To Dine For with Kate Sullivan

JAY SHETTY

I'd met people that were rich. I'd met people that were famous. I'd met people that were beautiful and attractive, and I'd met people who were knowledgeable and smart, but I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly happy.

KATE SULLIVAN

He is a global phenomenon, an international thinker, a rare soul.

JAY SHETTY

When I was still and able to be silent, I was really able to hear what I truly wanted, what I truly believed.

KATE SULLIVAN

He's a man who has been turned down, rejected, had doors closed on him. Yet, he stood by his vision, to make ancient wisdom go viral.

JAY SHETTY

And then they said to me, "Well, why don't you start a YouTube channel?"

KATE SULLIVAN

Ah.

JAY SHETTY

And I said to them, I said, "That works for Justin Bieber." I was like, "That works for no one else."

KATE SULLIVAN

And Jay Shetty. But it worked. With 38 million online followers, he's onto something big.

JAY SHETTY

What if we woke up tomorrow with only what we were grateful for today?

KATE SULLIVAN

Today, bestselling author, podcast host, and former monk, Jay Shetty is giving me a fresh perspective, at a restaurant that gives him calm and clarity in the chaos.

JAY SHETTY

Taking a moment just to be grateful to every person who's been involved in allowing this plate to be in front of us.

KATE SULLIVAN

Over his favorite meal, we drown out the noise of the world and focus inward on what it takes to find our purpose and how thinking like a monk can help us tackle so many of the stresses of everyday life.

JAY SHETTY

And it's almost like, if you people-watch yourself, there's so many beautiful things you learn about yourself. And I think we miss out on that when we're externally people watching and not taking the journey inward. *

KATE

What's better in life than a bottle of wine, great food and an amazing conversation? My name is Kate Sullivan and I am the host of To Dine For. I'm a journalist, a foodie, a traveler, with an appetite for the stories of people who are hungry for more. Dreamers. Visionaries. Artists. Those who hustle hard in the direction they love. I travel with them to their favorite restaurant, to hear how they did it. This show is a toast to them and their American dream. To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... * * * We feed the world with purpose, a purpose to raise expectations, set new standards, and lead the way. * * Today, I'm on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood on my way into a restaurant called Fresh on Sunset, vegan, organic, healthy. I'm meeting one of the leading voices in the mental health wellness space. His name is Jay Shetty, and I can't wait for you to meet him. Jay, how are you? Can I do a bow? Absolutely. That's so wonderful.

JAY SHETTY

I'm smiling underneath.

KATE

Me too. This is one of your favorite spots, right? Yeah. Thank you so much. The Sunset Strip, a Los Angeles icon, a one and a half mile stretch in West Hollywood, known for its stylish boutiques, trendy restaurants, and swanky nightlife. The spot to see and be seen. Right in the middle of it all is the kind of place you walk into and can't help but exhale. Fresh on Sunset delivers exactly what the name implies, a 5,000 square foot chic modern interior that naturally makes you feel refreshed.

RUTH TAL

This is a place where you want to still leave energized and you know, kind of not bogged down by the food you just ate.

KATE

This Toronto based restaurant chain set up shop in the U.S. in 2019 with the goal to make vegan food mainstream. At its sixth location, Fresh on Sunset offers up craveable plant-based bites. Think vegan food that you wouldn't guess is vegan. All natural, locally sourced ingredients come together in their wraps, burgers, bowls, quinoa onion rings, Buffalo cauliflower. That's right, all of those options, all vegan.

RUTH TAL

To just change the world one dish at a time, one human being at a time.

KATE

30 years ago, Ruth was a self-described hungry vegan who felt like there wasn't anywhere she could go to get a hearty meal. She started off with a juice bar and it grew organically from there.

RUTH TAL

Fast forward, 30 years later, a lot of people like me are now, you know, running beautiful restaurants or you know, brands that are entirely plant-based. But back then it was, I was just considered a freak.

KATE

In a place like Los Angeles, there's no shortage of vegan restaurants to choose from, but this airy calming spot is where Jay Shetty chose to break bread. Or should I say break broccoli? I don't know if I've ever had an entire bowl of broccoli quite like this.

laughter

JAY SHETTY

That's definitely more broccoli than I have.

KATE

It's a lot of broccoli. Jay is a storyteller/ life coach /mogul monk. His videos, podcasts, books, and lectures cover the topics we all worry about, jobs, relationships, stress, and love. Then there are the topics that force his followers to dig deeper, like compassion, motivation, purpose, and service. Today, Jay shares his journey, how a college kid turned monk turned online mindful media mogul captured the world's attention. In this beautiful ambiance, we dine on a Goddess Bowl with steamed bok choy, Swiss, chard, kale, and broccoli topped with house-made taberu rayu, ginger chili tempeh, pickled ginger, and finished off with a little tahini sauce. Tell me, of all the restaurants in Los Angeles that you could have chosen, why Fresh on Sunset?

JAY

When my wife and I first discovered this place, I think we came here four out of seven days in the week, because there was so many things on the menu that we wanted to try, that we were like, okay, we need to go back tomorrow for this, and then Friday for this, and then Saturday for this. And we fell in love with it. It just felt so personal, and I think for us, it almost felt like, oh, we're just going to a friend's for dinner.

KATE

You're vegan?

JAY

Yes.

KATE

The restaurant is vegan, but it's never just about the food. It's always about the experience you have, and clearly they made you feel like family or a good friend.

JAY

I love being in a place that is aesthetically designed for calmness and stillness, and this definitely has it on Sunset.

KATE

You grew up in London, correct?

JAY

Yes.

KATE

And you, at some point in your life had a desire to study like a monk, be like a monk, and a curiosity about the monk life. Where did that come from?

JAY

(laughter) When I was in my teens, I was really fascinated by people who'd been through pain in their life and overcome it. And so I would try and hear from entrepreneurs and CEOs and athletes or anyone that I found was inspirational, and I would go to events or I'd buy books or try and find any piece of content I could. And I ended up being invited to hear a monk speak, and I was thinking, well, what am I going to learn from a monk? Like, what has a monk achieved or what has a monk done? And I had this slight, I had this slight confusion about what I'd really get from this. So I promised my friends, and this is where my mind state was. I promised my friends. I said, "We are only going to go if we go to a bar afterwards." Right? Like that was my level of consciousness at the time. (laughter)

KATE

You were a young guy.

JAY

I was a young guy, I was 18 years old. And I walk in expecting nothing, but it's one of those really humbling moments in your life where you go with no expectation and walk out with everything, and it changed the trajectory of my life.

KATE

There's something bigger than yourself.

JAY

Yes.

KATE

You could live a life in service of others and that there would be a fulfillment that would come from that.

JAY

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think that, now when I look back in hindsight, it was also this feeling and it was more of an emotion and an energy that, when I was 18, I'd met people that were rich. I'd met people that were famous. I'd met people that were beautiful and attractive. I met people who are knowledgeable and smart, but I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly happy.

KATE

Oh, wow.

JAY

And when I met him, I felt that. He didn't have to say anything. He didn't say he was happy. I could feel it in his presence.

KATE

You knew it.

JAY

He had that stillness and it was almost like my 18 year old self said to me, I want that. Like, how do we receive that?

KATE

The pursuit of this type of happiness took Jay's life down a path he never saw coming. At age 18, after that first meeting with the monk, Jay started spending holidays at the monastery. For three years, he split his life in half, straddling two worlds, pursuing his degree in business while shadowing monks in India during school breaks. Then at 21, straight out of Cass Business School, one of London's most elite programs, Jay traded in steak dinners and suits for robes, a shaved head, and sleeping on the floor. He became a monk in India,

waking up at 4

00 AM, meditating for four to eight hours a day, eating simply, studying timeless literatures, and serving others in nearby communities.

KATE

A monk is about taking everything away externally, right?

JAY

Yes. So I shaved my head. We wore robes. You live out of a gym locker, so everything you possess fits into a gym locker sized-

KATE

What were those first couple of weeks like, because it had to have been a bit of a shock?

JAY

At that time, it was hard because I was told I wouldn't be allowed to listen to rap or hip hop music for a week. And I was just like, how am I going to survive? I can't take my MP3 player. I give credit to the fact that the teachers were so inspirational, and I think that's the beauty of mentors in life and coaches and guides in our life, that sometimes it's not even about your motivation being there or your drive, but someone is just so awe inspiring that you're attracted to that life. And I think that's what it was.

KATE

You were following an instinct.

JAY

Absolutely. Yeah, I was following my intuition, and so, what I got out of it when I realized was that, when I was still an able to be silent, I was really able to hear what I truly wanted, what I truly believed, what was truly important to me. We're programmed, whether it's school or society, and some of those programs are great and they serve us really well, and some of those programs take us away from ourselves. And so it's almost like disconnecting from the algorithm of life and saying, well, let me spend some time with myself to really understand what's my priority.

KATE

You explain a monk as a traveler who travels and journeys inward.

JAY

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've said, many years ago, I think, when I was thinking about it and I was thinking that everyone wants to travel, like everyone has this desire to search the world and search the planet. And that's a beautiful desire and I encourage it and I too love traveling, but I found that what I got to do as a monk was not only did we travel externally, but we got to take the journey within. And that journey within is so fascinating because there's such a world to be experienced. And there's a beautiful Sanskrit term named Unter Akash, which means inner sky.

KATE

Inner sky.

JAY

And so there's a inner sky that is abundantly rich that we all get to experience in and of ourselves. And it's almost like if you people-watch yourself, there's so many beautiful things you learn about yourself. And I think we miss out on that when we're externally people watching and not taking the journey inward.

KATE

Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. Look at this.

SERVER

Here we have our Goddess Bowl.

KATE

Looks amazing. Wow. This is your order. This is what you get.

JAY

Yes.

KATE

Oh, delicious.

JAY

And more.

KATE

And more.

SERVER

Side of broccoli and tofu steaks.

KATE

Fantastic. Tofu and broccoli. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

JAY

This is one of my favorite dishes here.

KATE

And this screams health. I'm going to walk out of here on a cloud.

JAY

Do you mind if I say a quick prayer before we eat?

KATE

Absolutely. I would love that.

JAY

Awesome. Okay. I just want to take a moment to be extremely thankful for the amazing company, the incredible food, and taking a moment just to be grateful to every person who's been involved in allowing this plate to be in front of us. And of course, the universe for giving us all the ingredients. Thank you.

KATE

Amen. There aren't many famous monks, right? So at some point in your reflection, you must have realized that part of your purpose was to teach what you learned?

JAY

I was like, well, why didn't we have a class at school called mind school? Or why didn't we have meditation class? Or why didn't we have an understanding of our emotions? Because we spend our kid lives learning about math and geography and history, which is useful, of course, but we spend our adults' lives dealing with emotional stress, mental pressure, and challenges.

KATE

Right.

JAY

And that's why I got inspired to think, well, this needs to be shared in a relevant, accessible, and practical way so that people can change their lives.

KATE

After three years in monk training, Jay was eager to teach what he had learned. But when he came out of isolation, he found a world that had kept moving forward without him. And he couldn't help but ask himself what's so many of us ask, what was he doing with his life?

JAY

And I was almost coming out the other side where I felt behind now because I'd missed out on three years of work. But then realizing that actually what I'd learned at monk school was really practical, and not only was going to help me thrive and flourish was also going to help them. And so I almost felt like I had this gift that was given to me, and now it was my role to give that gift and pay it forward and also apply it for myself. Because by the way, when I came back, I was stressed, stuck, and feeling lost as well, because I didn't know who the prime minister was. I didn't know who'd won the World Cup.

KATE

You were a little out of it.

JAY

I hadn't done small talk for three years. I hadn't had small talk. Monks either try and say meaningful things or don't talk, and so it was a very, very... It was hard for me too, so it wasn't just-

KATE

To adjust.

JAY

Yeah, it wasn't just that I was helping others. It was, I was trying to find my own way to adjust.

KATE

So you thought, you know, people aren't- not everyone's going to want to become a monk, but there are things that I learned that the world needs to know. And at some point you made the decision to do what a lot of young people do, which is become a YouTuber, become a vlogger. Where was that decision made?

JAY

I'm fortunate that, you know, my parents have always pushed me to work hard and I have a first class degree and straight A student, but I go to apply for these jobs and all of them reject me before interview.

KATE

Really?

JAY

Yeah. Surprise, surprise. No one wants someone with monk on their resume for three years. And so I'm really stressed and under pressure because I'm thinking, how am I going to build a life? How am I going to pay bills? How am I going to take care of my family? All the things that you would normally think of.

KATE

Right.

JAY

And finally, I get a job at this consulting firm and I'm feeling really grateful because 40 rejections was tough. I get this job and I start sharing my passion as well as my job. So I'm doing my work, which is consulting and working with companies, but with my friends and my colleagues and directors in the company, I started sharing about my passion in meditation and mindfulness and how it can help people. And within a year, one of my executives asked me to teach a meditation session in front of nearly about a thousand of my colleagues at our summer event. And I'm feeling really nervous because I'm speaking in between or after my CEO in the UK and the rugby World Cup winner, Will Greenwood. And I'm just thinking, I'm like, everyone in this room doesn't have any clue who I am. And I went on stage and it was amazing because there was literally pin drop silence. And my executive said to me afterwards that people enjoyed it so much that I spent a lot of my time at the company after that traveling across the company teaching mindfulness and meditation-

KATE

Wow....on top of my day job. So you were straddling two worlds-

JAY

Absolutely.

KATE

And your path was becoming more clear because they allowed you to do these meditation seminars within this corporate environment.

JAY

Exactly. And I was feeling so grateful that there was a very direct correlation between what I had learned and how this could actually help people in the modern world.

KATE

Yeah. Jay felt the momentum behind his message and decided he needed to take it to the next level, the masses. But he found out quickly that not everyone was ready to adopt the monk mindset.

JAY

I started pitching my idea of a wellness series around mindfulness and meditation of videos before I'd made one to entertainment companies and network companies and media companies in London. And so 10 media companies rejected me in London because they said you don't have any communications background or presenting background or media background.

KATE

The rejections kept coming. Jay found himself with a business degree from a prestigious university, a passion to follow his purpose, to teach the monk mindset, and no one who wanted to give him a chance. He was four months away from being broke, but wasn't ready to give up yet.

JAY

And that's when I started thinking about media because I thought, well, media is free, everyone can access it, and so everyone can learn. And then I finally went to a ethnic minority TV training day that was running in London. I walked in, there was six people, everyone was from an ethnic minority, and we were being trained in presenting. And I went and they were just like, "Jay, you've got some really good skills, and we see some natural talent." And so I was like, "Okay, give me a job, give me a job." And they were like, "Well, there are no jobs in media right now." And then they said to me, "Well, why don't you start a YouTube channel?"

KATE

Ah. And I said to them, I said, "That works for Justin Bieber. That works for no one else." And Jay Shetty. Just like Justin, once the public discovered Jay, they were hooked. Jay's plan to take the monk message to the mainstream went viral. In 2018, he had the number one video on Facebook with 360 million views.

roaring applause

KATE

Jay's online community is now 38 million strong, and his podcast has more than 52 million downloads. Not too shabby for a guy who, quote, "didn't have the experience." So I'm wondering, like, what do you think it was about your content? Do you think it resonated in the way that that first monk resonated with you? I mean, what's your secret sauce?

JAY

I think what happened was I was really inspired by two statements. So one of them is by Einstein, and he said that if you can't explain something simply you don't understand it well enough. And for me, that was a positive challenge to myself to try and say, well, how can I really, really explain this? How can I really understand it? How can I truly internalize it and experiment with it so I can share it?

KATE

You talk a lot about the concept of dharma, which I think is fascinating. It is sort of like a sister to finding your purpose, but not quite. Can you explain?

JAY

Absolutely. So, dharma can be translated to many different things in English, but two of my favorite ones are eternal purpose or inherent nature. It's something that you have within you that can be discovered, that can be amplified, that can be brought out, and that's really what dharma is, is that it's bringing out what's already natural to you. And I'm a big fan of Einstein-

KATE

Clearly.

JAY

So I'll talk about Einstein a lot. But he once said that, "Everyone's a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it's stupid." And I think a lot of us struggle with self-esteem and confidence because we're a fish trying to be a bird or a bird trying to be a lion.

KATE

I love that analogy.

JAY

We're looking around at everyone else going, well, I need to become what he or she's doing, and I need to do what they're doing. And so we keep projecting externally-

KATE

We're comparing.

JAY

We're comparing.

KATE

We're a culture of comparison and envy.

JAY

Can you imagine if a lion wanted to be a bird, what a lion would miss out on?

KATE

You know, people talk about finding their passion, but there's another step according to dharma, right?

JAY

Yes.

KATE

There's another step that actually would lead to a happier, more fulfilled life. I'm really fascinated because your success has been amazing and it has been exponential. And I imagine that there are so many different forces competing for your attention now, especially as you talk about your book and you're on social media. How do you stay present, connected, and not let the world affect you?

JAY

That's a great question, and the honest thing is it's a daily practice and a daily prayer, and it's humbling yourself in front of the energy of the world and realizing that you won't beat it by trying to overcome it. You overcome it by going inward and monitoring and navigating. And what I mean by that is we would have this analogy through the text called seeds and weeds. And the goal was that, every thought in our life is either a seed or a weed, and seeds grow to be beautiful flowers or trees and fruits, and weeds grow to be weeds and they can take down seeds. And so every day we have to reflect on every thought or as many thoughts as are the most prevalent thoughts and ask ourselves, is this a seed or a weed?

KATE

Wow, that's good.

JAY

And if it's a seed, let me keep watering it. And if it's a weed, let me pull it out. Let me remove that thought.

KATE

When you look at all your success, in success empirical terms, right? Like amount of people who are watching, the fact that you've really built from scratch an enormous platform. What do you think about that personally? Does it surprise you?

JAY

I feel grateful and humbled and amazed every single day by the love that I receive because I never planned for it.

KATE

Well, I am just so incredibly inspired and grateful for your time here, Jay. Thank you. Thank you.

JAY

Thank you. I'm so grateful as well.

KATE

After a nourishing meal with Jay, we head to a place Jay comes often to clear his mind and reconnect with the source. I couldn't imagine ending my time with Jay Shetty without doing something that is part of his everyday life.

JAY

So, today we're going to try a short breath work exercise, which is a great place to start meditation. All we're trying to is connect our presence and our attention to our breath. So what we're going to do is place our left palm on our stomachs and our right palms in our hearts and we close our eyes. And as you breathe in, feel your stomach come out, and as you breathe out, feel your stomach go in. Whenever your mind wanders, just gently and softly bringing your awareness to your natural breathing pattern. What we're doing is we're aligning our body and our breath, breathing in and out with synergy and connection. And when you're ready in your own time at your own pace, you can gently and softly open your eyes.

KATE

Wow. I needed that.

JAY

Thank you. I think we all need a bit of silence in our days and a bit of stillness and just realigning.

KATE

You're such a gift. Thank you so much.

JAY

Thank you so much, Kate.

KATE

What an incredible afternoon I spent with Jay Shetty, a man who's deep curiosity and hunger for more led him to a long and fruitful journey inward, in the ashram, sitting in silence, seeking the stillness, finding answers. It is now his life's mission to show others what he learned. In a world of noise and competition for our attention, isn't it something that ancient wisdom is what brought him supreme success? Jay shows us the answers are waiting for us. The question is, do we have the patience to listen. For more information on the guests, the restaurants, and the inspiring stories of success, please visit the website ToDineForTV.com, or you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... * * * We feed the world with purpose, a purpose to raise expectations, set new standards, and lead the way. *