Jay Shetty: How to “Think Like a Monk”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now picture having just graduated from college and turning down job offers to become a monk. This is exactly what our next guest did. Jay Shetty is now a self-help coach and host of the health and wellness podcast “On Purpose,” drawing on his experience living and studying in an ashram in India. And he wants you to “Think Like a Monk” too in a new book about training your mind for this modern world. And he tells our Hari Sreenivasan we all hold the key to living better.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN: Thanks, Christiane. Jay Shetty, thanks for joining us now. Now, this is going to be a little strange for people, because, if they google you, they’re going to say this guy is all over social media. He’s on Facebook. He’s on Instagram. He’s all over the place. Got a podcast. And why is he talking about thinking like a monk? This is actually, if they don’t know your history, this is stuff that you picked up when you actually were living as a monk for three years.

JAY SHETTY, AUTHOR, “THINK LIKE A MONK”: Absolutely. So, I was born and raised in London. But the three years that I spent living as a monk, I almost see them as school. And then the last seven years since I left, I have been trying to practice and experiment and test the principles and lessons that I learned at monk school. And everything that I share in this book are, things that I have experimented with, things that I have tested, things that have tried out, and have supported and served me and many others that I have worked with in the last seven years. And so I really wanted to share a step-by-step guide to some of these incredible teachings and the wisdom I came across, because, when I first learned about them, I was fascinated that we didn’t have access to these. We don’t have a class called mind class, or we don’t have a class at school called understand your emotions. And this is what I was so fascinated by and wanted to share in a way that was relevant and accessible and practical and, hopefully, slightly entertaining too.

SREENIVASAN: Now, you said in the book that it’s not just possible to think like a monk, but it’s necessary. Why is it necessary?

SHETTY: I think we live in a world today where we’re overwhelmed with noise, right? We know that, whether it’s notifications, whether it’s e-mails, whether it’s messages, whether it’s invites. Whatever it may be, we all get inundated and overwhelmed with requests. And so we’re living in a high-paced, high-energy environment. And the monks’ minds, not only from my experience — and, really, it’s beyond the three hours I spent there — I’m intrigued and completely in awe of monks brains that have been scanned and show the highest form of gamma waves, which are linked to happiness, joy and attention. So, for me, if we’re looking for a kinder, more compassionate, more loving world, then understanding monks’ practices are a great place to start, because they have dedicated their lives to cultivating this mind-set.

SREENIVASAN: You talk about the monk mind vs. the monkey mind.

(LAUGHTER)

SREENIVASAN: And when I look down that list, a few things. Disciplined, that would be monk mind. Distracted, that would be the monk mind. Breaks down negatives, the monk mind. Amplifies negatives, that would be the monkey mind. Looks for meaning vs. looks for pleasure. Single tasking vs. multitasking. I am firmly living in a monkey mind world. I mean, all of the rewards are given to people who can do more things with less time. And it seems like society around us doesn’t value our ability to just stay single-minded and focus, our ability to stay not distracted.

SHETTY: Yes, I would say that the monkey mind rewards us in a short-term and unsustainable way. And that’s really some — why we see the world governed in that way, that sometimes we know that, if we do this, we will get instant gratification or an instant result or an instant pleasure. But then we see long-term burnout. We see long-term stress. We see the long-term fragmentation of relationships and families. And so, for me, it’s really rewiring ourselves up for long-term joy and long-term success. And that requires this transition from the monkey mind, as you really well- explained, to the monk mind. And that journey isn’t easy. But it’s so important if we want to hold on to — I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who wants to reach somewhere and not be able to keep it and not savor it and not accept it and truly allow it to be a part of their lives. So, studies have shown us that very few people in the world can multitask. And we think, by multitasking, we’re doing more. But research shows that single-tasking makes us more productive, effective and creative. So, almost, we have created the wrong representations of what we think something’s going to achieve as well, when, statistically and through research, we’re shown very much the opposite.

SREENIVASAN: So, let’s talk a little bit about the practice. You go out of your way in the book to say, listen, you don’t have to shave your head and go live in an ashram for years to figure this out. What is something that we can do, I guess starting tonight, either — or today, your wakeup behaviors, your good night behaviors? What is a way that you can start to rewire your brain?

SHETTY: I think one of the biggest things for me is how we wake up in the morning. And I read a study that said around 80 percent of us look at our phones first thing in the morning, before we see our partners, and last thing at the night after we see our partners. And so, for me, that’s a really big challenge, because it we’re saying — no one wakes up and says, I want a negative day. Or no one wakes up and says, I really hope I start my day in the negative. Now, what happens is, let’s say you start your day at zero. Let’s — for argument’s sake, you start your day at neutral. And you wake up and you look at your phone and you’re bombarded by news, notifications, media, all of this. You’re now starting your day in the negative. So you’re at like a minus-five. And you spend the whole day just trying to get back to maybe-two or zero. But let’s say you switch those habits. And there are four key habits that I recommend in the book that can be done just for five minutes a day to begin with, and then expand as you gain some confidence and courage. They come in the form of the acronym TIME, T-I-M-E. And these four habits are not any monk habits, but scientifically proven to have a positive impact on our minds and bodies. So, the T stands for thankfulness. When we take a moment when we wake up in the morning to be thankful to one person, not just a feeling of gratitude, but also to express that gratitude, and when that gratitude is expressed in a personalized, specific way, not only does the receiver get joy, but we also get a deep sense of joy as well. So finding time to be thankful is such an important trait, and not just feeling it, not just journaling, but actually sharing it and saying it. The I stands for inspiration or insight. One of the reasons why we feel stuck in life, or we feel like we haven’t moved is because we don’t feel we’re growing and learning. Now, if someone’s listening to a podcast or reading a book or getting an insight from reading their favorite quote or paragraph or prayer when they wake up first thing in the morning, that’s a great grounding habit to make us feel like we’re starting our day already moving forward. The third one is M for meditation. Now, meditation is all out there and people hear about it and have tried it and maybe don’t know if it’s for them. For me, at the core level of it, meditation, at its essence, is just being present with your body and mind. So, ask yourself, how much time do you take out of a week just to spend with yourself? And even if that is five minutes a day or 10 minutes a day, just allowing your body and mind to communicate with you and understand it deeper. And E, probably the most obvious one stands for exercise. And whether you exercise, you use the gym on the treadmill, or whether it’s a sport or a dance party, the movement part of our lives is so important. And, of course, for us, yoga was the biggest bedrock. But even if it’s not yoga, any form of movement is powerful for you. So those would be four core habits that I would start trying to implement in your day and just ask yourself every day, have I made TIME, thankfulness, inspiration, meditation, exercise?

SREENIVASAN: And you also talk a lot about just practice with your breath. Why is that important? And what is it?

SHETTY: So, I’m a big believer. And when I went to monk school, it was one of the first lessons that we were taught, that our breath is something that stays with us from the moment we’re born to the moment we leave. And our breath is also deeply interconnected to every emotion we experience in our life. So even if it’s a positive emotion, we say things like, that’s breathtaking, or that took my breath away. And if something’s a negative emotion, or we’re in anxiety or nervous or late, we always say, let me catch my breath, let me take a breath. And so breath is interconnected. Whether we feel sad or happy, what changes? Our breathing pattern, which means our breath is interconnected to our emotional state. And so when we learn to really understand and navigate our breath, we start being able to truly guide ourselves through the multiple emotions that we feel in a day. So that’s why breath is so important. And it’s crazy that athletes and musicians are all trained in their breath, and they’re practiced to use their breath effectively. But in our own ways, we’re all athletes in our own lives in different areas. And, therefore, we need that training as well.

SREENIVASAN: You talk about a situation when, if you’re — if you get angry, and a lot of people do lots of little things in life, that it only takes a breath to bring it back.

SHETTY: Yes, I feel that a lot of us try and manage anger when we feel angry. And that’s not always a good habit. It’s like being on the pitch or the court on the weekend, right, the playoffs. It’s like being on the court and trying to learn the skill on the court. It’s very difficult. And so what I do recommend is that we try and prep and deeply understand our anger offline. Anger actually is a great signal for some deeper pain we have. So we can unpack that. But if we are in an angry state, and we are about to have — and this is the crazy thing about anger — we say things we don’t mean to people we deeply love. It’s really important at that point to breathe in for a count of four and breathe out for more than four. This will slow you right down and bring you back into alignment. And that’s what really emotions are. Emotions are when we’re out of alignment. And so bringing ourselves back into alignment with our breath allows us to come from a more centered space.

SREENIVASAN: You walked into this monkhood voluntarily. You were drawn to it. You were interested in it. You say you fell in love in a way. Why did you leave?

SHETTY: The biggest reason I left was, I, through all that self-awareness training, came to the realization that my path was not to be a monk. And that’s sometimes the hardest thing. And you may not have that from becoming a monk. But maybe you worked your whole life to become a lawyer. And then, after 10 years in law, you thought, you know what, law isn’t for me, or maybe you worked in the corporate world, and you said, finance isn’t for me. And so we all get to places in our life. And, for me, it was like, I learned so much through my monk life that I realized, I’m not meant to be a monk. I want to be someone who’s out in the world, sharing these insights, connected to society and still trying to keep that balance. I enjoy the challenge of trying to stay true to my monk roots in a noisy world. And that’s something that helps me want to go deeper and strive deeper. And so that was a deep realization. And, at the same time, myself teachers obviously also saw that in me, because, at the time, they recommended that I leave so I could share what I’d learned. So it was almost like a breakup.

(LAUGHTER)

SHETTY: And, at the time, it definitely wasn’t full of hope, or I didn’t have this grand vision or idea or where anything would go. I was stuck and lost and confused. But that’s when all of my monk wisdom came to the rescue. And that’s what I’m trying to share an offer with everyone today.

SREENIVASAN: I wonder. Right now, a lot of people are anxious for so many different things. You have got fires in one part of the United States. You have got floods in another. You have got just fears, whether it’s the pandemic, whether it’s an upcoming election result, and really even a collective selfishness that we might be witnessing. When so many of those big problems that we don’t have any individual control over are around us, how does a monk find a center, a steadiness?

SHETTY: That’s a really beautiful question, Hari. And, also, I think you’re so right. And my love and compassion goes out to everyone who’s deeply in pain or any challenge they’re in right now. Everyone’s lost something, and some people have lost someone. And so it’s really important that we come from a place of kindness and compassion and don’t devalue anyone’s loss or belittle anyone’s pain, because I think that can be really tough right now, when you feel guilty because you feel someone’s struggling more than you. But you also have to honor that pain and accept it and understand it. And that’s an important starting place. But monks find certainty in uncertain times through service, when we extend ourselves to serve, help, support someone else. This doesn’t mean we’re fixing their problems. It doesn’t mean that we can solve their problems. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to eventually just remove everyone’s problems. But being an ear that people can talk to, being a supporter for their children and their education, being someone who delivers groceries to their door, there are countless ways in which we extend ourselves for others who may be on the front line, who may have less than we have right now, who may be elderly and more at risk. There are so many opportunities to serve. And when we choose to serve and extend ourselves — and, by the way, serve in the way we can. And the way you serve may not solve everything. The way I serve may not solve everything, but it’s going to help someone. And that’s what’s important about it. When we take on service, we get perspective. We receive gratitude, and it starts to fill us up and it makes us feel a part of making a difference, even if it doesn’t solve everything.

SREENIVASAN: Whether it’s capitalism or whether it’s systematic kind of structural racism that exists, I mean, the United States and really parts of the world are now facing this reckoning that is bringing to light some of the gross inequities that we’re just seeing play out in front of our eyes. How do we tackle that in a monk mind-set? I mean, what is the thing that Americans need to get to, to, in themselves see that they are part of either the problem or the solution when it comes to these systemic forces?

SHETTY: I think it begins with a deep sense of stillness and space for introspection and reflection. One of the biggest challenges we have right now is that people don’t have the time and the space or don’t feel enthusiastic to make the time and the space in their life to really introspect and reflect, because all of this is deep work. And it’s not going to be solved by a tweet. It’s not going to be solved by a post. It requires us to really go deep within ourselves and ask ourselves, are we a part of the problem? Are we a part of the solution? Where do we fit in? What is our perspective? And that’s not gain just by reading lots of articles or just consuming information. It’s by research, by deep dives into studies and books and looking at history, and then going away, and having time and space to make our mind up. And I do believe that it’s important, as parents, as partners, as CEOs, whatever role we play in society, to take time and space to form our perspectives on these important themes and topics, because, otherwise, our perspective is just made up of noise. And that’s why we feel distracted or we don’t feel we have much to add in these conversations. And so I really feel the monk mind-set in there is to hear, to listen from opposing sides and ideas, and then go away with that and sit with that. And we may say, well, Jay, I don’t have time to do that. I barely have time to do everything else in life. And that very well may be true, and I completely empathize with the lack of time. But, at the same time, I think we have to do it for future generation. If we’re not going to do it for ourselves, we have to do it for our children, we have to do it for our children’s children, because if they don’t see us doing that, then they’re going to repeat all of our mistakes and all of our challenges. And so I think it’s really important that, even if we can’t do it for ourselves or our families or our friends, that we extend ourselves to think about our children and the world that they are going to be raised in and that they’re going to try and influence.

SREENIVASAN: Jay Shetty. The book is called “Think Like a Monk” on “The New York Times” bestseller list now. Thanks so much for joining us.

SHETTY: Hari, thank you so much. Such a pleasure and so grateful for your questions. Thank you.