10 Books That Changed My Life
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 30.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, Jay opens with an honest observation: most books don’t actually change your life. While many offer inspiration in the moment, they rarely shift how we truly think or live. What makes the difference, Jay explains, isn’t how much you read, it’s whether a single idea stays with you long enough to reshape your decisions, habits, and identity. Jay shares 10 books that genuinely changed his life, and the specific lessons that stayed with him long after he turned the last page. From rethinking how we judge our decisions to letting go of the need for approval, each book challenged a belief he once held.
Jay explores how we often misinterpret our experiences, chase a single definition of purpose, and overwhelm our minds with unnecessary mental clutter. He also unpacks the hidden patterns that drive so much of our stress, like the illusion of certainty in our thinking and the instinct to defend our beliefs instead of questioning them. Through these insights, Jay invites you to look at your own thinking more closely, and to become more intentional about how you make decisions, what you believe, and how you show up every day.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Clear Mental Clutter and Think Better
How to Question Your Own Thinking
How to Take Action Without Perfection
How to Understand People You Disagree With
How to Focus on Effort, Not Results
You are allowed to grow at your own pace. You are allowed to not have everything figured out. What matters is that you keep showing up with intention, with awareness, and with the courage to do things differently, even when it feels uncomfortable.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
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What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
01:46 Book 1: How to Decide: Why We Judge Decisions the Wrong Way
04:49 Book 2: Finding Your Element (The Myth of One True Purpose)
07:07 Book 3: An Organized Mind
09:48 Book 4: The Courage To Be Disliked
13:28 Book 5: Thinking, Fast and Slow
16:36 Book 6: Flow State
18:50 Book 7: The Lean Startup - Stop Overthinking, Start Testing
21:33 Book 8: The Righteous Mind
24:50 Book 9: Lessons From the Bhagavad Gita
27:04 Book 10: Breath: A Simple Way to Reset Your State
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human. |
| 0:06.0 | Now it's time to thank our partner of this episode, Cathay Pacific. |
| 0:10.7 | Have you ever noticed how the way you travel can shape how you arrive? |
| 0:14.3 | Not just physically, but mentally too. |
| 0:16.6 | Sometimes the journey gives you space to reset before you even reach your destination. |
| 0:21.7 | Asia just got closer with Cathay Pacific. |
| 0:24.9 | The airline is helping travelers feel connected before they even arrive. |
| 0:28.7 | The airline delivers a calm, premium experience with thoughtful design, |
| 0:32.5 | attentive service and a focus on making long-haul travel feel effortless. |
| 0:37.2 | Cathay Pacific appeals to culturally curious travelers, |
| 0:40.3 | helping them arrive feeling rested, inspired, |
| 0:43.1 | and ready to embrace the experience ahead. |
| 0:45.3 | To discover more, visitcathay.com. |
| 0:48.2 | Asia just got closer. |
| 0:50.2 | I need to tell you something about books that no one really says out loud. |
| 0:54.1 | Most books don't change |
| 0:55.5 | your life. Most books give you a little dopamine hit of feeling smart for a week and then you |
| 1:00.3 | forget 90% of what you read and go back to operating exactly the same way you did before. You |
| 1:05.8 | opened page one. You've experienced this. You've read a book everyone raved about. You nodded the whole way through. |
| 1:12.0 | You told someone it was really good. |
| 1:13.8 | And then three months later, you can't remember a single idea from it that actually changed |
| 1:17.8 | how you live. |
... |
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