Transcript of Jay Shetty’s Princeton University Class Day Commencement Speech

No ceremony, no cap toss, no awkward moment of wondering, do we hug the dean? I missed the occasion my parents had been waiting for their entire lives. And why? Because I decided to become a monk. My parents were thrilled. And by thrilled, I mean deeply concerned for my mental stability. I had three choices growing up as an Indian immigrant, to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. I chose monk. They didn’t make me feel bad, but they did send me a TED talk titled “Why We Make Bad Decisions” by Dan Gilbert, who coincidentally got his PhD from Princeton. So it’s kind of a full circle moment for me, I guess.

When I was invited to speak at Princeton, my first thought was, I’m so humbled and grateful to be here. But my honest thought was, I hope I say something worthy of their time. That self-doubt, that inner critic, that voice, it’s still there.

The Voice of Self-Doubt

The one that’s been with me since I was eight years old, standing on a stage, giving my first speech ever. My mom had volunteered me to speak and sing at my school’s Diwali assembly. I was dressed in what looked like a toga, and considering I was slightly overweight, a lot of me was hanging out. And I started to sing. I’m definitely not a singer. And everyone began to laugh. I forgot my words, and everyone began to laugh even more. I then looked down to read the next line. Only I couldn’t, because my tears had smudged the words. Everyone began to laugh harder.

Now, to make things even worse, if that was even possible, my teacher came on stage, put her arm around me, and walked me off stage. And that was my first experience of public speaking. And all I could think about was what my friends thought of me.

When I got rejected by a girl in my teens, I played it over and over in my head for days. Not because she rejected me, but because I was scared of what she thought. When I became a monk after college, I was worried if my parents would ever understand. I was scared of what they thought. Three years later, when I left the monastery, I felt like I’d failed. Then I applied for jobs. 40 rejections. Not even interviews. Rejections despite having a first-class degree. And when I finally got one as a consultant, you’ll be happy to know, I thought, I’m behind everyone. What will they think of me?

When I quit my stable career to pursue media, I feared what my colleagues would say. When I pitched my video ideas to three executives, one said I was too old, the second said I was too young, the third said I was the right age, but it was the wrong time. I was 28 and confused. I had no idea what would come next.

When I started my podcast, a production company backed out two weeks before launch. They said, and I quote, “it would never be big.” When I wrote my first book, 14 imprints wanted me to change the name. They said no one wanted to think like a monk. And now, as I stand here in front of you today, at Princeton, one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, I still catch myself wondering, what are you going to think of this speech?

The Struggle of Being Enough

When you Google the words, “will I ever,” the first thing that comes up is, “will I ever find love?” The second thing is, “will I ever be enough?” And the third is, “will I am net worth?” It’s true. Check it out. We go from love to worth to money really, really quick. It’s 70 million, by the way, if anyone’s wondering. But being enough is something we all struggle with.

In 1902, Charles Horton Cooley wrote, “I’m not what I think I am. I’m not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Let that blow your mind for a moment. In 1902, Charles Horton Cooley wrote, “I’m not what I think I am. I’m not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Which means we live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. Let me break that down even more. What it means is, if I think you think I’m smart, then I feel smart. But if I think you think I’m weak, well, then I feel weak. This is the trap and the world lures us in.

The Pressure to Perform

You feel pressure to broadcast your wins, to post a new job, the proposal, the highlight reel, to do things people agree with, celebrate and consider important, to stay visible, to stay relevant, to stay impressive. Because the world rewards what’s impressive. You feel pressured to prove you’re doing well before you’ve even figured out what that means for you. The world will constantly push you to perform success.

But if there’s one message I want you to walk away with today, it’s this. You have to disappear. I know a few parents just sat up straight like someone said “gap year.” Don’t worry. When I say disappear, I don’t mean your kids need to ghost their student loans and shave their heads to become monks. You still go to work. You still show up. But you stop announcing every move and start building something that speaks for itself.

The Art of Disappearing

Disappearing means doing the work. It means doing the work in the dark. It means building in private what you don’t need to prove in public. It means doing the work when no one’s watching. You stop worrying about what people think and start valuing what you believe. Because the life that looks good or sounds good is nothing compared to a life that feels good.

Now this all might seem like strange advice coming from someone whose entire career exists online in the public eye. But I would not be where I am today if I didn’t disappear not once but twice. The first time I became a monk. The second time I left a stable consulting job to start sharing what I’d learned from the monks. At my first event no one showed up. I practiced to an empty room. At my second event no one showed up again. I practiced to an empty room again. By then I realized I had to fire the person who was putting out the flyers. That person was me by the way.

For years I spoke to rooms of five to ten people. I learned about their stories, learned about their challenges and some of them became beautiful friends that I still have today. There was no pressure for success in those tiny rooms and I was free to fail, experiment and grow in private. And that’s what’s fascinating. If you look at world-class entrepreneurs that you admire, the artists that you look up to, business people that you aspire to be like and creatives, guess what? They all disappeared.

Kobe Bryant practiced at 4am when no one was watching. Warren Buffett sat in a quiet room in Omaha reading. 80% of his day was spent studying financial statements, reports and books. Lady Gaga played dive bars in a glitter leotard for audiences of six. Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, kept her idea secret for an entire year even from her friends and family because she didn’t want them to prevent her from taking a risk.

Christopher Nolan wrote the script for Inception over a period of about 10 years. He initially conceived the idea when he was 16. Steven Spielberg made short films in his garage before ever stepping on a set. They trained while no one was watching. They built without broadcasting. They worked in silence so they could rise without noise. So whilst everyone is putting pressure on visibility, feel comfortable becoming invisible. But that’s hard when everyone’s life is on show. Step off stage as often as you can.

Today you all graduate together but from tomorrow you’ll have your own pace, your own time. Some of you will get promoted first, some of you will get promoted last. Some of you will exit your company first, some of you will never start one. Some of you will get married first and some of you won’t get married at all. Everything will be documented. So how do you disappear in a world obsessed with being seen?

The Buddha’s Wisdom on Gaining and Losing

Remember this ancient story. A young student once asked the Buddha, “What do you gain from meditation?” The Buddha replied, “Nothing.” The student looked confused and said, “Then why do you meditate?” The Buddha said, “I don’t meditate because of what I gain. I meditate because of what I lose. I lose anxiety, insecurity, doubt and fear.”

As you leave Princeton, people will ask you, what do you want to gain? A title, a salary, a house, a family and all of those are vital and valuable. You’ve proven your work ethic time and time again. You’ve shown what you’re capable of. I know you will be ambitious about what you want to gain, but I hope you will be just as ambitious about what you want to lose. Lose the need for approval, lose the obsession with comparison, lose the fear of not being enough. What we gain makes us successful, but what we lose makes us fulfilled.

The Cure for Envy is Study

Especially lose envy. Envy doesn’t tell you what you want. It distracts from what you already have. Envy will make you lose good friends and find bad ones. You’re already successful. You’re going to be even more successful. I have no doubt about that. The only thing that can ruin it is comparing your win to someone else’s. Envy won’t stop your success. It’s comparing your win to someone else’s that will make you feel like you’re never enough.

And contrary to popular belief, the cure for envy isn’t success. The cure for envy is study. When your friend wins, don’t scroll past, study them. How did they build that? How did they stay consistent? How did they recover from their failures? Celebrate them. There’s this beautiful word in Sanskrit that I loved. It’s called mudita. It means to take joy and pride in watching someone else’s success. I hope that you’ll practice this with the people you’re sitting next to right now.

Four Life-Defining Decisions

There are four decisions you’ll make in life that matter more than almost any other. Ask for guidance to all, get advice, learn from the people you trust, but don’t let these decisions be defined by other people’s opinions. Because at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live with them.

Decision One: How You Feel About Yourself

The first decision is one you’ll make every single day. The first decision you’ll have to make is how you feel about yourself. It’s not a decision you’ll make once, it’s a decision you’ll make every single day, every morning in the mirror, every night before you sleep. Some days you won’t like what you see. You’ll mess up at work, say the wrong thing at home, fall short of who you want to be. Your self-perception will be tested but you don’t pass by pretending or being perfect. You pass by choosing again and again to show up for yourself and the people you love better than you did yesterday.

Decision Two: Who You Choose to Love

The second decision is this, who you choose to love and who you choose to love you. According to social psychologist Dr. David McClelland, this decision can influence up to 95% of your success or failure in life. Not your grades, not your GPA, not your first job title, who you let close. Sometimes you won’t know if you chose right until you’re right in it.

Twelve months into my marriage we were four months away from being broke in a new country with 30 days left on our visa. I sat my wife down and I told her. She looked at me and quietly said, “I trust you.” That wasn’t the moment I knew she was the right person. It was the next morning when she looked to me dead serious and said, “I think I want to buy a plant.” I just told her we might be able to stay in the country. Rent, groceries and maybe, maybe the visa if we were lucky that was the budget and she wanted to add a ficus.

So off we went to Home Depot 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning like it was the most normal thing in the world. That was the moment I knew she was the right person. I take life too seriously and she doesn’t at all. The plant sadly died that winter but thankfully our relationship survived and is still growing.

Don’t fall in love too fast. You don’t truly know someone until you’ve seen them when they’re tired, stressed, broke or hangry. The right person will make you make the hard times easier. The right person will make the hard times easier. And don’t forget about your parents. The American Time Use Survey says that by the time you turn 21 you’ve likely already spent about 90% of the total in-person time you’ll ever have with your parents. Interview your parents, record their stories, learn every lesson you possibly can from them. You can earn more money, more titles, more goals but you’ll never earn back lost time with your parents.

Decision Three: What You Do for a Living

The third decision is what you do for a living. Try to do what you love and if you can’t, find meaning in what you do. You’ll spend a third of your life at work. That’s around 90,000 hours. Don’t settle for hating it. That doesn’t mean your job has to be your passion but it also doesn’t mean you have to feel like you’re trading your soul for a salary. Focus on what it gives you. Stability for the people you love, structure while you build something else, a chance to bring love and you into the role.

When I worked at Accenture I was a consultant by day and a meditation teacher by lunch. I’d run sessions for my colleagues during breaks and after hours, not because it was part of my job description but because I needed it and so did they.

I remember one day one of the rugby lads came up to me. That’s the British version of a jock but with better hair and worse manners. He pulled me aside and said, “Jay, I want to learn how to meditate but none of the girls can find out.” Apparently they were all into him and he thought meditation might ruin his street cred, consultants. So after work we grabbed two chairs, turned off the lights and sat across from each other.

Three minutes into deep breathing and boom, the door swings open, the exact group of girls he was worried about walk in. They take one look at us sitting there in the dark, eyes closed, breathing like monks on a blind date and they just lose it. Laughter, chaos. He was mortified. No recovery. But here’s what he told me months later. Meditation helped him manage the anxiety he’d never talked about. That showed me how desperately we needed stillness in a world designed to burn us out and it gave me the confidence to follow my path. Later I would go back to Accenture to teach meditation and many seminars and I still have incredible relationships with the leaders I once worked for.

So here’s the truth. Even if you don’t love your job, bring what you love into it. Love the people, love the growth and if you can’t find any love in it, use that feeling as your signal to move. Always, always trust this signal. 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been invented yet. The average American changes careers five to seven times in their lifetime. I can’t wait to see what you do in the next five years. The world is waiting for you.

Decision Four: How You Serve Humanity

The fourth decision and maybe the most important is how you serve humanity. Most people never get to this one. They get busy chasing the next job, the next move, the next upgrade.

But if you skip this question, I believe you skip the one thing that leads to true fulfillment. In the monastery we were taught it’s not about how much you give, it’s about how much you hold back. Whether you have a little or a lot, your time, energy and resources are far more meaningful when they’re not just for you. One study found that volunteering just for two hours a week improves mental health and extends life expectancy.

But the situation in this country is much worse. Over 59 million US adults, nearly one in four, live with a mental illness. Only 47% of those individuals receive treatment. But that’s not the shocking part. This is. The average delay between the onset of mental illness symptoms and receiving treatment is 11 years. And that’s what keeps me going, recognizing there is so much more to do in the world.

Remember, your purpose does not have to be your job, your purpose does not have to be big. Your purpose does not have to make you money. Your purpose does not have to make you famous. Your purpose can be something you do on the weekends, your purpose can be something you do in the evenings. Your purpose is something no one can take away from you. So find something you care about, find something that breaks your heart open a little and then get involved. You don’t need a million dollars, you don’t need a title. Use your passion in the service of others and it will become your purpose.

Practical Steps to Authentic Living

I want to end with a couple of practical things you can do to put this into practice. First try this, for one full day track every time you feel the urge to ask someone what they think about what you’re wearing, what to eat for dinner, what TV show to watch, what job to apply for. Write it all down, who you wanted to ask, what decision you were avoiding, what answer you were hoping for and then for seven days go on an opinion fast. No asking, no polling the group chat, no crowdsourcing your direction. It’s your life, don’t let anyone else hold the remote. Disappear for a while and when you come back, come back as you.

Tomorrow some of you will wake up with a job offer in your inbox, some of you will wake up with no idea of what comes next, some of you have a five-year plan in a color-coded spreadsheet, you know who you are. Some of you are still pretending to understand what a fellowship in global policy innovation actually is and all of that it’s okay because there’s no right pace, there’s no right path, only the one that’s real for you.

Every day starting tomorrow, write down one thing you did that required effort even if no one saw it. Not what you achieved, not what got praise, just what took energy, courage and discipline. Maybe you got out of bed when you didn’t want to, maybe you sent the email you were avoiding, maybe you stayed calm in a difficult conversation, maybe you showed up for yourself when it would have been easier not to. Because when you start measuring your day by effort, not recognition, you begin to feel accomplished without needing to be noticed.

Final Words of Encouragement

Class of 2025, you’ll have an idea that people roll their eyes at, build it anyway. You’ll want a job that no one thinks you’ll get, apply anyway. You’ll dream of a path that doesn’t come with a title or salary, take it anyway. You’ll feel like an imposter in rooms you’ve earned your way into, walk in anyway. You’ll be the least experienced person at the table, speak anyway. You’ll mess up, fall short and second-guess everything, learn anyway. You’ll wonder if it’s worth it sometimes, keep going anyway.

Because if you do what you want, they’ll misunderstand you. And if you do what they want, they’ll misunderstand you. And if you do nothing, they’ll misunderstand you. And if you do something, they’ll misunderstand you. So live a life that would make your youngest self proud, your oldest self grateful, even if it confuses everyone in between.

Congratulations. Thank you so much.

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