Terry Crews On Overcoming Toxic Toughness & Finding True Power EP 1258

Today's guest is Terry Crews. He's an author, action-movie hero, sitcom star, children’s book illustrator, advertising pitchman, playable video game character, talent show host, high-end furniture designer, and human rights activist. He's written his new memoir, Tough: My Journey to True Power, where he chronicles the story of how he went from being a six-year-old boy with a goofy, toothless smile to being utterly selfish and angry, to a man who can finally acknowledge his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities and use his experiences to help motivate those around him. In this episode you will learn:How Terry’s childhood led him to having a toxic definition of “being tough” and how he overcame itHow getting revenge isn’t the best solution to your problemsWhy it’s important to own your truth and be vulnerableWhy it’s important to remain humble in your career For more, go to: lewishowes.com/1258 Get Terry's new book: Tough: My Journey to True PowerCheck out my previous interview with Terry: www.lewishowes.com/760 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Terry Crews?

  One of the things I knew that my desire to get strong and my desire to have power and to be really, really just, I was obsessed with muscle even as a little kid because I knew one day I might have to kill my father.

• 0:15Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Before the episode starts, I want to give a quick trigger warning that we do discuss different forms of sexual abuse and healing from those experiences.

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  Your book is called Tough: Your Journey to True Power. And you were the epitome of the tough, strong bodybuilder football guy for a long time. And you portrayed this image in movies, TV, and all these different things. Why do you feel like you had that anger inside of you? And when did you realize that you needed to let it go?

• 1:11Terry Crews?

  Well, wow, that's a great, great question, man. You know, for me, you know, my world was designed around competition.

• 1:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23Terry Crews?

  You know, growing up in Flint, Michigan, it was in the middle when the auto industry imploded. You know, I was around 10 years old. And then the crack epidemic happened at the same time. So you're talking about a double whammy on a city. And so it was very violent, you know, lots of crime, lots of drugs, lots of gangs, lots of powerlessness is what I like to call it.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  People felt powerless.

• 1:59Terry Crews?

  Especially me.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:01Terry Crews?

  Because you couldn't do anything about it. You know, one thing that people didn't know or forgot is around that time in the city, there would be smokestacks around the city. And what they were doing were burning foreign cars. And I remember just seeing you walked to school and you go across a parking lot in this factory and they'd be burning a car in effigy and throwing rocks at it and you know, we ain't gonna have them damn, you know, Toyotas up in here, you know, because it was boring. And it it just hit me about how, you know, the problem was the city was very resistant to change, but change is inevitable.

• 2:44Terry Crews?

  And this is what I was going through and but it was also about competition. It was always about, okay, it's gotta be me versus this dope man. Uh, it's gotta be me versus this gang initiation that they're trying to bring me into. It's gotta be me versus, you know, the the grown men in my neighborhood and in my area that were always challenging me as a young man. So you had to come up and it made me very mad. Really? And growing up with an alcoholic father on top of all that. Big Terry. Big Terry. Yeah, I was little Terry, he was big Terry. And, you know, one of my earliest memories is him knocking my mother out.

• 3:28Terry Crews?

  And I was like, got it, man. You run the world right now until I do. Ooh. Um, I'm gonna tell you, man. How old were you then? Oh, I was five. Oh, man. I was five. But I have to tell you, I, one of the things I knew that my my desire to get strong and my desire to have power and to be really, really just, I was I was obsessed with muscle even as a little kid because I knew one day I might have to kill my father. Oh, my gosh. He was that dude. He was just, he was unending, never bending, just constant intimidation. You know what I mean? Like fear, intimidation. You just didn't, you know, you didn't, you never felt comfortable. You never felt like he he accepted you.

• 4:13Terry Crews?

  You always felt like something was wrong, you doing it wrong. You didn't iron your pants enough. You didn't do something enough. You didn't clean enough. You you just felt always inadequate. And that was the the mindset of a lot of men in that culture, in the in the city at the time I was growing up. And it wasn't gonna let you, they weren't gonna let you off easy. Uh, but when you ask them questions, they would never answer them.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, why not?

• 4:43Terry Crews?

  I don't know. See, tha- that blew my mind. Because I was like, okay, just, just tell me what you want. And they're like, well, one day you gonna find out. Let me tell you, one day, one day you'll get it. And you're like, but I'm twelve.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:57Terry Crews?

  Can you, like, give me a clue?

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:59Terry Crews?

  Like, and man, it was, I mean, it was only after I grew up when I realized that they didn't know. So that was a kind of a cop out. Um, but it, it, it made me, I had a, a vow with my best friend. And we were about thirteen, fourteen years old. Because this was such a big problem, like his dad would never talk to him.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:23Terry Crews?

  My dad would never talk to me, and the older adults wouldn't tell, you know, they would, only thing I would tell you about is how to be a pimp. You know, like, man, you want two or three girls, let me tell you how to do it, you know? This is the game you gotta run. You're like, that's the only thing they would volunteer. But any of the other life stuff, like, what does this mean? What, what, what does life mean? What's the true meaning of this?

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:46Terry Crews?

  You ain't getting that. Go to church for that. A- and the whole concept with a lot of men in that world was that if you scared, go to church. Like, you know, church was for scare people.

• 5:56Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 5:57Terry Crews?

  You know what I mean? Like, no, no, we're too, we're too tough for that, you know? Uh, and what was so wild is, um, we made a vow, and we made a vow, me and my best friend, that, you know, we would, if you, I said, if you find out something before I do, promise me that you'll tell me. And if I find out anything that you need to know before you do, I'll tell you. And we literally shook on it. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the day we did it.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  Did you guys start telling each other advice or wisdom?

• 6:26Terry Crews?

  We were just trying to find out stuff, like, oh, man, check this out, about, this is in school, and this is this, and this is, this will, this will get you to this level, and, man, we gotta start working out, and, man, we gotta do that, you know, because we were just alone.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Terry Crews?

  I mean, this is in the early days of even fitness.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there was no information on fitness, really, about how to build your, build your muscles.

• 6:48Terry Crews?

  No, no, we would get, I remember ordering the books at the ba- at back of comic books. Did you ever get cat, sand kicked in your face? And you know, and I would get this little book and it had like drawings of people exercising. And then it had an old exerciser thing that was like a, it looked like a bow, like a bow and arrow. And then you would just push it together and it had a string and you just do that. It was like primitive, but we were like eating anything up just to improve our lives.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:17Terry Crews?

  And it was a really, the competitive culture created in me this thing. And when we talk about rage, what we're talking about is an attempt to control things you can't control.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:33Terry Crews?

  You know?

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  Cause what couldn't you control at that time?

• 7:36Terry Crews?

  Outside, I just looked and it was like, I had to do what everyone told me. And you know, my father was addicted to alcohol, but my mother was addicted to religion. And he despised that, you know, cause again, it was weak to him.

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  But she was living in fear.

• 7:57Terry Crews?

  And she was living in fear. And so she's like, hey, we, we gotta run under the protection of the church. But it was a, basically as a Christian cult. I grew up in a church called the Church of God and Christ. And it was so, it was what you would call holy roller, you know? It was a lot of speaking in tongues and a lot of music and shouting and falling out and people running around and the whole thing. And I remember just feeling like I wanted that. I wanted to be close to that. Like I said, okay, this is what God is, but I never felt it. Like I was going, when is it gonna take me?

• 8:40Terry Crews?

  Cause I'd see everybody jumping and running and shouting and I was like, and it was like, well, you just gotta feel it. And I was like, but I don't feel it. And no one would tell me what was going on. And I mean, no one, my mother, my, my, people in the church, I would be asking like, when do you know how this feels? Like, is it supposed to grab you? And they were like, oh, if you don't, let me tell you, the day it freaked me out is what my pastor looked at me and he said, you don't feel nothing, you must not have nothing.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, that's not fair.

• 9:14Terry Crews?

  I went, what? So it's like forces you to try to act like you feel something to fit in or belong or? Oh yeah, and now I'm bad. Oh man. And so I learned real quick, I said, man, you gotta have two lives. You gotta be this way in church, you gotta be this. I mean, my, my father and mother fought constantly because of that. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it was all about, listen, everything that I do now, I couldn't do as a kid. I couldn't play sports, I couldn't go to secular movies, I couldn't listen to secular music, I couldn't dance. I couldn't do anything. When I say nothing, I mean, I remember, I was like, what can I do? And they were like, sit down and shut up is what you can do. Wow.

• 9:56Terry Crews?

  And what I would do is listen to kids at school talk about the movies. They would talk about all the stuff that they saw and all this stuff. And, and I remember going home and drawing what I thought the movie was about. And that's where my art. Really? Ability came. I mean, it was hours of like, like imagining what this movie was. How old were you when you started drawing and being? I was probably, probably six, seven years old. But I remember kids talking about things that I couldn't experience. Did anyone teach you how to draw? Uh, I, I learned off comic books. You're so talented, I've seen your stuff. But see, you gotta understand. See, and then you would kind of mimic what yours?

• 10:39Terry Crews?

  Exactly. I, any comic book or anything I saw, I would just try to, and let me tell you, I had this, the most frustrating experiences because nothing would look the same. Like, and it was the desire for me to make things extremely real. And I wanted it to really come to life. And what would happen is I would be satisfied with the drawing, like, oh man, this is good. And then I go to bed and wake up and it would look bad again. And you're talking about this for a young kid, and then it just continued where this drive and this, this whole thing, because it had to look better than this and it's gotta look better than yours. When you're talking about a world of competition, it created this excuse for your age. Mm-hmm.

• 11:21Terry Crews?

  You know what I mean? It, it created, and now, I'm gonna tell you, man, what happened for me, and especially once I hit my teen years, I started living my life like I was in a revenge movie.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  Trying to get back at everyone, everything, the world, your dad.

• 11:38Terry Crews?

  Remember the like the vow I made with my best friend? I made a lot of vows. And I vowed that I was gonna get every person who ever doubted me, whoever insulted me, whoever made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I was gonna get you back.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:00Terry Crews?

  And I was gonna show you. Now, let me tell you something. That is a recipe for tremendous success.

• 12:11Terry Crews?

  You understand what I mean? Like, people expect you, oh, no, it's gonna fall. No.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  And also, a lack of fulfillment, a lack of joy, a lack of peace inside of you.

• 12:20Terry Crews?

  Now.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  Because I was so similar. I wanted to prove everyone wrong. And I accomplished all these goals. And I was like, but why am I still unfulfilled and angry?

• 12:29Terry Crews?

  Listen.

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Why am I so angry?

• 12:31Terry Crews?

  You get a lot done.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  A lot, man, you're obsessed.

• 12:35Terry Crews?

  Extra energy. You know what I mean? Because I'm like, I would work out. You gotta understand, man, I would go and I remember, I would do this stuff where I would go work out. And then I would work out until I couldn't move. And then I would rest up. And then I would go and I would flex my muscles until they cramped. And I would force my muscles into cramps. It was sadistic. It was masochistic.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Terry Crews?

  But I said, no one, I want this. Like, I will never stop doing sit-ups. I will never stop. I would, you know, again, I sit-ups, push-ups, until my stomach, until I was curled over in tears.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 13:11Terry Crews?

  And then I'd go do more. Because I said, no one's gonna beat me.

• 13:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:16Terry Crews?

  You will never, ever, ever beat me. And listen, understand this, man. You know what's so crazy? I didn't even like football.

• 13:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:24Terry Crews?

  Didn't like it at all. But it was my way out of Flint. It was also my way to code black. And this is what I mean.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  To code what?

• 13:35Terry Crews?

  Code black. Meaning, in the black culture, sports coded like hardcore. And it was the way the drug dealers, the gang members, everybody would leave you alone if they knew you were an athlete.

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 13:51Terry Crews?

  Because they said, he's this man, he might go somewhere. He might do something. He might be, because you gotta understand, walking to school. Here they come. I had to fight my way into school because it was like, who you think you are? Who you, okay, oh, Mr. Smart, you're smart now, huh?

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 14:10Terry Crews?

  And you're like, man, I'm, hey, this is why you talk so white?

• 14:15Terry Crews?

  Alright, so what I did, I, I remember developing a whole nother personality when I was out in the street. Ah, man, what's up, man? Ah, you know, I don't even, ah, you know me, yeah, boy.

• 14:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:28Terry Crews?

  And I would mimic that.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:30Terry Crews?

  Just so I could.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  Fit in, right?

• 14:32Terry Crews?

  Yeah. You wouldn't, you, you, you have ideas, you had, you had goals, you had things you wanted, and all of a sudden, you knew, you, you didn't dumb down.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:42Terry Crews?

  It was like, wait, man, who you, who, who you think you are? Remember, everything's a competition.

• 14:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:48Terry Crews?

  So, you think you're smarter than me? Nah, man, I don't know, I don't, nah, I'm just, but here I was, this artist, drawing, really trying to excel, had ideas, had, had visions, being a creative person and all this stuff.

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  Playing music too, right?

• 15:04Terry Crews?

  Yeah, I was a flut- a flautist.

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 15:07Terry Crews?

  Listen, I hit that.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 15:08Terry Crews?

  I was able to do that in church, however.

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 15:11Terry Crews?

  Uh, but see, this is another thing about the, the, the religion thing, which was nuts, is that, you know, here I was, just, you know, I was a pleaser. I became a pleaser. It was like, alright, please my mom, whatever, please the alcoholic dad, whatever you want, you want, here's another beer, whatever, and my mother, I, I, what I decided was I was gonna be the best, you know, kid in the church.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:34Terry Crews?

  But then my church was a cult. It was crazy. Um, because a lot of it didn't make any sense. And it really hit the fan when my pastor, we, you know, we found out, my pastor was selling drugs and using drugs out of the pulpit. He had several girlfriends in the church. I mean, everything imploded, you know? And everyone thought this guy who was so upstanding, you know, because this thing, even with religion, is that, you know, everybody starts out with great intentions.

• 16:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:08Terry Crews?

  You know?

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  And then power and success and money and people praising you. You gotta learn to really stay humble in the face of success or fame.

• 16:17Terry Crews?

  Exactly.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  How have you managed that? I mean?

• 16:21Terry Crews?

  Well, for a long time, I didn't.

• 16:22Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:23Terry Crews?

  I'm, I'm just reenreal. Um, you know, there's two Terry Cruisers, and there's two experiences. Um.

• 16:31Terry Crews?

  You know, the competitive Terry Crews was not humble. Competitive Terry Crews would look humble so that you could be lulled into sleep so that I could destroy you. Wow. I'm just telling you, man. When was this up until? Oh, my God. I mean, we're talking 2010. Okay, wow. You know, uh, and I was intense, dude, man. You understand. I knew, I said, this is how. You were, you were intense or still? Well, I'm still tense. Different level of intensity. You know, uh, my thing was, man, I, I knew how to manipulate. Really? What was the, what was the strategy? Well, I would, I would look at a, whatever scene it was and what the rules were.

• 17:16Terry Crews?

  And I knew how to play the game. Wow. But it was always to beat people. To, to one up, to be number one, to be a little bit better than, or? Always. I mean, it got me to the NFL. Of course. I mean, dude, it goes a long, like I said, I didn't even like football. But that way of life, the NFL was like, come here.

• 17:36Terry Crews?

  We like you. Right. You know what I mean? Oh, you gonna, you gonna be good. You know, they say, uh, the phrase I heard before is that, um, you know, the best soldiers know how to check their morality. Like, to the side, like, keep it away. Cause you're a good soldier. Don't, don't think about what's right or wrong. Right. Don't really get that out. Yeah. Of your psyche. What's good and bad. And now, yeah, now you can do whatever we need. And I, I determined that I was gonna be that dude. Like, whatever it took. And I, and I, and you gotta understand is that this kind of mindset is very rewarded. Of course. It's very, you know, I was tough. I was.

• 18:22Terry Crews?

  You know, in this rage, but also I could turn it on to the point where I could beat people up. Like, I could start, I started to defend myself. You know, I got from being a little kid to being a, a, a big teenager to being, to, you know, what they say, he's got a little neck. You know what I mean? Like, when you get some traps and you get, they're like, whoa, okay. Gang members think twice. You know what I mean? They're like, all right, all right. Because, again, everything's a challenge, right?

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Terry Crews?

  To, to an, an exhausting level.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  Was there ever a point where you felt like you were strong enough and big enough to beat up your dad?

• 19:01Terry Crews?

  Well, I did.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 19:04Terry Crews?

  I was thirty years old.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 19:07Terry Crews?

  I, you gotta understand the, the context of what happened. Uh, my father, you know, I was already, I'd just started my acting career and I'd just got a show. It was a TV show called Battle Dome. And I'd retired from the NFL. And, uh, again, I was around twenty-nine, thirty years, no, I was thirty years old. So, uh, I took my family home for Christmas and I, I told my father.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Back to Flint.

• 19:29Terry Crews?

  Back to Flint, from LA. And I told my father, do not act up, man. Because this is the thing about holidays for alcoholics.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, it's.

• 19:39Terry Crews?

  It's the worst, man. I mean, they go right back. It's all the bad memories and they need to placate and they need to medicate with alcohol. And I said, man, look, my kids have never seen this. My kids never came up in this. And at the time, I had three girls. And I said, dude, do not act up, okay? And he said, no, I ain't gonna do nothing, man. Ain't no wrong with you, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. So, I take them home and me, and we all over there, everything's going fine. Uh, my wife and I are headed to Detroit to hang out with some friends. So, it's about a forty-five minute drive. We're about ten minutes into the drive and I get this call from my aunt. And she's like, Terry, your father hit your mother.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 20:23Terry Crews?

  I said, what?

• 20:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 20:25Terry Crews?

  And what happened, he knocked her tooth sideways. Like, it was hanging out of her mouth. And I mean, he hit her right in the mouth.

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 20:33Terry Crews?

  And then I found out, Louis, he did it in front of my kids.

• 20:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, no.

• 20:38Terry Crews?

  And they were all privy to this. Something that I vowed.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Your trigger went in deep.

• 20:45Terry Crews?

  I said, take the kids.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 20:48Terry Crews?

  Over to aunt's house. I said, just leave them there. I dropped my wife off, I drove over to the house. And I'm looking at him, and I met with him, I'm like, hey dude, didn't I tell you? And he was like, oh, that you.

• 21:05Terry Crews?

  And I mean, let me tell you something, man, I don't know how long the beating happened.

• 21:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 21:13Terry Crews?

  I don't know.

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  Cause you blackout.

• 21:15Terry Crews?

  I blackout.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  And when you get to that level of rage, I know that feeling, you don't feel anything, you don't think anything, it's a.

• 21:22Terry Crews?

  You know what, even, ooh, I'm getting, it's, it's.

• 21:28Terry Crews?

  Just thinking about it. It was so like, cause all I could remember was being like five years old.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:37Terry Crews?

  And, and feeling so weak and powerless as he was doing this to my mother. And we just had to take it, I was, I was like, I can't, what can I do?

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:47Terry Crews?

  He's a giant.

• 21:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Terry Crews?

  You know what I mean, it's, I, I can't do anything and, and man, and now I'm thirty years old.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  You're big, you're strong.

• 21:55Terry Crews?

  I fell, I'm, I'm never had an injury, I'm ready to go.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  And you got thirty years of pent up rage.

• 22:03Terry Crews?

  Thirty years.

• 22:03Lewis Howes?

  And resentment.

• 22:04Terry Crews?

  And I beat his all over that house.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:08Terry Crews?

  And Louis, let me tell you, man, I felt nothing. At the end, I thought, this was it, I thought, this is the revenge I've been waiting for, I told you not to do it. This is it, now I'm, you're gonna get everything for, for, all Terry Crews is gonna blast you. And when I was done, I remember, I beat him from the bottom, all the way to the bottom of the house, all the way up to his room, cause he was trying to run from me. And he was trying, he ran into his room and I busted the door down, man, and kept beating him, right?

• 22:47Terry Crews?

  He's on the ground in tears, bleeding, tears, the whole thing.

• 22:56Terry Crews?

  I'm sitting on this bed.

• 23:00Terry Crews?

  Just looking at my hands and I'm like. I'm just like you.

• 23:06Terry Crews?

  Didn't work. It didn't work, man.

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:10Terry Crews?

  It was supposed to work.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  What were you hoping to feel?

• 23:14Terry Crews?

  I mean, release, like, there it is. I said it right. You're supposed to feel justice. You're supposed to feel like this is this now, the score has been settled. And when I say living life like a revenge movie, I mean it. You gotta understand, that stuff is better than sex.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:33Terry Crews?

  You look at a movie like that, you're like, man, yes, get them back one at a time, like, yes. And here I was, I was living it. I was like, this is Man on Fire Live. You know what I'm saying? This is like Get Back City. This is the payback.

• 23:49Terry Crews?

  And I was like, nothing. Nothing. And I was like, I'm done. And I left. And I never went home for ten years.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:02Terry Crews?

  Ten years. And my mom went right back to him. Didn't change, didn't change any of the home situation. Didn't fix not one thing. And I was. I just remember going through all these issues and all this stuff like, oh my god, like. I lost it, man. And I, I couldn't go home. I couldn't even deal with it. And, uh. That was the, the thing that I said. That rage, it was uncontrollable. But I took it out on other people.

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:38Terry Crews?

  And I, and I never, like, even though I didn't beat him up again and didn't go back home. That rage was still in me.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Still inside of you.

• 24:46Terry Crews?

  And I was doing that to various people in the street. There's a long list of people. Who've been knocked out by me. And what's so crazy is that a lot of people go, oh, no, Terry, no. You're funny and you're so nice. My wife would be like. Y'all don't even know. Y'all had no idea.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  He wasn't so nice back then, yeah.

• 25:05Terry Crews?

  Cause I could flip.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 25:07Terry Crews?

  Oh, no. You, you have to understand, you know, being two people. And, and learning how to manipulate and move, you know, that's why it would shock everybody.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  Right. Cause you could be the lovable, fun, energetic, passionate guy, but if there was a wound that was being triggered. The other Terry came out. It would be a nuclear bomb. Yeah, I I know this, I mean, I I I feel like I can understand and relate to this feeling because I had this for so long as well. I think I might have told you this story, but it was, I was thirty years old as well when I realized I had a problem with with anger and rage. And I was playing pickup basketball in West Hollywood, the mean streets of West Hollywood. Wow, wow. It don't matter where it's at. Right, right, but this is West Hollywood, it's not like I'm in some bad neighborhood or something. And we're just playing pickup basketball with a bunch of twenty year olds, right?

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Some twenty, twenty five year olds, everyone's just having fun. Yeah. For whatever reason, I would take everything so personally. Yeah. For months, and I would shove people and I would, if they ever elbowed me, I felt I'd take it so personally. I would get angry if they tried to talk trash to me. I would have to step to them, to the point where I got in a pretty bad fight, like I just snapped. And and I would never take the, I would never make the first hit. I would always wait for someone to hit me. And someone hit me and I snapped and I exploded and I, kind of like what you talk about in the book here, you tell a story of you doing this, the old football me just like picked a guy up, body slammed him and just went on in the basketball court. I know that.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  And it's like, I didn't feel anything of like pain, it's just like you just rage, right? And I remember afterwards, going back to my place, like kind of shaking at this point because the police department is right across the street. I'm thirty years old, I'd just been building my career. I could have gotten injured, I could have gone to jail, something could have happened where I blew everything. And you talk, you talk about that moment in your life where you talk with a guy, you're beating him up with your wife there, playing your pregnant wife, and the cops come to start to arrest you and it could have been over, one bad decision. I remember looking myself in the mirror after this, shaking with like blood all over my knuckles, looking in the mirror and I couldn't recognize myself when I looked at myself in the mirror and I go, who are you, what is wrong with you?

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And it was terrifying to me to realize what I was still capable of, even though I wasn't playing football, because that was the outlet. Yeah. That was the the legal outlet to destroy someone, right? Yeah. And not go to jail. Yeah. And I realized at that point that I had a problem and I needed to work on it. And it's been a nine year journey of healing ever since with therapy. What has been the thing for you? When was the last draw where you said, I can't react in this way with anger towards fighting, physical fighting someone? I can't react with screaming or other things like that? When did you realize like, I can't overcome this by suppressing it?

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  I need to heal it?

• 28:11Terry Crews?

  Well, my wife made me promise, okay?

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 28:16Terry Crews?

  This was right after we, this was around 2008, 2009. And I had beat this guy up on the street.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  Is that the story in the book here?

• 28:27Terry Crews?

  This is the start of the book.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  Yes, crazy story.

• 28:29Terry Crews?

  And put this guy on the concrete.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Just body slam, boom.

• 28:33Terry Crews?

  Dude, it was too much. Wait, it was way overkill. You know, like, like.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  You could've just shown the guy and walked away.

• 28:41Terry Crews?

  You see what I mean? No, it was so bad. Because you're talking about Christmas shoppers and people everywhere and broad, it was, I remember the sun was going down, but it was still like the people, people screaming and running and police coming and them holding their hands on their guns.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh, no, man.

• 29:01Terry Crews?

  And they're one, and I'm stomping this dude like Nino Brown, like it's, it's.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  And you're a massive dude.

• 29:06Terry Crews?

  And she said, now, he disrespected her.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:11Terry Crews?

  He disrespected her.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:12Terry Crews?

  And she was like, but Terry.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  You can't do that though, yeah?

• 29:16Terry Crews?

  She's, listen, I got away because there was an older white man in the crowd. He came out, he's an officer, officer, because I was either going to jail or getting shot. And he's, this old white man comes out, no, no, no, no, no, because he sees the police about to do what they're about to do.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  This is pre-social media, this is pre-video, this is pre.

• 29:37Terry Crews?

  First of all, this is, I'm gonna say it, this is pre-George Floyd.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:41Terry Crews?

  Because there was, I mean, I could have been shot that day.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Terry Crews?

  That's for real. And this older white man jumped out. And I've I've already had guns pointed at me and and literally in traffic. And whole thing and and it's it's I mean, there's never a feeling it's a and I didn't anything wrong. That's the craziest part about it. So my wife was like, oh, my God, I you are not gonna get anybody's. Nobody's gonna fight you. Nobody's gonna wrestle with you. They're just gonna shoot.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Terry Crews?

  No cop is gonna even get close. So she pulled me to this after this all got he's like, oh, you know, I saw the whole thing. They didn't do anything. They were bothering. They were bothering them and the whole thing and the officers decided to let me go.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  Were you already cuffed or was he starting to try to cuff you or?

• 30:28Terry Crews?

  Oh, no, no, I he was starting. Oh, no, they weren't cuffing. I'm I'm trying to say they had hands on the guns. They were pulling the guns out.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  So the white guy came in, kind of stopped it all.

• 30:36Terry Crews?

  He saw what was about to happen. Okay, my wife was right there and it was pandemonium because people were like, ah.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever did you ever meet this guy later, this guy?

• 30:47Terry Crews?

  No, I don't I don't miss it. Never, never. I don't know what good I blacked out.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 30:52Terry Crews?

  I don't know. If you if he stood in front of me, I wouldn't know what he looked like. If he caught he probably met I probably met him again a few years later, you know what I mean? And don't know.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:02Terry Crews?

  Um, but what was so crazy is that that night, my my wife sat me down. She said, Terry, you gotta promise me, man. You can never, ever. She said, listen, I'll be okay. But we, first of all, you're gonna get sued for one. Because you you, you know, we just now.

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  Make some money, you're well known.

• 31:23Terry Crews?

  You know, you you reached a level of fame where you're kind of getting up there. It was like right after we did Longest Yard, you know what I mean? So she's like, okay, first of all, you're gonna get sued. But secondly, I know how close those cops came to killing you. And then she said, you got kids, man. It's like, we want you. We want you to live. What am I gonna do if you're dead? What am I gonna do? I said, you can't do this. Like, you don't get this. I don't know. Somebody else might, but you can't because you're not gonna get a second shot.

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Nope.

• 31:54Terry Crews?

  And I and and listen, and the whole time I'm like, come on, please. I was like, you know what? No, no, I'm a man, shoot. If somebody came at me like that, I got no choice. And she said, well, Terry, I don't know what to tell you. She said, because we if you don't get a hold of this, it's over. Like, we we.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Eventually, something's gonna happen.

• 32:14Terry Crews?

  And I said, she said, you gotta promise. I said, okay, I promise. Right, but you gotta understand my level of rage. Now, this is something, and again, I probably, I'm gonna kill, I wrote it in the book, but it's so horrible. It's a horrible, horrible moment. Share it. I had a dog who would eat its poop, and I hated it. I was just like, oh my god, like, oh. Every time I would do it, and I see it licking on a kid's face. And I was just like, stop, stop. So, but again, I was mad all the time. Always angry. Dude, I'm, it's me, I'm alone, alone with the dog. Dog starts pooping, turns right around, just starts going to town.

• 32:59Terry Crews?

  I was like, dude, I ran outside, and I threw this dog across the lawn. Oh, man. When I say, this was a blackout moment.

• 33:10Terry Crews?

  The dog flew across the lawn like a frisbee, right? And lands, breaks its leg. Oh, no. The yelp, I still remember. Oh, sad. My kids walk in, on the, the moment the dog lands, the kids come in from shopping with my wife. And then I, and the dog's name was Coffee, they're like, Coffee! And his leg is bent backwards. Listen, man, again, people, people are gonna hate me for this story, of course. And you should, because it was vile, it was ridiculous, it was over the top, the dog didn't deserve it.

• 33:55Terry Crews?

  Right. Nothing a dog could do, you know, it was like a child. Yeah. You understand what I mean? It was abusive, it was crazy. And wait, the minute I threw him, I regretted it. Like, ah.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Terry Crews?

  And I was like, and then all I was remember sitting there just going, why, how did I do this? Like, why didn't, I was in tears, man, like, how am I, I can't control myself.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:21Terry Crews?

  You know, like, there's nothing scarier than knowing there's something in you that could, that could push the nuclear button at any time. And wait, and you can't stop it?

• 34:35Terry Crews?

  I mean, I have no control over my own life.

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:38Terry Crews?

  So whatever you say could make me do it. Whatever, anything that the dog in this made me do it. And I'm going, wait a minute, I can't, I can't tell myself, no.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:50Terry Crews?

  I have no control over anything. And that hit me, I was going, holy cow. And my wife was just like, Derek, what's wrong with you? And man, I can't count the number of events, um, theme park gatherings, different stuff we give with the family, and one thing would make me go off, and I'd ruin the whole day for everybody. And I thought, here I was thinking, I'm better than my dad. Because I didn't do this, I didn't hit my wife.

• 35:25Lewis Howes?

  You weren't drinking, you weren't hitting my wife.

• 35:27Terry Crews?

  Drinking, I, hey, I'm successful, in fact, I'm famous.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:32Terry Crews?

  In fact, people love me. But inside, it was horrible, man, it was horrible, and I, I had no control.

• 35:41Lewis Howes?

  So when was the moment then where you were able to look at yourself and realize, I have either conquered this inner rage, beast, whatever you want to call it, and you do have control?

• 35:55Terry Crews?

  Well, I have to go, now we go flash forward.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:59Terry Crews?

  Okay, um, my wife and I had been through, you know, first of all, in two thousand and ten, it was the end of our marriage. We had been married twenty years.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:08Terry Crews?

  And. You know, this whole time, I had had an addiction to pornography. And I had never told her, and ten years earlier, I had, you know, basically cheated on her at a massage parlor. Right. But I vowed I'd never tell anybody. I vowed. I said, man, I'm taking this to my grave. It's not happening. But see, you gotta understand another thing, too, is this discompetition, but also this guilt that I was always, you know, carrying. Because of that, yeah, yeah, because of that. Creates rage. Yeah, of course, and shame. Shame. I used to get in arguments, so she asked me questions, like, have you ever, do you watch porn? And I'm like, hey, no, don't even bring that up. What are you talking about? You know what? No, I, listen, I don't know who you think you are, and start an argument.

• 36:53Terry Crews?

  So she'd be like, I'm out, just so she wouldn't bring up more, because I knew what I was doing. Right. And I knew that I wasn't living right. I mean, the one thing is, it's almost like, you know, you say one lie, and it turns into two, turns into ten. It eats you inside of you, too. You're talking about ten years. Now, I vowed I'd never tell anybody. And my wife was always like, she would just bring up stuff like, what is it? What are you doing, man? I don't, I don't know. You ever cheat on me? Stuff like that. And I'm like, nah, I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about, you know, and angry, angry. And what you would do, and one thing that I would do is project. Of course.

• 37:36Terry Crews?

  So I was like, why are you saying that? Are you thinking about cheating? You know, in turn, and again, this manipulative game that you could play with the people you love, with people who love you, or you claim to love, just so you can keep your thing together. You know what I mean? And this thing was, is that I realized that the image of Terry Crews was more important than who Terry Crews was. Dang.

• 38:04Terry Crews?

  And I had to worship that image.

• 38:07Lewis Howes?

  Who?

• 38:08Terry Crews?

  And it ran everything.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  Cause what would happen if who Terry Crews was really came out instead of the image? What would happen then?

• 38:17Terry Crews?

  Well, my mindset, I had to play. I was like, I'd lose everything. First of all, my wife would leave. People who knew me would be ashamed. People who knew me would be, they would run away. Everybody would be done. All of it would be finished. Every bit of who I, you know, if people found out who I really, really was, or what I was really, really thinking and contemplating, how I had done, then it would be the end of me.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:48Terry Crews?

  So I decided, we gonna, we gonna put this image up and we gonna prop it up. And it's like having an image on these really weak posts. You know what I mean? And we get bumped and it's like way swaying and you're doing everything you can to hold. I gotta put another beam up on there just to hold it up because it's getting rickety. And the longer it goes, the more rickety it gets. And it all fell, 2010.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:16Terry Crews?

  And my wife was like, I'm out. I'm done. And because what happened was she finally asked me, cause we had just been getting farther and farther apart.

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Terry Crews?

  Over the years. And she said, you know, what is it? I don't know about you, Terry Crews. And I told her. I told her about what happened 10 years earlier. Now, in my head, I'm like, hey, that was 10 years ago. But for her, it was today. And she was like, I'm out.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:47Terry Crews?

  Don't come home. And what I realized is that she had married an image. And what she realized is that she didn't know me.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:58Terry Crews?

  She was like, who are you? And I let her stay in that. And one thing about men is that what we're looking for is intimacy. Like, literally, someone who knows us inside and out and loves us anyway. But if you never reveal who you really are, you can never, ever have intimacy. Mm, amen to that. You understand what I mean? You can't. It's impossible because you have to know who you are. Absolutely. You have to share who you are. But the game is not to share who you are. So you can have sex all day, lots of sex, because that's still part of the image.

• 40:42Terry Crews?

  But it doesn't have anything to do with intimacy. Right. Anything to do with someone. This is why, this is why you always love your mom. Because your mom knows who you are. My right, everything. Everything. You know what I mean? She cleaned, she cleaned your nose, she wiped your butt. Yeah. She knows when you lie. She knows the bad you. She knows the good you. Yeah. And she loves you anyway. That's why mom, mom is queen of the world. But you didn't tell everything to this chick. Nah. To this lady, to your wife. I'm like, oh my god. And dude, years of therapy, I finally went in to deal with these issues, man.

• 41:27Terry Crews?

  Now, the thing about, in my culture, where I grew up. No one, no one does therapy. The mind was, you can't cure crazy. That was the phrase. That was, you can't cure crazy. And then you're talking about in religious circles, they were like, oh, you're gonna get them demons. The demons are gonna come if you go to a psychology, they gonna mess with your brain and make you crazy. So my father, there was one time my father went to a psychologist to get help for his alcoholism. And a week later, the psych, the psychologist jumped off a bridge. And I was like, what? Wow. Huh? Oh man. He jumped off a bridge, man. And I said, okay, that don't work. That's, that's not gonna work. So, no. And I thought these guys are gonna make me crazy.

• 42:12Terry Crews?

  So that was the thing, like. When it, when that broke for me, when my wife left, I was at my wit's end. Like, I said, man, I gotta try this therapy stuff. You know, cause I'd heard enough about it. Mm-hmm. Over the years. What was the greatest lessons therapy has taught you then? Man, assembly required. Okay? When I say this, we all think we as men or people are as good as we are. We, we just, take me as I am. We make songs about it. Mm-hmm. Take me just as I am, na na na na na. But the problem is, this thing is, it's like, it's not anybody else's job to assemble you. You are like Legos.

• 42:57Terry Crews?

  Okay? Legos come in a box. You shake the box, it's, look, it's just pieces. And in a very competitive world, people tell you, you're broke. Hey, man, look at your box. You broke it. But what I learned is that you're never, you're not broken. You're just not finished. Mm-hmm. You, it's up to you to assemble yourself. You have to work on you. You have to take, take off the parts that are bad or broke, or that don't fit. Cause nothing's broken. It's just things don't fit. And you pull it off and you put it back together the right way. It's like when you go, but you gotta go deep. Mm-hmm. And you gotta go down.

• 43:42Terry Crews?

  Open out wounds, yeah. With computers, it's a bit. With, with, uh, um, with property or, or the minerals, it's atoms. Mm-hmm. And, and with human beings, it's genes. I mean, it's down into the core. You get one little gene. And you can rebuild yourself. That's what I got from therapy. I was like, holy cow, you could take the bad out. It's not automatic. You know, a lot of people have said, it's either nature versus nurture. But nurture always works. No matter what your nature started out as. You understand what I mean? Like nurture is, you're in the wo- uh, nature is you're you born naked in the woods. But nurture is you learn to buil- to make a coat.

• 44:27Terry Crews?

  And put it on.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:29Terry Crews?

  You you know what I'm saying? You can build a house. You can build a building.

• 44:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Terry Crews?

  You can build a whole society. That's what nurture does. I said, wait a minute, you don't have to stay naked in the woods. But my mind ta- mentality was what I had to stay naked in the woods. That's where I was born, so that's it.

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  Was there a moment in therapy where you, whether it was 12 years ago or more recently, where you had an aha moment? Where something you felt shift inside of you? There's, I've been doing therapy for the last year, almost every two weeks for the last year. And I've done it at different stages over the last 10 years, but not consistently until the last year. And there was one moment for me where something shifted. I had an aha moment and like the pain in my chest went away and it hasn't come back since. And I finally felt like I was assembling myself and rebuilding myself up to a place where I could feel that peace, where I don't have to.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  There's always something inside of me that knows, like I could turn a switch at any moment if I wanted to, into that type of personality and that rageful energy. But I also don't want that to ever come out. And so I keep myself in a level of peace. Was there anything like that during therapy that you're like, oh, it actually, not in my my thoughts, I can think it, but I feel something different about the rage?

• 45:50Terry Crews?

  Man, you know what hit me out of everything? One of the most powerful, powerful moments was my realization of what shame really was. Now, you gotta understand, growing up, it was shame was used as a tool. Everybody used it, from the church to sports to, you should be sha- eh, you you should be shamed to let that guy beat you on the, on the outside. You should, how could you let that happen? Or in church, like, oh, you should be so shamed to even think those thoughts. How could you think that? And you're like, I don't know, I was, uh. You should, and shame was a motivator.

• 46:33Terry Crews?

  Okay, it goes right along with the revenge movies. Starts with shame. It's a shame, shame, shame. And shame tells you you are bad. Okay, in your default resting state, you're a bad person. So you have to do all these things to be good. Which means it's only in your efforts. You, you, you only get good things by working for it. Yeah, because just in your resting state, you're bad. So let's create this person that covers all this shame up. So you create an image. And you build that image and you worship it.

• 47:15Terry Crews?

  And but the bad you is still back here lurking and ready. And ooh, it's just, ooh. And that's, listen, even in church, people were like, man. You know, you could feel it like, oh, don't be thinking about that. Or, oh, you're just gonna snap. You know, it's like, let's, let's just get our minds on the Lord, you know? And shame was used that way. But in therapy, it blew my mind. Say, hey, man, guilt is good. Shame is no good. And I went, they say guilt says you did something wrong and you may not have to correct it. Yeah, take accountability and yeah. But shame just says you're just wrong. You are wrong as a human. You just, that's you.

• 48:00Terry Crews?

  And I said, wait a minute, I'm good. I'm good in my resting state. And one thing that got me in therapy that hit me, man, oh, I love this. I, I put it in a book. There's a picture of me at about six years old. No teeth, no tooth, my teeth, and I'm sitting here and I'm in, it's just cutest little picture. Like, look at this kid.

• 48:25Terry Crews?

  And I had to ask myself, I said, is that kid bad?

• 48:29Terry Crews?

  Is that kid bad? Wow. No. I said, but I'm that kid. I'm still that kid. I'm still him. There was no point, at no point in time, did I change from being that kid. Right. Understand, you're still that kid. And wait, that's like calling a baby.

• 48:56Terry Crews?

  Evil.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  Bad and wrong and yeah.

• 48:58Terry Crews?

  How are babies evil? How is that? You can't. And I said, holy, I got this all wrong. And that was the moment, like, in therapy, I was like.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  Look at this, I'll show you this.

• 49:13Terry Crews?

  Oh, talk to me.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  Look at this.

• 49:15Terry Crews?

  Yes, yes. That's you, and you keep it right there. Listen, I keep it, I keep that same kind of picture that say, I put it in a book so you, everybody can see it. But I keep it on my desktop.

• 49:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:28Terry Crews?

  On my computer. And I'm like, and you know what, I talk to it, man.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  Dude, I love this, I love you to, because I've been talking about this with my audience about how I've had this for a year now, my phone, I keep meaning to change it recently because I feel like I've finally healed that hurt five, six, seven year old child that was inside of me, I've been doing the work on healing that. And it's been so much more powerful because it's not, I'm not coming from a place of hurt and reaction from that early childhood moments. It's from a healed place and rebuilding that uh, foundation. And it sounds like that's what you've been doing.

• 50:03Terry Crews?

  Dude.

• 50:04Lewis Howes?

  How long you been doing that?

• 50:04Terry Crews?

  Oh, my God, years. I never stop. I talk to them all the time. First of all, when you look at a six year old, or, no, let's go even earlier, three, two. When they fall down, do you go, oh, man, you should know how to walk by now, you should know how to do all this stuff by now? No, no. But you don't do that to yourself? As an adult, you don't give yourself another go, you don't say, what I learned, I was merciless to myself, man. Because I was bad.

• 50:36Terry Crews?

  Man, how could you do that, man? Get yourself together, cuss yourself out. I used to cuss myself out. But then what happened is I would cuss everybody else out.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 50:45Terry Crews?

  Because everybody else, they held by your same standard. Again, projection.

• 50:50Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 50:51Terry Crews?

  And you would never give yourself forgiveness and relax and, hey, man, you tried, it's okay. No. Dude, talking to that little boy. And I remember just going, dude, that's you. And you gotta talk to yourself like that.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  With love, with care.

• 51:10Terry Crews?

  You are good.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:12Terry Crews?

  You're not bad.

• 51:15Terry Crews?

  And but you gotta understand, in a very competitive world, people use that. Oh, of course. And what's happens is, is people can tell you that you are. And that's the world I was in. The world I was in, the drug dealer was like, hey, man, you ain't nothing but a nigga. Or in go to church, and they say, you're a sinner. You ain't nothing. Right. And you just, uh-uh. You don't feel nothing, you don't have nothing.

• 51:43Terry Crews?

  This stuff I was told when I was little. I was bad. So I, cuz I don't feel nothing. Right. So now, I can't have it. You understand, man, well, I grew up where the rapture was dangled in front of us at any moment. Where if you did anything wrong, and the rapture was gonna come, and what the rapture was, was that Jesus was gonna come and take all the saints up into the sky. And if you weren't right, you would be getting left behind. And the whole thing was, you would be left to be, you know, tortured by the devil. That was the whole, and this is stuff, you know, as a four-year-old, they would teach. And I was like, oh, my God, like, but it was used to control us. Right.

• 52:28Terry Crews?

  You wanna be good, cuz Jesus gonna come back? And he ain't gonna take you. And I was like, oh, no, why wouldn't he take me? You got, man, you're talking about a life of horror. I spent most of my years, young years, scared. Yeah. Because it was one of those things where the devil had more power than God did. Cuz it was like, hey, devil made me do it. You know, and the devil could do all kinds of things. I was like, well, where is God gonna step in? You know what I mean? That was my mindset, like, hey, you know, wow, they got powerful, right? Oh, but the devil, man, you gotta, he gonna get you. And you're like, oh, man, like, or Jesus was people's hitman. You know what I mean? Like, oh, he gonna knock you out. You're like, but I was just, and man,

• 53:13Terry Crews?

  you gotta understand, that framework created so much shame. Because I was like, everything I did, I was like, oh, no, I'm bad, I'm going, oh, and I would pray, and try to get back, and other things, but you, you know, you, you keep an impossible standard. So hard, man. You can't keep up. Nah, man. And I know there's a lot of people who understand this. Yeah. You know what I mean? Who've been manipulated by these kind of places and this kind of stuff. Yeah. And it's one of those things where I go into therapy, though. I was like, oh, my God, that has nothing to do with me. Right. Are you still good at therapy? Yeah. Yeah, really? Yeah, yeah. I mean. I feel like the consistency of it is so powerful for me. Oh, yeah. No, I have to.

• 53:58Terry Crews?

  I, I, I, I wake up in the morning, and this is the good thing is I get it in books. And, and I still go occasionally to a person. But sometimes it's, it's just constantly, constantly examining each thought. Examining, is that me? Because this is another thing I even talk about in the book is that a lot of your thoughts are not yours. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's like an auxiliary court. And people plug in to your stuff. You know, you pick up things and you're like, why do I not think of that? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, but that's not you. But if you think every thought is yours, and your thoughts determine your feelings, and your emotions determine your actions. Mm-hmm. And so if someone can, can get into your thoughts, they can change the way you feel. Mm-hmm.

• 54:42Terry Crews?

  I just look at the state of America right now, and it seems to be almost in a state of a panic attack. You know, look at January sixth, and you just go, man, something, that is not real. Mm-hmm. But you, you, the thoughts turned into emotions that turned into actions that turned into mania. And it can really, really affect you. Absolutely. To the point where people are standing around like, how did we do this? How did we get here? Yeah. How did we get here? That's where I was. And I'm not saying that to condemn anybody. I'm saying that because that was me. Sure. And I'm like, standing there like, holding something crazy, like, what? How did I get here? Right. You know what I mean? And, um, and the, the moment, though, in therapy, when I, when I got that.

• 55:26Terry Crews?

  And then there was a moment, ten years post, where.

• 55:31Terry Crews?

  Like, I'd been into therapy big, big times. A couple of years ago. Yes, literally, literally. And, actually, twenty seventeen. And I was sexually assaulted by my agent. Now, he was the head of the motion picture department, William Morris Endeavour. Say, twenty seventeen, I'm at a party, I'm the only black guy there. And me and my half-black wife. And everyone else is very Hollywood and superstars and rich white people, okay? And there I am, and I'm sitting there, and this guy comes down. I remember he came down from this area, and he's just looking at me with his tongue out, and he's like,

• 56:15Terry Crews?

  "Ah, what is happening? Okay." And I'm looking around, like, he ain't talking to me, you know, he can't be talking to me. Or looking at me like that, but he was. And he came over through, and I'm telling you, it's packed, like, it's a packed place. And he squeezes through the crowd, and I reckon, and people are like, "Oh, yeah, that's him." Because I had never met him, I'd heard about him, his name was Adam Bennett. And he's at my agency, and he represents, listen, he was Eddie Murphy's agent, Adam Sandler's agent, Stallone's agent, all these people that I had worked with previously. So I'm going, "Okay, this is some guy I was supposed to meet." So he comes over, and I stick my hand out, like, "Hey, man, nice to meet you."

• 56:59Terry Crews?

  He grabs my, it's like, "Crews," and I'm like, "What? Don't, call for me, man." I push the guy off. He, he jumps back, and he starts licking his tongue out like, "Ah." And listen, people everywhere, listen, there are other witnesses. Right, right. Okay, I mean, I tell the story, but there are a lot of people who saw it. And my wife is one, she was right there next to me. He comes back at me, grabs me again, I push him back. Now, I'm like, "Oh." I'm gonna kill you. Now you gave me the license. And I was gonna punch a hole through his head.

• 57:40Terry Crews?

  But all of a sudden, it hit me. I was like, I don't have to do that.

• 57:47Terry Crews?

  I looked at my wife, and she looked at me, and I remembered our promise. But I also remembered my therapy. I remembered, wow, man, you, this is responsibility. You have an ability to respond differently. You have that now. Because remember, you were out of control before. Anything could make you go off. And I went.

• 58:13Terry Crews?

  I just stood there.

• 58:17Terry Crews?

  And I grabbed my wife's hand, I said, let's go. Let's go. Now, mind you, I got in the car, and I felt like driving the car back through the club, like Terminator. It was gonna, you know, I was, I said, man, I'm a, let me go get my gun. This is one thing in the hood, that was the thing everybody does at the basketball court. You know what I mean? They run out and they go, I'll be right back. And everybody knows, oh, he's coming back with bullets, right? That was my mind, even in the moment, like, no, I can't let him go, I can't. But this is the thing, Louis, I discovered that you can either have success or revenge. But you can't have both.

• 58:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Terry Crews?

  You can't, can't.

• 59:01Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 59:02Terry Crews?

  Success is letting it go. Success is moving. And I got in the car, I was, finally, again, I blacked out, but in a good way. Because I ended up in my driveway. My whole time, my wife was like, I'm so proud of you.

• 59:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 59:17Terry Crews?

  I'm proud of you.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  That's big.

• 59:18Terry Crews?

  I'm proud of you, it's big.

• 59:21Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing you're most proud of in the last couple of years?

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  That you either did or didn't do or evolved into?

• 59:29Terry Crews?

  You know, I would say my wife and I celebrating our 30th anniversary. And she looked at me and we had a huge party, all these people. It was wonderful. It was before the pandemic. And she was like, I love you. You did the work, man.

• 59:55Terry Crews?

  She said, you did the work. Hey, man, there's nothing, you gotta understand. I, people can say, I could say I hurt people. But when you hurt the one you love the most, and she's still here, like, you gotta understand, I would come home and she'd be in tears, just sitting somewhere crying, and I knew I did it.

• 1:00:21Terry Crews?

  There was nothing I could really do to, I'll come over and she's, you know, it's okay.

• 1:00:28Terry Crews?

  And I had to live in, and see, this is another thing, because you know, the temptation is to run. It's too painful. So you just go, man, I'll be better off somewhere else. But it's another thing, and the way I like to call it is, is, you know, the world has this my bad mentality, like, my bad, you know? Like, you can't hit somebody with your car and then drive off and go, my bad, sorry about that. No, what you have to do is you have to stop. You have to wait by the person you hit. And the police are coming, the ambulance is coming, and you have to hold their hand. And you have to get them into the ambulance, you have to get them to the hospital, you have to pay for their, whatever they lost, you have to pay, you have to make amends.

• 1:01:12Terry Crews?

  It's not enough to just say, oh, I'm sorry, my bad.

• 1:01:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Terry Crews?

  And I did that, and she said.

• 1:01:21Terry Crews?

  You did the work, man.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:22Terry Crews?

  I'm fixed. I love you.

• 1:01:25Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man. That's, that's gotta feel.

• 1:01:29Terry Crews?

  That's the thing, again. It, it was hard, but it was worth it. It was worth it.

• 1:01:35Lewis Howes?

  Thirty years, man, that's a.

• 1:01:36Terry Crews?

  We're on thirty-three now.

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-three, man.

• 1:01:38Terry Crews?

  Thirty-three this year.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  On a scale of one to ten, currently, right now, a self-love scale, let's call it, hypothetical scale. Ten being, you have so much inner peace, you love and accept yourself for where you are, you're also a work in progress, but you love and accept yourself, you don't have shame, on a consistent daily basis, that would be a ten. One being you hate yourself and you don't love yourself at all. Where do you see yourself on this self-love scale?

• 1:02:09Terry Crews?

  I would say seven.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  Seven?

• 1:02:11Terry Crews?

  I ain't go all the way there, you know, you could, it's easy to fall back, you know.

• 1:02:17Lewis Howes?

  What would it take to get it to a eight, nine, or ten?

• 1:02:19Terry Crews?

  Oh, man, that's, that's, that's shaman level, that's.

• 1:02:24Terry Crews?

  You know, you know, because there's stuff that's still irritating, you know, look, I don't know if I'll ever hit ten.

• 1:02:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:29Terry Crews?

  I really, I'll be honest, I don't know.

• 1:02:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Terry Crews?

  Because you go, whoa, what did I, what was I, oh, okay, I gotta chill, you know. Even, even now, again, it's a much smaller battle.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:40Terry Crews?

  Because you realize, okay, but, you know, I had to make declarations, and this is one reason why, and this is why I'm so transparent, because it keeps me at a seven. Because you told everybody, you understand what I mean, like, hey, man, oh, you missed the peace and love, huh? You know what I mean, like, all right, and, and somebody's gonna push that.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  Test you.

• 1:03:04Terry Crews?

  Somebody.

• 1:03:05Lewis Howes?

  The universe.

• 1:03:06Terry Crews?

  The universe.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Whatever. Someone on the street.

• 1:03:09Terry Crews?

  It's like, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, they go, they, they see that scab and they gonna flick it, and you're like, ah. You know, somebody is gonna do that. And and you realize, but that's the that's the position that I want to be in. Because it's always self corrective. You know what I mean? And like I said, I my goal is to get to ten. I'll tell you that right now.

• 1:03:37Terry Crews?

  But I've never dipped below.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  That's good, man.

• 1:03:40Terry Crews?

  You know what I'm saying? So that's where we at.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  On a um, you mentioned how for so long your life was about competition. Competition growing up, competition in NFL, competition in the industry afterwards. When did it or has it yet shifted from competition to something else? Because you're so successful, it just feels like everything you do turns into magic. Right? You're on TV shows for eight seasons, you're on movies and the host of AGT and multiple AGTs now. It's like everything you do is successful. At least that's what it looks like.

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  Is it still this competitive nature that you have? Or is there a different approach after so long of being in the industry?

• 1:04:27Terry Crews?

  OK, I over this time, over time, have discovered that competition. Now, this is and what's crazy is people said, this is this can't be true. But I discovered for me, competition is the opposite of creativity. And what I decided to do was get creative. And you have to understand, competition is about you versus another human being. But creativity is always collaborative.

• 1:04:59Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, I'm so happy you're saying this.

• 1:05:01Terry Crews?

  Always.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  I'm so happy you're saying this.

• 1:05:03Terry Crews?

  You can't be creative without being collaborative.

• 1:05:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Terry Crews?

  Just try it. Who's gonna be creative alone?

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Terry Crews?

  The whole, the essence of what being creative is, is you're taking one thing and mixing it with another and creating a brand new thing. Where are you gonna get that other? That's the only thing that's creative. You know what I'm saying? It's like, uh, I mean, on a crazy level, I remember when they had, and Taco Bell was selling these taco pizzas. You know what I mean? And you're like, how did you do that? Well, they went to Pizza Hut. Uh huh. And copied what they did and brought it to Taco Bell and made something brand new. Listen, creativity works that way. Like, it's a whole thing where you need everybody else. And it's another thing. It blew my mind. I discovered that, in fact, you need the success of other people.

• 1:05:54Terry Crews?

  Gosh, it's good. For you to be successful. So true, man. And listen, I had to, listen, I spent hours, like, really writing this down, zoning this down, and how this worked. And I was like, man, you go to Fifth Avenue. If one store won, let's say Louis Vuitton won Fifth Avenue, and every store was Louis Vuitton, would anybody go? Hmm. No. You need Dior, you need all these places so that everybody has a choice. Imagine if it was just one restaurant. Mm hmm. And everybody had to go to the same restaurant. It's done. No, you need different restaurants so that your restaurant can be successful. Absolutely. I learned, don't try to be the best, be the only. Oh, snap. That's it. And I realized, oh my.

• 1:06:39Terry Crews?

  When did you realize this, though? Dude. When was this? It was during the therapy. It was in the assembly. Cause I was going, why is this not working? Man, my internal success was so far below my external success. Hmm. And I had to try to rectify it. And so that was, that took a lot of building. But I was like, why am I jealous of other actors? Why am I, I'd see something I went for, and the billboards are up, and I was auditioning for that, and I'm like, uh, he ain't that good. And it would make me sick. And I said, now I had to examine, why am I sick? Why am I feeling negative toward this person? He didn't do anything to me.

• 1:07:24Terry Crews?

  I don't know anything about him. Why am I feeling negative toward him? Just cause they picked him instead of me? In fact, I said, then I started changing myself. I said, you know what? I said, I wish nothing but good for that person.

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, that's good.

• 1:07:38Terry Crews?

  And wait, I didn't feel it. You understand what I mean? Like, this is where you have to act your way into a feeling. Because I wasn't feeling it. And I said, no. I said, he deserved that. And I'm gonna go see it. I would go pay, I would buy tickets to movies. Just so I could get over these feelings. Of jealousy and envy and competition. And I would enjoy them. And I would go. He was ama- I got a perfect example. I'm gonna bring it up because he's one of my good friends right now, Dave Patista. Dave Patista is probably one of the best people in the entire world.

• 1:08:11Lewis Howes?

  He seems like a nice guy.

• 1:08:13Terry Crews?

  Listen, I love this dude.

• 1:08:15Lewis Howes?

  He's jacked, man. He's friggin'.

• 1:08:16Terry Crews?

  I love this man like he's my brother.

• 1:08:19Lewis Howes?

  Ah, he seems cool.

• 1:08:19Terry Crews?

  I don't know what to say. It's so wild. Every time we talk, we like. It's like, man, you're just my kindred. You're my homie. But he may not know this, but I know. I auditioned for his part in Guardians of the Galaxy.

• 1:08:34Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:08:34Terry Crews?

  Didn't get it.

• 1:08:36Terry Crews?

  And I remember when he got it. And I remember I was like, oh, okay.

• 1:08:41Lewis Howes?

  The universe is testing me.

• 1:08:42Terry Crews?

  And I'm gonna say this, because again, my thing is, I gotta be transparent.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Terry Crews?

  Because this is real. And I was like, oh, man. Oh, man. And then I saw the movie.

• 1:08:54Terry Crews?

  And I said, I didn't have no business in that movie.

• 1:08:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:08:57Terry Crews?

  I said, that's his.

• 1:08:59Lewis Howes?

  He was great for that part. He was perfect.

• 1:09:01Terry Crews?

  And he's great in everything. Wait, he's past that. He's doing so many other things. But I said, here I am. And wait, and if I had let that really affect me. It would have affected a friendship.

• 1:09:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:14Terry Crews?

  That now, we talk to each other, we talk, we call each other, we text each other. And I said, man. But that feeling could have really damaged. Something that was really pure and real. And I said, man, this is collaborative. It's not competi- it's not, no competition. And he is one of my best friends in this business.

• 1:09:33Lewis Howes?

  Mmm, that's cool, man.

• 1:09:34Terry Crews?

  You understand what I'm saying? And I'm telling you, I'm sure he wouldn't mind it. Because I think he's just a superstar dude, like.

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  Now you guys gotta, I wanna see in the next three years, you guys doing a TV show or a movie together.

• 1:09:44Terry Crews?

  Yeah, yeah. I tell you, something's coming because I love him, man.

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  You're like, yeah, you're cops together or you're something and we need an action movie.

• 1:09:51Terry Crews?

  Each other. But again, and look, I know the things that I have. I'm the only one for.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:09:59Terry Crews?

  You understand what I mean? So you, you, and then that's, one other thing is you get tricked into thinking everything's limited. There's more out there than ever, than ever.

• 1:10:08Lewis Howes?

  Abundance.

• 1:10:09Terry Crews?

  Abundance is everywhere.

• 1:10:11Lewis Howes?

  Especially in the last five years for actors, there's a hundred times more opportunities than it was ten years ago. With all the streaming and everyone's buying content and creating, it's the digital, the.

• 1:10:20Terry Crews?

  It's like being in Whole Foods fighting over one apple. And everybody's fighting over this one apple. And you'd be like, hey dude, there's like a pile of apples right here. Y'all know that, right? It's that ridiculous. But once you get in a competitive game, it's, it really, all reasoning and logic go out the window.

• 1:10:40Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 1:10:40Terry Crews?

  It does.

• 1:10:41Lewis Howes?

  What's the next level of growth for you? Because there's so many things you've overcome in the last three decades, really. And your, your relationship with your wife, with your kids, with yourself, in your industry. What's the next level? What's the next limiting belief for you to elevate beyond?

• 1:11:00Terry Crews?

  I, it's, it's wild because it just keeps getting more and more internal. You know what I mean? I'll be honest, like, the big thing, I mean, growing up, I cared what everyone thought. I mean, I, especially when you're in that world like that, everyone's opinion mattered way too much, you know? And so what, where I'm really progressing to is this thing where I find my tribe. You know, not impressing people that I would probably never really hang with anyway. You know what I mean? Like, that used to be my life, like, trying to impress a whole bunch of people that,

• 1:11:46Terry Crews?

  that I would never really call friends in the first place. And so now, it just really became about finding the people that I connect with. And, and you know, what's wild is I got in a lot of trouble, even over the pandemic, when I made it a declaration that I decided to unite with good people. No matter the race, the creed, the color, the ideology, that I was going to unite with good people. And people got mad over that, because a lot of people want to fight. And, but I said at the end, I said, I'm gonna die on this hill.

• 1:12:22Terry Crews?

  I choose to die on this hill.

• 1:12:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:24Terry Crews?

  And it's hard, though. And let me say, everything I'm talking about today is tough. It's a level of toughness. The big thing about being tough is people thought, you know, you'd be able to throw punches. But it's really about endurance.

• 1:12:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:38Terry Crews?

  It's really about being able to take them. Being able to be alone. Being able to stand alone in your, in who you are, knowing that you're good. Because a lot of people calling you all kinds of things, especially since I'm in the public eye.

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Terry Crews?

  And just go, that means nothing.

• 1:12:56Lewis Howes?

  And how do you learn to not care or ruminate on the opinions of others now?

• 1:13:02Terry Crews?

  Well, because you have to examine every, but this is what I think.

• 1:13:08Lewis Howes?

  When you've been so conditioned to people please.

• 1:13:10Terry Crews?

  Right.

• 1:13:10Lewis Howes?

  For years, how, how did you?

• 1:13:12Terry Crews?

  It takes time.

• 1:13:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Terry Crews?

  It's not overnight. And I would never encourage anybody to just go test it out.

• 1:13:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Terry Crews?

  You know what I mean? It's something that takes years and years. But you gotta, you gotta start exercising it. Just ask yourself why you're so offended. Listen, I remember, in my neighborhood and where I came up, if anybody called you a nigger, the rule is you knock them out.

• 1:13:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:37Terry Crews?

  That's the rule. Like, no question, no nothing. You can go on Instagram, TikTok, you can watch people get knocked out for calling somebody a nigger. But one thing I realized, and when I started to examine that rule, I was like, there are no niggers.

• 1:13:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:54Terry Crews?

  Some such thing. So why am I getting offended over something, you calling me something that I'm not? And see, that's a whole different framework.

• 1:14:04Lewis Howes?

  It's an elevation right there.

• 1:14:05Terry Crews?

  You understand what I mean? I was like, you might as well call me a leprechaun.

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:14:09Terry Crews?

  I mean, be honest, because there are, there's no such thing. So, but the problem is, is in me. If I believed.

• 1:14:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:14:18Terry Crews?

  I was one. And you hit me. That's, those are the things that hurt men the most. This is why what a woman says about a man will hurt them deeper than a punch in the face. I'd rather you punch me in the face. But if a woman says, you ain't no good and, and a guy will be like, what? Because that's his insecurity. You tricked his.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:14:38Terry Crews?

  But, you know what I mean? And I realized, wait a minute, I'm doing the best I can.

• 1:14:45Terry Crews?

  And you know what, and now I count those things to ignorance.

• 1:14:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Terry Crews?

  I don't have to take them personally. Remember how you mentioned taking things personally?

• 1:14:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:14:53Terry Crews?

  Hey, man, you can go a long way doing that, but I learned it's not, this is not about me. It's bigger than me.

• 1:15:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Terry Crews?

  And it changed everything.

• 1:15:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, and if people want to learn all these skills and strategies that you've learned, you've got it in your book, Tough: My Journey to True Power. It's not about reacting in tough ways, but the endurance of emotional toughness, mental toughness, to rise above it. So I want everyone to go get a few copies of this, give it to your friends. This will be very inspiring. The stories you tell are raw. The lessons you share are powerful, so make sure you guys get a few copies. This is a question I ask everyone at the end. I asked you this before, but I'm not going to share what you shared last time.

• 1:15:36Terry Crews?

  Okay.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  It's called Three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth, many years away from now. And you get to accomplish everything you want to accomplish and live the life you want to live. And you get to live as old as you want to live, but eventually you gotta turn the lights off.

• 1:15:51Terry Crews?

  Okay.

• 1:15:52Lewis Howes?

  And leave this world. And for whatever reason, everything you've created has to go away, right? The message you've shared, this podcast, the books, movies, no one has access to your message anymore. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we would have to remember your legacy for.

• 1:16:13Terry Crews?

  The first one is you can't love someone and control them at the same time. That's the first one.

• 1:16:23Lewis Howes?

  That is powerful.

• 1:16:24Terry Crews?

  The second one, I would say, and I'm gonna say this, intelligent decision-making sometimes requires that you forget what you've lost and reevaluate the situation as it exists today.

• 1:16:40Terry Crews?

  That may seem long, but what it is, is you literally have to every day reevaluate everything you think you love, like to be intelligent, you have to forget what pained you, forget, you have to actually let go of all that grief and all that get back and all that revenge and reevaluate the situation. Then you can make a real, true, intelligent decision. And the third thing is assembly required. Straight up, you've got to assemble yourself. Yourself, not, not leave it to somebody else to do it, it's your job.

• 1:17:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, those are powerful. I want to acknowledge you Terry for constantly evolving as an incredible man in this world for it takes, I mean, I can only imagine the amount of weight and pressure that you've had to carry for so long with these feelings and anger and rage while having a public persona and kind of having two different personalities, I guess, like you said, or two different images. And for you to want to dive in and do the work and unlearn and rebuild and assemble a healthy, whole human being as opposed to a tough from the old sense of what toughness was and elevate to a new toughness, I'm really inspired by, man, and I'm just, I'm grateful for your example in the world, you know, I'm grateful for our friendship,

• 1:18:09Lewis Howes?

  even though I haven't seen you in a couple of years, but hopefully I'll see you more in the future. And it's really inspiring. Again, I want people to get the book Tough. The final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:18:19Terry Crews?

  Wow.

• 1:18:22Terry Crews?

  A servant to all, the person who serves the most is the greatest among everybody. I mean, my goal is to serve, serve, serve. I serve my family. It's my job to put me to make sure my wife gets what she wants. My kids get what they want, not what I want for them, but what do you want? Let me help you. And that's my friends, my people, if I can help you in any way, get what you want. It makes you great. It's amazing. Terry, my man. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you.

• 1:19:03Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.