Author Jay Shetty aims to elevate us from the negativity, anxiety, and hopelessness of today’s

world in his book THINK LIKE A MONK: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day, to be

published by Simon and Schuster on April 14. Drawing on both Jay’s experience as a monk in a

Hindu ashram and his post-monk life as an influential thinker and spiritual guide, Think Like a

Monk distills monk wisdom into practical, everyday steps anyone can take to live a less anxious,

more meaningful life.

How can we transform our experience of life today? Jay says, “When I trained as a monk, I

found that monks are able to remain centered and calm amid all the chaos that life throws at

us. Monks are the absolute experts in mastering their minds. I wrote THINK LIKE A MONK in

order to help everyone access the same mindset, the same thinking patterns, the same

processes that help monks find peace, balance, and purpose.”

Like his monk teachers, Jay draws from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Indian text based on the

Upanishads, writings from around 800-400 BCE. In a world where people are constantly looking

for answers, Jay believes the wisdom for how to find peace and purpose has been here all

along.

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Born in north London in 1987, Jay and his sister were raised in a middle-class Indian family.

Until the age of 14, Jay did well in school, stayed out of trouble and tried his best to live up to

his parents’ high expectations. But he was a shy, introverted young boy who was bullied for

being overweight and a little nerdy. When he started secondary school, things changed. He

began playing soccer and rugby, became more popular, and started mixing with the wrong

crowd. Jay’s thrill-seeking ventures got him suspended from school more than once as he tried

to find his identity.

By the time he got to college at Cass Business School in London in 2007, Jay had shifted his

curiosity in more productive directions. He was reading autobiographies of everyone from

Malcolm X to David Beckham, driven to understand the roots of success and making a

difference in the world. Still, when a friend invited him to hear a monk give a talk, he agreed to

go only if his friend would join him at a club afterward.

That night, the monk, Gauranga Das, spoke about the principle of self-sacrifice. He talked about

how people should plant trees under whose shade they do not plan to sit. This was a

topic such as procrastination, confidence, or decision-making.

The podcast, launched in 2019, received 52 million audio downloads in its first year and over

ten million views in podcast videos. It won that year’s Shorty Award for Health and Wellness.

iTunes named On Purpose in their Top New Podcast’s of 2019 and consistently rank Jay as the

#1 Health Podcast. Spotify named Jay the #1 Podcast in India.

Jay’s message has resonated with companies such as Google, L’Oreal, Facebook, Coca Cola,

HSBC, EY, Microsoft and Accenture, who have invited him to lead seminars and deliver keynotes

on finding your purpose in the workplace, well-being for the future, and digital media strategy..

He’s become so much of a cultural phenomenon that he was even asked to portray a version of

himself in the “Bad Boys For Life” trailer with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.

2020 will bring Jay’s message to a larger audience than ever with the publication of THINK LIKE

A MONK. In the book, Jay draws deeply from ancient wisdom, modern social science, and his

own rich experiences in the ashram to articulate a journey similar to the one he took. He