Jay Shetty

Jay Shetty (born 6 September 1987) is an English podcaster, author, entrepreneur, and life coach. He has appeared on television programs to discuss mental health and life purpose.

Early life

Shetty was born in London on 6 September 1987 to a Hindu family of Indian origin. He was raised in Barnet, North London and has a sister. From childhood, he was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known as the Hare Krishna movement or Hare Krishnas. His mother is a Gujarati who was raised in Yemen and his father is a Tulu Bunt from Mangalore. He attended Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, then went on to graduate from the Bayes Business School at the City St George's, University of London.

Career

In a 2008 interview, Shetty stated that at a 2006 event in France of the Iskcon Pandava Sena (the Hare Krishna youth group) he had undergone a "massive transformation" and become much more appreciative of the Hare Krishna movement.

In business school around 2007 (though Shetty had provided inconsistent accounts of when the event took place), Shetty met Gauranga Das, a monk invited to speak at the school on selflessness and living a minimalist lifestyle. Shetty spoke with Gauranga after his talk and followed him for the remainder of Gauranga's lecture circuit around the United Kingdom. Shetty says that he spent four summers in India interning at corporations and training with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Shetty has often said that he spent three years, from 2010 to 2013, living the ISKCON lifestyle at an undisclosed ashram, but his own blog posts and people familiar with his movements in that period indicate he spent most of this time making promotional videos at Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford, with Shetty writing in a blog post that he had arrived in India in October 2010 and had spent less than four months in the country before leaving again.

Shetty began his career at Accenture, working on digital strategy and as a social media coach for the company's executives. In 2016, Shetty broke away to become an independent content creator. His work caught the attention of Arianna Huffington, who hired him to produce videos for ''Huffington Post'' about topics such as relationships. Shetty stopped working for the ''HuffPost'' in early 2017, later releasing videos independently on Facebook and YouTube. By 2019, Shetty had over 1 million subscribers on YouTube and 20 million followers on Facebook.

Shetty won a 2016 Asian Media Award for Best Blog and a 2018 Streamy Awards in the Health and Wellness category.

In 2018, Shetty made appearances on ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' and the ''Red Table Talk'' show (hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith) on Facebook, and became the "personal spiritual adviser" to Will Smith.

In 2019, Shetty launched the podcast ''On Purpose''. The podcast was downloaded 64 million times in its first year. ''On Purpose'' became the number one health podcast in the world according to ''Forbes''. In July 2023, Shetty interviewed US President Joe Biden on his mental health initiatives in a podcast episode filmed at the White House.

In April 2019, Shetty was honoured with the Outstanding Achievement Online Award at The Asian Awards and in May 2019 he won Best in Health & Wellness at the 11th Shorty Awards.

In August 2019, YouTuber Nicole Arbour criticized Shetty for posting quotes without proper attribution, leading him to edit 113 posts from his Instagram to add attributions.

Shetty is the co-founder of a video production company, Icon Media, along with Alex Kushneir. In 2021, Shetty and his wife Radhi launched Sama Tea, an adaptogenic brand inspired by ayurveda and rebranded it as Juni Tea in 2023. In 2022, Shetty joined meditation product company Calm as its "Chief Purpose Officer".

Shetty has conducted interviews with a number of public figures.

Jay Shetty Certification School

In 2020, Shetty founded the Jay Shetty Certification School, an online learning platform for becoming an accredited life coach. It claims to provide a Level 7 diploma, which is equivalent to a Master's degree in the United Kingdom. A 2024 investigation into Shetty's career by ''The Guardian'' found that the school made misleading and erroneous claims of being Ofqual-regulated and in progression arrangements with the University of Chichester, as well as several other UK universities. Following the investigation, the website was altered to correct some of these claims. Marketing professor William Keep of The College of New Jersey has likened the school's business model to a multi-level marketing scheme, as many students are encouraged to recoup the $7,400 tuition cost by starting their own life coach training centers.

Books

Simon & Schuster published Shetty's 2020 book ''Think Like a Monk''. The book offers advice on reducing stress and improving focus, based on Shetty's experiences from living at an ashram

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