Lewis Howes ON: How to Physically Release Trauma & Why You Should Focus On Discipline Over Motivation to Succeed

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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. I was like, man,
I just feel like this pain and like a clenching,
like I can't like I don't know if something was
holding me back. That was the fear. 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 to ball a pain

(00:21):
in my chest, unlock, and like disintegrate throughout my whole body.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one
health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every
one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier,

(00:41):
and more healed. And I am so excited to be
talking to you today. I can't believe it. My new
book Eight Rules of Love is out and I cannot
wait to share it with you. I am so so
excited for you to read this book, for you to
listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If you
haven't got it all read, make sure you go to

(01:01):
eight Rules of Love dot com. It's dedicated to anyone
who's trying to find keep or let go of love.
So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up,
or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.
And I'd love to invite you to come and see
me for my global tour Love Rules. Go to Ja
shettytour dot com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences,

(01:26):
and more. I can't wait to see you this year 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. Whenever we do something together, we get
incredible feedback. I get the most texts ever, 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. He's done that

(01:47):
plenty times on this show, but today he's here to
talk about something that he's been really thinking about and
working on for the next five years. So I want
all of you to show your support for this incredible human,
but also this amazing book that he's written. I want
everyone to go and order it right now. The link
is in the notes and the captions. I'm talking about

(02:08):
my dear friend Lewis House, who's a New York Times
best selling author, keynote speaker, and industry leading show host
of the School of Greatness podcasts, which is one of
the top podcasts in the world with over five hundred
million downloads. Lewis was recognized by the White House and
President Obama as one of the top hundred entrepreneurs in

(02:30):
the country under thirty and his new book is right here.
It's called The Greatness Mindset. Unlock the power of your
mind and live your best life today. This is the
book that I want you to go and grab. Please,
welcome to the show, my dear friend and brother, Lewis House.
Good to see you, brother. This is exciting man. It's like,

(02:52):
you know, this is five years in the making, like
for you to you've had a podcast now for nearly
ten years. I saw that in two weeks it'll be
my tenure Inniverse. That's insane. Congratulations, Like what a history,
and thank you, legacy of service and like how many
interviews now? Is that almost fourteen hundred episodes? That's insane, right,
fourteen hundred episodes over ten years. Unbelievable legacy. You wrote

(03:15):
your first book, The School of Greatness, your second book,
Mask of Masculinity. On the release of that book was
when we became friends. Yeah, the day it came out,
I went on your show a Nasdak and Nada, Yeah,
your city. 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, and we met. I was like,

(03:37):
let's just hang out all day. I know, it was amazing.
I didn't expect that because I was doing Yes. So
for anyone who doesn't know, I used to have a
show on Nasdak 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 a
couple of other people in the space. And I'd reached

(03:58):
out to you because I'd always loved your work. And
usually an author would come in, you'd do the interview,
you'd promote the book, and then they'd leave. And this
was the day your book came out, and you were like, well,
why don't we just spend the whole day together. We're
in a coffee shop together, We're in the bonds of
noboo together so far, and at the beginning of our friendship,
it was amazing, man. And now we're here on another
book launch day and five years to write a book,

(04:20):
like five years to be thinking about a book, five
years to not it's so easy to just put for you,
like with an amazing audience, amazing community, you could just
put out a book whenever you wanted to write. What
were you working on? What were you thinking about? For
five years? I wanted to do this after the Mask
of Masculinity, and this was the thing that I was like,
this is the thing that I wish I would have
had when I was fifteen, twenty one, thirty five, the

(04:42):
book and the content that I wish I could have
had to understand the pain that I was going through.
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 a I posed to forcing something. And when I
wanted to start this five years ago, which I've been

(05:04):
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. I felt like I was still critical
of a lot of things and still beating myself up
emotionally and mentally. And I didn't feel like I would

(05:25):
be authentic and putting the content out until I was
healing at a level of authenticity internally. So after two
years ago, I felt like I finally kind of had
a tipping point for a portion of my life that
I was struggling and left my entire life. Ten years ago,
I started opening up about healing sexual abuse and that

(05:46):
type of trauma, and that set me on a journey
of healing for the next five years many different things
from my childhood, from parents, stuff, things like that, and
it allowed me to evolve as a human, be more courageous,
have moreicity, all that stuff, be less triggered, less reactional,
all that stuff. But I still kept repeating certain patterns

(06:07):
in relationships. And you've seen me in three different relationships
now since I've met you, and you probably were able
to witness a pattern from the previous two. It's so
hard to see the things until it gets really, really bad.
Sometimes when things are good and when things are not
so good, it's hard to see it. It's not until

(06:28):
it things get really challenging or some big breakdown when
we start to wake up. And it was the last
relationship where I was like, man, I keep repeating the
patterns of something based on a wound. I keep choosing,
I keep staying, I keep putting myself in these challenging
situations that I don't feel like I need to. But
I hadn't yet unlocked what that was, whether I was

(06:51):
afraid to face it or just not aware of it yet.
I hadn't fully embraced that healing journey. 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? Why do I have

(07:12):
this pain in my heart? Why do I feel like
there's something like choking me on a consistent basis. Why
do I feel like I can't catch my breath sometimes
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. I'm building
a business, you know all these things. I'm functional in
a high level, but internally I didn't have harmony. I

(07:36):
was kind of at the stage and we would talk
about it all the time. I was like, dude, why
am I struggling it to so much? Why am I
going through this? 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. It's draining, it's pulling from me.

(07:59):
And that's when I always loved being single, because when
I was single, I felt free. But when I was
an intimacy, I felt like I was trapped. So I
had to go down the journey 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.

(08:22):
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.
So that was just my personal journey. Where other people
might struggle and 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. My challenge was intimacy, trusting myself and being

(08:47):
one hundred percent authentic and courageous in intimacy and not
changing who I was to please someone else. But the
need to please others who I loved and who love
me was a big wound and it cause a lot
of pain. Yeah, it's I mean, it's so powerful you're
hearing you say that, because I feel like it's not

(09:10):
worth becoming someone you don't know to please someone you
think you love one person. 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. Yeah, you're always performing, you're playing

(09:30):
a role, you're giving in, you're abandoning yourself. It's mentally, emotionally,
physically draining. But what I love about all of that
results in you being able to be creative, Like you'll
start removing all those blocks internally, it results in a book,
and a book, as we know, is like a lifetime's
worth of work put into pages to help people find

(09:53):
their greatness in their own lives. 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 as you remove blocks for people,
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. There were blocks in what I believed was

(10:14):
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. And so
I want to dive into all of that. Yeah, I
remember the first year meeting you. Yeah, you were like,
I don't think I could make you know, six figures
a year. You know, You're kind of like, I don't
even know if that's possible, or if I'm worthy of

(10:37):
that or deserving of it, or if the work I'm
doing I'm supposed to be making that you know, that
much money? 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 of years until you
really were able to work your way through that. What
was the thing inside of you that allowed you to
unblock the financial fear that you had. It's exactly that, right,

(10:58):
Like I had grown up up in a family where
the language around money and the psychology around money was
we have just enough. And generally people who have money
have done something bad to get money, so it's been
like negative ways, or like manipulative ways, or they must

(11:19):
have done something shady in order to have wealth. And
so people who are good don't have access to that
kind of wealth because they're not shady people. 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

(11:40):
have been. And I think what it really hit me
as time went on, was I was having all this impact.
Like at one point I still remember this, I had
one hundred and fifty million views and I was four
months away from being Bros. And I was just like,
I can't make the stuff I care about anymore because
I don't have money, like I can't. Videos cost money

(12:00):
to make like this, I always say to people, like
this podcast, this studio costs money to have, like it
costs money to have teams. And you know, right now
we have producers behind the scenes and editors and podcast
leads and there's a whole team of people that make
things possible. And when you're financially scarce, and I don't
mean that in terms of how much money you have,

(12:21):
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. And so
for me, what you just went through, I had to
re whire my relationship with money. Yes, and we have
a relationship with people. We have a relationship with money,
We have relationship with our body, we have a relationship

(12:42):
with our mind and exactly, and so to me, it
was that I'm curious, then what was the I want
to tell the stude. This is not your interview you
always do. I want to tie it into bringing you
back to meet it, 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

(13:03):
after a five month journey of like intensive therapy and
what it did for me. I want to share that
story in a moment, but I'm curious what was the moment.
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, I'm deserving of making more or
having abundance or whatever it might have been, and being

(13:24):
free of that feeling. Was there a moment for you?
I mean, I think I'm still getting there as well.
There's a part of it where you're always still rewiring,
because when something so deep rooted, it kind of like
never like just leaves. But I'd say that I got
more comfortable with it. That's a great question. When was
that moment? Was there a breakthrough? Was it a negotiation
for a speaking gig where you're like, oh, I'm used

(13:47):
only making this much, but let me ask for more,
or something kind of unlocking inside of you. I actually
think it was. And this I haven't talked about this before,
but I think it's you know, and I'm sharing it
because I'm with you, And the answer to your question,
I think it was the first year that I could
give over six figures to a charity that I loved.

(14:09):
That's what it was. It was that feeling of and
I knew that that charity would have died if it
didn't have that much money. Interesting, and they were doing
really meaningful work that I cared about. And I realized
that I was like, oh wait a minute, And that's
not like, oh look how great I am. I saved,
That's not the point. The point was I could only

(14:30):
do that, and I could only be a part of
that because I'd rewired my mindset. So if I wanted
to create meaning an 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, and I want
to trust myself that. You know, we always hear that quote.

(14:51):
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 exposed is more of who you are,
and that idea that you're only going to become more
it's going to put a spotlight. We were just talking
about that yesterday, like the idea that you don't change,
and I felt for me it was that was me

(15:12):
trusting myself. And I think when you rewire it like
you trust yourself what you were saying earlier, Like you
get a trust of like, oh yeah, I will do
good with this because that's why I'm at the core.
That's powerful. But it sounds like it was a reflection process.
It was you trying stuff. It was you being like
consistent and practicing and still today, yeah, exactly, it never
goes away yet. So what had happened for me, I

(15:34):
was kind of just like, I'm sick of feeling this pain,
this stuckness, this breakdown pattern that I had continued 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 and I was
finally like, Okay, I need to find a solution to
this pain. And so I found a coach that does

(15:56):
a lot of therapy and healing work, and I just said,
I'm going to invest in six months, I'm going to
pay an advance, and I'm going to commit to my
intention of finding the solution and I'm going to do
the work. And I think that 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 an area of your life. Then I

(16:19):
went all in on just being as real and authentic
and vulnerable as possible. And I remember there was a
weekend after about three and a half maybe four months,
where I went away and I was not with my
partner at the time, but I was with a different
group of friends, and I felt free in this weekend
and I felt seen and accepted for who I was.

(16:41):
I felt celebrated for who I was, and I wasn't
really feeling that in the relationship. 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. But I wasn't feeling
accepted in this relationship. It's because I was willing to

(17:01):
abandon myself over and over to try to create peace.
I was trying to buy peace, and you can't buy peace.
You've got to own it. You've got to become it.
And my coach, after many, many months of this and
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

(17:24):
in my chest kind of on and off, and I
was telling you about this and other people. I was like, man,
I just feel like this pain and I feel like
a clenching, like I can't like I don't know if
something was holding me back. And she said something that
finally clicked. She was like, Lewis, you're not trapped. You're free.
You can walk away at any time. You're not stuck
in this relationship specifically now, you're not engaged, you're not married,

(17:47):
you got to kids, but you are free. You can
choose to walk away at any time. And I always
was afraid of walking away because I didn't want to
hurt one person 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.
And I think when we can fully embrace it and
say this might happen and I may not like it,

(18:08):
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,
something happened in that moment. I can't remember if I
told you the story, but it was like I literally
felt to ball of pain in my chest, kind of
unlocked and like disintegrate throughout my whole body. I've never

(18:30):
felt this sensation before, and from that moment on, I
was really kind of like weirded out. When I was
talking to the therapist, I was like, something just happened,
because I was like, something just happened. It was kind
of like months of practice, months of reflections of these
exercises and working with this coaching, taking action and trying

(18:50):
to integrate the lessons, and then finally like unlocked in
a moment. It was a lifetime of practice, but a
moment that unlocked. And I haven't out 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. It doesn't mean I haven't had some like

(19:13):
you know, challengers are stressful moments, but I haven't had that,
and I'm so aware of it because I keep practicing
and integrating the healing journey. 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, and I think

(19:34):
that's what everyone wants to feel happier, to feel healthier,
and feel like they're on the healing journey. 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. Man. I know that any conversation we
have turns into a Q and A with both of
us going back and forth. Right. I know any conversation
we have you will be talking about what work you're doing,
and who you're working with, and who's in our teams

(19:56):
to help us do that work. I'm talking about personal life.
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. What is
the difference between motivation and discipline? Because I find that

(20:20):
a lot of the time people think like, oh, I'm
so motivated by that. I'm so inspired by that. But
what you just explained is far more of a dedicated
discipline to the self work the inner work. Talk to
me about the difference between those two and where do
we find them. I think motivation is for people that
don't have a meaningful mission. Discipline is for people that
are clear on their identity of who they want to

(20:42):
become and the mission that they have that is meaningful
for them, not only for them, but for those around them.
And you know, when I was growing up. When I
was growing up, I wanted to be successful. That was
kind of the goal. And the mindset is, how can
I become successful? How can I I can't watch my
goals as an athlete, how can I be a pro athlete?
How can I make money? How can I get you awards?

(21:05):
And all these different things? For whatever reason, that's what
I thought of as I wanted to be successful. When
I turned thirty and started realizing how big of an
ego I actually had and how selfish I actually was
in life. That was a fun, loving guy, but my
intentions were more for me to look good, for me

(21:27):
to win, for me to be successful, for me, me me.
This is one of the reasons why I love you
so much because your mission is about service. I started
to realize at thirty that success was selfish and greatness
was really about service. Right. Greatness was not about just me.
It was about having an intention of a dream that

(21:47):
I might have, but including others in the dream. Where
success is more about accomplishing goals and dreams for just
you and not as much thinking about others. Maybe others
are included, but the intentions really like how do I
look good? How do I get this award and make
this money and get this credibility. And that's why ten
years ago I said, I have to completely shift my

(22:08):
identity and it was an unwinding of like thirty years
of programming. So I had to shift the identity from okay,
and I love that. You always talk about collaboration over competition.
I was all competition, right, 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. We've

(22:31):
got to be thinking about we instead of me. If
we want to go far, if we want to go fast,
that quote you can what is the quote? If you
want to go fast, go alone? If you want to
go far, go together or something like that. And if
you want to go fast, you can do it on
your own quickly, but it won't take you far and
you typically burn out. Motivation, I believe is for people

(22:53):
that want only success. But discipline is when you shift
your identity based on a meaningful mission. 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. They have a meaningful mission that's

(23:13):
beyond them. They have something more and that is an
identity that has non negotiables, or they're able to be
disciplined because it's something bigger than them, whereas success by
itself needs constant motivation. Right. I love that you just
shifted that desire of like selfish goals or like self

(23:37):
based goals to service, because that, for me, was the
thing that switched when I met the Monk. Right. So
I heard that at eighteen, and that was just to
my eighteen year old mind, that was like what later? Wow,
Like no one's ever said that to me before, And
I would never have learned it if it wasn't for

(23:58):
meeting the monk, and you're saying you learn at thirty
or that's when you realize that after being successful to
some degree that you'd achieved, then externally successful, internally suffering. Yeah,
and no one wants to suffer, no one. It's interesting.
I was just standing being a guy before this today,
and I said, on a scale of one to ten
of your inner peace and self love, scale, ten being

(24:20):
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? And I said, and this
is a guy with a massive company, extremely fit, shredded
like people around him, but internally a five. And it
goes back to what you talked about. I love the intro,
which is happy, healthy and healed, healing, which is I said,

(24:45):
why do you think you're a five? And he said,
I haven't dealt with the inner stuff. I've dealt with
the mental side of discipline and structure and organization and
working hard and grinding. But the emotional side of healing
your heart, I believe, is the game. Yeah, it doesn't
matter how shredded you are, how wealthy you are, how

(25:07):
successful you are, how many cars you have, if your
inner emotional state is suffering, you are losing. And when
your inter 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.

(25:27):
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. Shouldn't I
aim to get a platform first and then serve through it?

(25:49):
How do you think about that? I mean, you serve
for many years before you got your platform, you know,
and then you built your platform after really kind of
figuring out who you were, your identity, after leaving the monkhood, right,
you started to figure out what did you want? And
I think there's a period of time, a season of
life where we have to try a lot of different
things and figure out what do we really love, what

(26:11):
are our passions, where our talents lyeing with our power?
And then what if the problem we're looking to solve.
So it's the three piece and you can ask yourself
the passion, the power that you have and the problem
you're looking to solve. So I give a lot of
prompts and questions in the book around the three piece
where you kind of figure out your sweet spot of
what could I be doing? So the passions are and

(26:33):
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. I think you should be thinking about what
are you most curious about? What excites you? 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 they're like they take a deep
breath and they get really excited and they're emotional about it.

(26:53):
They're like joyful about it. You want to lean into
that feeling and do those things and be in that
playground of experiences. So I think you really want to
be thinking about what is the things that I am
most passionate about. And maybe it doesn't mean for a
two to four year window of life you're gonna be
able to work on it, but you can still be
working towards it. So figuring out what interests you, what

(27:17):
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. The second thing is,
you know, when I was starting out, I didn't feel
like I had any talents. So I can relate to
a lot of people. When you left the monkhood, you
were like, well, what is this transferable skill in? And

(27:37):
you said you got rejected by like a hundred companies
or something, 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. And most people when
they finish university or college, they don't use that degree
five to ten years later. They're moving on to different
things eventually. Right, So even if you got a degree

(27:58):
in something, you probably won't use in five to ten
years fully in that area. And so I think you
got to figure out what are the how do I
describe it? Kind of like invisible assets, right, the invisible
assets that you have acquired throughout your entire life that
maybe you're not even aware of. For me, an invisible
asset was curiosity. It's not like I have this tangible

(28:22):
currency that I can use to build an opportunity in
my life, but it was an invisible currency, an invisible asset.
I was so curious about other people. Another invisible asset.
I was a pretty joyful human being. And anytime I
entered a room and everyone was always older than me
and more talented and more successful, I just said, I'm

(28:44):
going to bring so much joy and curiosity. That doesn't
seem like a transferable skill. People would be like they
just wanted to help me, and I was just twenty
four year old punk. That was just like entering these
networking events, in these social media conferences, in these rooms
around all these kind of thought leaders and really people
that I was like, Wow, they're like successful mentors of mine,

(29:05):
and they're always like, hey, Lewis, once you come join
us for dinner, Hey, that's pretty cool you're doing this.
Let me help you here. And I brought curiosity and joy.
I never talked about myself. I would just ask questions
that I was fascinated by, and people loved to share
these stories about themselves. That was a currency. That was
an invisible asset that I brought to the table. So
you gotta think about what are the powers that you

(29:27):
have that maybe you don't think you have. 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 fearless. Yeah, I want to get
into that. Yes, this is the place where you feel
the most powerless. So for me, at the time, I
felt like my biggest fears and where I felt most

(29:50):
powerless was standing in front of a room of peers.
I could not stand up and speak in front of
five people without stuttering, stumbling, sweat and just forgetting everything
that I wanted to say. So I always felt insecure
when I had to stand up and present it in
front of people. And I always felt like, man, I'm
just messing up and people are laughing at me, and

(30:12):
I'm I'm not as smart as everyone else. I'm not
as good as a presenter as everyone else. So I
had this incredible crippling fear, 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.
And so I found a mentor who was a professional speaker.
I found a mentor with a model that I wanted

(30:33):
to mimic. He was a professional speaker, and he said,
you gotta overcome this fear. A way to do that
is go to Toastmasters, a professional speaking class that you
can go to, And he told me exactly what to do.
I want you to go every week for a whole year.
It's gonna suck the first few months. You're not gonna
feel good. You're not gonna like it. It's gonna be embarrassing,

(30:55):
and you're not going to feel good about yourself. 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. Never in my wildest dreams where
I think I get paid what I get paid to
speak publicly. Now, So what was once something that made
me feel so powerless, I made it a superpower. But

(31:18):
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. It's like, you've got to whatever the fear
is for your you, You've got to become batman in

(31:38):
that experience. You've got to live in the dark. You've
got to wear a batsuit, and embrace that fear one
hundred percent until you can sit there peacefully for me
on a stage in front of an audience, and that
took years. You want to develop more superpowers in your
tool belt. You want to lean into that. And I

(32:00):
had a ton of fears and a lot of insecurities,
so it took me many years to start practicing on
this and overcoming it, and I still get to step
in more of them. The work never ends. So that's
the second thing. You've figured out what you're interested in,
your passions, your powers, and overcoming your fears to make
them superpowers. And the third one is figuring out what
problem do you want to solve. This is something you

(32:21):
talk about so much, and one of the reasons why
I love your work, Jay, is because you're always asking
people to think differently. You don't have to be the
one who's the entrepreneur or creating the thing. There are
so many great causes, teams, businesses and companies that have
missions that you can be a great team player and

(32:41):
use your passion and your power to support that problem.
And I think that's what you've got to be looking for.
And it may not it may not always come to
you in your twenties early thirties, it may evolve. There
are different seasons of life that you can use these
passions and powers to solve problems, So you don't have
to have it all figured out at twenty five or

(33:02):
thirty one, and I'll just like, give yourself a break
and keep enjoying life along the way. Yeah. I love
the three pas, 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 peas. And
I think what you said it's true. I've heard that
rhetoric two of don't follow your passion. It's a waste
of time, it's bad advice. And I think what people

(33:24):
get confused is your passion with doing what you like
all the time every day. 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 and exactly.
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, And I'm like, well,

(33:45):
that's not true, because I have to do plenty of
things I don't love in order to do what I
do love, And that's why you've got to use discipline.
You know, you've got to use discipline to keep you
organized and consistent on certain things that maybe aren't is fun,
but all have to sit around and play games all day,
you know. But it takes discipline to see a meaningful

(34:05):
mission mission come to fruition. And I think that's the
key 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,
and it's because you're not clear on the meaningful mission

(34:26):
for this season of life. 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. Yeah,
and I love how you keep saying season of life
because it's not like you've got to find your meaningful
mission and the rest of your entire life. And I
think that is too much pressure. For how long is
a season? How long? How much time do you think that?

(34:47):
I mean, there's different types of seasons, and I look
at it a sports in sports in a year and
a year. There's four seasons in the year of fall, summer, spring, winter.
In sports, there is a pret season, a season, post season,
and the playoffs. Right, there's kind of these four seasonal moments,
and there's always time to reflect on. Okay, I did

(35:10):
this thing for nine months or a year? Do I
still want to keep doing this thing? Right? Take time
to reflect? You take a month off every year to
reflect what works, and you relaxed. Sometimes we're so in
it all the time that we don't have the moment
to reflect on. Do I still am I still excited
about this? Is it still what I want to do?

(35:31):
Do I feel like there's a new season coming for me?
Like I am I shedding something and stepping into something
that I'm ready for now, Just like this book, it
wasn't the right season five years ago. I didn't feel
like I was had figured out what I needed to
figure it out internally to be authentically sharing the messages
that I have now, And I felt like I would

(35:51):
have been a fake if it came out years ago.
I knew the concepts, but I didn't know it inside
of me. How did you know? Like that's a great point, right, Look,
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 or

(36:11):
new in their area, they want to start a charity, right,
whatever it may be. 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 were 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 kind of put a

(36:34):
bit of the presentation for their boss together and they're
thinking about it. But what's the difference or what is
the right way to go about feeling ready or getting
ready even when you don't feel it right, like because
you didn't want to wait ten years exactly, but you
didn't want to wait five days, right like? How did Yeah?
And obviously there's a book, so it's a bigger thing.

(36:54):
It takes more time. I think there's this concept that
we've all heard that is like face it until what
does it no, fake it till you make it right.
That's the concept, fake it till you make it. It's
what a lot of people here, and I really started
to think about, I don't really like that, and I
think it should be face it until you embrace it, right,
or face it until you embody it. And so when

(37:17):
we take the concept in the greatness mindset of okay,
writing it down, writing down a list of your fears,
your fearless, then you face the fear until you embody
and overcome that fear. Until you embrace it, you embody
it and it doesn't have power over you anymore. And really,
for me, it's about having the perception of like it

(37:40):
just kind of depends what you value in life. So
many times for me, I think about how much I
could die at any moment, you know, I think that
my life could be over at any moment. Will I
be proud of who I am if I didn't launch
this thing that's been inside of me for a while.
I knew on this I didn't have the fear of
writing a book that wasn't a fear of mine. Where

(38:01):
a lot of people they have a book idea for
ten or twenty years and they just never launched the thing. Yeah,
that wasn't my fear. My fear was being like inauthentic
to who I was and being I don't know, is
it a liar or just not feeling like, okay, something
was off inside of me. I don't want to put
something out there, and so I knew, Okay, I know

(38:23):
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. So what do I need
to face until I can embrace the person I want
to be to be able to put this out there?
And that, to me was after two and a half

(38:44):
years of researching this book and taking tons of notes
and interviewing experts and me being 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. That's when the therapy and
the coaching sessions and die having deep into my wounds
and the emotional traumas, I was like, I need to

(39:05):
face this part of me that I'm still afraid of.
That was the thing on my fear list that I
had resisted for decades, and when I faced it and
felt like, Wow, I'm actually able to feel healing. I'm
actually able to feel calm around this situation in my life.

(39:25):
In other areas I felt calm, but not this situation.
I've actually been facing it consistently every week and doing
the work emotionally, revealing myself and exercises and coaching and
getting feedback and all that stuff. Then when I felt
freedom internally, that's when I was able to create and launch. Yeah,
that's a great insight. I think a lot of us

(39:46):
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.
And really, what you're saying is you have to face
the fear you have. There's no other way. It's not
like a different route, there's on a different pathway, and
you can't and you can't out analyze the fear. Yes, yes, yes,
I understand the concept. You've got to experience it, yea.

(40:10):
And horrified. Yeah it's horrified. Yeah, it's 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. We get stuck in patterns that are familiar,
even when we know it's not right. This is why
you hear so many people, specifically women, who say, on
my wedding day, I knew it wasn't right, Like I

(40:33):
knew something was off. When like three or four or
five years later they got divorced and you asked them,
did you did you think every think something was off?
They were, like, on my wedding day, I had a feeling,
but I was afraid. I was afraid to let people down.
Everyone was already there, the invitations were sent, we had
already put the down, pose it down. I didn't want
to ruffle feathers, and I thought, maybe we just try

(40:53):
to make it work. A lot of us have that
fear of letting others down, and that's the thing that
holds a lot of people back. Yeah, and I love
it in the book because you break down the four
fears that we all experienced. I want to go. I
want to just give people three main fears, sorry, three
main fears, yes, yeah, failure, success, judgments, sorry, three main fears.

(41:13):
I want I want to just touch on them because
I think that these top three fears are really well
articulated and I've experienced all of them, so I want
to reflect on them myself too. So I remember when
I was thinking about like you said, so I've been
doing what I do today. I've been doing it now
for seventeen years, seven years online, ten years offline. And

(41:34):
the ten years that it was offline, there were no followers,
there was no courses, there was no business aspect to it.
It was just service and it was me learning and
me sharing my passion with five to ten people that
would show up or fifty people out shot. And when
I finally realized that I wanted it to reach more people,
and that was a internal calling I had that I

(41:58):
didn't want to live in a world where only five
to ten people had access to these ideas, because these
ideas changed my life. And I felt, wait a minute,
I met a monk. That's a very specific experience. Not
everyone's going to go through something like that, So how
do we speed that experience up for more people. I
was scared of failure because I was looking at Why

(42:18):
were you scared of failure? 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, yes, 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. And I was

(42:42):
scared of failure. I was scared of no one's going
to care, no one's gonna watch, and it doesn't and
it's not going to matter. And that probably lasted as
I was researching, learning and thinking for two years where
I felt like that before I actually wanted to but
you didn't do it exactly to do in my head.
And often at those times, I find that's when you

(43:03):
start becoming critical too. So you're kind of looking at
what everyone else is doing and you're finding holes in
it because you think you could do it better, or
you know, you get kind of like that and you
realize that's not how you want to live either. And
so I find often when we're the most inactive or stagnant,
that's one we're the most critical person judgemental of others
who are doing something d and trying their best. No

(43:24):
authors are writing negative reviews on other authors books. It's
just some people who have never written a book who's like,
this was the worst book ever, Right, Yeah, and it's
it's hard, and so I remember feeling that way, 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,

(43:44):
like he thinks he's got rhymes and we could do better,
and it's but that guy's actually gone and done it right,
that that person's doing it, And so yeah, talk to
me about let's talk about that, because I think the
fear of failure and I love the way you put
it into failure, and we'll talk about success and judgment.
Fear of failure is the number one thing that blocks
us from trying. And that's depart right. It's not about

(44:08):
stops us from succeeding. It stops us from trying. I
was trying to figure out what is the thing that
holds us back? What are these fears? And it was
and it became clear to me that it was failure, success,
and judgment. And I started I didn't understand failure and
success personally, but I started to ask people and kind
of brainstorm and workshop with people because for me, as

(44:28):
an athlete growing up, I was conditioned that failure is
a part of success. Yeah, that makes sense. So if
I wanted success and the pathway there is failure. 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. So I
would watch Michael Jordan fail one hundred times a game

(44:50):
but still win the game, you know, or whatever it is.
You know, it's like miss a ton of shots and
it was never like the worst thing. It was like,
I don't want to fail in my sport. 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. So failure was feedback. It
was information telling me what I needed to do to improve.

(45:13):
So I understand that concept success. I also did not
understand why people who are afraid of success. But as
I started touring and speaking and asking people who here
is afraid of failure? Most of the room would raise
their hand. At some point in their life they're afraid
of failure. And I'd say, how many of you are
afraid of success? Thinking everyone wants this, so almost half

(45:35):
the room would also raise their hand. For success, and
I go, but this is the thing people want. So
if you want something you're afraid of, why would it
come to you. Why would success come to you if
you're afraid of it. Why would money come to you
if you're afraid of it. Why would love come to
you if you're afraid of it? So I never understood
that concept, but as I started talk to people and realize, oh,

(45:57):
actually I get it because the weight of gold can
be so heavy for so many people. 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,

(46:17):
go bankrupt, all this stuff because the pressure wants you
succeed to stay there, everyone expecting you to be a
certain way, everyone expecting you to be perfect all the time,
the perfect role model, and 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. And also it's just a weight that

(46:40):
takes a lot of courage to be able to lean
into and manage. And I think it's a skill set
to understand and manage success. But that's something I always wanted,
so I was like, bring it on, you know, I'll
take it. The fear for me that it has been
my kryptonite over the years was judgment and the need
for other people to like me, and specifically the matters

(47:03):
of the heart and intimacy. And that's why I kept
repeating the pattern because I wasn't afraid to enter a relationship,
you know, I wasn't afraid of that. I wasn't afraid
of doing well. I wanted it to do well. But
I kept abandoning myself to try to please one person
to accept and love me. I was terrified of the
judgment and that crippled me. It was a big, you know,

(47:25):
kryptonite in my entire existence until a couple of years ago.
And that's the thing. We've got to identify which one
of these fears holds us back the most. And again
in the book, I talk about kind of the process
of uncovering and unpacking that so that if you can
have clarity and awareness. You talk about awareness is the key.

(47:45):
Once you are aware and clear, then you can create
a game plan on how to embrace it, overcome it,
and make that fear and insecurity a superpower, and I
truly think we're just going to be have something often
side of us. We're going to be unfulfilled, We're going
to be frustrated, you know, disconnected, until we figure out

(48:06):
what the fear is for us and figuring out how
to fully accept ourselves. At the center of all three
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. And when we
can finally get to a place where I say I
am enough, I can go back to all the different

(48:27):
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.
If I can go back and reconnect with those broken
elements of my mindset from the past and complete can
create healing and wholeness, then I can accept and love

(48:47):
myself today from where I'm at, And that's when everything changes. Yeah,
And I can so relate to all of those as
you're talking about them, Like I remember, after I had
my first viral video, I didn't want to make anything.
It is really because because you're scared of success, like
you're scared of weren't you you get well, that's the point,

(49:08):
right like it at one point it has to become
about more than the successful failure, and that's where the
meaningful mission it comes back to that, right, it always
comes back to that. And I was talking about this
with our friend and we talked about you two. It's
so funny. I was talking to Stephen Bartler recently because
I was in London, and we talked about you two
because we're twing my relationships, and he was saying what

(49:30):
he'd learned from you and the conversations you guys have had.
And now I'm talking about him to you, but 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 an internal sense, the meaningful

(49:53):
mission was what was carrying you. So if you stop
because people stop following, or if you start only when
people are following, then there isn't a meaningful mission, 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. And so I

(50:14):
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 the bedrock of it.
And so I love that the meaningful mission is at
the heart of everything because there will always be changes,
like the platforms will change, the algorithms will change, people

(50:37):
will come and go, people will come and go, and
you see the people that have lasted the test of time,
it's usually people who have a meaningful mission, as you're saying,
who want to keep serving, keep giving. They feel they
have that, yeah, and they're not worried about how famous
or relevant they are, you know. And I think I
loved your conversation with Kevin Hart about how like fame
is like this ultimate drug and if it's not used

(51:00):
wisely or managed properly, it will ruin you. 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 will 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

(51:22):
is to serve. 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. You know,
at that time, in twenty eighteen or twenty seventeen, whenever
that was, I was like, I don't know if men
are ready to start talking about being vulnerable. It was

(51:44):
kind of just like barely happening. Right now everyone is
talking about that. Not everyone, but you see that a lot.
But I remember being like, I could. I really don't
care if this sells a million copies or one. If
it sells one, and that man is impacted and he
has a deeper relationship with himself where he heals, he

(52:04):
has a deeper relationship with his wife or his partner
and his family, he heals, and men some relationships and
he finds more happiness, health, and he heals. Then I
was like, it's worth it. It's worth the two years
of research. It's worth all the pain that I went through,
It's worth the fear of opening up about sexual abuse

(52:24):
that I was afraid of years before that, because I
want another guy to feel the same way. And so
I think when we go into it with yes, we
want things to do well. When we put effort and
energy into launching a project, a business, accompany, your book,
a podcast, of course you want things to go well.
But if you have the meaningful mission is the bedrock

(52:44):
where you're just like, it's about we, it's about us,
it's about service. It's not about me getting more famous
or building something of more followers. That's when I think
it's more sustainable energetically. Yeah. Yeah, when when people are
saying with that and we kind of skipped, not skipped
over it, but we used it and move forward. Like

(53:05):
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 because they're like,
I don't care about it, Like there's nothing that I
even care about that much, 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.
You got to know your season when I was broke
on my sister's couch. I couldn't think beyond getting off

(53:28):
the couch. So I was like, my meaningful mission is
to make enough money to live on my own. Yeah,
I remember that. I remember that. Yeah, paying rent and
paying groceries, Like that's where I started. If that's your
season of life, you got to focus on that, and
you gotta focus on getting to a baseline where you
can start thinking beyond yourself. But you're doing that with

(53:48):
the hidden feeling like I want to do service right now,
I just need to focus on this. That's It's kind
of like I love that you said that, because that's
what I've found too. It's like I never stopped wanting
to do service. There were just moments in trying to
do service with the immediate need. Well, it's kind of
like saying, you have an apartment. There's a fire in

(54:10):
the apartment, but you're trying to do your interior design right, like,
or you want to have your friends over, Like no,
but my apartments that my friends. It's like no, no, no no, no, Yeah,
but like I want to serve with my house my
friends over and it's like no, no no, no, just so
the fire and then and then use it for that. Yeah,
I think it's uh, it's it's understanding where you're at.

(54:32):
And that's why I said, like, listen, when I you've
got to have a season of overcoming your fears as well.
Like 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. I'm doing SALCA lessons
because this was a fear of mine and I want to.
But I was like, there's so much and I was like,
and I was in research mode. I know you love

(54:53):
to read and research and teach. I was in just
research mode for hours every day. I was researching, I
was learning online, I was building relationships, and I was
overcoming fears. That was the season while I was all
my sister's couch for a year and a half trying
to figure out who am I in this world? What
is the point of all this? What is my identity
now that I've lost my dream and my athletic dreams,

(55:16):
What am I going to do the rest of my life?
I was in a season of researching, of building relationships
and overcoming fears. But still I was being in service
to the people I was working with. I was bringing
curiosity I was bringing joy. I was bringing moments of fun.
And that's just as much service as it is feeding

(55:38):
the homeless or changing the world or sharing cancer. It's
a greatness is not about changing the world. 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

(55:58):
people around me. That might be three people, but if
you're doing that, it's making a ripple on so many more,
you know what, And you lived there, and that's what
I love about it. 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 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

(56:19):
told me i'd get along with him, and we do.
And I went for lunch with him and you guys
had just all been on Red Table Talk for an episode,
and it was you and Stefan and Davonne Franklin and Matthew,
and Matthew was saying that the whole time because there
were so many of you, so many of you around

(56:41):
the table. There were lots of questions, and it was
like everyone obviously has so much value to add. Everyone
on that table as has beautiful insights, but you were
kind of like doing layups for everyone else. So it's
like everyone was sharing their insights, but you were the
guy who was like passing it to everyone on the thing.
And you have loads of great insights too, but you

(57:01):
were happy to play. And I just want to say
that that's and that you know, that's you practice what
you preach, and that you do that even when you
have an opportunity to shine, you're happy to pass the
ball like you're happy to pass the ball and go No,
you slam dunk, you take the three point, you take
that and people notice that, right, like the right people
who are aware, they noticed that, and they recognize that, oh,

(57:21):
this person actually is meaning what they're saying. And that
was just a private lunch I was having with a
mutual friend of ours. It wasn't like a show or anything,
and I wanted to share that. 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.
You're so good at finding a coach, going to a class,
getting a teacher, doing a course. I give that advice

(57:45):
all the time, and I think we give that advice
all the time. We're like, just start doing a course
like this, right, and because it's real, because we've experienced
in our own lives. Like by the way, I only
I'm only a public speaker because my parents forced me
to go to public speaking classes. So I've been to
seven years of nine hours a week with exams of
public speaking training from age eleven to age eighteen. So

(58:08):
it's courses, right. It's like anything in the world is trained,
is learned, is built. And I think we live in
a world now where we think, oh that that's a
god given talent or that you know or you don't
have it. When you actually start to realize that, oh,
the person you think that can dance, yeah they might
have had some cool skills, you can not dance at all.
But now, like when I see you, when I've seen

(58:29):
video and stuff, I'm like, you're a great dancer, right,
And I think people could say the same for speaking. Business.
You've talked about like yeah, like so many things, So
let's talk a bit about that, because I do think
that education and training are the pathway to transformation and growth.
Reading a book is that crossing the line. Like I

(58:53):
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. And so I was
in so many bookstores over Christmas because I love bookshops,

(59:14):
and I was just walking around, and I would walk
around just as like I was giving this example yesterday.
I was like, if you're out of milk at home,
you go to buy milk, right, You don't just go, oh,
I'll just use washing up liquid instead, Right, But if
you're out of discipline, what we do is go buy
some discipline. Like what we do is we go, oh,

(59:35):
i'll just watch Netflix there, right, And it doesn't solve
the gap. Like if you're out of cyril at home,
you don't just go, oh, I'll just eat like chips
for breakfast. You go and buy cyril. 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? Okay? Maybe right now I need to become
a better leader. Okay, maybe right now I need to
become a better husband. Right now, I need to become

(59:57):
a better interview or whatever it may be. And then
I'll go and look for that. And it sounds like
you do the same. How have you found the ability
to a couple of things? 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? Good question for people to ask. And
second part is how do you commit and stay on

(01:00:20):
top of it when naturally like it's easier to just
sit at home and watch TV. Two things? Yeah, how
do I commit and stay on top of it? I
pay an advance Yeah right, that's a great way. I
pay my nutrition and fitness coach in advance. Yeah. I
pay my therapist and emotional coach a year in advance
and we schedule it every two weeks for the year. Yeah.

(01:00:43):
So I've got money invested, I've got time and counter
organized committed. Yeah. So it's not like I'll pay you
every week. When I come, we'll see even the meeting
gets set up. It's not one class at a time,
it's a block of time in advance. It takes time,
forced discipline. When you're invested in it, you pay more
attention to it. As our friend Dean Graciosi says. He says,

(01:01:07):
you pay attention to what you pay for right, and
you'll pay more attention when you pay more money. Typically,
I'm not saying you need to spend tons of money.
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 we're
free and available online. But I've always seen accelerated results

(01:01:29):
when I invest in something. 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. Number two,
And how do I find them? How do you know
who to trust to trust? I typically ask people that
I respect, so I'll ask you, hey, do you know
someone who can help me in this? So I trust
and respect you. If you have a referral, then I'll

(01:01:52):
probably trust that person, or at least i'll jump on
a call. 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,
you can consume some of their information, you can see testimonials,
you can check in with those testimonials or referrals. So
I just kind of follow that process. And I'll always
do like an intro session with someone if it's like coaching,

(01:02:13):
to see like do we really connect before I commit
a year at advance or three months in advance. So
it's making sure that they've got results that I respect,
and they've worked with people and helped them overcome challenges
that I respect as well. Then it becomes more more
of a thing that I trust driving into. And to

(01:02:34):
go back to what you were saying just before that
about kind of giving people layups and stuff. I wasn't
like that until ten years ago. I mean, in some
ways I was, but I wasn't. It wasn't until ten
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

(01:02:56):
sense the other way because I was so competitive. I
want to be right, I wanted to win. I wanted
to be number one of everything I can imagine. I
know you a competitive in sport obviously, right as an
energy that's yeah, I didn't know you then. Maybe people
didn't feel it, but internally that was driving me right
in a lot of ways. And it was all based

(01:03:16):
on a wound that I hadn't healed yet. Once I
started to heal, I was like, oh wow, I've had
this all wrong. Everything was win lose to me as
opposed to win win. So ten years ago I actually
learned the concept of win win for the first time,
or at least I understood it for the first time.
Maybe i'd heard it as a kid, but I didn't
embody it until I was able to face that and

(01:03:39):
wake up to it. And that's why I was like, Okay,
I'm going to start this show. It's not going to
be about me. It's going to shine the light on
everyone else. I want to practice this, I want to
overcome this consistently. And I was really inspired by Oprah
where she just always shined the light on others right
for twenty something years and she's talked about it before.

(01:04:02):
It's like, when you shine the light, there's always a
reflection of light back on you, and the more you
do that for more people, over time, you become brighter
in return. And it's not the goal to become brighter,
necessarily for selfish reasons, but it naturally happens. You reflected
the light back on you, and I think that's a
beautiful thing. You know. It's something that you do so
well by lifting others up. Is something that I try

(01:04:25):
to do really well by lifting my friends up, like
we did on Red Table Talk. 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. So I go, Stefan, you know
what to say here. You know, when Matthew had a
different perspective on something else, it's like, Matthew, man, you've
said this amazing thing about this before. Can you share

(01:04:46):
what this is? Devon, I've heard you say this, so
you know. I learned this early on because I didn't
feel like I had the answers or I was smart
in my early twenties, so I wouldn't speak a lot
from my perspective. I would just ask curious questions, and
after a couple hours of meeting with someone I never

(01:05:06):
really spoke about me, I would just ask about them.
At the end of the conversation, they were like, man,
you're the most interesting person I've ever met, And I
was like, I didn't share anything about my life. I
just ask you questions. 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. And I feel
like it's also just something that you you also naturally listen,

(01:05:27):
and I think that you know, I think a lot
of these things are often used as techniques and they
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 ask a follow
up question. And I think sometimes you can tell when
it's disingenuous, or you can feed it from my love

(01:05:49):
like omnipotive or something. 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 I'll reach out and do something for free for someone,
and then someone would do that for you. But then
they come back with like this, and then you're like, oh,
I wait a minute, I thought you were doing this
for freeing it for free, and you start realizing just
like it has to be done so genuinely and people

(01:06:09):
will respond to that. I had a you know, I
had a rule that and I still have it too,
Like I never took pictures with celebrities unless they were
on the show or in a meaningful connection. It was
never a cloud grab Like it wasn't like I'm in
this place, I've seen this person, let's get a picture
just to like show off were hanging around with Like

(01:06:32):
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 people feel used and you're using people in
that way and there's no genuineness, it kind of just
like it feels really cheap, and it comes across that
way too, and it actually blocks you having a real relationship.

(01:06:53):
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, and so I think there's there's a real
truth to that. I also my own personal coaching practice,
I said a new rule and this was something that
took me a while to understand, but it really helped me.
So anyone that I privately coach, we have a fee

(01:07:15):
of my time, but the entire fee goes to charity
of their choice. So I have a fee, we count
of the hours like I would in any coaching practice,
but the amount goes to a charity of their choice.
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 rather than always paying for stuff,

(01:07:38):
because I found that a lot of people always felt
that they could pay for anything and they could buy anything,
and I wanted them to fill the opposite where it's
like they weren't buying anything, they were getting to give away.
And yeah, so I've never talked about it before, but
I wanted to stay it with you because it was
just something that I was thinking about, Like I wanted
to find a method where I could give my heart
to someone and they could give their heart to me.

(01:08:00):
And I found sometimes that money got in the way
of the hot interesting and so like in friendship, there's
no money exchange, hence there's a hot space, and so
in coaching, I have to find a way. 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,
and I don't write like I'm very I don't have
I have like six seven people that I work with. Yeah,

(01:08:22):
it's it's it's not something that I'm looking to grow
in a in a business sense. Where are you looking
to grow in your life? Right now? After a month
of reflection of this end of year season, of last
year of being your honestly your biggest year ever in
so many ways, from the business to success to speaking,
to the podcast growth to YouTube to video, celebrity clients,

(01:08:43):
all the talk shows you've been on, all these things
that have happened, what was the big reflection for you?
And where do you see yourself moving in this next year?
So obviously this year the new book is out, A
Rules of Love, so my Hearts in Love. The tour
is happening for the time, right I'm really tide to
like hug people and hold their hands and look into
their eyes. I think I'm like, I've always been a hugger.

(01:09:05):
We just hugged for like and by the way, everyone
watching right now we're listening. When you hugged Jay in person,
just whisper in his ear and hug him along and
say this was from Lewis because that's what I love you.
But but there's a there's a joint that like I

(01:09:26):
love physical connection, like I love the idea that I'm
actually gonna like you know, I feel so grateful that
for six seven years I've been doing this, I haven't
met ninety nine percent of people. You probably feel the
same way, and I just like, I feel so grateful
and I want to kind of like outpour all of
downstage to everyone's going to be there, because there's so

(01:09:46):
much gratitude build up in me that I haven't been
able to me saying it, and a microphone 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 nothing
else to it of why you'd go on tour. So
I'm excited for that, And then if I'm completely honest,

(01:10:07):
I'm excited for rest study and creativity. 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. I do that all
the time, but I mean doing even in a more obsessive,
constructive way, and spend more time just being creative and

(01:10:28):
being present, because I feel like I've been really going
all out for like the last six seven 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 seven 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,

(01:10:51):
you have to go three steps deep. 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 I feel that internally it's
quite so. Well, You're about to spend the next one
three to six months going hard hard. I'm forward, and

(01:11:11):
that's great, and 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. I know this interview is about me,
but I can never not ask you questions no matter
when we're doing this stuff. I'm curious if you could
fast forward in your heart and your mind one year
and just imagine everything that has happened. You're pouring your

(01:11:34):
energy into 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, and make sure you, guys,
if you haven't about the book, get his book right
now as well. What do you think it is going
to be the lesson you're going to learn at the
end of this year. If you could be in the future,
what do you think your soul is going to tell

(01:11:55):
you that it's gonna be the lesson and the thing
for you to step into or let go of into
the next year. I think the lesson will be too
and everyone needs to do this. And it comes back
to your point of season is to live in this
season that you have reached. And what I mean by

(01:12:15):
that is that there was a different energy that it
took to get here, and it will be a different
energy to move forward. And I think it's really 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, and then

(01:12:37):
years go by before you realize you needed an energy shift.
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 that they were in when they started. And
you have to accept that time has changed and has

(01:13:00):
moved on, and you've learned new things and you've gained
new clarity. And so I think that will be the
lesson 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,
and I think that that should always get less and
less and less. So I think a healthy life isn't

(01:13:21):
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. And so I feel like my life's
always moving in that direction. 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,

(01:13:45):
if that makes sense, it's good insight your future self
as wise. Yeah, yeah, hopefully, hopefully, And now I've got
to live up to it. Well, this is a beautiful question.
It's good you make me, make me vocalize. And I
hope everyone's getting to see how good lewis is it?
What he does and what he does for himself too,
no question, Like that's great because it gives me something
to live up to that I that I aspire for,
right And it reminds me of that Matthew McConaughey speech. Yeah, yeah,

(01:14:10):
and it's just like it's the Oscar speech. If anyone
doesn't know Dallas Buyers Club, he won the Oscar for
Best Actor and he gives one of the best speeches
of all time in my opinion. And yeah, it's that
idea of just yeah, it gives you something to chase,
which is yours. It's you, it's not chasing like and
I love that right like. And I think the question

(01:14:30):
you just asked is the question you're asking yourself, which
is why your life is going in the right direction,
Because the question isn't where do you want to be
in a year? Like what do you want to achieve?
Because that starts to like set you know, there's there's usefulness,
and that I'm not saying it's not useful, but the
internal questions far more gratifying. So you're giving me something
to chase and pursue. It's awesome to have goals and dreams,

(01:14:53):
but I think what's more important is focusing on the
person you become on a consistent basis to create those dreams,
and also being so proud and at peace of who
you've become, even if the dreams don't come true. And
there's been a lot of things that I've chased after

(01:15:14):
where the dreams didn't come true. Yeah, but the life
was a dream come true. Who I got to meet,
what I got to experience, what I overcame, the lessons
I learned, the memories I created. Certain didn't dreams didn't
come true, but it was a dream come true totally totally,

(01:15:35):
And oh I love that. I love that so much.
That's such a like, that's such a powerful statement and
it's so true. Like I have, I have so many
projects that haven't worked out, the wort, so many pictures
even we went to some pictures together that you set
up for me that didn't work out. But the network
I built through that relationship building the connections became who
became skills I had to learn, like so many you know,

(01:15:58):
there was there was a lot of things. I'll give
an example. 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 ten years prior and I made it happen.
But there were certain goals like I wanted to be
an Olympic athlete. Right, And for eight and a half
years I played with the USA national team and I

(01:16:19):
never made the Olympics. Right, And I haven't played with
the team for about three years since right before the pandemic.
And I could 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

(01:16:39):
playing a game to represent the USA to try to
make the Olympics and I and I failed it and
I fell short. Or I can look at it as man,
what a life journey and experience I got to have
for eight and a half years. I have so many
great friends, memories. I traveled the world wearing USA across
my chest, getting to play against Olympians as a you know,

(01:17:03):
thirty five six seven year old, I was like, I
didn't accomplish the dream, but it was still a dream
come true. 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. The meaning, the memory and the magic.
I love that. I love that because often we look

(01:17:24):
for meaning, but you're so right, the memory and the
magic Lewis House, everyone Lewis was that was special man.
That was really beautiful. One. Everyone who's listening and watching
right now to go and grab a copy of this book,
The Greatness Mindset, Unlock the power of your mind and
live your best life today. It's available right now. If

(01:17:45):
you're listening to this episode, make sure you go grab it.
Where would you like them to get it from? A
pop from obviously Bonds and Noble, Amazon anyway, yeah, Amazon, Barson, Noble, wherever, Yeah,
yeah it. Make sure you go grab a copy. The
audiobook as well, is in Lewis's voice. 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 and follow Lewis

(01:18:08):
on YouTube, subscribe to his podcast to School of Greatness,
and follow him on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, on
every single social media platform that you use. As you
saw today, Lewis practices what he preaches and also what
he shares is highly life changing. So make sure you're
go and grab it. I appreciate it, man, and real
quick before you finish it. I appreciate you talking about

(01:18:29):
the book, and I want to give a call to
action of people. Yeah. Please, 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. Take
a screenshot. I love that, and tag both of us
on Instagram letting us know that you got both books

(01:18:49):
at the same That'll be awesome. I'm sure. I'm sure
we'll re share some of those on Instagram. Buy it
on Amazon. Take a screenshot if you got them both
in your hands, do that at put it on Instagram
for us to see, and we'll share both of those out.
I love it. I love it, Lewis, Thank you so much.
Thanks appreciate it so grateful. If you love this episode,

(01:19:09):
you will love my interview with Kobe Bryant on how
to be strategic and obsessive to find your purpose

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Host

Jay Shetty

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Lewis Howes ON: How to Physically Release Trauma & Why You Should Focus On Discipline Over Motivation to Succeed