On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Today, our guest is none other than Susan Cain, the author of Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which spent seven years on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over 40 languages.

There's a beautiful book called Wherever You Go, There You Are. I love that book. I had meditated a long period of time before I read it, but I remember reading it feeling like this is the best, both introduction to meditation and reminder of the power of meditation, regardless of where you are in your meditative journey.

I think about JD Salinger one of my favorite books is Catcher in the Rye Jay he only wrote one book and then he checked out into a subterranean passage in New Hampshire and he probably wrote I think was 30 other books but he never published one of them so how do you develop this kind of philosophy well you stop plugging in to the cultural majority and doing whatever everyone is doing and you do you take a radical act and you start thinking for yourself and I think that's the power of the eight forms of wealth the book is based around it's a framework it's a Mount Everest for the eight most important elements of a life well lived doesn't mean you're going to do them all in a day but every day you advance on growth on wellness on family on craft on money on community on adventure and on service and you start to think for yourself and I guess what I'm trying to say is you start to live your own life versus your neighbor's life and I think that's a powerful way to live no one wants to get to our last day and say we lived like the tribe we lived like our neighbors.

And I remember in my second book, The Stress Solution, I wrote about this idea that Ikigai is these four things, you know, something, you know, we should be looking to try and find something that we're good at, that we enjoy doing, that the world needs, and that also makes money.

And I wrote about this in the first book that I wrote about leadership, which is called extreme ownership.

I had one of my SEALs get wounded. A couple other friendly Iraqi soldiers were also wounded. So it was a terrible situation. And I was the guy in charge. I was the guy in charge.

But it's just the consequences in that particular situation were so awful that it was painful to take ownership.

It was painful to look myself in the mirror and say, this is all on you.

I did one book MONEY Master the Game was kind of like this only and what I did in that case is I interviewed you know 50 of the smartest financial people the world Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett and out of 50 of them and again, it's in my judgment I could be completely wrong and I've spent a lot of time with them.

What you run from only stays with you longer, writes the author of the novel Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk, in his book Invisible Monsters Remix.

it says it's it's from Letters to a Young Poet and it says be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue

Paris' new book is out now. It's called Paris, the Memoir.

Now, I've read this memoir cover to cover. And I can honestly tell you it is one of the most authentic, open, genuine accounts that I feel allows someone to claim back their narrative. And I recommend you read it as well.

It was definitely very difficult and emotional, but extremely just therapeutic. Just putting it all out there, because it's so much that I've held on to for so long, and so many things that I've never told anyone, like things I've never even wanted to say out loud, because I didn't even want to think that they were real. But it's just been the most healing experience of my life.

It's actually been something that has been therapeutic. It's been healthier than unhealthy.

I'm so happy that I did my audio book as well, because I think it's important for people to hear the story from the person who wrote it.

I don't expect everybody to, that I'm dealing with to appear in the second editions of Profiles in Courage.

In his book, The Laws of Human Nature, he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves.

I write about that in my last book, The Laws of Human Nature.

I have in The Laws of Human Nature tons of advice about that, paying attention to people's nonverbal cues.

Be a Triangle, How I Went From Being Lost to Getting My Life Into Shape, following her New York Times bestselling book, How to Be a Boss, a guide to surviving and conquering life.

But I think I was resistant at first because I was like, no, but I still love working. And I still want to hustle. And I still want the awards.

And I'll be honest and say, I want the awards. I want the events. I want the accomplishments.

And third book, James Baldwin, I've gotten into. And tell me how long the train's been gone.

My dad wanted me to read it before he died.

It's truly an astounding piece of work. Um, it is, it is nonfiction, but it is written in a, an incredibly narrative way.

It's very, um, revealing and, and, and explores desire and sexuality and insecurity and what it means to desire and what it means to be undesired and how that affects you.

But when he talked about lobsters and how the serotonin system is present in lobsters, it's like getting people to understand. Because here's the other thing that people will mistake in my belief system. They think what I'm saying is humans are just blank slates.

His book Maps of Meaning is actually even more impactful, but it's dense.