On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 6 Step Plan To Block Social Media From Controlling Your Life And Mind
Episode Date: September 22, 2023How many of us spend our free time on social media? Do you find yourself becoming unproductive because of it? Today, we will unravel the ways in which social media can subtly control our minds and lif...estyles. The journey begins by acknowledging that if we don't learn to use technology consciously, it can end up consuming us entirely. Step by step, we navigate through practical strategies to regain control and create a healthier relationship with social media. These strategies guide us toward fostering more meaningful interactions, like detaching from devices during social gatherings, creating 'no technology' zones in our homes, and engaging in curious and vulnerable conversations with loved ones. We also learn the importance of transforming from passive consumers to active creators. In this episode, you'll learn: How addictive social media can be How to develop a healthy screen time How to spend your time more productively How to make genuine connections in person Through these steps, we embark on a transformative journey towards mastering technology, ultimately reclaiming our presence and connection in the digital age. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:14 How does social media control your mind and your life? 06:57 If we don't learn how to use technology, it ends up consuming us 10:42 Step #1 On social media, people talk about themselves 80% of the time 12:39 How can we shift into connecting with others on social media? 15:51 Step #2: Do activities without your phone with your friends 20:00 Step #3: Create a ‘no technology’ zone in your home 23:14 Step #4: Have more curious, vulnerable conversations with people you love 24:59 Step #5: Become a creator not a consumer 26:45 Step #6: Having alternatives is easier than setting blocks Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Attachment and a version are two sides of the same coin, right?
This idea that attachment if I'm addicted to something, if you're trying to push it away
and reject it, it's as strongly present in your life.
Right?
If you love someone and you hate someone, you almost think about them equally.
If you hate someone with that same obsession or that same intensity as you love someone,
you almost think about them as much as you love someone.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
Thank you so much for being here right now.
I am so grateful for your time, your energy, your presence.
And this is one of those themes that I'm really excited I get to address with you today.
I think that I'm reading more and more searches, more and more trends, more and more articles about how
social media is negatively affecting on mental health. And as someone who creates a lot on social
media, who's sharing a lot of insights and ideas on social media, I want to help you navigate
and understand how you can use social media so that it stops using you.
And today I'm going to give you a step-by-step plan to block social media
from controlling your life and your mind. And I want to start off by saying this.
All new technologies are always going to catch us off guard. They're always going to surprise us.
There's always going to be pros and cons. It was the same as when TVs arrived, then color
TVs, radios, the internet, right? There's always been fear. It's always affected us positively
and negatively. But what I've understood is that a lot of the times we spend a lot of our energy talking
about the challenges, the stresses, the pressures, the fears of what this new technology brings.
I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but often we spend such a high amount of our time
on the issue that we don't really talk about how to maneuver, navigate and guide ourselves
through with what is happening inevitably. Right? Social media happened and is happening. AI has
already happened and is happening. And I think unless we can truly understand how we fit into a world where it exists. It's really difficult for us to take
steps forward. We can't just keep talking about the challenges and the issues. We have to use
the challenge and the issue, which is what I'm going to attempt to do today and then give you
solutions, actions and a plan to transform that. Now, just to make it really, really clear,
because maybe some of us are thinking,
oh, it doesn't affect me that much, or it's okay, or maybe you're listening right now, and you're saying,
this is exactly what I need right now. Right, if you're someone who spends too long on social media,
if you're someone who's feeling a lot of fomo, if you're someone who's feeling more stressed and
anxiety about your social media usage, you're in the right place. So this study blew my mind. 46% of respondents
indicated that social media makes them want to permanently change a part of their body through
surgery. Now I'm raising that not because I have any issues with surgery. I'm raising that because
it just shows the level of impact. This isn't just an idea. It's an ideology
that makes us want to physically permanently change something because of what we're seeing,
because what we're exposed to. Now listen to this. 89% of respondents indicated that they
feel unsatisfied with their life and comparing it to others on social media. Raise your hands if you felt that way.
Raise your hands if that thought has crossed your mind many many times. I think we all have that thought.
32% of respondents indicated that they feel addicted to bad news online. How many of us know that when we see bad news, we share it more, we comment more, we talk
about it more, we hang out with our friends more, it's fascinating to me.
Now, why am I sharing these three things?
I know we all do them.
And you know what the biggest challenge is?
We want to completely eliminate the thought.
Here's the truth. You can't eliminate the thought. You can only have a response to it.
You can't eliminate ever having a thought about FOMO or bad news, you will have it. It will always be your instant response,
because that's how we've been conditioned for years. All you can change is how quickly
you have a response that's healthy, right? So the unhealthy thought of I feel unsatisfied
with my life, which doesn't make you feel great about yourself, right? It doesn't make you feel good about yourself.
That boy is going to keep recurring for probably most of your life.
But that's not something to get discouraged about.
What we need to recognize is at the same time, if we can say, I don't feel satisfied with
my life and ask the question, but I'm going to figure it out.
What is it? What would make me feel satisfied with my life and ask the question, but I'm going to figure it out. What is it? What would
make me feel satisfied with my life? Because guess what? It's not just doing what that person's
doing. I don't really want to go to that party. I don't really want to be invited to that
event, but I'm saying that there's a part of my life that's not satisfying. And that's
the really interesting trick or switch that we need to make. Right? We're not really
saying, are we really saying that's the life we want? Or if we stop to think about it, we're just
saying, no, there's a life I want, but I'm not there yet. Right? You are going to respond
to bad news. It's how our brains are wired. You're going to see bad news and become attracted
to it. And you're going to want to talk about it. But how about next time you're with your friends and you start a conversation,
you purposely propose a positive news topic.
You say, Hey, did you see this?
Did you see this amazing video of this little kid?
Did you see this incredible thing that this person did in the media?
How about you become that switch?
I want you to try it out for seven days.
Please, please, please, please, please, because what we don't understand is when we talk negatively about other people,
we're then more fearful of people talking negatively about us, right? If there's been the latest
scandal, the latest issue, we're diving into the gossip. It feels like it doesn't affect us. I
promise you it does because you now become less vulnerable
about your challenges with your friends because you don't want to be the talk of the town.
Here's what I want to add as our direction for today. If we don't learn how to use technology,
it ends up consuming us. We're not trained how to interact with new technology. And on top of all
of that, it's designed to be addictive. And therefore, we have to be more careful when we interact
with it. I find it really fascinating that addictive substances are generally bound by age. So
you have to be 18 to smoke, right? And nicotine is one of the most accessible legal drugs, and it's also
one of the most addictive. And most people who smoke just a few times will get hooked.
And only a very few people are able to smoke occasionally without being addicted. Now,
what's really interesting is I feel that way about social media, right? You only have
to use social media a few times before you're addicted. It's not something that's like
a slow burner, more like alcohol, which is kind of like this. You don't get immediately hooked, but it takes
a longer period of time. Social media, I think we'd all agree, is far more instant.
And what's really interesting is when you look at the relationship,
we understand that what's happening chemically is the release of dopamine. And studies show that
scientists used to think
that dopamine was a pleasure chemical in the brain,
but now we know it actually creates desire.
Dopamine causes us to seek, want, and search.
And the pull of dopamine is so strong
that studies have shown tweeting is harder for people
to resist than cigarettes and alcohol.
You know, you'd have to be
21 to be on social media, but our brains are not fully developed when we're using it and it's
more addictive. So I also want to take that as a point of empathy and compassion with yourself
that if you, your child, your niece, your nephew, your cousin is struggling with social media addiction,
please don't see that as a weakness. Please don't see that as a weakness.
Please don't see that as your fault. It's designed to do that. And I think when we stop
gifting ourselves, we have the opportunity for growth. When we stop making ourselves feel
bad about something, we might actually be able to make a good choice. Right? Think about that.
Listen to that again. When we start making ourselves feel bad about something,
we can actually start making better, good choices. Right? And it's just interesting how we've given
access to something that is so addictive to everyone. Think about gambling, right?
Gambling activates the brain's reward system, which is powered by dopamine. And dopamine is a neurotransmitter inside the brain that reinforces sensations of pleasure
and connects those sensations to certain behaviors or actions.
So we're getting locked in that loop, right? You go on social media, you see someone
like to post, you comment, you get that dopamine reward, bang, I'm going to keep using it,
keep using it to get that same dopamine reward. And the way it works is you have to keep doing more and more and more to get the same level
of benefit.
It's not like you do more and you get more benefit or more excitement.
It's almost like you've got to do more every time to get the same level of excitement.
So we have access to something very addictive.
And if you're addicted or if you're struggling, that is not your
fault. It is natural. And today's all about saying, well, how can I actually develop a
healthy relationship with something which has benefits, which has pros, which can benefit
my life in many, many ways. But how do I make sure that that's what I'm getting out
of it? And that's really what life is about overall is saying this exists. How
can I interact with it in a way that it's beneficial to my existence? So let's dive in.
One of the first things I read which blew my mind in this study is that people talk about
themselves around 30 to 40% of the time in person. If you're an in person conversation, you're going to talk about yourself 30 to 40% of the time in person. If you're an in-person conversation,
you're gonna talk about yourself 30 to 40% of the time.
It's the other time you're talking about them,
and maybe you're talking about a world event, right?
So if you're talking about yourself 30 to 40%,
they're talking about themselves 30 to 40%,
that's 60 to 80%.
And then the rest of the 20 to 40%
is about what's happening in the world.
Check this out.
On social media, people talk about themselves 80% of the world. Check this out. On social media people talk about themselves 80% of the time.
80% that's double what we do in real life. So when we receive a notification of positive
feedback, we feel a positive sensation from dopamine. But let's look at that the other way.
When you get a negative comment, it has a negative interaction.
What I'm really learning here, and I looked into some more of the research, and it says
that talking face to face is messy and emotionally involved.
And we don't get the time to do what psychologists call self-presentation or positioning yourself.
So in social media, we get to position ourselves how we want,
as opposed to in real life, when you have to do it in the moment, we struggle to do that.
Now, the challenge with that is also that when we position ourselves and we take a lot of time
to curate ourselves, but then people don't like the way we curate ourselves, that causes an issue.
Right? Just as we like the positive feedback, of course, we get negatively
affected by the comments. And 62% of people say they feel better about themselves when people
react positively to what they post on social media, but of course, we know the same is true
for the negative. So what are we trying to say here? We're trying to say that we're basically more self-obsessed on social media
We're more self-focused and that ends up creating rewards, but it also ends up creating issues
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Something about Mary Poppins? Something about Mary Poppins.
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Oh man, this is fun.
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That's awful, and I should have seen it coming.
Here's our one us to shift.
How can we shift to focusing on connecting with others on social media?
How can we comment positively on other people's posts?
How can we truly feel excited for others? This is the real
question that we're struggling with because we get so self-obsessed, which makes us more amplified.
It's almost like putting a magnifying glass on the self, which means the positives get
it's bigger and so does the negative. But it's actually the struggle that we have is how do we
actually feel more excited about other people's joy? Here's a few things I want to share with you. Someone else's joy
Does not take away from your opportunity for joy. There is no cap on the amount of people getting married in
2023 there is no cap of the amount of billionaires or millionaires or
financially free people in 2023 or 2024 for that
matter. The world has made us believe that there is a finite number of seats. There's limited
availability. There's VIP and then there's normal. The special seats, the last seats, the final
few, it sold out right this language has created this belief of scarcity
that there is less and less and less opportunity for you to live the life you want. And I want
to remind you this, there is unlimited opportunity, there is no limit, there is no cap on any of
the things you pursue. There's your start. Maybe you have to wait a bit longer.
Maybe it's not your turn this time,
but I promise you that someone else winning
does not mean you're losing.
And this is something we have to remind ourselves off daily
when someone else is winning that does not mean you're losing.
And instead of feeling envious and jealous
when someone else is winning, study them,
study, learn, take notes, learn about their struggle, learn about their journey, learn about
what they did to get there, whatever that may be. Because when you study and you understand the
struggle, you no longer feel envious, you recognize that it took a lot out of them.
And you're ready to go down that same path. So we have to shift our focus on how we view others
and how we view ourselves. I think we spend too much time on social media thinking about ourselves.
And we need to kind of get back down to that 30 to 40%. If we're on social media,
spending 30 to 40% of time on ourselves, but then 30 to 40% of time
supporting our friends, supporting others and maybe 20% of time making sure we follow and unfollow the right places like I have blocked
muted unfollowed so many things that I don't want to see on a daily basis
because I know that they trigger certain responses and that's really important. Are you aware of what triggers you
down a negative path? Are you aware of what sets you off? Right? Who are those pages?
I literally know the page when it pops up if it ever does again. And I say, okay, now
no wonder I'm feeling this way. Okay. Number two, this one's really, really important
to me. And and this one is something that I think we underutilize. And I'm sure you've
heard this before, but I just want to reiterate it because I find it becoming so common. Please
do activities without your phone when you're with your friends like dinners, lunches,
brunches, like put the phone away and put it away together. Make it a ritual where you all put it
in a bowl at the beginning, you all put it away and your own bags or someone's bag at the beginning, like, make a commitment out of it. Make a commitment out of it because
we all know that everyone starts a good conversation, phones on the table, take phones off the
table, take the phone off the table and keep each other accountable to this because it's
so easy for when someone says, I'm going to the bathroom, you just take your phone out.
I've been forcing myself to not take out my phone in gaps.
It's hard for me too, by the way.
The gaps are the easiest time for me
when someone's gone to the bathroom
or I'm getting in the elevator.
I've been trying really hard to not distract myself
with my phone and use it in that way.
And instead to just be present,
listen to the music in the elevator,
to observe the cool clothes someone's wearing next to me, to take a moment at a restaurant, to just look
at the menu, to just take in the sense and the sights. It's really hard to do this, but
it's so important that we get used to not using our phone as a gap filler. And you'll
say to me, Jay, well, how do I do that? Because my natural instinct is to pick up my phone.
Make your background on your phone saying put down your phone, put it away, right? Whatever you
need is that reminder. When you take it out, right? When you first take it out and you're
about to start scrolling, just take a moment to set the habit of when you pull your phone
out to ask, why am I here? Do I actually need anything from this? And it's going to
feel weird at first. It's going to feel weird at first.
It's going to feel strange at first, but I promise you that the more you can actually create that
distance between you and your phone in those gaps, the more you're going to start feeling peace in
ease, and you just need to try it a few times to feel it. A study found that 94% of participants
reported feeling troubled when they didn't have their phone. 80% were jealous
when someone else used their phone and 70% expected to feel depressed, panicked and helpless
if their phone went missing or they couldn't find it. A study found that 89% of undergraduate
students experienced phantom vibrations. This is the perception of vibrations from a mobile device
that isn't vibrating.
People crave receiving notifications so much that they start imagining them, right?
And this is why we have to get out and do activities where you don't even think about your
phone, like ping pong tennis, pickle ball, walks, hikes, getting out there into nature with
friends, with family. You won't even think about your phone,
you won't even need it because you have to use your body
in mind at what's happening now is we're doing more activities
that don't require our 360 presence.
For example, if I'm playing pickleball,
if I'm playing ping pong or tennis or whatever it may be,
I can't be on my phone and hold a racket at the same time.
It's just not possible.
If you're into golf, if you're into football or soccer or whatever it may be, you're
not going to be able to be on your phone at the same time.
And you could be out there for two, three hours, right?
And we're doing too many activities where you can be watching TV while you're on your phone.
You could be cooking while you're on your phone, right?
You could be doing so many other things while you're on your phone while you could be cooking while you're on your phone, right? You could be doing so many other things while you're on your phone while you're talking
to someone else.
And the more we take time every day to do activities where it's just physically impossible that
you're incapable of doing it while you're on your phone, especially sports is such a great
way of getting outdoors and being away from it.
And that's where we're training ourselves
to have extended periods of time, right?
If I just told you, just sit in your house
and don't be on your device, it's not gonna work.
And so we have to find that alternative.
We have to find a way of being off our devices
in a way that's fully present.
I know that I can play pickleball for three hours
and then I'll go back to my phone and I'll think,
wow, like, you know, I didn't even miss my phone. Now the next one, we all know we need to reduce usage
and this is something I want to talk about because a lot of us think we need to completely stop
using social media. Now that can be useful in small periods, but overall we need to
pick up build a healthy relationship and a healthy relationship is not a version. There's a beautiful quote in the Bhagavad Gita which says that attachment and a version are two sides of the
same coin, right? This idea that attachment, if I'm addicted to something, actually, if
you're trying to push it away and reject it, it's as strongly present in your life, right?
If you love someone and you hate someone, you almost think about them equally. If you hate someone with that same obsession
or that same intensity as you love someone,
you almost think about them as much as you love someone.
And so with social media, if you hate it,
if you're trying to be like, I don't want it,
I want to be away from it,
it's almost like you're thinking about it again.
Now, here's something I want to say to you.
That's really helped me. Now, here's something I want to say to you.
That's really helped me.
No technology zones and times in your home.
And I want you to think about this in a fun way.
You can literally put printout signs with the no phone sign, almost like a no smoking
sign, but with a phone picture, in areas of your home that you want to be
reminded that you have to leave your phone out of. So I remember for me I almost
visualized lasers in certain parts of mine and my wife's apartment and now our
home where it's like okay in the bedroom no phone area right at the dining table
no phone area like what are those areas in your home and literally put up
signs make it fun and silly. Your friends will come over
and they'll have to leave it out as well.
And all of a sudden it's like,
okay, we're in a no phone zone.
We're in a no phone zone in the house.
This area, we're not using it, it could be a table,
it could be a bedside table, it could be wherever you think
it's important for you to disconnect.
Because people who limited their social media use to 10 minutes per day for three
weeks led to lower loneliness and depression.
You think your loneliness may go up if you're not on social media, your loneliness actually
goes down when you reduce your time in social media and reducing social media use to even
30 minutes per day results in significantly lower levels of anxiety, depression, sleep problems,
and of course, phomo. Now, now, I like using social media and I found a way of limiting
my social media in a way that I'm following things that make me happy. I'm following
things that don't give me those negative responses. And that's what it is. It's those, it's
the responses that make us feel unhealthy that we're looking out for.
So I want you to think about the no technology zones
and no technology times in your home, like for me,
an hour before bed and the first couple of hours
when I wake up, there are no technology times.
And I found that the easiest way to do that
is to lock in to my morning routines.
So whether it's my meditation, my reflection, I need to do that is to lock in to my morning routine. So whether it's my meditation,
my reflection, I need to do something in the morning. But I found that my phone just has to be far
away, right? I want point eight literally used to lock my phone in my laptop in my car and I've
got a real alarm clock and it saved the day. Now I want to address phomo. I want to address the idea
that we think that everyone around us is having an amazing life. And the reason we think that is because we don't actually know them.
Our relationships through social media have become shallower.
As your relationship becomes shallower, people tell you less personal intimate information about them.
Therefore, you only have the very non intimate public version of this person.
And that's the version you trust to be reality.
When what's actually happening is there's so much going on behind the scenes
Which is why we need to have deeper relationships with people now
I'm not saying the reason to have deeper relationships with people is to so that you know how sad they are so that you don't have
FOMO but it's a natural impact. It's a natural
Byproduct when you get to know people deeply and intimately you realize we all have so much going on
We have so much stress. You realize everyone's life is not perfect and you say to know people deeply and intimately, you realize we all have so much going on, we have so much stress, you realize everyone's life is not perfect. And you say to yourself,
oh, okay, I get it. We're all struggling. We're all in the same boat. And I want to take
this opportunity to say that to you, I'm in the same boat as you. I have stresses, I
have anxieties, I have challenges, I have problems, I have all of the above, right? And it's so
easy when you don't know someone deeply
to just assume that they're fine.
I remember last year when I was talking about the surgeries
I went through, or you know, on the podcast,
of course, if you listen to me,
we have a deep intimate relationship.
You know I talk about my issues and challenges.
But if someone just follows me on Instagram,
I don't get the context to go this deep all the time, right?
And by the way, I love posting on Instagram. I love sharing what I share.
But the podcast is always giving you more context of what I'm going through.
And so I encourage you to have more curious vulnerable conversations with people
you love, and especially the people you have phomo about, right?
Those people in your life actually get to know them and you start to realize
that their life isn't perfect.
Now this one's a big one for me.
Become a creator, not a consumer.
This is something that has helped me on social media.
I find myself because I'm a creator, I'm often on social media to share as opposed
to to consume.
And there are over 200 million creators worldwide.
And all these creators, 2% which is around 4 million have more than
100,000 followers. While most creators, about 140 million have between 1,000 and 10,000
followers, the idea is when you're creating, you have less time to consume. Also, when you're
creating, you have less time to be on social media because you're actually creating off social
media. And the reason I encourage you to create, not just consume, is your consumption becomes more strategic and effective. You know, watching
things that inspire you, now watching things that help you learn, what's your passion? Go and follow
accounts that really speak to your passion. One of my favorites accounts right now is Amy McNeigh
and her account is called Inspired to Write. She's a writer and an author
and a creativity coach and she posts some of the best advice for creatives. And I think when
that pops up on my feed, it makes my day because it reminds me how I want to create. It reminds
me how I want to show up. Whereas if I'm just following things that don't give me that
reminder, if I'm not making it easy for myself, right? if I'm not making it easy for myself, right?
If I'm not making it easy for myself, then of course, I'm only going to see things that
trigger me and bring me down.
I think too many of us that proportion of things that inspire us, that ratio of the things
we follow between the things that inspire us and the things that trigger us is like for
every one thing that inspire us and the things that trigger us, is like for every one thing that inspires us,
the thing you're seeing like 25 things that trigger us
and that needs to change.
Now I wanna share with you some apps
that may help as well because sometimes we need to
not be limited by the apps we have, by more apps.
So freedom, for blocking distractions and all your devices at once.
This is an article I saw on Zapier.com which gave these great recommendations. Colt Turkey
block up a scheduled system wide blocking. Leach block and G for free browser based website
blocking. Rescue time for time tracking with built in website blocking. Forest for motivating
you to put your phone down, self-control for a
nuclear option, focus for a combination pomodoro, time and distraction blocker, poor block for
distraction blocking with cute animal pictures. Now, I'm not affiliated with any of those apps,
but those are just some that came up through my search that I've heard about being useful for
people. But I've also found, and here's the reality that I found that having alternatives
is better than having blocks.
Blocks is almost like,
it's almost like teasing yourself
where you wanna break through, right?
It's like when your parents told you,
you're not allowed to play on the PlayStation
for this much time,
or you're not allowed to be on your phone for this long.
You just wanna break that rule.
So I don't think rules help as much as alternatives,
and that's why I love that you're turning
to the podcast app,
have an audio book ready to go on your phone.
Have a book on your kindle app on your phone.
That's what I do.
To me, that's what I turn to.
So I used to come into my phone
and go straight to Instagram or TikTok.
I've trained myself to open up
audible or kindle for me to get me doing the thing I want to do.
Now, really all I want is something to do in my gap, right?
Because I want to distract myself.
I'll be busy or whatever it may be.
And I found myself giving myself a healthier distraction is far better than trying
to avoid a distraction completely.
Right?
It's been really, really tough to do that.
So I hope that this episode helps you.
I hope that you try out at least one of these techniques.
I'm so grateful for the energy and time that we get today.
And I want you to have a healthier relationship with social media.
It is going to take a bit of discipline.
It is going to take a bit of work.
And this is the core rule I want to share with you.
Find alternatives.
Find the thing that you're going to choose over the thing that forces you to choose it.
Finding a first choice, making something a first choice is far better than just trying
to resist it completely.
That will break down your willpower and your personal energy and it will just make it way, way harder.
Thanks for listening on purpose. Make sure you leave a review. Make sure you share your
biggest takeaway on stories, on Instagram, on TikTok, in the comments. I'll be looking
out for them and I wish you an amazing day. The One You Feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face.
We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional
resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth.
I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual
teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily.
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I'm Jay Shetty, and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of
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