At university in London, Jay Shetty attended a lecture by a monk. He had already mapped out a consulting career - the kind that pays well and asks little of your interior life. The monk spoke for an hour. Shetty canceled the job offer the next day.
Born September 6, 1987, in North London - mother Gujarati, father a Tulu Bunt from Mangalore - Shetty grew up in Barnet, where he was, by his own account, an overweight kid who got bullied. He studied Management Science at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, graduated in 2010, and instead of walking into Accenture, walked into a Hindu monastic community.
For three years, he was up at 4am. Cold showers. Eight hours of meditation daily. He shaved his head. He lived with 10 to 12 fellow monks and shed every material possession he had. He studied breath, philosophy, ancient texts. He wasn't on a gap year. He was trying to become someone who actually understood the mind.
Swap 'Why is this happening to me?' to 'What is this trying to teach me?' It will change everything.
- Jay ShettyWhen he returned to London in 2013, nobody wanted to hire him. A three-year monastic interlude does not look particularly compelling on a standard CV. He eventually landed at Accenture as a digital strategy consultant. He did the work. He also started making videos after hours - short, punchy takes on ancient wisdom reframed for modern life. Arianna Huffington noticed. She brought him on at HuffPost. The videos went viral. Then they went planetary.
By 2016, Forbes named him 30 Under 30 in European media. By 2017, he had moved to Los Angeles. By 2019, he launched "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" - a podcast that pulled 64 million downloads in its first year alone. By 2023, it crossed 1 billion total listens and landed the title of the world's #1 health and wellness podcast.
Two books followed: "Think Like a Monk" (2020), which hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and "8 Rules of Love" (2023), published by Simon & Schuster. Both distill the three years in India into frameworks a busy person can actually use - not spirituality as aesthetics, but as operating system.
In 2022, he became Chief Purpose Officer at Calm, the mindfulness app. The same year, he officiated the wedding of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck - a task he was handed because Will Smith, who is close to Shetty, introduced them. J.Lo and Ben Affleck needed someone who understood the ceremonial. Shetty had literally been trained for it.
In May 2026, Netflix and Spotify announced a multiyear exclusive deal for video rights to "On Purpose." The reported value: up to $100 million. At least three other companies had bid in the nine-figure range. Beginning July 13, 2026, new episodes go video-exclusive to Netflix; audio remains on Spotify. It is one of the largest podcast deals in history.
Around the same time, Shetty co-founded House of 1212, a purpose-driven talent agency, launched Perfect Strangers, a production company for film, television, and podcasting, and was announced as Global Ambassador and shareholder of IM8, a health brand serving 150,000 scoops a day. The monk turned creator turned media company turned, in 2026, into a studio.
Outside the professional sphere: he is married to Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, a chef, podcast host, New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and co-founder of Juni Sparkling Tea - their adaptogenic beverage brand, launched in 2021. They met when her mother introduced them at a temple while Jay was still a monk. They were married within three months of getting together. The honeymoon in Bora Bora came three years later.
In 2025, TIME named him to its inaugural TIME100 Creators list. In 2026, iHeartPodcast gave him the Social Impact Award. He also lives part-owner of Angel City FC, the women's professional soccer club in Los Angeles. He raised $5 million for COVID relief in India in 24 hours alongside Radhi in 2021. He interviewed President Biden at the White House in 2023. He spoke at Princeton's Class Day commencement.
The thread connecting all of it is not self-help branding. It is the genuinely odd fact that Jay Shetty did, in his twenties, exactly what he now teaches - he renounced the obvious path, went somewhere uncomfortable, learned something true, and returned to share it. That a $100 million streaming deal is now attached to that story is perhaps the most modern fable in the media business.