was like, I just always used to say to her, it's like it. We have to stop thinking that we are fighting and that together we're solving this thing. And you're a team. That's the point of that statement that you together are a team.

But when you are fighting, you think you're on opposite teams. And when you're on opposite teams, that means if I win, you lose. And if you lose, I win. So when you're on opposite teams and you don't see yourself as a team, then that means one of you has to win and lose. And so if I'm right, you're wrong. And if you're wrong, I'm right. And so that's what thinking you're against each other creates. Whereas when you go, no, actually, we want to work. And that's what I'm saying, having a collective vision and saying, this is the vision we want.

This is the relationship we want, which means we're a team. So what is that now going to take? Now we both need to be right. Now we both need to win. And that's what it is. Why not win together? Why not win? Why do you want to win and make your partner lose? That's not a healthy way to build a relationship. If I want my wife to lose, we're both losing. And if she wants me to lose, then we're both losing. So you have to want to win together. And that's where you use your competitive skills

ambitious spirit and engage it in that way you don't have to give it up in a relationship yes it's an it's really empowering just like step in and just say we got this together yeah completely

Thank you so much, Jay, for coming on Almost 30. Thank you for being such a support for us over the years. This episode was to celebrate him and celebrate his blurb that he wrote in our Almost 30 book, which is out in June. You can pre-order it now and get a Saturn return guide, which will tell you everything you need to know about Saturn in your specific chart.

You can also get a ticket to camp. Roddy, his wife, Jay's wife, has been a speaker at camp in the past. It is our most popular online virtual event that you can come to for free when you buy the book. And then we also have, for people that order two copies, a masterclass with Lindsay and I. So this is going to really support you in times of change. Everything that we've done to transform our lives from being lost to being

to lives that we love is in this masterclass. So almost30.com slash book, almost30.com slash book. And again, this is Jay Shetty for Almost 30 Podcast, and we will see you on the next one. Bye everyone. Bye.