The camera on the sleek glass conference-room wall was pointed straight at him, red light glowing like an accusation.

Jay stared at his own reflection in the window instead.

Manhattan towered behind him in a chaos of mirrored facades and steel ribs, the Hudson River slicing through it all like a silver blade. Yellow taxis crawled along the avenues twenty floors below, little yellow rectangles sliding between buses and delivery trucks. On one rooftop, a faded American flag snapped in the wind, frayed at the edges but still flying.

He pressed his palms against his thighs to stop them from shaking.

This was it.

He was twenty-eight years old. No film degree, no production credits, no experience in an American media company. But he had something else. Something he kept talking about so often his friends could recite it in their sleep.

A vision.

Make wisdom go viral.

He could still hear the tractor-slow bell of the monastery in his ears, even here, surrounded by glass, concrete, and the faint hum of air conditioning. Three years of shaved head, dawn meditation, simple robes, serving food to people who had nothing but gratitude.

Back then, when he’d first told the older monks that he wanted to take what he’d learned and send it out—into phones, into hearts, into living rooms in Ohio and offices in New York—some of them had smiled and said nothing. Others had clasped his shoulder and told him that if his intention was pure, the path would appear.

Well, the path right now was an elevator up to the twenty-second floor of Zenith Media Group on a chilly Tuesday morning in midtown Manhattan.

“Mr. Shetty?”

He turned. The receptionist—a woman with a perfect blowout and a blazer so sharp it looked like it might cut you if you leaned too close—smiled brightly.

“Mr. Wallace will see you now,” she said. Her accent was pure New York: fast, polished, just a little amused.

“Thank you,” Jay said, pushing himself up from the sleek gray chair. His legs felt both numb and too heavy. No one ever warned you that chasing your dreams would involve so many small, ordinary moments of feeling almost sick.

He followed her down a hallway lined with framed posters: blockbuster movies, hit shows, glossy magazine covers with headlines in bright fonts.

An American comedian grinned out from one frame. A pop singer pouted from another. A reality dating show poster showed beautiful people under palm trees, the words “Season Premiere” screaming in red.

No monks. No wisdom.

Or maybe, he thought, you could argue there was some kind of wisdom in watching other people’s disasters. But that was not the kind he had in mind.

“This is you,” the receptionist said, stopping at a double glass door. She knocked once and pushed it open, holding it for him.

The room beyond was enormous, all pale wood and shining metal, the city pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows. An enormous screen on one wall showed streaming numbers, charts of view counts and engagement graphs. It looked less like an office and more like a war room for attention.

At the far end of the table, a man in his late forties scrolled on his phone with the casual focus of someone who lived inside these numbers. His hair was expensively cut, streaks of silver at the temples that made him look distinguished rather than tired. He wore a navy suit, no tie, top button undone. His watch was simple but screamed money if you knew how to read it.

“Jay, right?” he said, barely glancing up.

“Yes,” Jay said, stepping forward and extending a hand. “Mr. Wallace, thank you for—”

“Danny,” the man corrected easily, finally looking up, eyes flicking over Jay in a quick assessment. “Have a seat.”

Jay sat at the edge of the chair, trying not to notice how his shoes squeaked against the polished floor.

Danny’s eyes hadn’t missed much. Probably not the not-quite-perfect fit of Jay’s borrowed blazer, or the fraying on his backpack strap, or the soft British lilt in his voice that made him sound slightly out of place in the sharp edges of New York.

“So,” Danny said, interlacing his fingers on the table now, attention sharpening. “You want to make videos.”

Jay exhaled once. This was what he’d practiced for.

“Yes,” he said. “I want to share practical wisdom in a way that fits how people live now. Short videos. Real stories. Something you can scroll past on your lunch break in an office in Chicago and still feel like your life just…shifted a little.”

Danny’s eyebrow twitched. “Chicago,” he repeated, almost amused. “Why there?”

“Because there are people in every American city,” Jay said, leaning forward without meaning to. “People stuck in traffic on the 405 in Los Angeles, people eating alone in diners in Nebraska, people in small apartments in New Jersey who feel like their lives don’t matter. They’re drowning in content, but starving for meaning. I want to give them something they can use.”

“You write that line down beforehand?” Danny asked, the corner of his mouth quirking.

Jay smiled, embarrassed. “Kind of,” he admitted.

“At least you’re honest,” Danny said.

He flipped a folder open. Jay saw his own face on a printed page: a headshot from a podcast, the short bio he’d sent. Former monk. Born in London to Indian parents. Spoke at universities. Did some talks in companies. Podcast guest. No film school. No agency representing him. No track record in American TV.

“You understand what we do here, yes?” Danny said, tapping the table lightly. “We don’t just make videos for fun. We make content that competes with everything. The NBA, streaming series, political news, cat memes, you name it. You’re not just up against inspirational quotes and self-help books. You’re up against the entire attention span of the United States.”

“I know,” Jay said. “That’s exactly why—”

“You used to be a monk,” Danny cut in, reading off the page. “Robes, meditation, silence. And now you want to…what did you call it?” He scanned the paper again. “‘Make wisdom go viral.’”

“Yes,” Jay said, feeling his face warm.

Danny leaned back, chair barely creaking. “Walk me through your plan,” he said. “In detail.”

So Jay did.

He talked about little videos, one to three minutes long. People telling stories about heartbreak, about failure, about regret, and what they learned. He talked about animations explaining ancient ideas in a modern way. He talked about filming in cities and kitchens and offices, about using the language people used instead of lofty spiritual jargon.

“Not preaching from a mountaintop,” he said, heart rolling out words now that he was in motion. “Just…a friend in your feed. You’re scrolling, you see a clip, and suddenly you’re rethinking how you talk to your kids or how you treat yourself.”

Danny listened, expression unreadable.

“Who’s going to film, edit, and produce all this?” he asked when Jay finally stopped for air.

Jay hesitated half a second. “I was…hoping I could work with your team,” he said. “With Zenith. You have cameras, editing suites, distribution. I have ideas, writing, speaking.”

“Do you have any experience directing?” Danny asked. “Shooting? Scriptwriting for the screen?”

“I’ve spoken on stage,” Jay said. “I’ve written talks. I read a lot of film scripts, I—”

“So, no,” Danny said, not unkindly.

Jay swallowed. “Not formally,” he said. “But I learn fast.”

Danny set the folder down.

“Jay,” he said, and there was a faint softness in his voice now, like this was a conversation he’d had before in different words. “Let me be very honest with you. Because I don’t think your problem is passion. You have passion. Good. We need that. But passion isn’t the same as a plan.”

“My plan,” Jay said carefully, “is to use storytelling and social platforms to—”

“I know your plan,” Danny said. He tapped the printed page again, a little harder. “I’m asking if your plan fits reality. This reality. Not a monastery. A media company in the United States.”

The words landed heavy in the room.

“Online right now,” Danny continued, gesturing toward the screen where graphs danced quietly, “the posts that ‘go viral’ are usually one of three things. Funny, outrageous, or infuriating. Someone slipping on ice. Someone being confronted on a plane. Someone yelling about politics in a supermarket. This country clicks on shock. It shares outrage. You really think people are going to stop scrolling for…wisdom?”

“Yes,” Jay said, before his brain had time to edit it.

Danny blinked.

Jay took a breath. “Maybe not everyone,” he said, adjusting. “But some people will. Enough will. When they’re tired of outrage. When they’re empty after the tenth fight in the comments section. When they can’t sleep because their mind won’t stop replaying all the things wrong in their lives. They’ll look for something else. And if we’re there in their feed when they’re ready…”

“You sound like a preacher pitching a series on hope and redemption,” Danny said, almost affectionate. “Those don’t test well.”

“This isn’t about a series,” Jay said, frustrated. “It’s about lives. I’ve sat with people who have lost everything. Who feel like their story ended when they messed up. I know how to talk to them. I know how to put it in a format they can actually listen to.”

“Do you?” Danny asked.

It wasn’t mocking. It wasn’t cruel. But it was sharp in a way that made Jay’s chest compress.

“You’re twenty-eight,” Danny said. “You have no background in film. No degree in media. You’ve hardly worked in a professional studio. And you want me to believe that you, alone, can build a brand that makes ‘wisdom’ as shareable as dance challenges and prank videos?”

Jay stared at him. For a moment the sound went out of the room, like a film with the audio cut. He could see Danny’s mouth moving, the muted flicker of the city beyond the glass, the graphs on the screen ticking up and down. In his head he heard the slow chanting of monks in a faraway hall, the clink of metal bowls, the echo of sandals on stone.

He’d known this might happen. The rational part of his brain had run this scene a hundred times, preparing him for dismissal, for labels like “too niche” or “too earnest.” But the heart didn’t care how prepared you were. It still hurt the same.

“Let me get this straight,” Danny said, pushing the folder away as if he’d already made his decision. “You want to walk into one of the most competitive industries in the United States and compete with people who’ve studied, interned, networked, clawed their way in. But you want to skip all that because you think your…intention is enough.”

“My intention and my work,” Jay said, heat rising in his face. “I’m not asking for a free pass. I’m asking for a chance to work with the right platform. To learn as I—”

“I’m going to do you a favor,” Danny cut in, leaning forward. For the first time, he looked almost kind. The type of kindness that made your stomach twist because you knew what was coming. “Forget this idea. Stick to a regular desk job. Use that nice voice of yours for corporate presentations. Write a book if you want. Nobody reads anymore, but at least you won’t starve.”

Jay blinked.

“Just…forget it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Danny said. “Build a stable life. Pay your bills. Take a vacation once a year to Florida and post photos on Instagram like everyone else. Don’t throw away your future trying to make ‘wisdom go viral.’ It’s never going to happen. Not at scale. Not here.”

There it was. Clear. Final.

Never.

Wisdom.

Viral.

The words snapped together like magnets in Jay’s chest.

He opened his mouth, closed it again.

Every polite instinct told him to smile, to say “thank you for your time,” to shake hands and back out of the room. That’s what you did when an experienced American media executive told you your idea was impossible.

His fingers curled into his palm under the table. His own heartbeat thudded in his ears.

“Sir,” he started, voice rough. “I—”

“I know,” Danny said, raising a hand. “You ‘just need one chance.’ Everyone who comes in here says the same thing. I’ve been working in this industry longer than you’ve been alive. I can smell what works before it hits the feed. And I’m telling you: sincere, quiet wisdom is lovely in a monastery. It does not trend. You want to change the world? Volunteer at a community center in Queens. Don’t ask me to throw money at videos nobody’s going to watch.”

The words landed with the finality of a slammed door.

Something inside Jay sagged. He’d prepared for criticism, not contempt dressed up as realism.

Across the table, Danny glanced down at his phone, conversation finished.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got another pitch coming in. It’s a dating show with a twist—contestants have to decide whether to choose love or a cash prize. That’s the kind of thing that plays in Peoria and Portland.”

“Right,” Jay said. His voice sounded flat to his own ears. “Of course.”

He stood. The room swayed for a second, then steadied.

“I’m sorry I wasted your time,” he said quietly.

Danny smiled, cordial, already half elsewhere. “Best of luck, Jay,” he said. “Life’s long. You’ll figure something out.”

Jay nodded, throat tight, and walked out.

The hallway felt longer on the way back. The posters on the walls seemed to lean in, whispering: You don’t belong here.

As he reached the reception area, the woman looked up again.

“How’d it go?” she asked, polite curiosity in her eyes.

Jay opened his mouth, thought about saying “great,” then surprised himself.

“He said it would never work,” he said, voice thin. “That nobody would watch.”

Something flickered across her face. For a second, the professional mask dropped and he saw a human being who understood what it was to have hopes dashed by someone else’s certainty.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Jay shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe he’s right.”

Outside, Manhattan’s wind hit him full in the face as he stepped onto the sidewalk. Car horns blasted. Someone shouted for a cab. A food cart vendor called, “Hot dogs! Pretzels!” in a voice that sounded like it had been sandpapered by years of exhaust and winter.

Jay turned his collar up against the chill and started walking.

The rejection followed him like a shadow.

He ducked into a coffee shop on the corner, the kind with exposed brick and Edison bulbs and a chalkboard menu listing drinks with complicated names. Warmth wrapped around him, smelling like roasted beans and cinnamon. People huddled over laptops, over lattes, over conversations.

He ordered something at random and slid into a corner seat by the window, watching the New York hustle outside. A woman in a trench coat balanced a coffee and a phone call. A delivery biker wove through traffic like he was immune to injury. Two tourists in “I ❤️ NY” hoodies tried to take a selfie without getting run over.

His phone buzzed.

He glanced down.

Mira.

He smiled despite himself. Mira had known him since before the monastery, before the shaved head and the vows. She’d been the one who sneaked him jokes over email when he was having a rough week in silence, who never made fun of him for leaving the corporate track when their entire friend group was scrambling for promotions and bonuses.

He swiped open her message.

How’d it go?? 😬

He stared at the blinking cursor for a moment. Then typed back.

He said my idea will never work. That wisdom doesn’t go viral. That I should stick to a regular job.

A bubble appeared almost instantly.

Ugh. What a genius 🙄

He smiled a little, but it faded fast.

I think he’s right, he wrote. Maybe I’ve been delusional. Maybe I was supposed to stay in the monastery. Or stay in a safe job. Who am I to think I can talk to people in America about wisdom when I don’t even know how Hollywood works?

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Can you pick up? she finally wrote.

He sighed and hit call.

Her voice arrived like sunlight, even through the tiny speaker.

“Okay,” she said, skipping hello. “Say it out loud.”

“What?”

“What you just texted me,” she said. “Say it so I can hear it.”

He rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see him. “I think he’s right,” he repeated dutifully. “Maybe I was delusional.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Do you believe that?”

He stared out at the street. A yellow school bus rumbled past, kids’ faces pressed to the windows. An American flag fluttered from a small pole over the door of the building next to the coffee shop.

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” he admitted.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s start with what you used to say to me when I told you about rejections. Remember when I was applying for jobs? I got like twenty nos in a row?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Mira, I really don’t—”

“You used to say,” she continued, refusing to let him derail, “that I shouldn’t worry about how many people said no. That I just needed one yes. Remember?”

He closed his eyes. He could hear his own past voice in her mouth, clear as if it were yesterday.

Don’t worry about the nos. You just need one yes.

He’d said it to her when she’d been rejected from graduate programs, from companies, from projects. He’d said it to strangers at talks when they’d asked how to handle being turned down.

“What if,” Mira said now, quiet but sharp, “that one yes is supposed to come from you?”

He leaned his head back against the wall.

“I don’t have camera gear, Mira,” he said. “I don’t have an editing degree. I don’t have—”

“You have a phone, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, but—”

“You have a laptop,” she pressed. “You have a voice. You have stories. You don’t need some media executive in a glass tower to give you permission to hit ‘record.’”

He stared at the condensation on his coffee cup as if it could answer him.

“I thought…if I got a company like Zenith behind me, I could reach more people faster,” he said. “They have distribution. Algorithms. He even said he could get me on morning shows if things went well. I saw it in my head. Clips of wisdom between segments about politics and celebrity breakups. Ordinary Americans hearing something that helps them. I got so attached to that path.”

“And because one man closed one door,” she said, “you’re going to walk away from the whole house?”

Her words sliced clean through his self-pity.

“That man told you your idea would never work,” she added. “He doesn’t control the internet. He doesn’t control people’s hearts. He controls his budget. That’s it.”

He didn’t speak.

“Listen,” she said softer. “He’s not evil. He’s just…grown comfortable thinking in terms of what has already happened. What’s already gone viral. He hasn’t seen what you can do because you haven’t done it yet. You’re asking someone to bet on a future that only exists in your head. That’s hard for people.

“But you,” she added, “don’t have to wait for anyone to bet on you. You keep talking about making wisdom go viral. Wisdom doesn’t need a boardroom. It needs a beginning.”

A man at the table next to Jay typed furiously on a laptop, some corporate presentation probably due. Behind the counter, the barista called out, “Oat milk latte for Jenna!” Life went on as if his world wasn’t quietly rearranging itself.

“So what do you think I should do?” he asked finally, voice low.

Her answer came without hesitation. “Start,” she said. “Start with what you have. One video. Then another. Learn by doing. If you really believe in this as much as you say you do, you can’t hand its fate to one executive in a high-rise. Take your own yes seriously.”

He laughed once, a small, broken sound. “Take my own yes seriously,” he repeated.

“Exactly,” she said. “You want to make wisdom go viral? Prove it. Make a video. Put it where the people are. Facebook. YouTube. Everywhere. See what happens. Worst case? You learn. Best case? You were right all along. And wouldn’t that make a great story when you write your book someday?”

“You really think I’ll write a book?” he asked, incredulous.

“Oh, one hundred percent,” she said. “Probably called something like ‘Think Like a Monk.’”

He snorted. “That sounds like a yoga studio slogan,” he said.

“It sounds like a bestseller,” she replied. “But don’t get ahead of yourself, Mr. Author. Today, you’re just a guy with a phone and a choice.”

He stared at his reflection in the window again. Behind him, the American skyline looked like a computer-rendered backdrop—too sharp, too glossy to be real. A little girl walked past, holding her father’s hand and eating a pretzel almost bigger than her face.

“What if he’s right?” Jay whispered. “What if nobody watches?”

She didn’t hesitate.

“Then you make another video,” she said. “And another. You said you wanted to serve people. You didn’t say you wanted to serve only if a million people saw you doing it.”

That landed harder than Danny’s “never.”

“I hate it when you quote me at myself,” he muttered.

“That’s why we’re friends,” she said. “Now finish your coffee, go home, and figure out how to press ‘record.’ I’ll be your first follower.”

He hung up and sat there for a long time, watching the city.

Outside, buses belched smoke. A siren wailed somewhere, distant but persistent. Two men in business suits argued about the stock market as they speed-walked past.

Inside, his coffee had gone lukewarm.

He picked it up anyway, took a sip, then stood.

The subway ride back to Brooklyn was a blur of faces and noise. A teenager played music too loud through his headphones. An elderly woman clutched a shopping bag, staring at the floor. Someone had taped a flyer to the wall advertising English classes, little tear-off tabs sprouting like paper grass.

He slid his hand into his pocket, fingers closing around his phone.

Maybe you don’t need a million people to validate your first step, he thought. Maybe you just need one decision.

By the time he climbed the stairs from the subway station, past the graffiti-tagged metal gates and the bodega selling everything from cereal to cell phone chargers, his mind had turned from the sting of rejection to a different kind of buzz.

His apartment was small by any measure, especially by American standards. A studio with a creaky wooden floor, white walls that had seen too many tenants, and a single window that looked out on the fire escape and the brick wall of the building next door. But it was his.

He shoved a stack of books off the small desk and onto the floor. Then he grabbed his phone, a stack of old shoeboxes, and one of the two lamps he owned.

Ten minutes later, he’d created the wobbliest “studio” in New York.

He balanced the phone on the shoebox tower, leaning it against a mug. He set the lamp behind the phone, pointed at the wall, throwing a softer light onto his face. He taped a piece of white paper on the wall behind him to cover a scuff.

It looked ridiculous.

Yet, staring at his own face in the front-facing camera, it also looked like the most serious thing he’d ever done.

His thumb hovered over the record button.

If this doesn’t work, the voice of doubt whispered, you’ll look foolish. People who knew you in London will laugh. “Look at Jay, talking to his phone like he’s on a talk show.”

He exhaled slowly.

“What if works?” another voice asked. Quieter, but there.

He pressed record.

For a few seconds, he just breathed, staring. Then he smiled, awkward, tentative.

“Hey,” he said, to a future he couldn’t see. “My name is Jay. I used to be a monk. I know that sounds strange. I left that life because I believed something: that the wisdom we learn in quiet places belongs in busy ones, too.”

He paused, searching.

“Right now,” he continued, “if you’re scrolling on your phone in New York or in Kansas or in a cafe in California, maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’re stressed. Maybe you feel like you’re somehow losing at a game you never agreed to play. I want to share something that helped me…”

He spoke for three minutes. No fancy shots. No cutaways. Just his face, his eyes, his voice.

When he finished, he hit stop.

Silence.

He watched the playback. It wasn’t perfect. He said “um” too much. His background was boring. The lighting was harsh. His British-Indian accent felt too different in his own ears compared to the slick American voices he was used to hearing online.

But underneath all that, there was something honest.

Something he could work with.

He opened his laptop. YouTube. Facebook. Two tabs.

The sign-up screens felt oddly intimidating. “Create Channel.” “Create Page.” It was easier, in some ways, to dream about “making wisdom viral” in abstract than it was to choose a profile picture and type a bio.

He chose a simple photo. Typed “Sharing practical wisdom for everyday life” into the description.

When the upload bar started inching across the screen, blue against gray, he felt his heart thump in time with it.

By the time he went to bed that night, the video had eighteen views.

He assumed at least three were him, checking to see if it had posted correctly. One was Mira. Another was his mother, who’d texted him a string of heart emojis and a message that said, I don’t understand all of it but you look very handsome.

The numbers didn’t matter, he told himself.

It still hurt that they did.

The next morning, before he’d even brushed his teeth, he refreshed.

Fifty-seven views.

Two comments.

The first was from Mira: YES. More of this. 👏

The second was from someone with a photo of a sunset as their profile picture.

I really needed this today. Thank you.

He stared at those words for a long time.

I really needed this today.

One person. Somewhere. Maybe in some American suburb, maybe in another country entirely. It didn’t matter. Someone had listened. Someone had felt less alone for three minutes because he’d pressed record.

The part of him that had been crushed under Danny’s “never” sat up, cautiously.

He picked up his notebook, flipped to a blank page, and wrote at the top:

Video Ideas.

He filled half the page before his first cup of tea.

Wealth ≠ success.
How to deal with rejection.
Why slowing down can save your life.
Lessons from the monastery for a Monday morning commute.
Why the only “yes” you really need is your own.

The last one made him pause. He underlined it twice.

Within weeks, his apartment had turned into a small production studio. Not in the glamorous L.A. sense—there were no backdrops, no crew, no expensive cameras. But there were sticky notes on the walls with episode ideas. There were open tabs on his browser: “how to edit video free software,” “best microphone under $100,” “how to color correct for YouTube.”

He filmed during the day, learning the angles of his small space. Sometimes he shot in the park across the street, dodging curious looks from people throwing Frisbees or walking dogs. He learned to talk into the lens like it was a person instead of a dot.

He edited at night, eyes burning, back sore from hunching over his laptop. He learned about jump cuts and background music, about how to add captions so people could watch even with the sound off during lunch breaks in American cubicles.

He posted videos that got eighty views. One hundred. Two hundred.

He posted videos that got nine.

Each time, the old fear whispered: This is dumb. Nobody cares what you have to say.

Each time, he whispered back: I’m not doing this for numbers. I’m doing this for the person who leaves a comment at three in the morning saying, “I couldn’t sleep and this helped.”

He started getting messages. From a college student in Texas who said his words kept her from dropping out. From a single mother in Ohio who said his video about self-worth made her stop blaming herself for her divorce. From a man in Florida who watched his clip about anxiety in the parking lot before a job interview and went in feeling just a little braver.

He printed some of them out, taping them above his desk like tiny stained glass windows made of words.

One day, he woke up to his phone buzzing so relentlessly he thought there had been some emergency.

“What happened?” he mumbled, unlocking the screen.

Mira had sent twenty messages, a chaotic stream of all caps and exclamation marks.

YOUR VIDEO
10 MILLION
TEN. MILLION.
IT’S ALL OVER MY FEED
MY COUSIN IN NEW JERSEY JUST SHARED IT
SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW YOU

He blinked, sat up so fast his head spun.

His latest video, the one where he told the story of failing at something he’d wanted and learning to see rejection as redirection, sat on his Facebook page with numbers he could hardly comprehend.

Ten million views. Hundreds of thousands of shares.

His YouTube notifications looked similar. Comments piled up like snow in a Wisconsin winter, steady and relentless.

“I heard this today at the exact right time…”

“I live in Kansas and nobody talks about this stuff here…”

“I’m watching this on my lunch break in a Walmart parking lot. Thank you…”

This wasn’t a trickle anymore. It was a wave.

He paced the tiny length of his apartment, phone in hand, heart pounding. He felt exhilarated and terrified at the same time.

This was what he’d asked for.

Wisdom. Viral.

He thought of Danny in his glass office, the graphs on the wall showing what “worked.” Somewhere in those graphs now, a strange new line would be rising, labeled with his video’s ID number. He wondered if Danny had noticed. If he’d looked at the content and said, annoyed, “Who is this guy talking about kindness? Why is he outperforming our carefully crafted series on scandals and drama?”

He shook his head, pushing the thought away. This wasn’t about proving Danny wrong, he told himself.

Mostly.

The next months blurred.

He learned to post consistently. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. He learned which thumbnails made people pause. He learned how to handle trolls in the comments—people who said he was fake, that his accent was weird, that they didn’t trust any “former monk” who used social media.

But for every cynical comment, there were dozens from people who said things like, “I was going to give up on my business, but this made me try one more time,” or “I showed this to my teenage son and we ended up talking for an hour.”

He got invited to speak at companies, their American offices filled with people who spent their days in front of screens but had never asked themselves why they were doing what they were doing. He flew to Silicon Valley, to Atlanta, to Chicago. In each place, he stood on stage under bright lights and told stories about how ancient wisdom could help with email overload and performance reviews.

Followers turned into millions. Millions turned into a word people started throwing at him in articles: viral.

An online magazine profile. A morning show clip. A podcast host in Los Angeles calling him “the monk who hacked the American mind.”

He laughed at the dramatic phrasing, but he also noticed: the more people diluted his message into click-friendly descriptions, the more responsibility he felt to keep the core pure.

He didn’t want to be a brand. He wanted to be of use.

While the outside world saw the highlight reel, his private life still involved a lot of quiet, unglamorous work.

Writing scripts on planes. Rewriting them when they didn’t feel honest enough. Filming in hotel rooms propped up on stacks of pillows. Saying no to brand deals that didn’t match his values, even when the money would have made life much easier.

He kept hearing from people in every corner of the United States, and beyond.

A truck driver in Arkansas who listened to his videos between radio shows about politics.

A young mother in Arizona who shared his clips with her book club.

A high school teacher in Vermont who played his videos in class to start conversations that the curriculum never seemed to get around to.

Every story made the late nights feel worth it.

One evening, while he was hunched over his desk in his now slightly bigger apartment in Los Angeles, working on a script about self-doubt, his phone lit up with Mira’s name again.

He answered without looking away from the screen.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m in the middle of—”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what day it is,” she cut in.

He frowned. “Thursday?” he guessed.

She groaned. “September eighth,” she said. “Ring any bells, Mr. I-Swear-I’m-Not-Paying-Attention-To-My-Own-Book Release?”

His mind blanked, then snapped back into focus.

“Oh,” he said, blinking. “Right. The book. It’s…”

“Out,” she said. He could hear traffic noise behind her, maybe New York, maybe somewhere else. “On shelves. In actual American bookstores. People are posting selfies with it on Instagram and tagging you. They’re reading your words in coffee shops and on trains. I thought you might want to know.”

He leaned back in his chair, spine protesting.

Think Like a Monk.

The title had felt absurd the first time he’d written it on a blank document, little black letters on a white screen. It sounded like something a marketing team would dream up in a conference room in Los Angeles. But as he wrote, as he poured the stories of the monastery and his life after into chapters, it started to feel right.

Think like a monk, live like a person in the world.

Now, all across the country, people were holding the blue-covered book in their hands. In Kansas. In New York. In Florida. In Ohio. On military bases. In quiet houses at the end of long cul-de-sacs.

“So,” Mira said. “How does it feel?”

He swiveled his chair to face the window. Los Angeles spread out beneath him this time instead of New York: a glittering grid of lights stretching toward the dark line of the Pacific. On a nearby rooftop, an American flag waved limply in the smoggy night air.

“Surreal,” he said. “I remember almost giving up in that coffee shop after meeting Danny. I remember telling you I’d stick to a nine-to-five.”

“And I remember telling you that you needed to listen to yourself for once,” she said. “Man, I should negotiate a commission.”

He laughed.

A notification popped up on his screen: an email from a talk show producer in New York.

Subject: Interview request – “Think Like a Monk”

His heart skipped.

“What is it?” Mira asked.

He clicked the email open, scanning quickly.

“They want to interview me,” he said slowly. “On ‘Morning Today.’ Live. In New York.”

In living rooms across America. Between segments about elections and celebrity news. The thing he’d once only imagined in that glass office now sat in black and white in his inbox.

“Say yes,” Mira said. “Say yes to this one. You’ve said yes to so many hard things already.”

He did.

A week later, he stood in the brightly lit green room of a major television network, the logo spinning endlessly on the screen in the corner. A makeup artist dabbed powder on his forehead to keep him from shining under the studio lights. A stylist adjusted his collar. The air smelled faintly of hairspray and coffee.

Through the door he could hear the muffled buzz of the studio audience, occasional bursts of laughter. The monitors on the wall showed the show’s current segment: a pair of anchors discussing some headline about Washington, D.C., a ticker at the bottom scrolling through stock prices and weather updates for different American cities.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Same face. Slightly more tired eyes. Slightly nicer blazer.

He remembered walking out of Danny’s office years ago, feeling like his heart had been stepped on. It felt like two different lifetimes.

A production assistant stuck her head in.

“Five minutes, Jay,” she said. “You ready?”

“Yes,” he said, surprising himself with how calm he sounded. “Thank you.”

On set, the lights were so bright he could barely see past the first row of the audience. The host, a well-known American journalist with a warm smile and a coffee mug bearing the show’s logo, shook his hand and said, “We are so thrilled to have you here. My wife loves your videos.”

“Thank you,” Jay said, grateful.

They counted down.

“And we’re back,” the host said, voice switching into a slightly more polished version of itself. “Our next guest is a former monk whose inspirational videos have been viewed billions of times around the world—especially here in the United States. His new book, ‘Think Like a Monk,’ is out now. Please welcome Jay Shetty!”

Applause washed over him, weird and tinny through the speakers.

He smiled into the camera, the same little red light blinking that had stared at him in Danny’s office once, in another world.

The interview flowed. The host asked about his time in the monastery, about why he left, about why Americans were so stressed despite having so much. They talked about social media, about using platforms for connection instead of comparison.

Toward the end, the host leaned in.

“What would you say,” he asked, “to the person watching this right now in their living room in Ohio or in a break room in Arizona who feels hopeless, who’s been rejected over and over again?”

Jay thought of his younger self, sitting in that coffee shop in Manhattan, ready to give up.

“I’d tell them something I had to learn the hard way,” he said slowly. “Don’t let someone else’s ‘no’ become the end of your story. We focus so much on how many people reject us, what door closed, what opportunity we lost. But at the end of the day, the only ‘yes’ you truly need to move forward—that first yes—has to come from you.”

The host nodded, eyes serious. “Powerful,” he said. “The book is called ‘Think Like a Monk.’ It is out now. I’ve started reading it myself and it is incredibly inspiring. Jay Shetty, thank you so much for joining us.”

“Thank you for having me,” Jay said.

They cut to commercial. The studio lights dimmed a fraction. People started to move, resetting cameras, shifting props.

The host leaned over. “That was great,” he said. “My producer’s going to bring you a copy of your book with the show’s sticker on it. The ‘As Seen On’ thing always helps sell a few extra copies.”

Jay laughed. “Happy to sign it,” he said.

Back in the green room, adrenaline still humming in his veins, he signed a few books for the staff, posed for photos, answered a rapid-fire wave of texts from friends who’d watched.

Then someone cleared their throat in the doorway.

He turned.

And felt time…tilt.

“Jay,” the man said.

He looked older now. More silver in his hair. Slight bags under his eyes that no amount of network makeup could completely erase. The suit was still expensive, the watch still subtle. But there was a different energy about him. Less bulletproof certainty. More…something else.

“Danny,” Jay said.

Because of course it was him.

They stood there for a second, the hum of the studio strange and distant around them.

“I heard you were going to be on today,” Danny said, stepping into the room. “I’ve been seeing your videos for years, but when I saw the segment schedule… I had to come down.”

Jay smiled, genuinely. “It’s good to see you,” he said. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a lie.

“You too,” Danny said. He glanced at the copy of “Think Like a Monk” on the table, the one with the show’s little round sticker on the cover. “Congratulations,” he added. “On all of this. The videos. The book. The…everything.”

“Thank you,” Jay said.

Danny shifted his weight. For the first time since Jay had met him, he looked…nervous.

“I owe you an apology,” he said bluntly.

Jay blinked. “You don’t—”

“No,” Danny said. “I do. I remember our meeting. I remember telling you that your idea would never work. That nobody wanted to watch wisdom videos. That you should get a ‘real’ job.” He winced at his own words, as if hearing them fresh. “And then, a few months later, your videos started popping up on my feed. At first I didn’t realize it was you. Just this former monk talking about rejection and purpose and kindness. My daughter sent me one. ‘Dad, you should watch this guy, he’s amazing.’”

He laughed, self-conscious.

“I watched,” he continued. “And I thought, ‘This is good.’ Then I thought, ‘This is the same kid I told to give up.’”

He looked up, eyes meeting Jay’s. There was no executive mask now. Just a man facing his own limitations.

“I was wrong about you,” he said simply. “About people. I thought I knew what would work because I’d spent my career chasing trends. I forgot that sometimes the thing people need hasn’t trended yet. I’m…sorry.”

The words might have tasted bitter in his mouth, but he said them anyway.

For a moment, Jay saw two scenes overlaid on each other: Danny at the head of that sleek conference table in Manhattan, confident, dismissive, telling him to stick to a desk job; Danny now, slightly smaller in this bright green room, owning his mistake.

It would have been easy to feel smug. To say something sharp. To make a point.

Instead, he thought of all the nights when he’d almost given up and hadn’t. Of Mira’s laugh over the phone. Of the solitary comments from people in American towns he’d never visited saying, “This kept me going.”

He smiled.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Danny looked confused. “For what?” he asked.

“For saying no,” Jay said.

Danny blinked. “Most people don’t thank me for that,” he said dryly.

“If you had said yes back then,” Jay said, “I would have thought your approval was the key. I would have thought the only path to helping people was through your building, your cameras, your distribution. Your ‘no’ forced me to ask myself if I was willing to do this with no budget, no backing, no audience. It forced me to see that the only approval I actually needed to start…was my own.”

Danny stared at him.

“You helped me realize,” Jay continued, “that I didn’t need a media company to make content. I just needed a phone and commitment. You pushed me out of the fantasy that someone was going to rescue my dream, and into the reality that I had to show up for it myself.”

The older man exhaled, a strange mix of regret and relief.

“Still,” he said. “I wish I’d seen it sooner.”

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to,” Jay said. “Maybe the timing was right. For me. For the people who needed the videos. For you, even.”

Danny shook his head, smiling despite himself. “You really did make wisdom go viral,” he said. “When I watched your last video about rejection, I thought, ‘Ah. That’s me he’s talking about.’”

Jay laughed. “You and a lot of other people,” he said. “Rejection is a universal experience. So is listening to the wrong people.”

Danny nodded slowly. His eyes flicked to the book again.

“Would you…” he hesitated, almost shy, “…sign that? For me?”

Jay’s chest tightened unexpectedly.

“Of course,” he said.

He picked up a pen. For a second, his hand hovered over the blank title page, the bright white paper that would end up in the hands of countless readers, in bedrooms in Colorado, in hotel rooms in North Carolina, in the lap of a woman on a park bench in Seattle.

To Danny, he wrote.

Thank you for helping me learn that the only yes I needed to start was my own.

Keep learning. Keep changing.

Jay.

He closed the book and handed it over.

“Thank you,” Danny said, voice thick.

They walked out into the hallway together. On the television screens, the show moved on: a segment about a new restaurant opening in Chicago, a weather update for the Midwest, a headline about a bill in Congress.

“Any advice?” Danny asked abruptly, as they paused at the corner where their paths split—his back to the executive suites, Jay toward the lobby.

“Advice?” Jay repeated, surprised.

“For…someone like me,” Danny said. “Who’s spent his life chasing what trends. Who forgot that sometimes the best stories aren’t the ones that yell loudest.”

Jay thought about it.

“Don’t underestimate people,” he said finally. “Especially not in this country. We like to joke that Americans just want quick entertainment, that nobody has the attention span for nuance. But I’ve seen people in small towns and big cities soak up ten-minute videos about purpose like they were trailers for the next superhero movie. People are hungry for meaning. Don’t treat them like they’re not.”

Danny nodded slowly. “We always said we were giving people what they wanted,” he murmured. “Maybe we were just giving them what we thought would be safest.”

He tucked the book under his arm.

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me,” he added.

“So am I,” Jay said.

They shook hands.

As Jay stepped out onto the sidewalk, the New York air hit him again, sharper this time with autumn creeping in. The city buzzed. Traffic honked. A street vendor shouted about hot dogs. A woman in a Yankees cap hurried past, clutching a coffee.

He imagined, in apartments stacked above the street, people sitting on couches watching the very show he’d just been on. Somewhere in Ohio, in Florida, in Texas. Somewhere in a town whose main street was lined with diners and auto shops. Somewhere in a high-rise with a view of the Hudson.

Maybe someone would hear him say, “The only yes you really need is your own,” and feel something unlock inside their chest.

Maybe someone who’d been told “never” by a person with a title would pick up their own phone, their own notebook, their own paintbrush, and think, “What if I start anyway?”

In a media landscape addicted to outrage and shock, a different kind of story had quietly elbowed its way in. Not because an executive believed in it first, but because one stubborn person refused to let someone else’s “no” define what was possible.

The city roared on around him.

He smiled, pulled his coat a little tighter around him, and walked toward whatever was next—book signings in American malls, videos filmed in hotel rooms, conversations with strangers whose lives he’d touched through a screen.

He thought of all the rejections he’d collected like bruises.

They hadn’t stopped him.

They had steered him.

And as he walked past a newsstand selling tabloids with headlines about celebrity divorces and political scandals, the irony made him laugh.

Somewhere between all the noise, a video of a calm-voiced former monk talking about patience and purpose was playing on millions of little screens.

In living rooms. In break rooms. In the corner of a mechanic’s garage in Detroit. In the back seat of a rideshare car stuck on the freeway in Los Angeles.

For years, he had wanted to make wisdom go viral.

Now he understood something even deeper:

It wasn’t the virality that mattered. It was the change it sparked in quiet, unseen moments.

All those unseen, untelevised “yeses” people whispered to themselves in kitchens and bedrooms and parked cars across America.

Yes, I’ll try again.

Yes, I’ll be kinder to myself.

Yes, I’ll start today, even if no one believes in me yet.

He couldn’t see them.

But he trusted they were there.

After all, his own story had started with one small, ridiculous, brave yes.

His.