
Award-winning storyteller, motivational speaker and former monk Jay Shetty spoke to Harpz Kaur on Asian Network Breakfast. He talked about his new book ‘Think Like a Monk’ and gave simple, yet invaluable advice to young people and students on how to strengthen their mental health during the current pandemic.
Jay on strengthening your mental state
“Yeah my number one message would be that right now is the time to strengthen your mental state, because if you can strengthen your muscle in a challenging time, you build that resilience and you build that ability to deal with other challenging times in the future, which naturally as we know with the world there will be. And whether it’s my book or whether it’s someone else, I think it’s really really important…”
Jay on finding speakers to connect with
“And this is my first tip, that everyone finds a body of wisdom, speakers, ideators, thinkers, that they connect with. And it may not be a monk for you, it might be something else, but the point is you need to have thinkers in your life that are introducing you to new ideas, introducing you to new insights that actually help you strengthen your mental health. So that would be the first thing.
And by the way, we’re lucky now you don’t have to go to a class in real life, you don’t have to go to an event. You can do this all online. There are so many incredible ideators, people, thinkers, online that you can learn from delivering courses and seminars and Q&A’s.”
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Jay on T-I-M-E Habits
“The second big tip I’d say to everyone, is that it’s really important to implement four habits into your life and if you do this as a student it will stay with you for life. Like all of us have so many habits ingrained in our life from our student life and these four things are simple, you can do them for five minutes every day and this is from the routines chapter in my book. And so these are the four key habits that we need to do daily, its T-I-M-E which spells out time.
T stands for thankfulness. Taking a moment to just be grateful and not just to feel gratitude and not just to think about it internally but to say it to someone, send that message, send that voice-note, write someone a letter, write that email, express gratitude and you will see your connection change.
The I stands for inspiration. What are you doing every day, whether you’re listening to a podcast, reading a paragraph of a book, reading a quote? What are you reading and doing to be inspired every single day?
The M which is the third one stands for meditation and mindfulness. I think it’s so important that we take out 5 minutes a day where we have no distractions, no phone, tv, and just spend time alone with yourself, and just get to listen to your mind and body.
And then E stands for exercise… And by exercise I don’t even mean the gym, I mean move, go play a sport, have a dance party, whatever works for you.
But if you practice those four simple habits a day, you’ll be using your time really wisely.
Jay on making a difference in someone else’s life
And the third and final habit I’d say is really really focus in on how you can make a difference in someone else’s life. Think about the skills you have, think about the gifts you have, think about the strengths and resources you have and no matter how much or how little you feel you have, try and make a difference in one person’s life every single day and that’s always gonna stay with you.”
Hear Jay Shetty’s full interview on Asian Network Breakfast with Harpz Kaur on BBC Sounds.
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