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There was a moment where I was feeling this pain in my chest kind of on and off and I was telling you about this and other people.
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I was like, man, I just feel like this pain and feel like a clenching like I can't like I don't know something was holding me back. That was the fear.
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And I think when we can fully embrace it and say this might happen and I may not like it but by stepping into the fear, I literally felt the ball of pain in my chest unlock and like disintegrate throughout my whole body.
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selling author and host The number one health and wellness podcast On purpose with Jay Shetty Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
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Now today's guest is a dear, dear friend of mine and what I love about having him on the show is you love it.
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Whenever we do something together, we get incredible feedback.
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I get the most texts ever.
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I get so many DMs from all of you because you love seeing us connect because he's someone who's happy to be vulnerable about his own challenges and journey.
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He's done that plenty times on the show.
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But today, he's here to talk about something that he's been really thinking about and working on for the next 5 years.
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So I want all of you to show your support for this incredible human but also this amazing book that he's written.
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I want everyone to go and order it right now.
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The link is in the notes and the captions.
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I'm talking about my dear friend Lewis Howes who's a New York Times best selling author, keynote speaker, and industry leading show host of The School of Greatness podcast which is one of the top podcasts in the world with over 500 million downloads.
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Lewis was recognized by the White House and President Obama as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country under 30.
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And his new book is right here.
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It's called The Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today.
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This is the book that I want you to go and grab.
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Please welcome to the show my dear friend and brother Lewis Howes. Lewis Thanks, Jay.
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Good to see you, brother. see you, brother.
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Uh this is exciting, man.
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It's like, you know, this is 5 years in the making.
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Like for you to you've had a podcast now for nearly 10 years.
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I saw that announced In 2 weeks it'll be my 10-year anniversary. That's insane. Congratulations.
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Like what a what a history and legacy of service and like how many interviews now is that?
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over almost 1,400 episodes. That's insane, right?
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1,400 episodes over 10 years. An unbelievable legacy.
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You wrote your first book, The School of Greatness.
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Your second book, Mask of Masculinity. Yep.
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On the release of that book was when we became friends.
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day it came out I went on your show at Nasdaq. At Nasdaq, yeah. New York City.
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I just started hearing about you maybe a few months before and then you'd reached out and I saw a couple of your videos and I was like, I really like your style.
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And we met, I was like, let's just hang out all day. I know. It was amazing.
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I didn't expect that because I was doing Yeah, so for anyone who doesn't know, I used to have a show on Nasdaq Reads, which was called Follow the Reader, and I would try and sit down with authors and talk to them and I was thankful enough that's where I met Ryan Holiday and it's where I met uh a couple of other people in the space and I'd reached out to you because I'd always loved your work.
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And usually an author would come in, you do the interview, but you'd promote the book and then they'd leave.
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And this was the day your book came out and you were like, "Well, why don't we just spend the whole day together?"
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So we had like we were in a coffee shop together.
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We had a Bossa Nova together. So fun.
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And that was the beginning of our friendship. amazing, man.
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And and now we're here on another book launch day.
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And 5 years to write a book, like 5 years to be thinking about a book, 5 years to not It's so easy to just put for you like with the amazing audience, amazing community, you could just put out a book whenever you wanted to. Right.
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What were you working on?
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What were you thinking about for 5 years?
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I wanted to do this after the Mask of Masculinity.
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And this was the thing that I was like, this is the thing that I wish I would have had when I was, you know, 15, 21, 35.
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The book and the content that I wish I could have had to understand the pain that I was going through.
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And now having been through a lot of different healing journeys and healing a lot of different wounds that I had from my past, I finally felt like I was at a place of peace where I could create abundantly as opposed to forcing something.
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And when I wanted to start this 5 years ago, which I've been kind of researching and taking notes and having documents for a long time in my interviews about this, I had the content, but I didn't feel like I was at a place where I felt like it was a good coach to myself.
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I felt like I was still critical of a lot of things and still beating myself up emotionally and mentally.
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And I didn't feel like I would be authentic in putting the content out until I was healing at a level of authenticity internally. Wow.
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So, after 2 years ago, I felt like I finally kind of had a tipping point for a portion of my life that I was struggling with my entire life.
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10 years ago, I started opening up about healing sexual abuse and that type of trauma.
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And that set me on a journey of healing for the next 5 years many different things from my childhood, from parent stuff, things like that.
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And it allowed me to evolve as a human, be more courageous, have more authenticity, all that stuff.
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Be less triggered, less reactional, all that stuff.
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But, I still kept repeating certain patterns in relationships and you've seen me in three different relationships now since I've met you.
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And you probably were able to witness a pattern from the previous two.
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It's so hard to see the things until it gets really, really bad sometimes.
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When things are good and when things are not so good, it's hard to see it.
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It's not until that things get really challenging or some big breakdown when we start to wake up.
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And it was the last relationship where I was like, man, I keep repeating the patterns of something based on a wound.
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I keep choosing, I keep staying, I keep putting myself in these challenging situations that I don't feel like I need to.
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But I hadn't yet unlocked what that was.
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Whether I was afraid to face it or just not aware of it yet, I hadn't fully embraced that healing journey.
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And so I started down a very intensive, you know, coaching therapy experience where I was doing five, six, seven hour weekend days on weekends every week working with a coach to figure out what is holding me back.
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Why do I have this pain in my heart?
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Why do I feel like there's something like choking me on a consistent basis?
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Why do I feel like I can't catch my breath sometimes?
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When on the outside I've got things going well for me, you know, it's like I'm able to accomplish things, I can create my goals and make them happen.
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I'm building a business, you know, all these things I'm functional in a high level, but internally I didn't have harmony. Wow.
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I was kind of at the stage and we would talk about it all the time.
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I was like, dude, why am I struggling with this so much?
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Why am I going through this?
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And I was kind of at a stage where I was just like, I've got to figure out this part of my life in intimate relationships because energetically it's holding me back from friendships, family, creating my work, my mission, my health.
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It's draining, it's pulling from me.
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And that's why I always loved being single because when I was single, I felt free.
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But when I was in intimacy, I felt like I was trapped.
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So I had to go down the journey of of really healing a lot of the different emotional wounds from childhood that put me in the programming of feeling trapped and feeling really like I had to abandon myself for someone to love me.
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And so I never truly loved my authentic self because I never felt like someone else would love me for who I truly was and truly accepted who I was.
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So, that was just my personal journey.
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Where other people might struggle in trying to figure out how to get clear on their purpose or their mission or how to make money or how to get in shape. That wasn't my problem.
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My challenge was intimacy, trusting myself and being 100% authentic and courageous in intimacy and not changing who I was to please someone else.
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But, the need to please others who I loved and who loved me was a big wound and it caused a lot of pain.
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Yeah, it's I mean, it's so powerful you hearing you say that because I feel like it's not worth becoming someone you don't know to please someone you think you love. One person, yeah.
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Yeah, you just become someone you don't recognize, you become someone who you don't know, you don't understand just to hope that that person will see that person. And accept you. And accept you. And It's exhausting. It's exhausting.
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Yeah, you're always performing, you're playing a role.
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You're giving in, you're abandoning yourself.
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It's It's mentally, emotionally, physically draining.
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But, what I love about all of that results in you being able to be creative.
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Like, you start removing all those blocks internally, it results in a book.
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And a book, as we know, is like a lifetime's worth of work put into pages to help people find their greatness in their own lives.
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And I wanted to start with I definitely want to dive into certain elements of the book because I think what you do in this book so well is you remove blocks for people.
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Like, I think the way you were just describing you having blocks in intimacy and relationships, I think we know this and my community feels this and I felt this in my life.
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There were blocks in what I believed was true of my potential or blocks that I thought were true of what I could achieve within success or blocks around how I felt about judgment and failure.
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And so, I want to dive into all of that.
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Yeah, I remember the first year meeting you. Yeah.
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You were like, I don't think I can make, you know, six figures a year.
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You know, you're kind of like, uh, I don't even know if that's possible or if I'm worthy of that or deserving of it or if the work I'm doing I'm supposed to be making that, you know, that much money. Yeah.
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And that was kind of a block of yours for, you don't know, well, probably a long time before then, but for a couple years until you really were able to work your way through that.
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What was the thing inside of you that allowed you to unblock the financial fear that you had?
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It's exactly that, right?
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Like, I had grown up in a family where the language around money and the psychology around money was, we have just enough.
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And generally people who have money have done something bad to get money.
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So, it's been like negative ways or like manipulative ways or they must have done something shady in order to have wealth. Yeah.
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And so, people who are good don't have access to that kind of wealth because they're not shady people.
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And so, I think when I grew up with that, I remember many days having zero in my bank account, you know, just living off of the last amount of money I had to pay off a bill or whatever it may have been.
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And I think what it really hit me as time went on was I was having all this impact.
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Like, at one point, I still remember this, I had 150 million views and I was 4 months away from being broke. That's crazy, man.
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And and I was just like, I can't make the stuff I care about anymore because I don't have money.
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Like, I can't videos cost money to make.
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Like, this I always say to people like, this podcast, this studio costs money to have.
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Like, it costs money to have teams and, you know, right now we have producers behind the scenes and editors and and podcast leads and there's a whole team of people that make things possible.
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And when you're financially scarce, and I don't mean that in terms of how much money you have, but in your mind, when there's a scarcity around money or anything, scarcity around love, or scarcity around energy, or scarcity around health, Yes. it just limits you.
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And so for me, what you just went through, I had to rewire my relationship with money. Yes.
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And we have a relationship with people, we have relationship with money, we have relationship with our body, we have relationship with our mind, and and so to me, it was that.
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curious then, what was the I want to tell the story Dude, this is not your interview, Lewis.
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I want to I want to I want to I want to tie it in an interviewer, but I want to tie it into bringing it back to me. I get it.
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But I want to tell the story of the exact moment when the block went away from me from having fear around being trapped in intimacy after a 5-month journey of like intensive therapy and what it did for me.
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I want to share that story in a moment, but I'm curious, what was the moment?
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Was there a moment where something like you're unlocked in your heart, your body, your mind, your spirit, where you're like, "Oh, I'm deserving of money.
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I'm deserving of making more or having abundance or whatever it might have been and being free of that feeling."
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Was there a moment for you?
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I mean, I think I'm still getting there as well.
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There's a part of it where you're always still rewiring because when something's so deep-rooted, it kind of like never like just leaves.
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But I'd say that I got more comfortable with it. That's a great question.
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When was that moment if I could there a breakthrough?
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Was it in a negotiation for a uh a speaking gig where you're like, "Oh, I'm used to only making this much, but let me ask for more."
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or something kind of unlocking inside of you?
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I actually think it was and this I haven't talked about this before, but I I think it's, you know, and I'm sharing it because I'm with you and it it it is the answer to your question.
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I think it was the first year that I could give over six figures to a charity that I loved. Wow. what it was.
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It was that feeling of and and I knew that that charity would have died if it didn't have that much money. Interesting.
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And they were doing really meaningful work that I cared about.
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And I realized that I was like, oh, wait a minute.
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And that's not like, oh, look how great I am.
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I saved the That's not the point.
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The point was I could only do that and I could only be a part of that because I'd rewired my mindset.
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So, if I wanted to create meaning and impact in the work, and this is one way, there are plenty of other ways to give back through time and energy, but to me I was like, oh, like I can trust myself that if I have more I will give more.
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And I want to trust myself that you know, we always hear that quote.
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I don't know whether it's from Grant or from Jordan Belfort, but the idea of like money only makes you more of who you are.
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Yes, it exposes who you are. Yeah. more of who you are.
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And that idea that you're only going to become more, it's going to put a spotlight.
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We were just talking about that yesterday.
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Like, the idea that it you don't change.
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And I felt for me it was that was me trusting myself.
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And I think when you rewire it, like you trust yourself.
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What you were saying earlier, like you get a trust of like, oh, yeah, I will do good with this.
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Because that's who I am at the core. That's powerful.
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Uh but it sounds like it was a reflection process. It was you trying stuff.
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It was you being like consistent and practicing. And still today. Yeah, exactly. goes away, yeah.
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So, what had happened for me, um I was kind of just like, I'm sick of feeling this pain, this stuckness, this breakdown pattern that I'd continue to repeat and that was fully responsible for in choosing certain relationships out of integrity and out of alignment of values and all these different things and then staying.
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And I I was finally like, okay, I need to find a solution to this pain.
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And so I I found a coach that does a lot of therapy and healing work.
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And I just said, I'm going to invest in 6 months.
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I'm going to pay in advance and I'm going to commit to my intention of finding the solution.
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I'm going to do the work.
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And I think that's step one is being like clear of your intention that you want to find a solution to whatever's causing you any type of pain or stuckness in any area of your life.
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Then I went all in on just being as real and authentic and vulnerable as possible.
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And I remember there was a weekend after about 3 and 1/2, maybe 4 months where I went away and I was not with um my partner at the time, but I was with a different group of friends.
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And I felt free in this weekend and I felt seen and accepted for who I was.
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I felt celebrated for who I was.
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And I wasn't really feeling that in the relationship.
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And I remember being like, "Man, this is the type of life I want to experience consistently where I can be myself authentically around the people I care about and I'm accepted."
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But I wasn't feeling accepted in this relationship.
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And it's because I was willing to abandon myself over and over to try to create peace.
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I was trying to buy peace. You can't buy peace. You've got to own it. You've got to become it. Wow.
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And uh my coach after many, many months of this in kind of unpacking a lot of different things and doing exercises with her and reflection and all these different things, there was a moment where I was feeling this pain in my chest, kind of on and off.
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And I was telling you about this and other people.
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I was like, "Man, I just feel like this pain and feel like a clenching, like I can't like I don't know, something was holding me back."
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And she'd said something that finally clicked.
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She was like, "Lewis, you're not trapped. You're free.
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You can walk away at any time.
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You're not stuck in this relationship.
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Specifically now, you're not engaged, you're not married, you got no kids, but you are free.
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You can choose to walk away at any time."
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And I always was afraid of walking away cuz I didn't want to hurt one person.
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And I didn't want that one person that I cared about to not love me, to not like me, to hate me, to whatever. That was the fear.
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And I think when we can fully embrace it and say this might happen and I may not like it, but if that's the price I need to pay to create peace in my life by stepping into the fear, by owning the fear, by accepting that it will happen potentially.
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Something happened in that moment.
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I can't remember if I told you the story, but it was like I literally felt a ball of pain in my chest kind of unlock and like disintegrate throughout my whole body.
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I've never felt this sensation before.
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And from that moment on I was really kind of like weirded out when I was talking to the therapist.
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I was like something just happened.
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I was like something just happened.
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It was kind of like months of practice, months of reflection, months of these exercises and working with this coaching taking action and trying to integrate the lessons and then finally like unlocked in a moment.
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It was a lifetime of practice, but a moment that unlocked.
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And I haven't felt that pain or fear of being trapped or being stuck or being not enough or needing to abandon myself to please anyone else since then.
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It doesn't mean I haven't had some like, you know, challenges or stressful moments, but I haven't had that.
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And I'm so aware of it because I keep practicing and integrating the healing journey.
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I think that's been the key for me is the ongoing integration of healing so that I can keep expanding, feeling happier, healthier, and healed like you talk about for this show.
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And I think that's what everyone wants, to feel happier, to feel healthier, and feel like they're on the healing journey. Mhm.
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Yeah, I mean, hearing you say that, you know, as your friend I know how much time and energy you put into working on yourself. Yeah.
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I know that any conversation we have turns into a Q&A with both of us going back and forth. Right.
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I know any conversation we have you'll be talking about what work you're doing and who you're working with and who's in our teams to help us do that work.
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I'm talking about personal life. Yes.
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What is the difference then because I want to get into the greatness mindset because you are teaching people how to unlock the power of their mind and live their best life today, which is what you've been doing professionally and now personally over the last few years.
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What is the difference between motivation and discipline?
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Because I find that a lot of the time people think like, "Oh, I'm so motivated by that.
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I'm so inspired by that."
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But what you just explained is far more of a dedicated discipline to the self-work, the inner work.
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Talk to me about the difference between those two and and where do we find them? Mhm.
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I think motivation is for people that don't have a meaningful mission.
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Discipline is for people that are clear on their identity of who they want to become and the mission that they have that is meaningful for them, not only for them, but for those around them.
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And you know, when I was growing up when I was growing up, I wanted to be successful.
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That was kind of the goal in my mindset is how can I become successful?
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How can I accomplish my goals as an athlete?
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How can I be a pro athlete? How can I make money?
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How can I get, you know, awards and all these different things?
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For whatever reason, that's what I thought of is I wanted to be successful.
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When I when I turned 30 and started realizing how big of an ego I actually had and how selfish I actually was in life.
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I was a fun-loving guy, but my intentions were more for me to look good, for me to win, for me to be successful, for me, me, me.
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And this is one of the reasons why I love you so much because your mission is about service.
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I started to realize at 30 that success was selfish and greatness was really about service, right?
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Greatness was not about just me.
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It was about having an intention of a dream that I might have, but including others in the dream.
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Where success is more about accomplishing goals and dreams for just you and not as much thinking about others.
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Maybe others are included, but the intention's really like, "How do I look good?
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How do I get this award and make this money and get this credibility?"
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And that's why 10 years ago I said, "I have to completely shift my identity."
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And it was an unwinding of like 30 years of uh programming.
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So, I had to shift the identity from "Okay."
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And I love that you always talk about collaboration over competition.
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I was all competition, right?
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And there's fun, there's healthy competition in like sports and things like that, but in the game of life, we've got to be collaborators.
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We've got to be thinking about we instead of me if we want to go far.
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If we want to go fast, that quote, you can you can um What is the quote?
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If you want to go fast, go alone.
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If you want to go far, go together. Something like that. That's it. Yeah.
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And if you want to go fast, you can do it on your own quickly, but you won't take you far and you typically burn out.
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Motivation, I believe, is for people that want only success.
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But discipline is when you shift your identity based on a meaningful mission.
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That's why I start the book with meaningful mission because all the great people that we've interviewed who have health, happiness, and are healed, I think that's greatness.
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They have a meaningful mission that's beyond them.
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They have something more and that is uh an identity that are that has non-negotiables, where they are able to be disciplined because it's something bigger than them.
22:41
Whereas success by itself needs constant motivation, right?
22:44
I love that you just shifted that desire of like selfish goals or like self-based goals to service because that for me was the thing that switched when I met the monk, right?
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So, I heard that at 18 and that was just to my 18-year-old mind, I was like What?
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Like, wow, like, no one's ever said that to me before and I would never have learned it if it wasn't for meeting the monk.
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And you're saying you learned it at 30 or that's when you realized that after being successful to some degree that you'd achieved then.
23:20
Externally successful, internally suffering. Yeah, wow.
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And and no one wants to suffer. No one.
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It's interesting, I was just interviewing a guy before this today and I said on a scale of 1 to 10 of your inner peace and self-love scale.
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10 being you love yourself, you have a lot of inner peace, one being you hate yourself, no love. Where are you? He said, "I'm a five." Wow.
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And I said, and this is a guy with a massive company, extremely fit, shredded, like people around him, but internally, a five.
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And it goes back to what you talked about.
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I love the intro, which is hap- is it happy, healthy, and healed? Yeah. Healing.
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Which is I said, "Why do you think you're a five?"
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And he said, "I haven't dealt with the inner stuff.
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I've dealt with the mental side of discipline Wow.
24:05
and structure and organization and and working hard and grinding, but the emotional side of healing your heart, I believe is the game. Yeah.
24:17
It doesn't matter how shredded you are, how wealthy you are, how successful you are, how many cars you have.
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If your inner emotional state is suffering, you are losing.
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And when your inner emotional state is at peace and focused on service, it doesn't have to be changing the world, but service to the people in your life, that's when you are successful.
24:40
A lot of people that will say, "Well, Lewis, I don't have anything to serve with, so shouldn't I want success first and then I'll find service because I don't have my meaningful mission, I don't have any money, I don't have access. I don't have a platform.
24:58
Shouldn't I aim to get a platform first and then serve through?
25:03
How how do you think about that?
25:05
I mean, you served for many years before you got your platform, you know, and then you built your platform after really kind of the figuring out who you were, your identity after leaving the the monkhood, right?
25:15
You started to figure out what did you want.
25:16
And I think there's a a period of time, a season of life where we have to try a lot of different things and and figure out what do we really love. What are our passions?
25:25
Where our talents lie and what our power and then what is the problem we're looking to solve? So, it's the three P's.
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And you can ask yourself what is P's are passion, the passion, the power that you have, Right.
25:36
and the problem you're looking to solve. Love that.
25:39
So, I give a lot of prompts and questions in the book around the three P's where you kind of figure out your sweet spot of what could I be doing.
25:45
So, the passions are and a lot of people say that I've heard a lot of people say don't follow your passion. I don't agree with that.
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I think you should be thinking about what are you most curious about, what excites you.
25:55
Whenever I ask people what are you most excited about in your life right now, you mostly see people like look up in the sky and stuff and they're like they take a deep breath and they get really excited and they're emotional about it.
26:06
They're like joyful about it.
26:08
You want to lean into that feeling and do those things and be in that playground of experiences.
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So, I think you really want to be thinking about what is the things that I am most passionate about.
26:21
And maybe it doesn't mean for a two to four-year window of life you're going to be able to work on it, but you can still be working towards it.
26:27
So, figuring out what interests you, uh what would you do if money was no object, what would you just love to wake up and do in general and what excites you. Think about that.
26:37
The second thing is, you know, when I was starting out, I didn't feel like I had any talents.
26:41
So, I can relate to a lot of people.
26:43
When you left the monkhood, you were like well, what is this transferable skill in the workforce? literally how I felt. Yeah.
26:51
you said you got rejected by like a hundred companies or something when you were like 40 companies, 40 companies, yeah.
26:56
And it's like I didn't think I had transferable skills, you didn't think you had, a lot of people probably don't think that way.
27:01
And most people when they finish university or college, they don't use that degree five to ten years later.
27:07
They're moving on to different things eventually, right?
27:09
So, even if you got a degree in something, you probably won't use it in five to ten years fully in that area.
27:18
And so, I think you got to figure out what are the how do I describe it?
27:21
Kind of like invisible assets. Right?
27:24
The invisible assets that you have acquired throughout your entire life that maybe you're not even aware of.
27:31
For me, an invisible asset was curiosity.
27:33
It's not like I have this tangible currency that I can like use uh to to build an opportunity in my life, but it was an invisible currency, an invisible asset.
27:42
I was so curious about other people.
27:45
Another invisible asset, I was a pretty joyful human being.
27:49
And anytime I entered a room and everyone was always older than me and more talented and more successful, I just said, "I'm going to bring so much joy and curiosity."
27:59
That doesn't seem like a transferable skill.
28:05
People would be like they just wanted to help me.
28:06
And I was this 24-year-old punk that was just like entering these networking events and these social media conferences and these rooms around all these kind of thought leaders and and really people that I was like, "Wow, they're like successful mentors of mine."
28:19
And they were always like, "Hey Lewis, why don't you come join us for dinner?
28:21
Hey, that's pretty cool you're doing this. Let me help you here."
28:23
And I brought curiosity and joy.
28:25
I never talked about myself, I would just ask questions that I was fascinated by and people loved to share these stories about themselves.
28:34
That was a currency, that was an invisible asset that I brought to the table.
28:38
So, you got to think about what are the powers that you have that maybe you don't think you have?
28:44
And also, I'm a big fan of figuring out where you are most powerless and creating a list of all your fears. I call it the fear list. I want to get into that.
28:56
Yes, this is the place where you feel the most powerless.
28:57
So, for me at the time, I felt like my biggest fears and where I felt most powerless was standing in front of a room of peers.
29:09
I could not stand up and speak in front of five people without stuttering, stumbling, sweating, and just forgetting everything that I wanted to say.
29:16
So, I always felt insecure when I had to stand up and present in front of people, and I always felt like, man, I'm just messing up and people are laughing at me and I'm not good enough I'm not as smart as everyone else.
29:28
I'm not as good as presenter as everyone else.
29:29
So, I had this incredible crippling fear.
29:33
And yet I knew one day I wanted to be able to impact people in some way, whether it was a career or something else.
29:41
And so, I found a mentor who was a professional speaker.
29:44
I found a mentor with a model that I wanted to mimic.
29:46
He was a professional speaker, and he said, "You got to overcome this fear.
29:52
A way to do that is go to Toastmasters, a professional speaking class that you can go to."
29:57
And he told me exactly what to do.
29:59
"I want you to go every week for a whole year.
30:01
It's going to suck the first few months.
30:03
You're not going to feel good.
30:05
You're not going to like it.
30:06
It's going to be embarrassing, and you're not going to feel good about yourself.
30:11
But I'm telling you, if you do this every week for a year, you will create unbelievable things in your life." And it was true.
30:17
Never in my wildest dreams would I think I'd get paid what I get paid to speak publicly now.
30:24
So, what was once something that made me feel so powerless, I made it a superpower.
30:32
But the only way I could do that was finding someone or some model or mentor to give me some guidance or that I could mimic, and then taking action on the fear over and over again until I embraced it and became the Batman of public speaking. You know what I mean?
30:48
It's like you've got to whatever the fear is for you you you've got to become Batman in that experience.
30:53
You've got to live in the dark.
30:54
You've got to wear a bat suit and embrace that fear 100% until you can sit there peacefully for me on a stage in front of an audience. And that took years. Yes, yeah.
31:06
You want to develop more superpowers in your tool belt.
31:10
You want to lean into that.
31:13
And I had a ton of fears and a lot of insecurities.
31:15
So it took me many years to start practicing on this and overcoming it.
31:19
And I still get to step in more of them. The work never ends. Yeah.
31:23
Um so that's the second thing.
31:23
You have to figure out what you're interested in, your passions, your powers, and overcoming your fears to make them superpowers.
31:30
And the third one is figuring out what problem do you want to solve.
31:33
This is something you talk about so much and one of the reasons why I love your work, Jay, is cuz you're always asking people to think differently.
31:42
You don't have to be the one who's the entrepreneur or creating the thing.
31:47
There are so many great causes, teams, businesses, and companies that have missions that you can be a great team player and use your passion and your power to support that problem.
31:57
And I think that's what you got to be looking for.
32:02
And it may not always it may not always come to you, you know, in your 20s, early 30s. It may evolve.
32:06
There are different seasons of life that you can use these passions and powers to solve problems.
32:14
So you don't have to have it all figured out at 25 or 31.
32:15
You know, just like give yourself a break and keep enjoying life along the way.
32:19
Yeah, I I love the three Ps and I hope that everyone, when you get the book, I want you to spend a really big chunk of time figuring out those three Ps.
32:28
And and I think what you said's true.
32:30
I've I've heard that rhetoric, too, of don't follow your passion, it's a waste of time, it's bad advice.
32:35
And I think what people get confused is your passion with doing what you like all the time every day.
32:43
There are lots of things I have to do every day that I don't like, but they help me do what I'm passionate about.
32:51
And I think it gets confusing when people are like, "Well, do your passion means every day, all the time, you'll just be doing what you love?"
32:58
And I'm like, "Well, that's not true because I have to do plenty of things I don't love in order to do what I do love."
33:04
And that's why you've got to use discipline.
33:05
You know, you've got to use discipline to keep you organized and consistent on certain things that maybe aren't as fun.
33:13
We'd all love to sit around and play games all day, you know, but it takes discipline to see a meaningful mission mission come to fruition.
33:20
And I think that's the key.
33:23
When you get clear A lot of people that aren't clear on their meaningful mission for this season of life, they're confused, they get depressed, they have stress, they have overwhelmed, they feel lost, they feel frustrated, they feel like something's off.
33:36
And it's cuz you're not clear on the meaningful mission for this season of life.
33:40
And so that's why it's just so important to get clear on what you want and how you want to include others in this season.
33:48
Yeah, and I love how you keep saying season of life because it's not like you've got to find your meaningful mission for the rest of your entire life.
33:57
I think that is too much pressure for people. How long is a season?
33:59
How how how long how much time do you think people are taking to get it?
34:02
types of seasons, and I look at it as sports.
34:04
In sports in a year In a year, there's four seasons in the year of fall, summer, spring, winter.
34:09
In sports, there is a preseason, a season, postseason, and the playoffs, right?
34:18
There's kind of these four seasonal moments, and there's always time to reflect on "Okay, I did this thing for 9 months or a year.
34:25
Do I still want to keep doing this thing, right?" Take time to reflect.
34:30
You take a month off every year to reflect. What works?
34:34
back from I just came back. and you look relaxed. It was amazing.
34:37
Sometimes we're so in it all the time that we don't have the the moment to reflect on do I still am I still excited about this?
34:42
Is this still what I want to do?
34:44
Do I feel like there's a new season coming for me?
34:47
Like I am I shedding something and stepping into something that I'm ready for now.
34:52
Just like this book, it wasn't the right season 5 years ago.
34:56
I didn't feel like I was had figured out what I needed to figure out internally to be authentically sharing the message that I have now and I felt like I would have been a fake if it came out years ago.
35:06
I knew the concepts but I didn't know it inside of me. How did you know?
35:11
Like that's a great point, right?
35:13
Like I feel like there's a lot of people listening, they want to launch a podcast, they want to write a book, they want to build a new idea inside their company, they want to take a new idea to their boss, they want to they want to start something fresh and new in their area, they want to start a charity, right? Whatever it may be.
35:29
And I think there's always that period of not feeling ready and then doing it and I feel like that's the part where most people are stuck.
35:39
We're like in their head, if you talk to them and I'll talk to lots of people, they kind of know what the logo looks like and they're kind of thinking about the website or they're kind of put a bit of the presentation for their boss together and they're thinking about it but what's the difference or or what is the right way to go about feeling ready or getting ready even when you don't feel it, right?
35:59
Like because you didn't want to wait 10 years but you didn't want to wait 5 days, right? Like how did you yeah.
36:07
And obviously this is a book so it's a bigger thing, it takes more time.
36:08
I think there's this concept that we've all heard that is like face it until you What is it?
36:15
No, fake it till you make it, right? That's the concept.
36:17
Fake it till you make it is what a lot of people hear.
36:21
And I really started to think about I don't really like that. Yeah, neither do I.
36:24
And I think it should be face it until you embrace it, right?
36:25
Or face it until you embody it.
36:28
And so, when we take the concept in the in the greatness mindset of, okay, writing it down writing down a list of your fears, your fear list, then you face the fear until you embody and overcome that fear.
36:43
Until you embrace it, you embody it, and it doesn't have power over you anymore.
36:50
And really for me, it's it's about having the perception of like it it just kind of depends what you value in life.
36:57
So many times for me, I think about how much I could die at any moment.
36:59
You know, I think that my life could be over at any moment.
37:03
Will I be proud of who I am if I didn't launch this thing that's been inside of me for a while?
37:11
I knew on this, I didn't have the fear of writing a book, right?
37:13
That wasn't a fear of mine.
37:15
Well, a lot of people they have a book idea for 10 or 20 years, and they just never launch the thing. Yeah. That wasn't my fear.
37:21
My fear was being like inauthentic Yes. to who I was.
37:25
And and being, I don't know, I was a liar or just not feeling like, okay, something was off inside of me.
37:32
I don't want to put something out there.
37:35
And so, I knew, okay, I know this book is going to be my best work ever, but I don't feel like I'm the right messenger yet to put it out there.
37:44
So, what do I need to face Mhm.
37:50
until I can embrace the person I want to be to be able to put this out there. Got it.
37:55
And that to me was after 2 and 1/2 years of researching this book and taking tons of notes and interviewing experts, and me being like me checking in with me at the end of every year being like, why am I still talking about wanting to write this book, but not having the courage?
38:10
That's when the therapy and the coaching sessions and diving in deep into my wounds and the emotional traumas, I was like, I need to face this part of me that I'm still afraid of.
38:23
That was a thing on my fear list that I had resisted for decades.
38:28
And when I faced it, it felt like, "Wow, I'm actually able to feel healing.
38:32
I'm actually able to feel calm around this situation in my life."
38:39
In other areas I felt calm, but not this situation.
38:42
I've actually been facing it consistently every week and doing the work emotionally, revealing myself in exercises and coaching and getting feedback on all that stuff.
38:53
Then, when I felt freedom internally, that's when I was able to create and launch.
38:58
Yeah, that's a great insight.
38:58
I think a lot of us are hoping that our fear will just go away or like you said, we just try and fake it and then it doesn't feel right or it doesn't align with us.
39:07
And really what you're saying is you have to face the fear.
39:09
You have There's no other way.
39:11
There's not like a different route or there's not a different pathway.
39:16
you can't And you can't out-analyze the fear. Yes, yes, yes. You know what I mean?
39:19
You can't just figure out I understand the concept.
39:21
You've got to experience it internally. Horrifying. It's horrifying.
39:25
It's the You know, it's something that held me back for decades and it's what causes us as human beings to repeat the same patterns of familiarity. Yeah.
39:33
We get stuck in patterns that are familiar even when we know it's not right.
39:37
This is why you hear so many people, specifically women, who say, "On my wedding day, I knew it wasn't right.
39:45
Like I knew something was off when like three, four, five years later they got divorced."
39:49
And you ask them, "Did you Did you ever think something was off?"
39:53
They were like, "On my wedding day, I had a feeling, but I was afraid.
39:58
I was afraid to let people down.
40:00
Everyone was already there.
40:00
The invitations were sent.
40:02
We had already put the down deposit down.
40:04
I didn't want to ruffle feathers and I thought maybe we'd just try to make it work."
40:07
A lot of us have that fear of letting others down.
40:11
And that's the thing that holds a lot of people back.
40:13
Yeah, and I I it in the book because you break down the four fears Yes. that we all experience.
40:18
So, I want to go I want to just give people a Three main Three main fears. Three main Sorry. Three main fears. Sorry. Three main fears. Yes.
40:24
Yeah, failure, success, judgment. Sorry. Three main fears.
40:27
I want I want to just touch on them because I think that these top three fears are are really well articulated and I and I've experienced all of them.
40:35
So, I want to reflect on them myself, too.
40:39
So, I remember when I was thinking about like you said, so I'd been doing what I do today, I've been doing it now for 17 years, 7 years online, 10 years offline.
40:49
And the 10 years that it was offline, there were no followers, there was no courses, there was no business aspect to it.
40:55
It was just service and it was me learning and me sharing my passion with five to 10 people that would show up or 50 people that would show up.
41:03
And when I finally realized that I wanted it to reach more people and that was a internal calling I had that I didn't want to live in a world where only five to 10 people had access to these ideas because these ideas changed my life and I felt wait a minute, I met a monk.
41:22
That's a very specific experience.
41:22
Not everyone's going to go through something like that.
41:26
So, how do we speed that experience up for more people?
41:28
I was scared of failure because I was looking at Why were you scared of failure?
41:33
Because I was looking at social media and I was looking at content and I was looking at things people were doing and I was scared about what my friends would say.
41:42
I was scared about me uploading something in not getting views, it getting criticism, or getting like people in the comment section saying, "Oh, this is trash." or whatever.
41:54
And I was scared of failure.
41:56
I was scared of no one's going to care, no one's going to watch, and it doesn't and it's not going to matter.
42:03
And that probably lasted as I was researching, learning, and thinking for 2 years where I felt like that before I actually You wanted to, but you didn't do it. Exactly.
42:13
I wanted to in my head and often at those times I find that's when you start becoming critical, too.
42:17
So, you're kind of looking at what everyone else is doing and you're finding holes in it cuz you think you could do it better or you you know, you get kind of like that and you realize that's not how you want to live, either.
42:27
And so, I find often when we're the most inactive or stagnant, that's when we're the most critical or judgmental of others who are doing something and trying their best.
42:37
I remember feeling are writing negative reviews on other authors' books.
42:41
It's just the people who've never written a book who's like, "This was the worst book ever." Right? it's it's hard.
42:46
And so, I remember feeling that way.
42:48
Like where, you know, I was starting to notice I remember even years ago when when my friends were really into music and we'd be like laughing at the rapper on screen or like whoever it may be and be like, "Oh, look he thinks he's got rhymes." And we could do better.
43:01
And it's like, "But that guy's actually gone and done it, right?"
43:04
Like that person's doing it.
43:04
And so, yeah, talk to me about Let's talk about that cuz I think fear of failure.
43:10
And I love the way you put it into failure and we'll talk about success and judgment.
43:14
Fear of failure is the number one thing that blocks us from trying.
43:19
And that's the part, right?
43:19
It's not about stops us from succeeding, it stops us from trying.
43:23
I was trying to figure out what is the thing that holds us back. What are these fears?
43:26
And it was And it became clear to me that it was failure, success, and judgment.
43:34
And I started I didn't understand failure and success personally, but I started to ask people and kind of brain brainstorming workshop with people.
43:41
Because for me, as an athlete growing up, I was conditioned that failure is a part of success. yeah, that makes sense.
43:48
So, if I I wanted success and the pathway there is failure.
43:51
Like every day in practice, you fail. You make a mistake. You give the wrong pass. You turn the ball over. You drop the ball. You miss the shot.
44:00
So, I would watch Michael Jordan fail 100 times a game, but still win the game.
44:05
You know, or whatever it is, you know, it's like miss a ton of shots and it was never like the worst thing.
44:11
It was like I don't want to fail in my sport.
44:14
I want to be perfect in every play, but I know that this is the path towards success and it's how I get feedback to get better.
44:22
So, failure was feedback.
44:22
It was information telling me what I needed to do to improve.
44:28
So, I understand that concept.
44:28
Success, I also did not understand why people were afraid of success, but as I started touring and speaking and asking people who here's afraid of failure, most of the room would would raise their hand at some point in their life they're afraid of failure.
44:42
And I'd say, "How many of you are afraid of success?"
44:43
Thinking everyone wants this.
44:45
So, almost half the room would also raise their hand for success and I go, "But this is the thing people want.
44:52
So, if you want something you're afraid of, why would it come to you?
44:57
Why would success come to you if you're afraid of it?
44:59
Why would money come to you if you're afraid of it?
45:00
Why would love come to you if you were afraid of it?"
45:05
So, I never understood that concept, but as I started talk to people and realize, "Oh, actually I get it because the weight of gold can be so heavy for so many people."
45:17
There's actually a documentary called Weight of Gold that is about Olympic gold medalists who go on to commit suicide afterwards, who go on to have extreme depression, mental health challenges, lose friendships, go bankrupt, all this stuff because the pressure once you succeed to stay there.
45:34
Everyone expecting you to be a certain way.
45:39
Everyone expecting you to be perfect all the time. The perfect role model.
45:42
Everyone expecting you now to have money to just give to your friends and family and not knowing who really cares about you for you versus your success.
45:48
So, and also it's just a weight that takes a lot of courage to be able to lean into and manage.
45:58
And I think it's a skill set to understand and manage success.
46:03
But that's something I always wanted.
46:04
So, I was like, bring it on, you know, I'll take it.
46:05
The fear for me that has been my kryptonite over the years was judgment and the need for other people to like me.
46:15
And specifically to matters of the heart and intimacy, and that's why I kept repeating the pattern cuz I wasn't afraid to enter a relationship.
46:22
You know, I wasn't afraid of that.
46:24
I wasn't afraid of like it doing well. I wanted it to do well.
46:28
But I kept abandoning myself to try to please one person to accept and love me.
46:33
I was a terrified of the judgment. And that crippled me.
46:37
It was a big, you know, kryptonite in my my entire existence until a couple of years ago. And that's the thing.
46:44
We've got to identify which one of these fears holds us back the most.
46:49
And again, in the book I talk about kind of the process of uncovering and unpacking that so that it's you can have clarity and awareness.
46:58
You talk about awareness is the key.
47:00
Once you are aware and clear, then you can create a game plan on how to embrace it, overcome it, and uh make that fear and insecurity a superpower.
47:10
And I And I truly think we're just going to be have something off inside of us.
47:13
We're going to be unfulfilled.
47:15
We're going to be frustrated, you know, disconnected until we figure out what the fear is for us.
47:24
And figuring out how to fully accept ourselves.
47:26
At the center of all the of these fears is I'm not enough. I am not lovable enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not talented enough. I'm not enough.
47:36
And when we can finally get to a place where I say, I am enough, I can go back to all the different periods of my life that I'm not proud of, that I'm ashamed of, that I'm insecure about, that that I hurt people, that other people hurt me, that I haven't forgiven.
47:48
If I can go back and reconnect with those broken elements of my my mindset from the past and complete create healing and wholeness.
48:00
Then I can accept and love myself today for where I'm at.
48:03
And that's when everything changes. Mhm.
48:05
Yeah, and and I can so relate to all of those as you're talking about them.
48:09
Like, I remember after I had my first viral video, I didn't want to make any videos. Really? Why?
48:15
Because because you're scared of success.
48:16
Like, you're scared of But weren't you excited?
48:18
You're like, "Oh, 50 million views! Like, all these people!"
48:21
get Well, that's the point, right?
48:21
Like, it at one point, it has to become about more than the success or failure.
48:26
And that's where the meaningful mission It comes back to that, right?
48:29
It It always comes back to that.
48:31
And I was talking about this with our friend, and we talked about you, too. It's so funny.
48:35
I was talking to Steven Bartlett recently cuz I was in London, and we talked about you, too, cuz we were talking about relationships.
48:42
And he was saying what he'd learned from you and the conversations you guys have had.
48:47
And And now I'm talking about him to you, but He I was I was talking to him about the idea of just like getting comfortable with the idea that at one point, we all have to embrace insignificance and irrelevance in a public sense, but that in a internal sense, the meaningful mission was what was carrying you. Yes.
49:09
So, if you stop because people stop following, or if you start only when people are following, then there isn't a meaningful mission.
49:20
Because the meaningful mission is what you were doing whether people were following or not, because it's what you wanted to do and who you wanted to be.
49:27
And so, I think it comes back to that that if you only play when you're winning, and you stop when you're losing, or you don't pivot and learn a new way to serve, then there isn't a meaningful mission at at the bedrock of it.
49:39
And so, I love that the meaningful mission is at the heart of everything, because there will always be changes.
49:48
Like, your The platforms will change.
49:50
The algorithms will change.
49:50
The People will come and go. People will come and go.
49:53
And you see the people that have lasted the test of time, it's usually people who have a meaningful mission, as you were saying, who want to keep serving, keep giving.
50:00
They feel they have that.
50:02
Yeah, and they're not they're not worried about how famous or relevant they are.
50:05
You know, and I think I I loved your conversation with Kevin Hart about how like fame is like this ultimate drug and if it's not used wisely or managed properly, it will ruin you. Yeah.
50:16
And I think, you know, the idea of being relevant or having followers or views or something like that, if it's not managed properly, it'll probably stress you out and overwhelm you and make you go a little crazy unless there's some foundation of, "Hey, yes, I want to impact more people and yes, I want this to do well, but the mission is to serve."
50:38
And I remember when I wrote my last book, specifically, about, you know, masculine vulnerability, I remember thinking to myself, "This may not do that well."
50:48
No one's going to Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
50:49
But at that time in 2018 or 2017, whenever that was, I was like, "I don't know if men are ready to start talking about being vulnerable."
50:57
It was kind of just like barely happening, right?
50:59
And now now everyone is talking about that.
51:02
Not everyone, but you see that a lot. Yeah.
51:07
But I remember being like, I could I really don't care if this sells a million copies or one.
51:10
If it sells one and that man is impacted and he has a deeper relationship with himself where he heals, he has a deeper relationship with his wife or his partner and his family, he heals and mends some relationships and he find and he finds more happiness, health, and he heals, then I was like, "It's worth it.
51:29
It's worth the 2 years of research.
51:31
It's worth all the pain that I went through.
51:35
It's worth the the the fear of opening up about sexual abuse that I was afraid of years before that because I want another guy to feel the same way."
51:42
And so, I I when we go into it with, "Yes, we want things to do well.
51:46
When we put effort and energy into launching a project, a business, a company, a book, a podcast, of course you want things to go well.
51:55
But if you have the meaningful mission as the bedrock where you're just like it's about we, it's about us, it's about service.
52:03
It's not about me getting more famous or building something more followers, that's when I think it's more sustainable energetically. Yeah, yeah.
52:13
When when people are sitting with that and we kind of skip not skipped over it but we we used it and moved forward like I think when I use the word purpose or when when you're using the word meaningful mission, it's like it can feel quite heavy for certain people cuz they're like I don't care about it.
52:26
Like there's nothing that I even care about that much.
52:30
Like I don't know or I want to, I wish I cared about humanity or animals or whatever it may be that you care about. to know your season.
52:37
When I was broke on my sister's couch, I couldn't think beyond getting off the couch.
52:41
So I was like my meaningful mission is to make enough money to live on my own. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. I remember that.
52:49
Yeah, paying rent and paying groceries like was where I started.
52:51
If that's your season of life, you got to focus on that.
52:57
And you got to focus on getting to a baseline where you can start thinking beyond yourself.
53:00
But you're doing that with the hidden feeling of like I want to do service but right now I just need to focus on this.
53:07
That's it's kind of like I love that you said that because that's what I found too.
53:11
It's like I never stopped wanting to do service.
53:15
There were just moments in trying to do service where the immediate need was it's kind of like saying you have an apartment, there's a fire in the apartment but you're trying to do your interior design, right?
53:26
Like or or you want to have your friends over.
53:29
You're like no but my apartment's not my friends over. It's like no no no.
53:35
Like I want to serve with my house.
53:35
I want to have my friends over and it's like no no no, just solve the fire and then and then use it for that, right?
53:42
Yeah, and I think it's uh it's it's understanding where you're at.
53:46
And that's why I said like listen, when I you've got to have a season of overcoming your fears as well.
53:50
Like uh for a few years, I was just like, I'm so crippled by insecurity and fear that all my energy is going towards public speaking class.
53:58
I'm doing salsa lessons because this was a fear of mine and I wanted to Oh, you said you could dance, right? Yeah, yeah, I see.
54:04
I was like, there's so much And I was like And I was in research mode.
54:06
I know you love to read and research and teach.
54:10
I was in just research mode.
54:10
For hours every day, I was researching. I was learning online.
54:14
I was building relationships and I was overcoming fears.
54:17
That was the season while I was on my sister's couch for a year and a half trying to figure out, who am I in this world?
54:23
What is the point of all this?
54:25
What is my identity now that I've lost my dream and my athletic dreams?
54:30
What am I going to do the rest of my life?
54:31
I was in a season of researching, of building relationships, and overcoming fears.
54:38
And but I still I was being in service to the people I was working with.
54:41
I was bringing curiosity. I was bringing joy.
54:46
I was bringing moments of fun.
54:46
And that's just as much service as it is feeding the homeless or changing the world or curing cancer.
54:55
That's a great answer, yeah.
54:57
It's the It's a greatness is not about changing the world.
55:01
It's about changing the world around you and changing the world within you and being in that evolution of growth and transformation and saying, how can I continue to level up myself and the people around me?
55:11
That might be three people.
55:13
But if you're doing that, it's making a ripple on so many more. You know what?
55:18
And you lived that and that's what I love about it.
55:21
There's a couple of things that I want to point out not and I want to ask you how you've done these things sometimes.
55:26
Uh I was talking to I remember I went to lunch with Matthew Hussey who's a dear friend of ours and you know, you've been friends with him a lot longer, but you always told me I'd get along with him and we do.
55:35
Uh and I went for lunch with him and you guys had just all been on Red Table Talk for an episode.
55:41
And it was you and Stefan speaking Stefan and Devon Franklin.
55:45
and Devon Franklin and and Matthew and Matthew was saying that the whole time, because there was so many of you It was like eight of us around the table. It's more people. the table.
55:55
There were lots of questions and it was like everyone obviously has so much value to add.
56:00
Everyone on that table has has beautiful insights.
56:02
But you were kind of like doing layups for everyone else.
56:07
So it's like everyone was sharing their insights, but you were the guy who was like passing it to everyone on the thing.
56:12
And you have loads of great insights, too.
56:14
But you were happy to play that.
56:16
I just want to say that that's and that, you know, that's you practice what you preach in that you do that even when you have an opportunity to shine, you're happy to pass the ball.
56:25
Like you are happy to pass the ball and go, "No, you slam dunk.
56:26
You take the three-pointer. You take that."
56:28
And people notice that, right?
56:30
Like the right people who are aware, they notice that.
56:34
And they recognize that, "Oh, this person actually is meaning what they're saying." Yeah.
56:39
And that was just a private lunch I was having with a mutual friend of ours.
56:42
It wasn't like a show or anything.
56:44
And I wanted to share that.
56:44
But But the other part of what I see in you, you're so good and you talk about this in the book about enlisting support.
56:50
You're so good at finding a coach, going to a class, getting a teacher, doing a course.
56:57
I give that advice all the time, and I think we give that advice all the time.
57:01
We're like, "Just start doing a course. Like do this. Do that." Like right?
57:04
There's And because it's real, because we've experienced it in our own lives.
57:07
Like by the way, I only I'm only a public speaker because my parents forced me to go to public speaking classes.
57:12
So I've been to seven years of nine hours a week with exams of public speaking training from age 11 to age 18. That's great. So it's courses, right?
57:22
It's like anything in the world is trained, is learned, is built.
57:26
And I think we live in a world now where we think, "Oh, that that's a god-given talent."
57:30
Or that, you know it or you don't have it.
57:35
When you actually start to realize that oh, the person you think that can dance, yeah, they might have had some cool skills.
57:40
not dance at You could not dance at all, but now like when I see you when I've seen video and stuff, I'm like you're a great dancer, right?
57:46
And I think people could say the same for speaking, business, you've talked about dyslexia.
57:52
Yeah, like so many things.
57:52
So, let's talk a bit about that because I do think that education and training are the pathway to transformation and growth.
58:03
Reading a book, is that crossing the line?
58:06
Like I was saying to someone yesterday that I have this habit where I look at what my block is every season almost using your language, and I will go and find books, interviews, and podcasts on that problem. Yes.
58:22
And so, I was in so many bookstores over Christmas because I love book shops.
58:27
And I was just walking around and I would walk around just as like I was giving this example yesterday.
58:33
I was like if you're out of milk at home, you go to buy milk.
58:38
You don't just go oh, I'll just use washing up liquid instead, right?
58:42
But if you're out of discipline, what we do is we go yeah, go find some discipline go buy some discipline.
58:48
Like what we do is we go oh, I'll just watch Netflix then, right?
58:50
And it doesn't solve the gap.
58:52
Like if you're out of cereal at home, you don't just go oh, I'll just eat like chips for breakfast.
58:56
You you go and buy cereal and so, I look at my life in that way like a grocery store and I go what is it that I need in my life?
59:04
Okay, maybe right now I need to become a better leader.
59:07
Okay, maybe right now I need to become a better husband.
59:09
Right now I need to become a better interviewer, whatever it may be.
59:12
And then I'll go and look for that.
59:14
And it sounds like you do the same.
59:16
How have you found the ability to a couple of things?
59:20
The first thing is find good classes and coaches and mentors because I think a lot of people struggle with knowing like do I trust this do I not?
59:29
Good question for people to ask.
59:29
And second part is how do you commit and stay on top of it when naturally like it's easier to just sit at home and watch TV? Two things.
59:38
How do I commit and stay on top of it? I pay in advance.
59:43
Right, that's a great way.
59:45
I pay my nutrition and fitness coach in advance.
59:47
I pay my my therapist and emotional coach a year in advance and we schedule it every 2 weeks for the year. Yeah.
59:58
So I've got money invested, I've got time and calendar organized, committed.
1:00:02
Yeah, so it's not like oh pay you every week when I come we'll see when the meeting gets set up.
1:00:05
It's not one class at a time, it's a a block of time in advance. It takes time to learn. It forces discipline.
1:00:14
When you're invested in it you pay more attention to it as our friend Dean Graziosi says.
1:00:18
He says you pay attention to what you pay for. Right?
1:00:24
And you'll pay more attention when you pay more money typically.
1:00:26
I'm not saying you need to spend tons of money.
1:00:29
A lot of things that I've gotten from free mentorship whether it be people just giving me time, me learning from podcasts, books, videos, courses, things like that that were free and available online.
1:00:40
But I've always seen accelerated results when I invest in something.
1:00:44
When I invest in someone, something and I know I've got to do a period of time to complete it. That's number one.
1:00:51
Number two and how do I find them?
1:00:53
How do you know who you to trust and how do you find them?
1:00:55
How do you know who to trust?
1:00:56
I I typically ask people that I respect.
1:00:58
So I'll ask you hey hey do you know someone who could help me on this?
1:01:02
So I trust and respect you.
1:01:02
If you have a referral then then I'll probably trust that person or at least I'll jump on a call.
1:01:09
But otherwise it's you know you can find a lot of people online and see what they're creating, how their energy is, their vibe and things like that.
1:01:15
You can consume some of their information.
1:01:18
You can see testimonials, you can check in with those testimonials or referrals.
1:01:22
So, I just kind of follow that process.
1:01:24
And I'll always do like an intro session with someone if it's a coaching to see like do we really connect before I commit a year in advance or 3 months in advance.
1:01:31
So, it's making sure that they've got results that I respect.
1:01:33
And they've worked with people and helped them overcome challenges that I respect as well.
1:01:40
Then it becomes more more of a thing that I that I trust driving into.
1:01:46
And to to to go back to what you were saying just before that about kind of giving people layups and stuff.
1:01:53
I wasn't like that until 10 years ago.
1:01:55
I mean in some ways I was, but I wasn't It wasn't until 10 years ago when I had this kind of initial transformation of letting go of big parts of my ego where I said that I have to be extreme in a sense the other way cuz I was so competitive. I wanted to be right. I wanted to win.
1:02:14
I wanted to be number one at everything.
1:02:17
I can't imagine you like that.
1:02:17
As a I can imagine I I know you're competitive in sport, obviously, but like as an energy that's Yeah, I didn't know you then.
1:02:24
Maybe people didn't feel it, but internally that was driving me, right? In in a lot of ways.
1:02:29
And it was all based on a wound that I hadn't healed yet.
1:02:33
Once I started to heal, I was like, "Oh, wow.
1:02:36
I've had this all wrong."
1:02:38
Everything was win-lose to me as opposed to win-win.
1:02:41
So, 10 years ago I actually learned the concept of win-win for the first time or at least I understood it for the first time.
1:02:48
Maybe I'd heard it as a kid, but I didn't embody it until I was able to face that and wake up to it.
1:02:55
And that's why I was like, "Okay, I'm going to start this show.
1:02:56
It's not going to be about me.
1:02:58
It's going to shine the light on everyone else. I want to practice this.
1:03:04
I want to overcome this consistently.
1:03:06
And I was really inspired by Oprah where she just always shine the light on others, right? For 20-something years.
1:03:14
And she's talked about it before.
1:03:14
It's like when you shine light, there's always a reflection of light back on you.
1:03:19
And the more you do that for more people over time, you become brighter in return.
1:03:24
And it's not the goal to become brighter necessarily for selfish reasons, but it's it naturally happens.
1:03:31
You're reflecting the light back on you.
1:03:33
And I think that's a beautiful thing.
1:03:34
You know, something that you do so well by lifting others up.
1:03:36
It's something that I try to do really well by lifting my friends up like we did on Red Table Talk.
1:03:43
When you know, Jada is asking a question, I'm like, "Gosh, I know Stefan has the perfect answer for this because I've heard him say this three times." Yeah.
1:03:51
So I go, "Stefan, you know what to say here, you know?"
1:03:53
And then when Matthew had a different perspective on something else, I was like, "Matthew, man, you said this amazing thing about this before.
1:03:58
Can you share what this is?
1:04:01
Devon, I've heard you say this."
1:04:03
So, you know, I learned this early on cuz I didn't feel like I had the answers or I was smart in my early 20s.
1:04:11
So I wouldn't speak a lot from my perspective.
1:04:13
I would just ask curious questions.
1:04:17
And after a couple hours of meeting with someone, I never really spoke about me.
1:04:22
I would just ask about them.
1:04:22
At the end of the conversation, they were like, "Man, you're the most interesting person I've ever met."
1:04:26
And I was like, "I didn't share anything about my life.
1:04:27
I just asked you questions."
1:04:31
But people want to feel that you're curious and interested in them, and then they'll think you're extremely interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah.
1:04:35
I I I feel like it's also just something that you you also naturally listen, and I think that you know, I think a lot of these things are often used as techniques. Yes.
1:04:47
don't come across as genuine because you if you ask a question, you actually have to listen, and then you actually have to remember, and then you'd ask a follow-up question.
1:04:55
And I think sometimes you can you can tell when it's disingenuous or You can feel when it's off.
1:05:01
You can feel it from a mile off, like or something, yeah.
1:05:05
Yeah, when you feel like it's a technique where someone's coming at it like, you know, whenever, you know, people used to give the advice of like, "Oh, reach out and do something for free for someone. Yeah.
1:05:13
And then someone would do that for you, but then they come back with like this and then you're like, oh, wait a minute.
1:05:17
I thought you were doing this for free.
1:05:19
you were doing it for free and you start realizing just like it has to be done so genuinely and people will respond to that.
1:05:25
I had a you know, I had a rule that and I and I still have it too like uh, I never took pictures with celebrities unless they were on the show or in a meaningful connection.
1:05:37
It was never a clout grab.
1:05:39
Like it wasn't like, I'm in this place. I've seen this person.
1:05:43
Let's get a picture just to like show off who you're hanging around with.
1:05:46
Like it was like, no, if I have a relationship with that person or they're on a podcast and there's a meaningful interaction or we're doing something together because it's just like when when people feel used and you're using people in that way and there's no genuineness, it kind of just like it it feels really cheap and and it comes across that way, too.
1:06:02
And it actually blocks you having a real relationship.
1:06:07
And so when you're asking interesting questions and I know you do that all the time, but I also know you're listening because then we'll bring it up again in another conversation or and so I think there's there's a real truth to that.
1:06:16
I also in my own personal coaching practice, I I set a new rule and this was something that took me a while to understand, but it but it really helped me.
1:06:25
So anyone that I privately coach uh, we have a fee of my time, but the entire fee goes to charity of their choice. cool.
1:06:33
So I have a fee, we count up the hours like I would in any coaching practice, but the the amount goes to a charity of their choice. That's cool.
1:06:40
And it became a way of that I could feel I was serving and I could give myself and I wanted the person to also feel like they were getting the feeling of giving back. Mhm.
1:06:48
Rather than always paying for stuff.
1:06:52
Because I found that a lot of people always felt that they could pay for anything and they could buy anything.
1:06:57
And I wanted them to feel the opposite where it's like they weren't buying anything.
1:07:00
They were getting to give away.
1:07:02
And yeah, so it was I've never talked about it before, but I wanted to share it with you because it was just something that I was thinking about like I I wanted to find a method where I could give my heart to someone.
1:07:12
Uh and they could give their heart to me.
1:07:13
And I found sometimes that money got in the way of the heart. Interesting.
1:07:18
And so like in friendship there's no money exchange hence there's a heart space.
1:07:21
And so in coaching I had to find a way.
1:07:23
Yeah, and that was that was my way and it's like been a beautiful commitment and It's great unless it gets like overwhelming with coaching clients and you have no time. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I don't, right?
1:07:32
Like I'm very I don't have I have like six, seven people that I work with.
1:07:35
So it's it's it's not something that I'm looking to grow in a in a business sense.
1:07:39
It's you looking to grow in your life right now?
1:07:42
After a month of reflection of this end-of-year season of last year of being your honestly your biggest year ever in in so many ways from the business to success to speaking to the podcast growth to YouTube to video celebrity clients, all the talk shows you've been on, all these things that have happened, what was the big reflection for you?
1:08:02
And where do you see yourself moving in this next year?
1:08:04
So obviously this year the new book is out, 8 Rules of Love, so my heart's in love.
1:08:11
The tour is happening for the first time.
1:08:12
I'm like I'm really excited to like hug people and hold their hands and look into their eyes.
1:08:17
I think I'm like I've always been a hugger.
1:08:18
We just hugged for like And by the way, everyone watching right now or listening, when you hug Jay in person, just whisper in his ear and hug him long and say this was from Lewis.
1:08:32
Cuz that's what I do with Jay.
1:08:32
I hold him so long and I whisper in his ear like, "I love you."
1:08:38
But but there's a there's a joy in that like I love physical connection.
1:08:39
Like I love the idea that I'm actually going to like, you know, I I feel so grateful that for six, seven years I've been doing this, I haven't met 99% of people.
1:08:48
You probably feel the same way.
1:08:52
And I just like I feel so grateful and I want to kind of like outpour all of that on stage to everyone who's going to be there because there's so much gratitude built up in me that I haven't been able to and me saying it in a microphone
1:09:05
doesn't do it justice and traveling around and doing a hectic schedule and doing all this craziness is really an output it's totally from a gratitude point of view because there's there's nothing else to it of why you'd go on tour. So, I'm excited for that and then
1:09:17
So, I'm excited for that and then if I'm completely honest, I'm excited for rest, study and creativity.
1:09:22
I'm really looking forward into the next half of the year where my plan is to go more internal and learn and study again and research and read more.
1:09:32
I do that all the time but I mean doing even in a more obsessive constructive way. Yes.
1:09:39
And and spend more time just being creative and being present because I feel like I've been really going all out for like the last 6-7 years now and it's been so meaningful and powerful and beautiful but at the same time I'm conscious that to have the next 7 years be even better than it's been, it's going to require this pit stop and my mom teacher would always say, "If you want to go three steps forward, you have to go three steps deep." Mhm.
1:10:08
And so this is the time to go three steps deep in order to go three steps forward again and so I feel after going all this forward that I've done, it's time to go deep again and and I feel that internally it's calling me.
1:10:19
So, Well, you're about to spend the next what?
1:10:22
3 to 6 months going hard.
1:10:24
Hard and forward and that's great and I I'm ready for that and I'm ready for that after this month off but after that, I'm already planning I'm curious.
1:10:33
I know this interview is about me but uh uh but I can never not ask you questions no matter when we're doing this stuff. I'm curious.
1:10:42
If you could fast forward in your heart and your minds 1 year and just imagine everything that has happened.
1:10:47
You're pouring your energy in everyone, the gratitude you're going to give to all this community, you know, tens of thousands of people that are going to be in person over the next few months supporting you, seeing you.
1:10:56
Uh and make sure you guys, if you haven't bought the book, get his book right now as well.
1:11:01
What do you think is going to be the lesson you're going to learn at the end of this year if you could be in the future?
1:11:06
What do you think your soul is going to tell you that is going to be the lesson and the thing for you to step into or let go of into the next year?
1:11:18
I think the lesson will be to and and everyone needs to do this and it comes back to your point of season is to live in the season that you have reached.
1:11:28
And what I mean by that is that there was a different energy that it took to get here and it will be a different energy to move forward.
1:11:38
And I think it's really in interesting because I think we often stay in the same energy state multiple years of our life because we got used to it or we got familiar with it.
1:11:48
And then years go by before you realize you needed an energy shift.
1:11:53
And I think when you see people who are burnt out, lost, or confused, or feel like they wasted time, it's because they never realized that they stayed in the same energy state uh that they were in when they started.
1:12:10
And you have to accept that time has changed and life has moved on and you've learned new things and you've gained new clarity.
1:12:17
And so I think that will be the lesson.
1:12:19
And letting go I think will be I want to do I feel like to get to this point I had to do a lot of what I didn't love.
1:12:29
And I think that that should always get less and less and less.
1:12:33
So I think a healthy life isn't one where you only do what you love, but it's a life where you do less and less of what you don't love.
1:12:40
And so I feel like my life is always moving in that direction.
1:12:44
And I think in a year from now I have all the clarity and all the opportunity to start afresh as opposed to continuing to just exist in the world of repeating what's been done. Yeah. If that makes sense. It's good inside.
1:13:01
Your future self is wise. Yeah, yeah, hopefully. Hopefully.
1:13:02
And now I've got to live up to it.
1:13:04
No, it's good you Well, this is a beautiful question.
1:13:07
It's good you make me make me vocalize and I hope everyone's getting to see how good Louis is at what he does and what he does for himself, too.
1:13:14
No, the question like that's great cuz it gives me something to live up to that I that I aspire for, right?
1:13:17
And it reminds me of that Matthew McConaughey speech. Yeah. years out. I love that speech.
1:13:22
Chase my hero 10 years out. yeah.
1:13:24
And it's just like it's the Oscar speech.
1:13:26
If anyone doesn't know, Dallas Buyers Club, he won the Oscar for Best Actor and he gives the one of the best speeches of all time, in my opinion.
1:13:32
And yeah, it's that idea of just Yeah, it gives you something to chase, which is yours. It's you.
1:13:40
It's not chasing like And I love that, right?
1:13:42
Like And I think the question you just asked is the question you're asking yourself, which is why your life is going in the right direction because question isn't where do you want to be in a year?
1:13:51
Like, what do you want to achieve?
1:13:52
Because that starts to like set, you know, there's there's usefulness in that.
1:13:57
I'm not saying it's not useful, but the internal question's far more gratifying.
1:14:01
So, you've given me something to chase and pursue.
1:14:03
It's awesome to have goals and dreams.
1:14:07
But I think what's more important is focusing on the person you become on a consistent basis to create those dreams.
1:14:13
And also being so proud and at peace of who you've become even if the dreams don't come true.
1:14:25
And there's been a lot of things that I've chased after where the dreams didn't come true. Yeah.
1:14:31
But the life was a dream come true.
1:14:35
Who I got to meet, what I got to experience, what I overcame, the lessons I learned, the the memories I created.
1:14:45
Certain didn't dreams didn't come true, but it was a dream come true. Totally. Totally. And oh, I love that. I love that so much.
1:14:51
That's such a like That's such a powerful statement. And and it's all true.
1:14:56
Like I I've had so I've so many projects that haven't worked out. Didn't work out. So many pitches.
1:15:00
Even we went to some pitches together that you set up for me that didn't work out.
1:15:05
But the network I built through that relationship building, the connections I built Who I became, like the skills I had to learn, like There's so many you know, there was there was a lot of thing I'll give you an example.
1:15:14
There was a lot of goals that I accomplished as an athlete that I was extremely proud of and I was like, man, I set an intention for this goal 10 years prior and I made it happen.
1:15:25
But there were certain goals, like I wanted to be an Olympic athlete, right?
1:15:29
And for eight and a half years I played with the USA national team.
1:15:30
And I never made the Olympics, right?
1:15:33
And I haven't played with the team for about three years since uh right before the pandemic.
1:15:40
And I can look back and say I spent eight and a half years of my life sacrificing, committing, dedicated, disciplined, traveling the world, spending time, money, energy money and energy playing a game to represent the USA, to try to make the Olympics.
1:15:56
And I failed and I failed it and I fell short.
1:15:59
Or I can look at it as, man, what a life journey and experience I got to have for eight and a half years.
1:16:05
I have so many great friends, memories.
1:16:08
I traveled the world wearing USA across my chest, getting to play against Olympians as a you know, 35, 6, 7 year old.
1:16:17
I was like, I didn't accomplish the dream, but it was still a dream come true.
1:16:22
And I think when we look back on things that didn't work out, but find the meaning and the memory and the magic in those experiences, it's still an incredibly beautiful life.
1:16:34
The meaning, the memory, and the magic. I love that. I love that.
1:16:36
Because often we look for meaning, but you're so right, the memory and the magic. Lewis Howes everyone.
1:16:42
Lewis, that was That was special, man.
1:16:45
That was really beautiful.
1:16:47
I want everyone who's listening and watching right now to go and grab a copy of this book, The Greatness Mindset.
1:16:52
Unlock the power of your mind and live your best life today.
1:16:58
Uh it's available right now.
1:16:58
If you're listening to this episode, make sure you go grab it.
1:17:02
Where would you like them to get it from apart from obviously Barnes & Noble, Amazon? Anyway, yeah.
1:17:04
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever. Yeah. Perfect.
1:17:08
Yeah, make sure you go grab a copy.
1:17:08
The audiobook as well is in Lewis's voice.
1:17:13
Lewis reads the audio, so make sure you go and grab the audio if you like listening to books as well, because I know so many of you are audio listeners.
1:17:21
Uh and follow Lewis on YouTube, subscribe to his podcast The School of Greatness, and follow him on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, on every single social media platform that you use.
1:17:31
Uh as you saw today, Lewis practices what he preaches and also what he shares uh is highly life-changing.
1:17:36
So, make sure you go and grab it. it, man.
1:17:39
And And real quick, before you you finish it, uh I appreciate you talking about the book and I want to give a call to action to people.
1:17:47
If you're going to buy my book, which I'm deeply grateful for, I want to see if you haven't bought Jay's book yet, make sure to buy both of us at the same time.
1:17:57
Take us Take a screenshot I love that.
1:18:00
both of us on Instagram letting us know that you got both books at the same time. cool. That'll be awesome.
1:18:05
And I'm sure we'll And I'm sure we'll reshare some of those on Instagram. So, Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:18:10
Buy it on Amazon, take a screenshot or if you got them both in in your hands, do that.
1:18:12
Put it on Instagram for us to see and we'll we'll share both of those out. I love it. I love it.
1:18:18
Lewis, thank you so much, man. Appreciate you, man. So grateful.
1:18:21
If you loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Kobe Bryant on how to be strategic and obsessive to find your purpose.