The Truth Behind the Headlines: Kris Jenner on Jay Shetty Podcast (Transcript)

So thank you so much, truly. It means the world.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, well, thank you for having me. It really means the world to me. And I really enjoyed that night because I got to know you a little bit more on a personal level and just heard about what you are all about, what your intentions are with people and how you want to help people and bring people together in a world where everybody’s torn apart, especially in the last decade or so, how crazy everything seems.

I think for us to have that beacon of someone we can look up to, to say, “Hold on, let’s look at this a different way and try to find something peaceful in all of it.” And so for that, I appreciate you so much.

Childhood Memories That Define Us

JAY SHETTY: Thank you. Well, I want to get to know the Kris.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, boy.

JAY SHETTY: That I believe we forget existed, because today we live in a world where we’re so preoccupied with what everyone does today, we forget how they became and how they were created. I wanted to ask you, what’s a childhood memory that you remember that you feel defines who you are today?

KRIS JENNER: Oh my goodness, a childhood memory. Well, I think, you know, growing up I was really raised by my mom and my grandmother and two really strong business women who worked and showed me how powerful that can be. Just not just out there in the world to show others, but for yourself.

How to be somebody that you were really proud of, but also provided for their families and then taught their children and grandchildren how to be strong, intelligent, caring, loving moms, but also working women who really were of a different generation.

You know, when my mom was very young, when she was in her 20s, she had me when she was 20, my grandmother was 40 and I was just born and so there’s always been a 20 year age difference. And then of course 40 years with my grandmother. And they taught me that working and having a career was just part of our lifestyle and our family.

And that meant so much to me because they were such an inspiration. And my mom also showed me what it was like to get dressed up every day. She loved fashion, she loved, “This is how you want to present yourself to the world every day. How do you want to look when you go to third grade, or even junior high or high school?”

And it really was something. When I look back on it now, I’m so proud of those two women who raised me because they showed me what it’s like to have a career and how to take care of a home and what it was like to be married, what it was like to have children.

And I know when I was 16 years old, I really realized that’s when I knew I wanted to have a lot of kids. And I actually had the number six in my head at that very early age.

JAY SHETTY: Really?

KRIS JENNER: I used to think I’m going to have six kids. And then when I ended up getting divorced and I had four kids, I thought, “Boy, was I off a couple of kids.” And then I ended up having two more.

But growing up with the family I grew up with, I felt, I do feel so blessed to have had a very privileged, caring, loving home and childhood. And I think it’s something that I’ll always be grateful for. And I talk to my mom, who’s 91, about it all the time. I think I always thank her for all the sacrifices and working late and sometimes, you know, she wasn’t necessarily at home when I got home from school with chocolate chip cookies, fresh out of the oven and making me a roast beef dinner.

But she was there working her a off for me and my sister and for that. And then my grandmother lived across the street. So my grandmother was doing all the grandma things. And so it really gave me a good sense of family unity, closeness.

It fed my spirituality because I went to church every Sunday and was, you know, had communion and all the things that you do as a young girl whose mom is taking them to church every Sunday and teaching you all the things. And it was a huge part of my life, that childhood of just being.

Not only I had so many friends and went to public school, which was down the street. My mom’s priority when I was a child was always move next to the school because you can walk to school. So we were walking to school, not a care in the world. We had no seatbelts in the cars.

Driving around in the back of my mom’s, my mom had a convertible T-Bird when I was a little girl, and throw us in the back on a shelf, and we’d be bouncing around. And by the way, I did the same thing with my kids, Courtney and Kimberly, when I had them, and Chloe and then Robert. Everyone in the back of the station wagon, no seat belts, just 15 kids in the back section shoved together like sardines, taking everybody everywhere.

So, so many memories of things that were so different from. I remember my first color TV and where I lived and what house I could imagine what corner of the room it was in and how exciting that was. So, you know, I can also remember getting my first iPhone. I mean, talk about bizarre, the contrast of the two.

From Brick Phones to iPhones

JAY SHETTY: Did you ever have one of those brick phones, one of the really big ones?

KRIS JENNER: Oh, yeah. I remember my mama, 1990, 1991. And you’d make a call, you thought you were so cool, cruising down the highway with a brick in your hand, and there was no rules on. You could talk to anybody. You could talk on the phone while you were driving. You could eat a burger while you were driving down the street.

It’s amazing all the different changes culturally and just personally, just all the different chapters I’ve had in my life, it’s like every single one is so clear. But if you take it like the 1 through 10, 10 through 20, 20 through 30, and just keep going, it’s like there’s so many huge, magical things that have happened in each chapter.

And I think that’s the way I look at it now at my age, you know, you have so much perspective, and it changes from decade to decade. So I consider myself really lucky.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Wow. It’s incredible hearing about it because I love that your mother and your grandmother were just such big influences and role models in your life. What work did they do? What were they doing at the time?

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

KRIS JENNER: My grandmother was an accountant and then later opened a candle store called the Candelabra in La Jolla, California. And my mom opened another candle store nearby on Gerard Street. And they were entrepreneurs, and they got up every morning at 5:00 and they had a routine and they had structure, and they had their coffee and had breakfast and got dressed to the nines, gorgeous.

Went to work, worked all day, were so, you know, it’s very satisfying to end the day with a full day’s work under your belt. You feel like you’ve really accomplished something. And I knew that feeling because I lived it my whole life. So it was kind of embedded in me that I, too, couldn’t wait to have a career or start working.

I mean, my first job was I worked in my grandmother’s candle store, and I was the gift wrapper. And I would be, I was 12 years old, and I loved to go to work with my grandmother and my mom, but I was at my grandmother’s store and she’d put me in the back room, and she taught me how to gift wrap and make bows.

And I was the best gift wrapper I could possibly be. And I made the most beautiful bows in my mind on the planet. And she taught me that no matter what you do, you do the best job you can possibly do.

She was the one who, I had to brush my teeth for some reason, a lot when I was young, every time I had anything to eat. “Brush your teeth, brush your teeth.” But she had this rule that if you brushed your teeth at my grandmother’s house, then you had to clean the sink with Comet or Ajax or one of those crazy things.

And I would scrub that sink like it was my only, you know, polish, polish, polish. And she would sit there and say, “You have the most beautiful hands and you have,” she would just give me the most sweetest compliments about, and then said, “You are really the best sink washer in the family.” And I was like, “Wow, okay.”

You know, so it gave me confidence that if you really, you know, she taught me that no matter how big or small the job, just do the best you can and you’ll be praised for it. And that just instilled something in me.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: And then, of course, I tortured my own children. “Wash, this ain’t the best you,” you know, they’re rolling their eyes.

JAY SHETTY: Were they as good as you?

KRIS JENNER: Of course not. No. I’m the best sink scrubber you’ll ever see.

The Art of Gift Wrapping

JAY SHETTY: Do you still wrap Christmas presents?

KRIS JENNER: Birthday presents, every all day. I wrapped one this morning before I came here.

JAY SHETTY: No way.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah. I didn’t do a bow because it was a different kind of a package. But I think my kids really, we have a big contest during the holidays, and at Christmas, it’s like, “Who’s got the best wrapping paper?” But we don’t tell each other what gift wrap we’re doing. We want it to be a surprise.

Well, I do Christmas morning, and all the kids’ gifts are dropped off at my house, and we all have a section of there. And so we know, “Oh, these are all Kim’s gifts because they’re wrapped,” well, she stopped by my house last year because she wanted to check out how her gifts looked to make sure they were positioned perfectly right. I’m like, “Oh, Lord.”

So she comes by, and little did I know, she whips out her phone and she starts doing, it was either a live or something on Instagram, and she shows the entire world all of our packages. So now all the sisters and everybody.

JAY SHETTY: Knew what you’re.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: So she gave it away.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And then.

KRIS JENNER: So these are just all the pranks I think we play on each other, constantly, all day long.

JAY SHETTY: So Kim was trying to expose you. That was.

KRIS JENNER: I think so. I think she was being, you know, she was being cute. She’s always so great.

JAY SHETTY: I love it. I remember when we were speaking, when I came over, you know, you were talking about you being a flight attendant as one of your.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah, I was a flight attendant.

JAY SHETTY: Flight attendant, yeah.

Learning from Every Experience

KRIS JENNER: I went from the candle store, and I learned so much there. And then I worked at the donut shop by my house in University City in San Diego. And I would take. My job was to get there before school and before I had to get on the bus to go to high school or junior high school, I guess. And I would take a scraper and scrape the glaze off of the floor that. The donuts, you know, when they were glazing the donuts, there would be this glaze all over the floor, and I would scrape the glaze off of the floor. And that was my job every morning before school.

And I then worked at my mom’s store again. And then I applied to be a flight attendant for American Airlines. And that was an amazing job. But looking back on that, I learned so much from that job. So every single thing I did, I learned enormous organizational skills and people skills and social intelligence and, you know, some other skills, like how to pour a great cup of coffee and how to serve people and how to interact with people and personal service.

Business is incredibly demanding, you know, and now I look at all of the people in that kind of a business a different way and have so much respect for that kind of a career. But I learned a lot along the way of how to deal with people. And I think that working from a young age and continuing up to this day, I learned a thing or two about so many different things that you wouldn’t think would apply to later in life.

JAY SHETTY: Tell me some of this, you know, well, just.

KRIS JENNER: I mean, organizational skills, for one, and how to keep calendars and how to be on time and how to be 15 minutes early and how to negotiate and how to get what you think you want or deserve from an employer. I know one of my things I talk about is if somebody says no, you’re talking to the wrong person. And I learned that if I got a no from these three people in scheduling, for example, with American Airlines, then I would go to another person and try my best charm, you know, that I could possibly think of, you know, what were all the reasons why I should fly this flight to get to LA, you know, to see who I wanted to see.

And you just hone different life skills at the different things you do at a young age, especially in the workforce. And it’s really amazing. You never quite know what or where life is going to lead you and where it’s going to be the best lesson you ever learned. And that’s what just to expect. Nothing but breathe in everything. Just I was so. I was like a sponge, and I think I just had to surrender to the process, if you know what I mean. It was just I knew instinctively I’m on a learning journey, and I’m going to get the most out of these experiences that I possibly could at the time. And I knew that. I really did know that intelligently and in the moment. And I don’t know why, but I just knew I had to pay attention.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I think there’s such an important lesson in what you’re saying for everyone who’s listening. I feel like we’ve done a disservice to a lot of young people today, where we believe it’s all about finding the perfect job or launching the perfect company.

KRIS JENNER: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And actually from your experience, what you’re saying is, I learned a lot from the candle store. I learned a lot from scraping floors. I learned a lot from being a flight attendant. It’s like each of these experiences, even though they weren’t your perfect job or your ideal life, there were really valuable lessons that have made you the power.

The Power of Gratitude and Being Present

KRIS JENNER: Incredible. It developed who I am and was at that time and then came to be all through each decade. And the more I, you know, went through life and was knocked down or brought up or had, you know, experiences and had these things that I went through, I think added to. But I also believe that everything happens for a reason. I’m very spiritual. I pray about everything before I do it. And I learned that a lot about that from a very young age. And it just really has helped me through so many great times and so many, you know, challenging times.

But I also think that I come from a place now in this decade of great gratitude, and I think that’s what people don’t always experience daily. I think it’s been a learning experience for me. Of course I’m grateful. Of course I have gratitude for everything that I. My life is this beautiful life with my beautiful family, and I couldn’t ask for more. But to really be conscious of being grateful has been something I’ve worked on for the last few years and try to be more present because we can be so easily distracted.

And everybody’s going so fast, and I feel like everybody needs to slow down. You know, it’s so fast. And I see the younger generation, I think the younger one than the next one down from Kendall and Kylie. I don’t remember what they’re called anymore.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

KRIS JENNER: Okay, Alpha.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, Alpha.

KRIS JENNER: I guess it’s Alpha.

JAY SHETTY: Kendall and Kylie are Gen Z. I think, just right.

KRIS JENNER: Right. I think the Gen Alpha. It’s I wish you could just slow down and experience and be in the moment a little bit more because I always struggled with that. I always onto the next something to look forward to, that distractions are everywhere, and so then you don’t feel what you’re living through or going through. And we’re so busy taking photos of it or videos of it, we don’t sit and feel it or enjoy it.

I remember I went to the Sphere the other night and I was there. Wizard of Oz.

JAY SHETTY: Oh, I want to see that.

KRIS JENNER: It’s really good. And I was there with my girlfriend and now, mind you, I was 10 years old or nine years, eight, something the first time I saw the Wizard of Oz, or that I remembered it and enjoyed it. And I’ve seen it 100,000 times, so I didn’t need to video anything. I knew what the movie was about. What am I doing? And I caught myself and I went, why am I filming this whole thing? I want to sit and experience it.

And that’s just a good example of how I think that a lot of us go through life is trying to capture the moment where when we can just slow down and feel the moment. And that’s what I want for me and my family, because we do get very distracted. And it goes by so quickly, in a heartbeat. And I think that’s what when you’re my age, you want to scream that from the top of a mountain, everybody slow down and enjoy every second, because all of a sudden it’s gone.

And, you know, everybody has to figure it out for themselves. But that I wish, you know, because I’ve had all these different decades to compare it to and have a different perspective every so often, every few years. That’s one of my notes to note to self. Just try to enjoy it and not get distracted by the noise. Because there’s a lot of noise.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Meditation Practice

JAY SHETTY: That’s such a great note. And hearing it from your wisdom and years of experience, it feels different when I’m sitting with you and I’m listening to you. It feels different hearing it from you. And you were making me think about. There’s a meditation practice that I love, that I practice when I feel I’m disturbed by the noise. And it’s really simple. It’s called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And it’s. Let me look at the five things I can see. So you look around this memory and you look at the colors and the texture.

KRIS JENNER: I love that.

JAY SHETTY: Shapes and the visuals. So Wizard of Oz. And then four things you can touch. It could be your daughter’s hand or your mother’s hand. It could be the clothes you’re wearing. The texture that you can feel, whether it’s smooth or harsh. Then it’s three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, wow.

JAY SHETTY: And anytime I’ve ever done this, and I was thinking about a particular moment, I went to Bhutan last year and I was actually teaching this meditation. I can close my eyes today and be back in that place.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, I love that because it was.

JAY SHETTY: So real, because you took it in. And so. Yeah. To really. To really let it sink in. It’s such a. You’re absolutely right.

Life Before Technology

KRIS JENNER: Well, you know, I think somebody of my age has a different perspective because I spent, you know, when I was 22 years old, I got married and 23 had Kourtney, and, you know, the rest is history. But there were no cell phones. There wasn’t a computer. There wasn’t a laptop. There wasn’t an iPad. There wasn’t music on a little box. There wasn’t. If you wanted to talk to somebody on the phone, you had to walk into the kitchen and dial a plastic telephone.

And if you wanted to know what was at the movies, you dialed a number, whatever it was, and you found out what was playing at the movies. And if you wanted to know what time it was, you dialed. I think it was 555-1212. And if that’s right, I will be so excited about my memory. But it was, you know, a different time. And today, with so many things that just supply instant gratification, it’s extremely seductive.

And I think that it’s something I think about it all the time, and I think, what a different world, but yet such progress. Such amazing. The world we live in is wild and amazing. I mean, when I was a young girl, a little girl, I used to watch the Jetsons. I remember the Jetsons. I remember that. And it was sort of intimating that by the year 2020, we would be flying in cars around the city. We wouldn’t even have cars that were on the road anymore. And so, you know, we’re almost there.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, almost. Almost.

KRIS JENNER: But it, you know, we used to imagine this modern world, and here we are. So it’s very exciting. But you never know what’s going to happen next. I mean, I worry a little bit. I worry a lot about my grandchildren and social media, that scares me a bit because it can be so dark. And I really want them to have the best parts of anything. I mean, in life, there’s good and bad, but in this case, you know, I worry about that. I just want them to. And I think their moms, you know, all my kids, are really responsible about trying to control screen time and all of that. But it’s different. It’s a different place.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: There’s a lot of noise.

Approaching 70: The Best Chapter

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. You’re approaching your 70th birthday.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Which is so exciting. And what an incredible milestone. What’s this chapter of your life called? If you could name it, what would it be called?

KRIS JENNER: Oh, my goodness. The best. The best chapter. I’m happy to be here. And to really have this beautiful family and just enjoy the ride. Because I said, just to be present at this time and place. I did learn a lot from my family, from my grandmother and my mom, who both worked until they were in their 80s. And I saw. Wow.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s incredible.

KRIS JENNER: And my mom often says she retired when she was 82, and she often says that really kept her so purposeful. And we all want to find that life of purpose, but for her, it gave her great purpose and it gave her great joy. And she was so satisfied with the work she did every day and got to. You know, I think when somebody has structure and has a schedule and has something to look forward to and has something in their life and feels needed and wanted, useful and useful, and that’s a very good feeling.

And I think that’s the road I’m going to go down. I just want to, you know, you.

JAY SHETTY: Don’t retiring anytime soon.

KRIS JENNER: This is never, never. No. I love what I do. And I often say this wouldn’t be as easy without my entire family and doing what we do together. Because, you know, there’s a lot of people out there that have, you know, a job in entertainment or in the media or whatever it is, and they have a big career and they do it by themselves, and they’re the only one in their family who has that kind of a career, that kind of a job.

And I thought how lonely it would be if there was just one of us. It would be so hard. And so I feel super blessed that I have this incredibly fabulous family and all this love and support, and it makes it really a very sweet life.

The Power of Communication and Compassion

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. What a special, special achievement to have that. How have you, you know, one thing I’ve noticed, spending time with all of you and having, as I said earlier, Kim, Chloe and Kendall have all sat in this chair preparing it for you. There’s such a love between everyone in the family. And of course, there’s the fun of the, what’s the right word? The fun of the teasing each other and the banter, but at the core of it, it’s so evident that there’s love and it’s real and it’s genuine.

How do you create a family in which competition isn’t a negative thing and growth is everyone’s focus? Because I think what we see across the world is, you know, you have six children, but it’s like people may have two, and then you have one person who really ambitious and driven and one person who just wants to hide away, whereas you’ve got a family of people who are all ambitious in different ways. They all have their own fascinations, their own passions, and they’re pursuing it to the best of their ability, which is such a beautiful thing to see. How do you create that energy? What does that require?

KRIS JENNER: I think, first of all, when they were very young, I think they learned so much from the examples set by their dad or just myself in different areas. Their stepdad, their family, their friends. And we’ve always had a huge group of family friends. And I think they watch and had great examples set before them.

But I think that one of my biggest and strongest desires in my path to the success that they’ve had is just really helping them along the way identify what was really important to them. And they were passionate about, and we threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall, believe me, it was crazy. But when they finally found their destiny, their passion, the opportunities that came their way that they wanted to embrace and were so happy about, you just feel when something’s right.

And that makes me really happy. Every time I felt like somebody found their thing, their passion was that strong that they were able to really make this something they wanted to focus on. And the determination, the energy they put into it, their work ethic is second to none. And they would get up with this passion every day. You know, getting up at 5 and getting into the gym and taking care of their health and their well being. And then at the same time having kids, raising children, getting to work, you know, it’s just they all have such focus and determination, but they also have great structure, they’re organized.

And then they learn how to find their peace at the same time, which I think is really important. And I think that’s something that Courtney’s really good at that and she’s taught the rest of us, you know, wait a second, you’ve got to find the peace in all of it too, and protect your soul, you know, so that’s been really, really important.

I think it’s just working together, encouraging one another. And when someone is successful, we’re all so excited for that person’s success, no matter how it comes. It could be the smallest little, you know, not everything moves a needle. And it can be the smallest little win and we get really happy for each other. Like last night when I was blonde, all of my kids this morning were screaming, “Mom!” And then Kim goes, “Did you dye your hair?” And I said, “Yes,” of course I didn’t dye my hair. But I had her going for a while.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, we were trying to figure out this morning whether we were going to get blonde hair or black hair.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah. So it’s fun to work together. It’s fun to go through challenges together. It’s awful to go through really bad times together. But we’re together, so it’s important. And it’s, you know, when we get to celebrate each other over the smallest things or the biggest things, I think the kids are just happy for each other and there really isn’t any jealousy, which makes me really proud, you know, and they’re very vocal and loud when something bugs them or when something needs to be said.

Don’t you worry, they’re my loudest voice at times in my head. But we all, I think we’re just all happy for one another and we know we’re doing this together. And somebody’s success in my family is sort of a halo effect. I feel like it is good for everyone and, you know, especially business wise, but it’s just really good for all of us personally because we get to see each other grow and thrive and evolve and elevate different things.

We’ll get notes to each other. “Okay, well, this was great, but if you only did this, it would be so much better.” So everybody is a backseat driver or what do you call it? Sideline quarterback. Everybody’s weighing in on everybody else’s stuff. So it’s fun. It makes it a, we’re our own little, you know, we have, I have 13 grandchildren. Imagine that’s a lot of humans. And we have an amazing little bubble that we live in and that we are so dedicated to one another and very loyal and looking for that peace that we can surround ourselves with when we can, with family time.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. I just wanted to acknowledge how hard it is to do that.

KRIS JENNER: It’s hard.

JAY SHETTY: It’s so hard to be able to create a non competitive, non envious, non jealous family space system. I think for me, it’s not easy. And whether it’s happened naturally because of all these great values, or whether it’s happened through hardship, it’s probably the most significant achievement that one could ever have.

The Gift of Amazing Parents

KRIS JENNER: It’s lovely. It really is lovely. And I’m so proud of them for being there. And if somebody gets into trouble or somebody needs help with anything, everyone is right there to jump in and make it okay. And it’s interesting. They’re very, very loyal and very protective and they surround each other with a lot of love and the fact that they’re also amazing parents is the biggest gift.

I watch them as my son has a daughter, and everyone except for Kendall has a son or a daughter or both. And they’re amazing parents. And I often sit and tell them I’ll sit and watch Kylie or Chloe, all of them, Kim, Rob, Courtney. But I watch them with their kids, and I just take it all in and I say, “God, I wish I would have been this good as a parent with you.” With you, because I feel like they take it to another level.

I’ve never seen anything so amazing, literally, in my life. I talk to my mom about it all the time. I go, “Can you believe the way they do this and that and the other?” And my mom and I are in awe of what great parents they are, and I think they are. You know, people ask me all the time, how do we keep our kids as close or how do I. And I think it’s just the time you spend and what you focus on and the way that you spend time with your kids and show them that you’re never going to, you know, I didn’t have kids to, on their 18th birthday, kick them out of the house.

My girlfriend used to say, “You’re too nice. You know, you’re not their friend. You’re their mother.” And I looked at her and I said, “Oh, no, I’m their friend, because they’re going to be 18 one day, and I’m not going to be left out of this big, beautiful life that I want to have with them.”

Learning to Love Through Disagreement

JAY SHETTY: How do you love someone that you don’t agree with? How do you love someone that you have something with that didn’t work out? And by the way, I’m saying this because I’ve had private conversations with you where you’ve talked to me about these things, and I’m blown away by it.

KRIS JENNER: Right.

JAY SHETTY: So I’m like, how do you love someone even when something hasn’t worked out the way you want it to?

KRIS JENNER: Right.

JAY SHETTY: Because I know it’s deep for you. That’s what I’m asking.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah. I think you start with communication, and I think that’s where you have to start to really feel and understand. Sorry. I don’t know why I’m emotional about this, but I think you just have to understand where somebody’s coming from. Sorry, Jay. Okay. Is there a tissue, you guys?

I think, I don’t know why that hit so hard, but I think communication, I think compassion is key into really feeling what somebody might be going through. Even though you don’t agree with them, if you once love them, then love is love, you know? And I always fall in love with people. And then if they disappoint you, it, sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying. See what I said? It’s right there under the surface. Sometimes you just get me.

But I think communication is, I preach communication. And I think if you, if somebody’s misunderstood, I get on a soapbox sometimes to try to say, “No, no, no. You just don’t understand. You know, this didn’t happen like this, and they really didn’t mean it like this.” Or, you know, I’m always the one who tries and communicates that.

But I think, God, what’s wrong with me? But I also think that compassion, if you don’t have an open heart and you’re stuck with trying to understand someone, you will be lost forever until you can try and see and forgive. And I think if people can’t come from a place of forgiveness, then they’ll be stuck forever. You know, you have to be open to understanding what someone else is truly all about and why.

I stand up for people who are the underdog. At times, it makes me really sad that they’re the underdog. And I feel like some people get really misunderstood. And I think that we all need to stand up for each other, especially when we need it the most. And that comes from a conversation, it comes from a communication, it comes from compassion, and it comes from forgiveness.

And if you can’t learn to forgive someone, whether it’s their behavior, their words, their actions, you know, I think my kids tell me all the time, I’m a very forgiving person. They go, “Mom, it’s wild. You’re just like this person treated you this way or that way, or you experience this with this person.” And I try to see where it came from, what is the root of this, why are they acting this way?

And then again, if I can’t change it, I can’t control it. I can’t control somebody else or their actions. Right. You can’t control other people. So you have to either ignore it, fight for it, help explain it, help communicate it, and forgive it. I don’t know. I don’t know how else. That’s how I live my life. And if somebody, you know, a lot of people are struggling, and there’s a lot of, you know, it’s, it’s, sorry, just need a second.

JAY SHETTY: I’ll be sorry.

Mental Health and Compassion

KRIS JENNER: Okay, so there are a lot of people out there who struggle with their mental health. And we don’t know sometimes what the difference is because we’re not inside their brain or their body. So who are we to say, you know, that somebody’s not really struggling, sick, you know, having a hard time? And there’s so much of that, not really immediate answers and help for everybody. You know, when you can’t figure it out, sometimes you think, how does everybody deal with this? You know, so that’s, I don’t know. I have a lot of compassion for people that are in a family where there’s mental health issues. It makes me really sad.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s something definitely trying to support and help. And I’m glad you used it here because it’s…

KRIS JENNER: Oh, it makes me, I mean, I sometimes I, you know, hear about people or, you know, hear about what somebody’s going through, and I literally don’t even know them, and I’m in tears, and it just breaks my heart because of the situation right now that we’re in. And I think we make it worse for one another. You know, the criticism, the negativity online and the struggle that a lot of people have and the amount of suicide for young people.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: I mean, it, it’s truly heartbreaking. And I hear stories, and it just really is so upsetting and that it, you know, I struggle with that in my heart because I just wish there was more that we all could do just to love each other and be there for each other, and maybe there was a way that we could help in a bigger way. You know, it’s very confusing.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Yeah. We just, I literally just had the head of suicide from Harvard on the show.

KRIS JENNER: Really? Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: I just interviewed him maybe a month ago.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, wow.

JAY SHETTY: And it was so illuminating to hear just how much help people with mental health or suicidal thoughts are even seeking, but even in that. Yeah. Just how hard, how hard it is and how heavy it is, and I think heavy.

Learning Patience and Letting Go

KRIS JENNER: So it’s heavy in my heart. And I don’t have an immediate child or family member that’s struggling with that at the moment. And I think about it, for some reason, a great deal, as if maybe there’s some way to. There’s a lot of things, a lot of issues that I, right now I’m in the process of focusing on and getting more information on.

One of them is dementia and Alzheimer’s. And that’s why I love Dr. Amen so much, because he’s such an educator.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely.

KRIS JENNER: But the mental health thing is very confusing to me because it’s, I don’t feel like in the chapter I’m in in my life right now that I’ve ever experienced this volume of people that are hurting and struggling. Is it probably because our communication is enhanced with being able to see it all on the Internet and all of that, but it’s still a lot. And it does get very heavy and heavy in my heart.

JAY SHETTY: It does not definitely offline about that to see. It’s definitely, I feel the same way as why I invited Matthew Nock from Harvard on the show. I’m so glad you did that because I couldn’t agree with you more. I was just hearing so many stories and learning of so many people. And he told me that his friend committed suicide even when he knew his friend was the head of.

KRIS JENNER: No.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Was studying that. And he said, I just didn’t know. We just didn’t know. No one knew.

KRIS JENNER: No one knows.

JAY SHETTY: No one knows.

KRIS JENNER: And so that’s what the tragic part of it is. And there’s been so many times when, I mean, even parents of my kids’ friends, or there’s always one degree of separation and every single person has something like that, or they know about it, they’ve heard about it, a close friend happened or right in their own family, and it’s devastating.

I know people that have lost people close to them, and there’s just no closure there for a lot of people. But how they get to that place is really a struggle. Boy, can we talk about something happy? How did we get here? I’m crying, I’m hysterical. A mess. Let’s talk about Disneyland or something.

The Happiest Place on Earth

JAY SHETTY: Are you a Disney fan?

KRIS JENNER: Oh, my God, yes.

JAY SHETTY: It’s the happiest place on earth in my head. Oh, it is. I fully drank.

KRIS JENNER: It definitely is. I went last week with Kourtney. Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Because they just opened it. I go to Disney. I work for Disney. I want to be Snow White. All of it. I love it.

JAY SHETTY: I’m excited to go to the Epic Universe in Universal. They just opened it with the new Harry Potter World and all the rest.

KRIS JENNER: Wait, is that Disney? That’s not.

JAY SHETTY: It’s Universal. It’s Universal. This is not. It’s Theme Park World.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, that’s your thing. Okay. Have you been to the Star Wars ride at Disneyland?

JAY SHETTY: So good. I’m Disney World. Insane. It’s amazing.

KRIS JENNER: Oh, there you go. See, we have something else in common.

JAY SHETTY: We do, we do. I’m completely, I’ve completely drank the Kool-Aid on Disney.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah, me too. It’s the happiest place every day. Happiest place on earth. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Expanding the Radius of Family

JAY SHETTY: Kris, when we’ve spoken offline, I’ve always been blown away by how you, when you keep talking about family, I think people think, oh yeah, there’s six kids, right? But to you, the family is even your kids’ exes, right? Partners. It grows. Even if one of your children has been through something really difficult with their partner or an ex partner, you still love them as part of the unit and the family.

KRIS JENNER: I do.

JAY SHETTY: And that is incredible. Talk to me about how you expand that radius of care and love.

KRIS JENNER: First of all, I believe in my heart and in my soul, love is love. And I fall in love with people and have lives and years spent with their partners or their boyfriends or their husbands and have all these memories and travels and Christmas mornings and celebrations and birthdays and all the fun, the laughter, the joy, the tears, the babies.

These are in most cases the fathers of my grandchildren. And I love these men. And that love doesn’t go away when we experience really challenging times with them. It just doesn’t turn off like that for me. And I think that goes back to communication, compassion, forgiveness, and moving through that so you can get to a place where they know they can always come to me.

Every one of my kids’ exes know that they have an open door. And I think that’s how I was with my kids when they were little. And I got a divorce and I got married to Bruce. And when that happened, Robert knew that he could come walking in that back. It took a couple years, but it was what I had learned from people that were in my life in previous years.

I saw the co-parenting skills that other couples, two couples in particular, but these two couples handled their experience of how they loved their kids. It was all about the kids. Because if you sit and berate your partner over and over and over again to the kids or your ex partner, your ex boyfriend, your ex husband, your ex, it’s their dad or it’s their stepdad, you can’t do that. It really creates so much damage psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually, all of it.

Children don’t know how to process that kind of, it’s a grief, it’s a separation. So my goal with my children was always their dad comes for Christmas morning, and we spend New Year’s Eve together and birthdays and celebrations. Robert Kardashian came to Kendall and Kylie’s first birthdays, and he was there for every celebration. And they called him Uncle Robert. And he walked through that back door whenever he wanted, knowing there would be dinner on the table at 6:00. And he was always welcome.

And it’s the same way I now treat all of my kids’ exes, which a lot of people don’t understand because if they treated them badly. But we’ve all dealt with those issues internally and privately, and we don’t need to talk about these things anymore. It’s been done. It’s dealt with. We’ve done it, we’ve talked about it. We all know what happened. We’ve had it on the show or whatever’s happened in our lives.

Now it’s time to grow the f* up, be mature. And I love who I loved. And I don’t like what they’ve done. No, I don’t. But it doesn’t make the love get any less overnight. And I’m there for them always. And these are the fathers of my grandchildren. What would my grandkids think 20 years from now if their grandmother treated their dad poorly or I wasn’t loving and kind and compassionate and forgiving?

So I teach my kids forgiveness. It’s one of the biggest lessons that I can teach them to forgive somebody who’s treated you badly and move on. You may not completely forget, but you need to forgive. You need to let it go. It’s not good for your soul. It’s too much pressure on your heart.

And I do love them, and I do love who they are, and I love their families. It’s like with Travis Scott. I’m close to Travis, and I love his mom and his dad and his sister and his brother. They’re family to us, and we share celebrations together. And same with Tristan, who comes walking in the back door and has, hey, mom, what’s up? So they’re always around and we embrace them.

The Power of Prayer

JAY SHETTY: You said that before you start something, you pray.

KRIS JENNER: I do.

JAY SHETTY: I’m wondering, what is that prayer?

KRIS JENNER: It’s, dear God, please, surround me with your angels if I’m doing something that’s dangerous or when I go to bed at night and just help me to see what you want me to see and be the person that I need to be today and just help me through these difficult times.

Or I come to God in my prayers with lots of gratitude and thankfulness for the life that I have or just the ability to help somebody else. Because I think giving back is so important. And my girls and I talk a lot about that and just that we’ve been given so much and to whom much is given, much is required. And that to me is something that I was taught very young.

And I just pray about safety. I pray about peace, not only in my heart, but in the world. I pray about my family constantly and their safety and the grandkids and all the things. And I really, it’s important to me to calm myself before something important and really think about it and be thoughtful about it and be prayerful about it and then be grateful for it.

JAY SHETTY: It’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us.

KRIS JENNER: That’s my routine every day. But I wake up with a prayer. Thank you for waking me up. Thank you for giving me another beautiful day. Show me how you want me to spend my time today and help me through these 75,000 meetings and Zooms I have to do.

And then thank you for protecting me tonight when I go to sleep and bringing me some peace so I can recharge and be there for somebody else. Because if you don’t get yourself ready and get that energy going for the next day, your tank is going to be empty. And I can’t really run on an empty tank.

Growth Through Challenges

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, well said. Well said. Is there a truth that you feel or a lesson? Is there a lesson, Kris, that you feel life is out to teach you the hard way?

KRIS JENNER: I think that the challenges are growth. I think when I go through something that’s really hard, I have to remember to be grateful for it. And I have to remember that it’s part of the process and it’s what got me here.

Because, by the way, if you just started your adult life at 18 and just got everything you wanted, I think that it would be a very different life. It would be harder at the end of the day. But I love the things that I, I wouldn’t change anything that I’ve been through because it’s taught me so much, so many things in my life, decades worth of things that you think back.

And I think, what were the hardest, the hardest times, and those are the times that really, I think for me personally, I experienced the most growth as a person. And believe me, I’ve made so many mistakes, and I’m not always right. And I have to apologize to somebody all the time. I mean, I’m human and I’m definitely not perfect and I’m flawed, but I just try to learn something a little bit different and be a little bit better every day.

JAY SHETTY: What’s a lesson that you feel you’re really realizing right now in your 70 years that’s kind of at the forefront of your mind? A principle or a lesson that there’s probably a couple.

KRIS JENNER: I’m trying to be more patient. I’m trying not to lose my temper over things that don’t matter and that I can’t control because I know that I have a purpose. I know that I have this beautiful life and this beautiful family. So just relax.

When you can’t control something, who cares? It’s not going to change anything. Me getting upset isn’t going to change a thing. I can renegotiate. I can talk to somebody calmly. I can try to deal with things that, the challenges that come up day to day. And if I can’t control it, I’ve got to let it go. I’ve got to say to myself, okay. It’s funny. Do you know Dr. Amen?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, of course.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: He’s been on the show four or five times.

Learning from Dr. Amen: The Rule of 12

KRIS JENNER: Oh, I love him so much. So I talk to him from time to time, and he said, what’s on your mind today? And I said, you know, what’s on my mind is I keep thinking I’m a complainer. And my daughter Chloe has really brought this to my mind, top of mind, and said, mom, you’ve got to stop complaining about nothing. Like, you have the most beautiful life.

And I go, I know you’re right. I’m a control freak. So when you’re a control freak, like, my idea of a great Saturday afternoon is rearranging my drawers. It gives me peace, it helps my brain. It helps me to get, I’m a very organized girl. So to reorganize everything just to, I don’t know, blow off some steam, helps me to relax. It’s my form of Zen.

So when I can’t control something, I get annoyed. Like, the littlest things, like, why did that person do? Like, that doesn’t even make any sense. So common sense isn’t very common, as we all know. Right. So I always say that.

And so Dr. Amen said, I’m going to give you the rule of 12. He goes, you have to wait until something goes wrong for the 12th time, and then you can let loose. And I said, oh, I love that.

So, of course, somebody forgets a bag. So we have to wait, you know, whatever, half hour for somebody to go back, drive somewhere. Then somebody forgot a passport. Then, you know, it went like that for a while, right? And one by one, okay, number one. And I just smiled, you know, tried to breathe. Number two. Okay, I’m going to distract myself. I’ll get on Instagram or something, right?

Then number three, you know, and I kept trying to distract myself from being cranky. Got to number 12, and I thought, okay, next one, I’m going to, you know, shit’s going to hit the fan. And of course, number 13 came, and I just went, okay.

And it really helped to put me in my place a little bit. Like, nothing’s this serious. Like, why are you complaining? What do you have to complain about? And then just trying to find your peace. Inner peace, where you feel like we’ve all had days. I know everybody’s had the day that they wake up and they realize today is such a great day.

Like, everything’s going right. My family’s healthy. I have money in the bank. I can pay the rent. This relationship is going really well, and I have lots of friends, and everything’s just coming up roses. And that’s the feeling that I love to have and recognize when it comes along.

So that feeling of gratitude and gratification and just thankfulness, like, thank you, God, for all of these wonderful things. But it’s not just about oodles and oodles of blessings. It’s about a feeling. Do you know what I mean?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah. It’s about really recognizing how special that is. And sometimes it doesn’t come along every single day. So you have to appreciate it.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. You’ve got to look for it. You got to find that feeling.

KRIS JENNER: You do.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. You got to find that feeling.

KRIS JENNER: You have to find that feeling and then really kind of just, you know, let it sink in.

The Perspective Scale

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. You’re reminding me. There’s a tool that I love. It’s called the perspective scale. So if you looked at your life from 0 to 10, 0 is the way you feel when you wake up and everything’s amazing. And 10 is you wake up and the worst thing possible could happen. Are you all the opposite right now? If you looked at today’s problem of someone forgetting their bag to the airport.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: It’s like a two on that list. Yeah. Because compared to the worst day ever, nothing but, right? When you don’t have that perspective, everything’s a 10, right. Everything feels like a 10. Like the meeting that fell through, the person show up, the text you got that you didn’t want it. It’s like everything’s a 9 or a 10, and when you look at it in perspective, you go, oh, actually, that’s just a one.

KRIS JENNER: That’s a one.

JAY SHETTY: It’s a two. Yeah, it’s, you know, whatever it is, and it just lets you, what you’re saying.

KRIS JENNER: Relax, can’t control it. What are we going to do? Just get ourselves all twirled up? No, I can’t do that anymore. I’m too, I want to protect my peace. And it’s part of what I talked to Dr. Amen about is protecting my peace and just showing more kindness and more generosity and more just being the kind of person, like my grandmother used to say, you better treat others the way you want others to treat. You know, and so, of course.

And also she always said, if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. And that’s when I want to plaster across my Instagram page. It’s such a different world.

JAY SHETTY: It’s a great rule, though.

KRIS JENNER: It’s a great rule. They still hold true. All of these decades of life, all these cliches. They all do. Yeah, they all do.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely.

KRIS JENNER: I know, I have a lot of them. Go on. No, I mean, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I mean, all those silly ones. And my kids make fun of me all the time, but could you say to them, I’m old fashioned?

Professional Standards and Family Values

JAY SHETTY: Well, that worked, though. I was about to say, just so, just everyone knows how organized Kris is. She came here 35 minutes early today. Like, 35 minutes early. No one does that. And Kendall, Kim and Chloe, never been late to the podcast, never been late to an event dinner. Like, it’s just everyone operates so professionally. There’s so much respect for everyone else’s time and energy.

KRIS JENNER: Yes.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. And it’s, and it comes from that place. It’s not just checkbox. It’s like whenever I’ve spent time with anyone, whether it’s with Kim and Chloe in India or, you know, whatever it may be, everyone’s always on time and the energy’s right and everyone’s excited and there’s.

KRIS JENNER: Excited to be there, excited to be there and to be. I love the girls because they love to build other people up and they have this great group of friends and to look at these humans that, you know, I, you know, just, just so very proud of the women and the man that they become because they make me so happy and they have, you know, very happy lives because they have each other.

I mean, not everybody can have six kids, but it’s a lot of people to raise. But it certainly, it makes for a really, you know, amazing family.

Raising Six Individuals

JAY SHETTY: How did you make sure you got to know them all individually and intimately in a way that you could guide them towards their passions and help them find it? Because that’s such an individual process.

KRIS JENNER: It is.

JAY SHETTY: It’s such a personal thing. It’s.

KRIS JENNER: I think with the first four, I was lucky enough to not be working through the pregnancies or raising them when they were small, and I took that time. And then later when I was, you know, I really came into this growth and, you know, television success when I was 52, when we started our show. Wow, isn’t that crazy? I know.

And people, by the way, thought that we just sort of appeared out of nowhere. And I had a life for a couple decades, several decades that I was very immersed in Hollywood and knew everybody and had this beautiful life with Robert and then Bruce at the time, and, you know, just had this glorious, you know, life together with my kids and really experience so much with them from when they were babies and they were always doing things and in sports and we went to everything and, you know, it was just a typical childhood for them that they were involved in everything and we were right there, you know, as, you know, having a front row seat to their childhoods.

And that makes a big difference, you know, when you’re just all in 1000%. I had some friends who didn’t experience what I experienced and the difference in the outcome in how their kids were raised versus, you know, there are differences. It’s like, and it’s not just about somebody who throws themselves into, you know, one of their kids. It’s definitely how a child’s makeup is, you know, you know, they’re individuals.

But what was so fascinating for me was how different every, every single child was. Like, I had my first baby and you don’t know what to expect with number two. One is like one. Two is like 20 for me. That’s how it was for me. And it was very overwhelming to have two. And I thought, oh, what’s one more? You know, and then it just kept going.

But I think what you don’t expect and what people would say to me at the time, people that were my age but didn’t have any kids or one kid, and they would say, wow, how are they so different? And they were just, obviously had their own, you know, amazing personalities and all the things that come with that and just learned each one little by little.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: And just were part of each other’s, you know, obviously DNA. But it truly, like, they’re just the biggest part of my heart.

Starting Over with Kendall and Kylie

JAY SHETTY: But it’s, it’s so interesting to hear that, that having that time with each of them and having that quality time in those early days. And I assume you’d built up the skills by the time you had Kendall and Kylie.

KRIS JENNER: I need a break.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: I had like an eight year break in there. And so when I had Kendall, not only had the world change and the, you know, I mean, there was a time, I mean, I had a good solid decade when I had like three high chairs lined up and, you know, strollers and two car seats. And then I went through a stage of having a little bit of a break with being pregnant and then started all over again.

And everything changed. There were telephones, there were computers. It was huge. A huge change in how everything worked. And 1995 came along and Kendall was born, and then I really had another chance at sort of continuing my family with Kendall and Kylie and thought, oh, now we need another one because you don’t want Kendall to grow up kind of so far apart in the gap. So we had another one.

And Chloe was like my angel because Chloe really helped me. She was 10, maybe or 11. And she really helped me with Kendall and Kylie because now at this point, I’ve got a full time job and I’ve got to figure out how to keep the lights on. Truly. And I thought, oh, this is like, so from morning till night, working and trying to make it, you know, a career and was very interesting.

And that little Chloe was like a little mama’s helper with everything, with feeding and bath time and, you know, help me babysit on the weekends. I was in the house, I was in my office. But, you know, if I said, you guys play out here, I’ll be right. You know, but with such a great set of hands and such a, she gave everything to those girls and really helped me with that so that I’ll always be grateful.

JAY SHETTY: That was just natural for her. Like, that was natural. That was her maternal energy that she had.

KRIS JENNER: I could have called Chloe at 10 years old and said, we’re having folks for dinner tonight. Can you just throw on a little something for dinner and set the table for eight, 10 people? She would have nailed it. I mean, she was something else. She still is. She’s just remarkable, that kid.

But yeah. So, you know, if I hadn’t had the older ones to really help me with the younger ones. It would have been a lot more difficult, but that’s what great big families are, so that’s why they’re so special.

JAY SHETTY: Like, you’re promoting big families, Kris. That’s the.

KRIS JENNER: Come on, everybody. Get out there and have some kids.

JAY SHETTY: Have some kids.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah, that’s what we need.

JAY SHETTY: It seems so thoughtful, though. Like, you were like, all right, I don’t want Kendall to be the last one who’s left alone. And so we’ll have another one. Like, there’s so much thought. It’s intentional.

KRIS JENNER: It was very intentional.

JAY SHETTY: Very intentional.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah. I didn’t want somebody to be left without their, like, it was Courtney and Kimberly, and then it was Chloe and Rob, who are still connected at the hip. They’re both, all of them. And then it’s Kendall and Kylie.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: So they all had their little, I had different litters. They had different pals. You know, it was, it’s really, and I just, I felt really good about that.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I love that. Let’s go through the kindergarten. One thing that each of them have taught you.

Learning from Each Child

KRIS JENNER: Oh, okay. Courtney taught me probably how to be a mom. She was my firstborn, and she gave me a run for my money because she was very colicky. And that was interesting and very challenging for those long nights and all of that. So that was like, oh, okay. This is what it’s like. And you would do anything to make her life and have her feel better. You know, this little tiny thing that really had an upset tummy for nine months at least. And then I wanted to do it again.

Kim taught me multitasking, and Chloe taught me probably—oh, I mean, they all taught me love. But Chloe united everybody and taught me a lot about how grateful I was for humor because she was so funny.

And then Rob, the same. Rob was just a joy, but he was the boy. You know, Robert Kardashian Sr. came from a big Armenian family, and they were praying for a boy from day one. So, you know, it was always, I hope it’s the boy. Hope it’s the boy, and it’s going to be Robert Jr. And I was like, okay, it’s a girl. You know, another girl. Another girl.

And so when Robert was born, it was like all the Armenians were rejoicing. My mother and father-in-law were so happy and all their friends. And I remember she ran to the hospital with this beautiful diamond brooch that she gave me, and I was, you know, it was so joyful, and it was like New Year’s Eve, you know, and it was a celebration. So that was really special.

Understanding Armenian Culture

And it taught me a lot about their culture and how to celebrate on another level and all of the experiences that—because suddenly when Robert was born, the Armenian side of my in-laws really kicked in over at my house. You know, it’s like, we’re going to make these Armenian meals and I’m going to show and we’re trying to teach the kids to speak a little Armenian, which, you know, didn’t go that far. They’re not fluent or anything, but it was a lot of fun to learn about that and finally to have the boy that they had been hoping for for all that time.

And then, so that was joyful. He taught me a lot about what that meant and what, you know, having probably what they considered more of the head of the family because I had a son and what that was like. That was just such a beautiful experience to have a boy.

Lessons in Patience and Gratitude

And then Kendall, I think, taught me a lot about patience and serenity because I had two miscarriages before I had Kendall, and that taught me a lot. Because you think you’re invincible. I’m just going to pop out another baby, and then you don’t, and it becomes a little bit of a struggle. But when she came, you know, it was just so amazing, too. And it made me realize how appreciation—I think a lot of that lesson, too, was how much I appreciated and then sat in awe of all the other times I had done it and thought, wow, this is not just so easy for everybody.

And by that time, when Kylie came along, I also—appreciation and just joy. And I got gestational diabetes very badly, and I gained about 100 pounds. And that was hard. And it taught me a lot about patience, and it taught me a lot about being healthy and healthy choices. And the world was changing.

And a lot of my friends at the time, we were all in our 40s. I had Kendall when I was 40, and I had Kylie when I was 41. And that when you do that in your life after having four other children, that’s very, you know, it’s a decision you’re making. It’s very intentional. And you don’t just accidentally pop up and get, at least for me, get pregnant for no reason. And so it was very intentional to add to my family.

And Kylie taught me a lot about being grateful and having gratitude for all of my children, because now that I’m in my 40s, a lot of my friends were also in their 40s and everybody was struggling with infertility that hadn’t had a baby yet. And here I was on my fifth and sixth, and some people were really struggling and I thought, wow, so grateful that this had been, this was my journey. So I felt very grateful for that.

JAY SHETTY: That’s beautiful. So sorry for your loss. I mean, those two miscarriages. I mean, I’ve had a lot of my friends in the last 12 to 24 months have experienced miscarriages and I feel like people are starting to talk about it a bit more now.

The Silent Grief of Loss

KRIS JENNER: You grieve. It’s a terrible thing that you do because it’s so silent almost, you know. It happens and people go, we’re so sorry. And I carried that for months, months and months. You know, you still think about it from time to time but don’t dwell on it at all. Just grateful that I am and I got to have my journey and my experience and my kids are thriving health-wise at the moment. So, you know, you just have to be there and support and love on the friends that go through that.

And that was a lot of my friends were experiencing it around that time. And that was a big moment for me during those years. It wasn’t a moment. It was several years of just trying to be there and being supportive and being a friend and trying to go to doctor’s appointments and doing different versions of IVF and all these different medical—but by the way, we’re just becoming something that worked in those years. It was still very new. Almost 30 years ago.

And I just always would hold my breath when one of my friends would get pregnant again, you know, that had experienced loss in such a difficult way and praying. And then every time one of my girlfriends would have a baby after a long journey, I would go to the hospital and we would celebrate and it was just—yeah, I remember doing that quite a few times.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. It’s—I think it’s going to be useful for a lot of people to hear that because it’s—I don’t think it’s ever going to get easier when people go through something. It’s always going to hurt. And knowing that others are going through it is probably the only thing that helps.

KRIS JENNER: It’s devastating to people that have tried for so long to have a baby and it just doesn’t happen for them. And that used to break my heart because I always experienced the joy and the joyful part of it. I never really had the side that ended very sadly. I mean, I had a couple of experiences that was, you know, traumatizing to say the least at the time. But I went on with a happy ending. And some people don’t get that happy ending. And that always used to break my heart, you know, to have anybody struggle with that.

But now, my goodness, there’s so many amazing ways to overcome, just due to all the new technology, all the things they’re doing now, and the way people are using surrogates. That’s such a wonderful gift to be able to give someone. I used to think when I was really young and not thinking it through, after I had a couple kids, I said I would—I was watching something on TV once about a surrogate, and by the way, we’re talking 1980s, and I used to think, I would do this for somebody. If somebody—it would—I would do this. And then, you know, then a few minutes later, you’re like, Kris, snap out of it. But no, I used to think that, truly. I used to think that would be a great thing to do.

So I really do admire women who give their life to somebody for a couple of years, basically, of helping them carry a baby. I just shout out to anybody who’s ever been a surrogate, what a beautiful, sacred gift.

Wisdom for the Next Generation

JAY SHETTY: And now, from your position of having this wisdom and being in this place in your life, what’s a piece of advice or wisdom that you’re sharing with each of the kids? What’s the different lens or direction that you’re giving each of them right now?

KRIS JENNER: I think be kind, treat each other with love and kindness and everyone that you encounter, and you never know what somebody’s been through or what they’re going through at the moment or that day. And if people are, you know, cruel and nasty, we talk about that a lot lately, just about the way people can get worked up online and some of the negative energy there and just really trying to not listen to the noise, don’t read that kind of stuff, and try to be more joyful and just to be there for one another.

Because all we have is each other. That’s all we’ve got. It goes by so fast, and especially when you have kids, you realize how fast time goes by. And Kylie shared in our group chat, our family group chat, a picture of Stormi yesterday. And I haven’t seen her in a week. And I was shook. I was like, this is just going by so fast. She’s, you know, she grew a foot, what happened here.

So I think just to appreciate the moment, drown out the noise as much as you can and love each other as hard as you can because you only have this one life and it goes by really fast.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, you keep talking about this interview, this drowning out the noise, and there being so many disturbances.

Editing Your Life

KRIS JENNER: You have to. Because there’s so much going on. I have so much incoming constantly in my life. You know, there’s always something to look at, answer to, look at a contract, have a Zoom, do a beautiful podcast. There’s always so much to choose from and so many beautiful things we can do. But there’s also a lot of—it’s work, but it’s stuff we need to do, or it’s conflict or it’s something you need to deal with personally. There’s always something, you know, going on during the day.

And I think you have to edit, edit your life and really focus on what you want to put your energy into, put your heart and your soul into, put your love into, and then edit what you can get rid of to find some joy and some peace in all of it. And through all of that, be grateful.

JAY SHETTY: What I love learning about you more and more the more time we spend together is that I feel like you’re this incredible powerhouse, amazing business person, incredible strategy, but at the heart of it, there’s this really soft, loving, soulful, you know, individual. And is that how you see yourself when you feel most seen? For people who know you the deepest and the best, how do they see you? What do they see?

KRIS JENNER: I think the way you described. Anyone who knows me knows I’m just a big baby and I’m a big softie and I cry at commercials. I literally have it right under the surface at all times. But then I go to work and I’m like, okay, let’s see. No, I’m really not. But I’m, you know, I love what I do, and I know that through experience and time and, you know, just all the things we’ve been through.

You know, I try my best every day and try to get through the day with as much integrity and the best character I can, you know, put out there and be myself and do what I think is right and teach my kids to be good human beings and my grandkids and just have so much fun and enjoy every minute and—yeah, yeah, you did it right, Kris, I don’t know. You know, listen, I make a lot of mistakes throughout my life and during the day and, you know, all of it, you know, just like everybody does.

JAY SHETTY: That’s normal there.

KRIS JENNER: But I think if we just go out there and put our best foot forward, like my mom used to say, my grandma used to say, and do our very best and be the best sink scrubber you can possibly be, you’re going to be okay.

The Final Five

JAY SHETTY: I love that. Kris, we end every On Purpose interview with the Final Five.

KRIS JENNER: Okay.

JAY SHETTY: These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. So you have a sentence for each.

KRIS JENNER: Okay, I’m responding to your word.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I’ll ask you a question. You can have a sentence. So, Kris Jenner, these are your Final Five. The first question is, what is the best advice you’ve ever heard or received?

KRIS JENNER: Lead with your heart.

JAY SHETTY: Second question, what is the worst advice you’ve ever heard or received?

KRIS JENNER: Probably somebody telling me how to raise my kids, and then I do the exact opposite, and I think I did.

JAY SHETTY: Because you disagree with it.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: What was some of that bad advice? What kind of things did people say?

The Power of Intuition and Following Your Soul

KRIS JENNER: Just, you know, when you’re going through life and people are telling you different ways to just approach a problem and how they would handle it, and I’ve always just done my own thing. I think you have to really go with your intuition and your gut.

When you’re raising kids or any real important decision that you make in your life, you have to follow what your mind, like, your soul tells you to do. And I’ve been really, I think, intuitive about what I think is right and wrong.

JAY SHETTY: Question number three. What do you feel your soul is here to experience right now?

KRIS JENNER: I think I have a strong purpose in raising my family and raising great kids and created a legacy that I pass on to my grandchildren and their children and just showing and learning from one another. My family. I think it’s all about my family.

I was born to be a mom and help them find their passion, their truth, their joy, their legacy. And so I have a lot of, I’m so proud of that. That gets to be my purpose.

JAY SHETTY: That’s so clearly what it feels like you were born to do.

KRIS JENNER: I feel like that. I feel so strongly, and it’s amazing.

JAY SHETTY: That you’re thinking about not only your grandkids for their kids and, like, you really do think about multigenerational.

Creating Legacy Through Celebration and Tradition

KRIS JENNER: I think I’m a very sentimental person, and I made an app for my family that we have all of our home movies from the time they were born and they’re up on the screen, and I try to think of really interesting things to give them about their childhood and how what they can do for their kids.

And it all comes back to the kids, the grandkids. And celebrating is celebrating anything is so special in my family. And being able to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving and Halloween and 4th of July and Valentine’s, everything, like everybody’s birthday. It’s every month. There’s something really big that happens around our crew.

And I think just having that joy and that to look forward to if it’s just being together. And like you were saying, you’re celebrating your special time with your wife. And that’s something that you’re looking forward to and you can’t wait. We feel like that all the time because there’s so many of us.

And so my purpose here is to be this conductor of all of those stuff and to teach it to all of them, and then they’ll teach it to their kids, and their kids will teach it to their kids. And just the tradition, the sentimental times, the memories, the scores of photos that I used to put into albums before there was ever an iPhone. And that all means so much.

The Bond with Her Mother

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Question number four. You are obviously there for all of them. What do you still go to your mother for? Who’s 91?

KRIS JENNER: Everything. I talk to her every day on the phone.

JAY SHETTY: Really?

KRIS JENNER: We help each other with what we’re going to watch. She loves Dateline as much as I do, so we’re like, what murder mystery are we going to watch tonight? And then she’ll say, okay, I was sad today, so we’re going to watch a comedy. And we’ll say, okay, which one?

And so we have great fun just doing that together, even though we’re, she lives a mile from my house. I try to get her to move in with me, but she refuses. She’s so independent, which I admire and love. And she lives part time in La Jolla down in near San Diego, and she’s got beautiful views, so she sends me photos every day of how much she appreciates the ocean and her surroundings. And we just have great fun together.

JAY SHETTY: She’s 91 now, right?

KRIS JENNER: 91.

JAY SHETTY: It’s amazing.

KRIS JENNER: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s beautiful. What she passed down. Your grandmother passed down. Oh, so it’s already been three. Did they have that as well, or were they the ones to start it off?

KRIS JENNER: I think my grandmother, she was the one. She started off right.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

KRIS JENNER: So lucky me.

JAY SHETTY: It’s already been five generations.

KRIS JENNER: Lucky me.

One Law for the World: Love One Another

JAY SHETTY: It’s amazing. Fifth and final question, Kris. We asked this to every guest who’s ever been on the show.

KRIS JENNER: Okay?

JAY SHETTY: The question is, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

KRIS JENNER: Love one another. Simple.

JAY SHETTY: Simple. Why do we find it so hard?

KRIS JENNER: I don’t know. I don’t know. But that’s mine. That’s my advice.

Gratitude and Reflection

JAY SHETTY: I’m so grateful to you for your time, your energy, sharing your soul. I’m waiting now. All I was thinking about this whole time while you were speaking, I was like, we need a Kris memoir. Like, we need a man. All of these incredible stories of you scrubbing that donut floor and the…

KRIS JENNER: The glaze off the floor.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, the glaze off the floor.

KRIS JENNER: I am the best donut glaze scraper.

JAY SHETTY: In the US we need a memoir from the matriarch. You know, we need a memoir.

KRIS JENNER: You know, there’s silly stories and something that most people won’t think are significant, but they were growing up and that’s, everybody’s life is so different, and that’s part of mine. So I’m grateful for every moment.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, well, you impact millions of people across the world, so your story matters for people to know how you became who you became. And I’m grateful that we could share that chapter here and celebrate your upcoming 70th birthday. And just so grateful for you, your family.

KRIS JENNER: And we’re grateful for you, and I’m proud of you for spreading all the messages you spread around the world. And everybody listens to you and gets such strength and knowledge and comfort and hopefully turns their lives around in some way.

And that’s a very special position to be in. And that’s your very special man. So thank you for all that you give to everybody in the world, including me and my family. So thank you.

JAY SHETTY: Thank you, Kris. You’re the best.

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