484 Rob Bell: The Truth About the Bible, Religion, and Spirituality

"If it's true, it will fundamentally have paradox baked into it." - Rob Bell If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/484 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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 484 with New York Times bestselling author, Rob Bell. 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.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  We have one of my favorite human beings on the show today. His name is Rob Bell, and he is a New York Times bestselling author, one of the greatest speakers I've ever seen in my life, and a former pastor. And he was the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Granville, Michigan, which he pastored until about 2012. And under his leadership, it was one of the fastest growing churches in all of America. And he is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, Love Wins, and along with about a dozen other books that are all incredible. And in 2011, Time Magazine named Rob on the list of the top 100 most influential people in the world. He went on a tour with Oprah for a whole summer. This guy is incredible.

• 1:20Lewis Howes?

  He's got a new book out called, What is the Bible? And here's what's interesting about this. I love how Rob tells stories and relates stories where some people think are fictional or nonfictional, and how he relates it to modern day. And in this interview, we talk about how people are reading the Bible wrong, what the Bible actually is, what the antidote to despair is, why doubting something is not actually the problem, why truth has paradox built into every aspect of it, what the best way to serve others actually is, and so many more things that we cover on religion and spirituality and creating magic in the world.

• 2:04Lewis Howes?

  If you want to be inspired, then keep listening because Rob Bell is one of those speakers and interviews that I just love. The most and he's a dear friend of mine. So I think you're going to really love this one. Also, I want to give a quick shout out to the iTunes review of the week. And this is by Greg Cheek, who says, amazing podcast. Lewis backs up all these amazing podcasts with massive action to his audience. I start every day at the gym, listening to his podcast to get me going. I watched Lewis and his guests at Mel Robbins, spend hours with us all at at success live in Dallas, answering questions about podcasts and entrepreneurship in general, and transitioning to my speaking

• 2:47Lewis Howes?

  business as a new author, and thus this podcast is a must. I recommend it for everyone seeking greatness. So Greg Cheek, thank you so much for being the iTunes review of the week. All right, guys, if you haven't left your review yet, and you want a chance to be a review of the week, then go to iTunes.com slash greatness and leave a review right now. Without further ado, I've got Rob in the greatness studio. So let me introduce you to the one and only Rob Bell.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have one of my dear friends in the house, Rob Bell. Good to see you, man.

• 3:25Rob Bell?

  So good to see you. It's so good to be with you again.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  I'm so pumped. One, because the Cavs are winning right now. Go Cavs, go LeBron.

• 3:32Rob Bell?

  Absolutely. And I mean, like during NFL season, when you're over at our house on the couch for a whole Sunday, you need to come this week, you need to start coming over for playoffs.

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  I'm coming.

• 3:41Rob Bell?

  I got this new pasta I'm making with lentils. I think you'll love it.

• 3:44Lewis Howes?

  Your food is amazing. You've been going vegan, like trying different things. I love it.

• 3:47Rob Bell?

  Oh, we're trying all kinds of things.

• 3:48Lewis Howes?

  The pesto, the almond pesto, I think you made one time.

• 3:50Rob Bell?

  I was thinking about the almond pesto for tonight.

• 3:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I might have to come by.

• 3:54Rob Bell?

  Yeah. And especially when the Cavaliers with the greatest basketball player ever to play the game of basketball, LeBron James.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  It's true. What is it? Six times it's been in the, uh, the

• 4:03Rob Bell?

  In a row?

• 4:04Lewis Howes?

  In six times in a row, the finals?

• 4:05Rob Bell?

  Right.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  Is this seven or is this six?

• 4:08Rob Bell?

  Uh, this will be seven.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  If he goes to the finals.

• 4:10Rob Bell?

  Yes.

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  When he goes to the finals.

• 4:12Rob Bell?

  Exactly.

• 4:12Lewis Howes?

  Against the Golden State Warriors.

• 4:13Rob Bell?

  Exactly. You and I are so confident about this.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  Unless something happens where they get injured, but not on what they don't. Um, I'm super pumped. The last time you were on was two years ago. We found out almost, right?

• 4:24Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  Two years ago.

• 4:25Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  You've been on three times, I believe. It's really two, but we did a two parter. Make sure you guys go watch and listen to the, the previous one, but um, gosh, I'm surprised you haven't been on back since then. Cause our conversation, maybe we just have this conversation where we're hanging out so much.

• 4:39Rob Bell?

  We had these conversations when we're hanging out. So to record it would be like, well.

• 4:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right. Exactly. You've got a new book out called, What is the Bible? How an ancient library of poems, letters and stories can transform the way you think about and feel about everything. And I'm pumped that you came out with this book. Here it is in the video. If you guys are watching online, I'm pumped you came out with this book because I've had many conversations with you about the Bible. Um, and religion and spirituality and all these things because it's so confusing.

• 5:08Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  There's so many different points of views, opinions, judgments out there. That part of me sometimes just like, screw the Bible, you know, thought process is just kind of like, screw this because, uh, you know, it's very contradictory and the things it says, one person says something different than someone else. Someone said that God said something and how do we know that's the truth? And it goes all around and around. And I love, there's a part here at the end. Um, where it says, don't drag God into it. Someone else wrote this and that's how someone understood that event.

• 5:40Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Lewis Howes?

  It may, it's, it's not what God said to the person. It's what they think they felt or heard or thought about it, right?

• 5:48Rob Bell?

  Yeah, right. Right.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  And then they wrote down their experience.

• 5:51Rob Bell?

  Yeah. And I'd begin, I'd begin by saying, you're right. The Bible has caused so much damage. In many ways, it's often been an agent of dragging everything backwards. And it hasn't participated in the ongoing evolution of humanity. It's been a voice for primitive, outdated, violent, barbaric forces. I mean, even in our culture right now. Um, so I'm aware that in 2017, to put out a book with the word Bible in it. Um, for many people, just the word is like, seriously? Come on.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:22Rob Bell?

  Um, and actually I think part of my work has been, to me, that's an injustice. And part of it is showing people what you were told about, you were told wrong. And most people aren't reading it well. From the hardcore, right-wing religious to the hardcore against the Bible. Most of them are reading it as fundamentalists and missing. Reading it as literal is what you mean. They're almost like reading it and going, you either have to believe it literally is true, or you have to deny that it literally happened that way, and both And you're wrong. are a misunderstanding. The biologist, who's like, "All you faith people are idiots", and the hardcore conservative fundamentalist who's like, "Well, you're gonna burn in hell",

• 7:07Rob Bell?

  are all actually reading this book differently. So what you were saying, I think, is so helpful. The Bible was written by real people in real places at real times. So you start there. People wrote stuff down. That's it. And what's really interesting, like, the Bible was written on three different continents over 1,500 years by like 40 different authors. 1,500 years. Yeah, yeah. So this is wide span of time. And a lot of things that are in the Bible were oral traditions. They were stories you told around the campfire to make sense of things. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? How do you forgive? What if you've suffered abuse? What if your nation, what if your family have been the victims of injustice? And you're owned by bitterness? And you know if I don't forgive,

• 7:53Rob Bell?

  I'm going to be consumed with this hatred. How do you do that? I mean, these are the questions humans have been asking for thousands of years. Or if you think about it in terms of like, uh, politics or how we organize ourselves. The Bible's written by a small group of people who had been conquered, a minority group, that had been conquered by one global military superpower after another. So the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Seleucids, by the time of Jesus, it's the Romans. So these people have been on the receiving end. Of an untold amount of violence. So they're very suspicious of military power.

• 8:32Rob Bell?

  And they're very suspicious of people who use their wealth to accumulate chariots, which were like the F-14s of the ancient world.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:39Rob Bell?

  So if you're an American.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  The Rolls Royce.

• 8:41Rob Bell?

  Yes.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Rob Bell?

  If you're an American and you are a citizen of the most dominant global military superpower that humanity has ever produced. No wonder you would miss some of the central themes of this book. Because it's the original Rage Against the Machine. It's the original Bernie Sanders. Because this book is essentially from a small group of people saying, when you abuse your power, when there's a growing gap between rich and poor. Um, there's even a line in the Psalm, "Some trust in chariots, but we trust in God." But in the Psalm, we in the modern world, we're the ones with the chariots. Do you know what I mean?

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 9:17Rob Bell?

  So I would, I would bet for a lot of your listeners and viewers. The reason why the Bible was so misread is they grew up in a system that had to spiritualize this. It had to make it about what happens when you die. Because if you start reading the book as it actually came to us, these ancient letters and poems and stories.

• 9:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:38Rob Bell?

  It's going to raise really provocative questions about you and the system that you're in.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:46Rob Bell?

  And people don't want to do that.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you think it's, do you think it's important for everyone to study the Bible? Even if they're not.

• 9:53Rob Bell?

  Well, actually, in like a Reed College, I think it is an organ, a very progressive college. They have this brilliant thing in their student manual about how you should read the Bible. Because of its power as a cultural artifact. Beyond anything else. So.

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  Right. Whether you believe in it as a religion or not.

• 10:12Rob Bell?

  So here's an example. I would argue that, that one of the strengths of your work is that what Lewis Howes does is you charge into people's lives. Who have basically. Fall and pray to despair. And despair is a spiritual condition, which is tomorrow will simply be a repeat of today. Despair is a spiritual disease. Because it is what happens when you come to believe that all that's happening from here on out is a repeat of this. And so the antidote to despair is a disruption. Where, oh wait, tomorrow's not going to be a repeat of today. But in the ancient world, they had a, in the ancient Near East, they had a cyclical view of history, which is, everything that's happened has happened before and will happen again. So this happened to your dad. Happened to your dad's dad, happened to your mom, happened to your aunt.

• 10:56Rob Bell?

  It's now happening to you, you'll pass it on to your kids. Everybody is essentially on the wheel. And so whatever's happened, just wait, because it'll come back around again. So the Bible.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  That's not inspiring.

• 11:07Rob Bell?

  Exactly. So, so you think about, let's say Genesis, first book of the Bible, chapter 12, man named Abraham, leaves his father's household. Well, the reason why that passage is so fascinating is this is the first time you have somebody leaving the wheel. Like when it says Abraham left.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Rob Bell?

  If you're like in a hotel and you see a Bible in the little end table thing and you read it and you were just to read, and Abraham left, you'd be like, see? Most boring book ever, in addition to the fact that it's long. But if you got just a tiny bit of context, you'd realize, oh, Abraham leaving was a brand new way of thinking about reality. That you could create a new tomorrow? A tomorrow that hadn't existed before? That you could not be enslaved to despair? So, I would just argue that like the work that you are doing, there are so many ideas that are present in our culture, that if you were just to ask, where did that idea come from? It's amazing how many ideas come back to the Bible.

• 12:10Rob Bell?

  So at one level, there's like a religious, you should read the Bible because you're awful and maybe you'd get slightly better. I'm not interested in that, but I am interested in, why have these stories endured for so long? And it's because a lot of the times, it's they're progressive radical ideas about what it means to be human. And who doesn't find that interesting?

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  But you're saying that it doesn't mean we have to take the literal word of everything that's said there. We should take it and interpret it in a way that works for us, is what I'm.

• 12:38Rob Bell?

  Well, yeah, and one of the things in the book I talk about is reading it literately. Which is different than literally. So, literally would be, is it a poem? Then you read it like a poem. And some agony, some betrayal, some struggle. Uh, if you talk about it literally, literal language won't do it justice. So, so my wife Kristen, we're about to celebrate 23 years of marriage. Um, if you were saying to me, why did I fall in love with my wife? And I said, well, she was 5'7". She drove a Honda and she's from Arizona. That's true. I mean, those are literal facts, but you'd be like, that is one weird. You know what I mean? That is one weird relationship. But if I said to you, I don't know, when we got together, it was like I'd found my other half.

• 13:24Rob Bell?

  Well, you mean like I was limping up till then? Or like, no, but you, I shifted into a completely different kind of language. Because that's the kind of language you use.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like a poem.

• 13:32Rob Bell?

  Sometimes you need a poem. Some things are so beautiful that a science textbook with technical language would actually ruin it. But then in other situations, I need the facts. I go to get my car fixed. I don't need the guy to say, well, your carburetor is just in a bad mood. You know what I mean? Like I need, it's the X945, we can get it here by tomorrow.

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:53Rob Bell?

  So, one of the main problems is modern people became so obsessed with technical, precise language. Um, exactly how tall, exactly how much does it weigh, exactly, um, how much RAM does it possess? Like, that, we're not as good at talking in other forms of language. And when you read this book, you're reading history mixed with poetry. You're reading poetry mixed with history. You're reading rants. You're reading letters.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  People's pain.

• 14:23Rob Bell?

  Yes.

• 14:23Lewis Howes?

  Frustrations.

• 14:24Rob Bell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:25Lewis Howes?

  Their opinions on what should or shouldn't happen. Based on their own situation.

• 14:30Rob Bell?

  Even the fact that like in the life of Jesus, there's four gospels. Um, there's four gospels that, that differ on main points. Um, and so some people would read that literally and go, see, it all disagrees or contradicts. It's four authors. They're writing with a particular agenda. Um, Luke wants you to know that any spirituality that ignores the poor isn't gonna cut it.

• 14:59Rob Bell?

  And the Gospel of Mark, he has huge warnings about the corrosive effects of empire. What happens when the people in government with their hands on the wheel are completely insane? And what happens when they tell so many, once again, we're just talking about the ancient world. What happens when the people of power, when you think about the Gospel of Mark, its opening line is it borrows a line from Roman military propaganda. Because 2,000 years ago, what people were struggling with is this empire that's ruling me, they tell all these truths and half-truths and lies because it throws the masses off. And if you can just keep distracting with half-truths, then people don't know what to believe and you can pull off all kinds of things.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  You're talking about history, right?

• 15:45Rob Bell?

  Yeah, so, see, this is why when you talk about why I read the Bible, because when you read this, you're like, oh, wait. This, what we are talking about now is what people have been talking about for thousands of years.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 15:57Rob Bell?

  And one of the problems with the modern world is why bother with any of that stuff from, you know, we have now and we have all these amazing tools. Yes, and there's thousands of years of wisdom that we can draw upon. How do you deal with new technology? What does it mean to be human? And that's what, that's what makes it interesting to me.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Well, fascinating. And you were, you had a church for many years in Michigan. It was one of the largest churches, fastest growing churches in the country, correct?

• 16:28Rob Bell?

  In another life, yes.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  This is like 10 years ago or 15 years ago?

• 16:30Rob Bell?

  Yeah, it was a while ago.

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. And you decided to leave the church, right, or leave that? You kind of built it up and you realized it was time to move on to something else?

• 16:37Rob Bell?

  You have to keep going.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, is spirituality different for people who are religious versus people who are not religious?

• 16:49Rob Bell?

  What a great question.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  From your experience of being in the church to being out of the church?

• 16:53Rob Bell?

  When you think about the word religion, it comes from the word ligament, which holds things together. So the idea, ideally, was that religion would help, help hold you together.

• 17:04Rob Bell?

  And it will remind you of the held togetherness of everything. So you go and you light a candle and you direct your best energies and tensions toward your friend who's going through chemo. It connects you to your friend, helps you deal with your own anxiety and worry about your friend's health. And if you do that, light that candle once a week for a couple of weeks in a row, now you have a routine. Yeah. So we're not against that. So a lot of times when people are against religion, am I against institutions that oppress people and take their money for no good cause? You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. But human institutions, religious government, business, like religious institutions have

• 17:49Rob Bell?

  no corner on the market on failing people compared to all the other ways that institutions and culture. Sure. You know what I mean? Sure. To me, the really interesting thing that's happening now is people are realizing there is something, despite all the damage, especially religious institutions have done, there's some sense that we're a part of something, that we're connected, that life is a gift, that there are these dimensions of existence that you can't access with your five senses. You and I get together and we start talking and you could say like spirit is present, something's flowing. We're bonded in ways that go beyond, we just like talking about sports.

• 18:28Rob Bell?

  And I think that is because this, you can throw, it's like a lot of people are rescuing babies from bathwater. Like we were handed these religious systems that didn't work for us. And so people are tossing these systems that didn't work, but realizing, oh, in that somewhere was something really powerful and helpful and divine, transcendent, infinite. And so I would just say that some practice, and some people meditate and yoga and walk and hike and some people go to communities and services and light candles and do baptisms and. Therapy or whatever. Absolutely. It's all part of receiving this extraordinary gift of life and doing something with it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you attend church?

• 19:14Rob Bell?

  What are we doing right now? Do you go to a structure that is? You know, I usually on Sunday mornings, on Sunday mornings, I go surfing and then I usually record a sermon for my podcast. There you go. And then my family and I have a big meal. Amazing. That's what I do. So what's your version, your own version? Yeah, and actually my work.

• 19:30Rob Bell?

  My work, I like to go places. I don't really do any work in churches or formal religious settings now. I like, my job is to go into places where you would never think about spirituality or even religion and talk to people about how the whole thing is a temple. To talk to people about the depth of life. Yeah, yeah. We're not trying to build a temple and get people into it. And I would actually argue that was at the center of Jesus' message. Was he, he even, there was a temple in his day and he was like, that thing's coming down. I would argue-

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  He was out with the people, right?

• 20:06Rob Bell?

  I would argue that the center of his message was the announcement that the whole thing is a temple. Work, business, raising a family, art, caring for the environment, all of this, standing up for the rights of refugees and immigrants, all of this is holy, sacred work. You have an interesting idea about how to give people a product that would serve them well, and you go after that? Well, of course, that's part of what it means to be a spiritual person. Yeah, the whole thing's a temple.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  How much did you study the Bible?

• 20:42Rob Bell?

  Well-

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Were you reading it a lot?

• 20:44Rob Bell?

  Like, I went to seminary. So I did like a master's degree where you study like form and textual criticism. I studied Greek and Hebrew. I did all that stuff for a number of years. And then I got a job in a church. This would have been my early twenties. And I started giving sermons. Because the sermon for me, I realized I'm here to reclaim the sermon as the art form that it is. That the sermon got hijacked along the way. It got hijacked by people who are trying to raise, get, build bigger buildings. It's like an edifice complex. You know what I mean? Like, let's just, and for some people, the sermon got hijacked by, we're just gonna keep telling you what you're supposed to believe over and over again, that we'll feel right and everybody else is wrong. But to me, the sermon was like this subversive guerrilla theater art form. You think about Martin Luther King. "I have

• 21:29Rob Bell?

  a dream." That was a sermon. But it was like an event. Nobody heard that. And they were like, "I don't know, he was better last week." No way! That was like a moment and you were caught up in it and you either- You got it, or you didn't, or it was dangerous and beautiful and counterintuitive and hopeful and revolutionary. So that's what I set out to do. And in the tradition I came from, you'd give a sermon from the Bible. So I started reading the Bible. In light of like, now I gotta say something about it publicly. Right. Your opinion on it, right? And then gradually, which is why I started tracing the book, I started realizing, oh, people have no idea what's in this book. No one actually reads it. And the people, they don't actually, because if they read it,

• 22:14Rob Bell?

  you would have to change the whole game. Because it's, it is so subversive. And there's a collection of Psalms in the middle of the Bible called Psalms, like prayers. Half of them are laments, which are basically, God, where are you? They're about the absence of God. Or like on the cross, Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is like the day God became an atheist. There's all of this beautiful atheism in the Bible. Or even the word Israel means struggle. So the fundamental story of the Bible is about this tribe called Israel, and their name is Struggle. So every person who's ever been like, why was I abused?

• 22:58Rob Bell?

  Why is this system so corrupt? Don't tell me this universe is a safe place. Yeah, it's all part of the struggle. Right. You know what I mean? So even when I got into it, I was like, people aren't reading this, because if they were reading this, they would have such different understandings of the whole thing, that doubt is a part of faith. If you don't have doubts, like the pulse of faith, if you don't have, the problem isn't that you're doubting. Problem is that you don't have any doubts. And that this book, time and time again, like turned left when everybody turned right. And I think probably,

• 23:35Rob Bell?

  At some deep, deep, personal level, I was like, this is an injustice. This is an injustice.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  The book.

• 23:44Rob Bell?

  That this book has been so misread.

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:47Rob Bell?

  That for so many people, Christian means republican, capitalist. That for so many people, spirituality and faith mean the absence of pain, doubt, struggle. That the embrace of science and the joy of new discoveries is somehow seen as being against this. Like, I think something within me just began, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change it.

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Because a lot of it is like this blind faith, right? It's like, just have faith that this is the way it is. It's kind of what people are taught.

• 24:25Rob Bell?

  Exactly, and which is, which couldn't be more the opposite of the scriptures. Jesus has asked lots and lots and lots of questions. He answers one of them in all the Gospels. Every other question, he responds with a question. How do you read it? How do you interpret it? What do you think about it?

• 24:44Lewis Howes?

  It's a great coach.

• 24:46Rob Bell?

  Absolutely.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Not giving the answer, but having someone discover the answer within themselves.

• 24:50Rob Bell?

  So I'm like in my early twenties. I get hired in a church, and it was a big church. And I, my job is to give these sermons, and so I start reading this book. And I'm like, oh, this whole system is actually almost as perfectly engineered and designed to inoculate people against what this book is actually saying. You know what I mean? Because if they start reading this book, it will challenge the very fabric, fabric of this entire system. And then I just kept going and took it where it, I followed it where it led me.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  This is a challenge for being a curious mind, myself, and I've interviewed all these fascinating individuals, a lot of different spiritual leaders, meditators, business leaders, and...

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  My beliefs have shifted because everyone has a different opinion and I can look at it and say, huh, that's actually an interesting opinion. Let me dive into that a little more and study it and see what makes sense, if it resonates with me or if it doesn't, if it works for me or if it doesn't. I just went to India and studied meditation for a couple of weeks. And I didn't get to dive into it as much as I wanted to, but essentially I talked to the, the person who uh, started this meditation training and I was like, so do you believe in God or not? And he's like, do you want the real answer? And I was like, yes. He's like, it's not going to be a popular one and you're going to think it sounds very egotistical. And I'm, you know, paraphrasing it, but he was like, I believe that we all are our own God essentially.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  That the wisdom is within us and we can end our suffering when we choose to. We have the choice based on obsessive self-centric thinking. We suffer, we worry, we stress, we have anxiety.

• 26:35Rob Bell?

  We inflict all this agony on ourselves.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Well, when we remove, and then we say, well, we need, if we, you know, if God is the only person that can end our suffering, if we're like praying to something to end it, we can always choose to end it whenever we want, when we're aware and we'll remove those thoughts and think about something else in from a place of gratitude and a place of, you know, opportunity and control or whatever these other things. And so there's just so many different opinions out there.

• 26:59Rob Bell?

  Right, right, right.

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  There's so, there's science, you know, you had an incredible tour where you talked about, you know, a particle that

• 27:06Rob Bell?

  Oh yeah, yeah, the expanding universe.

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  Another thing, and the next thing, we're always creating something new.

• 27:10Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  Like, what is the truth? What is the answer?

• 27:16Rob Bell?

  Well, the first thing is to realize if it's true, then it will, if you're, if it's true, then it will fundamentally have paradox baked into it.

• 27:28Lewis Howes?

  Give me an example.

• 27:30Rob Bell?

  Okay, let's say there's some infinite divine source of everything. What, however you want to define, because even when people use the word God, that's so loaded. So I would say, let's say there's some divine source of it all. If you could fully know that source- Source meaning creation of it all, or just where it comes from? The whole thing flows from something, it's sustained by something, there's something more than just the physical reality we see. Let's just say like a really basic idea like that. If it was completely knowable, then it wouldn't be infinite, it wouldn't be very big. If your mind could wrap itself around there, that's not really gonna be capable of sustaining something this interesting. But if it was unknowable and elsewhere, then what about all the great art?

• 28:16Rob Bell?

  What about all the moments of love when you're like, there's something infinite happening between us? Yeah. So, source would be both known and unknown. You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. So, there would be a fundamental ambiguity that would sit side by side with the clarity. I know that when I serve and give beyond myself, something happens that I affirm, that I can't quite fully comprehend, but is real. By the way, the Germans had a word for this, grenzegriff. The German word grenzegriff means "that which is real, but beyond analysis."

• 28:56Rob Bell?

  So it's that which, in your bones, Lewis Howes is like, "When I give and serve and move beyond myself and don't just ask what's good for Lewis Howes, but what do I have that I could share, I am at that level connecting with something much larger than myself." Yeah. And the worse off the conditions are, the more it costs, somehow it pulls something out of me even more, which is transcendent, supernatural, divine, miraculous, whatever you wanna say. So, that is both as real as it gets for you, and yet, put that on a spreadsheet. You know what I mean? Take a photo of that on your iPad. Right. So, if it is real, if there is some divine source, it's going to pull multiple things.

• 29:37Rob Bell?

  So you can see then, the dangers, the danger of a fundamentalism, this is like, this is how big God is, there's a seven steps, it's like, no, you haven't left enough room for mystery. But the, I don't know, man. We don't, we can't know anything. We can't, yeah, but, but I know this guy Lewis Howes and when he serves, it makes the world better. So we can know that. So it would have this, both universal and particular, would have both this absolute and this ever-evolving. And that is, I would argue, the problem is people fall to either side and aren't willing because the modern mind loves the binary. Is it this or is it this? Are you a winner or are you a loser? Right. Success or failure?

• 30:21Rob Bell?

  But the problem is in failure is where all this interesting stuff happens. So essentially, even to talk about God in a way that might actually not make you crazy, you have to move from this binary thinking to what some would call a non-dual awareness, where, where you begin to be able to hold two truths that appear to be opposing at the same time. So I would start, I would start there. So what? And now, we have something to talk about. Now we have something to talk about. Like in that everything is spiritual tour that you came to? Yes, I mean, because- 13.8 billion years ago, the universe explodes out of infinite compression,

• 31:03Rob Bell?

  an infinitely compressed point of nothingness, sometimes called a singularity. That's what scientists are saying right now, is that the universe is 13.8 billion years ago and it came out of a point of infinity and it's just been expanding ever since. And at first it was just subatomic particles and then about three minutes in it formed atoms. Those atoms formed molecules. Somewhere around the 13 billion mark, those molecules began to form cells and you had inorganic and then organic cellular life. And then sometime in the 13 billion, that's about nine billion, 13 billion years in, you have the earth with animals and then you have these sentient, upright homo sapiens that can write poems and talk about this stuff. Like, and people are like, there's no mystery? That just happened?

• 31:48Rob Bell?

  So I would, my starting point, any discussion about God would be, to me, would simply be, we're here and this thing has been expanding and unfolding. And if you're going to tell me, no, it's just molecules, it's just synapses, it's just cells, I would say, seriously? The most intellectually-

• 32:09Rob Bell?

  Honest thing to me would be to leave space for something. Let's just start there.

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Rob Bell?

  Then the question becomes, well, would you name that? It's interesting, in the Bible, there's lots and lots of different names for God. Because essentially, when you use the word God, you're trying to name ultimate reality. So, and that's what actually started to happen to me when I was reading, citing the Bible, is I was like, wait, there's a bunch of different names for God here. And this person uses this name, and this person talks about mystery, this person talks about revelation, the idea that you, there's some things you can know. So that's what happened to me, is when you're like, well, how can you know which is which? This is what the writers of the Bible were wrestling with.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:48Rob Bell?

  You know what I mean? Or, how can we know if God is on our side? Because we're slaves. Is God okay with this arrangement? Is, is the universe okay with this person owning us? So the Exodus story, this big giant rescue of slaves and Moses, that was a story asking the question, is the universe okay with us being owned? And the story was about, no, it's not. God is actually the God of the oppressed. The forces are on the side of the underdog, the immigrant, the refugee, the single mom. So that's always, to me, an abstract talk about God isn't that interesting, but I start talking about, if there is a God who's, well, definitely that God would be on the side of the refugee.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:32Rob Bell?

  The immigrant.

• 33:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:33Rob Bell?

  The single parent trying to hold it together. Much more interesting.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's the beliefs that you've had, maybe over the last 20 years, that have been shaken up? That you thought like, this is 100% true?

• 33:44Rob Bell?

  Right, right, right.

• 33:45Lewis Howes?

  And then, oh, actually, maybe lean into this a little bit?

• 33:47Rob Bell?

  Absolutely, yeah, right.

• 33:48Lewis Howes?

  Actually, no, it's, for me, it's not my belief anymore. What's, is there anything that's happened in the last 20, and also 10, and also 5, and 2 years?

• 33:55Rob Bell?

  Absolutely. I can think of one right away. The realization that spiritual was not things that exist in some other realm. And when you die, then you go to some other realm. But the spiritual means soil, food, good business, surfing, sex, music, creativity. Um, that caring for the earth is central to a spiritual understanding of life. And that the tradition I came up from, spiritual meant... Kind of six inches off the ground and kind of other like you sit on your cushion and you go somewhere,

• 34:39Rob Bell?

  escape from the dirt and sweat of life. And when I began to read this book and was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Spirituality is about your engagement with the dirt and sweat and stuff of life. So that was like a huge shift. Wow. Uh, second one, man, the tradition I came up from, who's a Christian, who's not? So and so a Christian, are they thinking about becoming a Christian? Oh, they're not. Oh, so and so Cliff, nice guy, not a Christian. Wow. And when I began to realize lots of people who make a big deal about being Christians are nothing like the Jesus method message of compassion, grace, courage, nonviolence.

• 35:23Rob Bell?

  And I keep meeting people who had never called themselves a Christian, who embody all of the best about what it means to be a human being. So those labels started to mean next to nothing. And then I kept meeting atheists who, when they talked about the God they don't believe in, I don't believe in that God either. And then they would talk about the upbringing in which they were told about this version of God. And I'd be like atheism is the only healthy spiritual response to that. So I started to realize atheism and atheist and believer started to mean those categories didn't, because half the time I'm over here, I'm, I'm, I'm with you. So, uh, those categories just started to mean nothing to me.

• 36:06Rob Bell?

  Literally to this day, mean next to nothing. But you, you and I and the talks we have. Yeah. And the depth of life and human experience that you and I want to taste and feel and soak in, that's. Now that's something, that's worth talking about.

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. What would you say is your purpose now? And how has it evolved?

• 36:29Rob Bell?

  I want to help people connect with the depth and joy of life. And I use those two because the moment you talk about joy, people are like, what about cancer? That's why I talk about depth is, uh, what the modern world does is it cuts you off from the depth of life. Just skim the surface, just numb the pain, just skate. And I do that because I come out of this Jesus tradition that believes that there is a fullness to life that you can actually experience. So that's what I, I want to talk about the joy and the depth. And I just keep announcing that the whole thing is a temple. It's all sacred. It's all holy.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  You don't have to go on Sundays to reach it.

• 37:12Rob Bell?

  The whole thing's a temple. Yeah. The meal, the conversation, the waves I will be catching tomorrow. You know what I mean? It's all my kids, uh, trying to launch a business, trying to get along with an ex spouse. It's all, it all takes place in a temple. Yeah. All this ground is holy.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is missing for most people in order to reach some type of depth and joy?

• 37:43Rob Bell?

  That everything you are working and striving for, you already have. That so often we're working, sweating, clinging, grasping, striving to feel worthy enough. And the fundamental good news, what's called the gospel is the announcement that you're loved exactly as you are. You don't have to do anything. You've, you're already a daughter of the divine. You're already a son of the divine. You're already in. There's this great line in this story of the prodigal son where the father says, "You are always with me and everything I have is yours." Sometimes when you talk about, "Well, what do you think about God?"

• 38:26Rob Bell?

  I think in images, I think in lines, I think in pictures, and I think in like dialogue, like, "You are always with me and everything I have is yours." So, all of the stuff that we do to feel like we measure up, that we're worth, it's all been taken care of, you're fine. Now, in response to that, let's make some stuff.

• 38:45Lewis Howes?

  Let's do something.

• 38:46Rob Bell?

  Let's go do something. Yeah, but then we're coming from a different place. And we're not doing this to prove something, we're not doing this to earn something, we're not doing this to somehow scratch some itch, or stroke some part of the heart that desperately has been beaten down and doesn't know.

• 39:05Rob Bell?

  You're okay. In all of your not-togetherness, you're all fine. All the ways you've made a mess of it, it's okay. It's okay. All the ways you've screwed it up.

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:14Rob Bell?

  It's okay.

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like there's anything in your life where you suffer?

• 39:20Rob Bell?

  Yeah, although I say that in light of how people really suffer.

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  Right, of course. I mean, you've got a nice home, you've got a great family.

• 39:27Rob Bell?

  Yeah, right, right. So, I've seen too much of the world.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  You're in Hollywood, you know.

• 39:31Rob Bell?

  Yeah, right, right, right. I can almost see my house from the place, by the way.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  You've got things done well, but we all have our own inner battles.

• 39:37Rob Bell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  And what are yours, if you have any?

• 39:39Rob Bell?

  Yeah, I'll tell you.

• 39:42Rob Bell?

  The idea, the inner dialogue that says, "Push, push, push, it's not enough." You're still earning, you're still... You do an interview and later I'm like, "Ah, what did I answer it that way for?" And that like, that voice that always wants to be like, "See? See? You don't have it. You don't have it. You don't have what it takes. You seriously want to play this game? Come on. Who are we kidding?"

• 40:14Rob Bell?

  Instead of, "I'm here, how much fun is this?"

• 40:20Rob Bell?

  This is a gift. You get to receive it. There is a wonder and awe to existence. And the struggle for me is when you lose that and you feel entitled, you feel like, yeah, yeah, that's nice. But you know, the real world, no, the real world is a place where you can have wonder and awe. Yeah, that's, that's like, that's every day. That's, so sitting in silence. Uh, the practice is it sort of take me back to center. We're here, we're breathing. It's another day. Let's try some things.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You've been on a journey over the last, I think, like four to six months where you've been surfing almost every day, is that right?

• 40:58Rob Bell?

  Quite a bit, yeah.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  Pretty much like four or five days a week?

• 41:01Rob Bell?

  Yeah, I probably started six years ago surfing a ton. Because, and at first it was like, oh, this, you know, if you have some time, what a nice hobby, what a lovely sport. And I know that the surfers who listen to you will know what I'm talking about. And then it turns into something, something similar to oxygen, where it's, it's like practice. And I was actually, I was actually doing this event with a legendary Buddhist teacher. And I was talking about surfing and then I was like, but I probably shouldn't say anymore because I'll just start gushing and it doesn't sound right. And he's like, oh, you mean moving meditation? I was like, you have a word for this? He's like, yeah, yeah, that's a moving meditation. What you're describing is a meditation, but if I try to sit still on a couch

• 41:44Rob Bell?

  or a cushion, it's not going to go well.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Rob Bell?

  But I move and like, uh, not yesterday morning, morning before last, this pod of dolphins is in the water in them, in the lineup and they're coming in among us and they're jumping all the way out of the water like this.

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:01Rob Bell?

  And they're coming like me to you. So you almost like curl your toes in a touch just because they're like playing. And the dolphin isn't like, I'm a dolphin. It's just being a dolphin. And it just, every time it does something to you. There's something that happens. Yeah.

• 42:16Lewis Howes?

  Where was this?

• 42:18Rob Bell?

  Right between

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  Santa Monica or what?

• 42:20Rob Bell?

  Uh, yeah, North Venice, South Santa Monica, right in that stretch.

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  Dolphins were going right there.

• 42:24Rob Bell?

  Oh, yeah. The other day at, um, Topanga, there was a nice big whale went through.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:29Rob Bell?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  That's a little scary.

• 42:30Rob Bell?

  A whale is another category of experience. That never, you're never like, oh, whale. And I've now seen whales for a number of years. And close, one time Kristen and I were stand up paddling and a whale went under her, surfaced between us and then went under me.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  That's terrifying.

• 42:46Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  But inspiring and crazy.

• 42:48Rob Bell?

  Well, it's interesting. It is like a terror that is benign. It's not gonna hurt you, but it's also like the size of your house.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:59Rob Bell?

  And what strikes me about this is we have good things, friendly things, nice things in our lives that we're used to, and then we have things that are terrifying to us. But rarely are those two things the same experience. It's both terrifying and good. Like rarely do you experience that in the water and then in the water with this like blowhole sound.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy. Yeah, if that was a shark, it'd be a difference. It'd just be terrifying.

• 43:23Rob Bell?

  I saw a great white breach the other day at Sunset Point.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 43:28Rob Bell?

  And I had read that they were at this spot that I really like.

• 43:31Lewis Howes?

  When you were surfing?

• 43:31Rob Bell?

  Yeah, and this guy next to me, I was like, I wonder if what I saw, I just saw, so I look over at the guy next to me and he's like, "Did you see that?" I was like, "Yeah," and he's like, "I had heard there were great whites out here."

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  You stayed?

• 43:42Rob Bell?

  Of course.

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 43:44Rob Bell?

  All the other people, you know, if you want to paddle in, that's fine. It's just more waves.

• 43:48Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Now, what is it, what are the biggest lessons you've learned in the last, I guess, six months, since you've been doing this pretty much daily? I know we had a conversation.

• 43:56Rob Bell?

  Oh, right, right, right.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  You're going there like all day until like a certain time and you're not, no phone.

• 44:01Rob Bell?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  You're just kind of like, take your journal.

• 44:03Rob Bell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  What's the big lessons you've learned about doing this every single day as opposed to just jumping in kind of like the rat race of like be on your phone and like working all day?

• 44:11Rob Bell?

  Yeah, last year I finished a world tour. End of November and I was kind of cooked.

• 44:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Rob Bell?

  I'd been to a lot of cities. And so I needed, like, okay, I need to like reset the whole thing. So I was like, okay. First thing I'm gonna try to do is each day, I'm not gonna enter Screenland till late in the day. So I just named it Screenland.

• 44:35Rob Bell?

  And I'm gonna work with, I'm gonna take pen and paper with me. And I'm going to just listen, because my work is creating things. I make things and then share them. And then there comes this end of a season when I have to like cook it all up again and I have to stop talking. So that was probably the end of November I started. I would spend the first part of the day in silence. I'd go surfing and then I would just sit with pen and just note what was going on inside of me. And I wouldn't check any phone or email till like after 4pm.

• 45:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:11Rob Bell?

  And

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  You get up, you go to the beach.

• 45:13Rob Bell?

  By the way, when you do this, email takes you a tenth of the time. Because one of the things about email is you're like, I don't know, should I do this? Should I not do this? What's this going to? When, when you have spent the first part of the day simply listening to who you are and what's happening. There are all these things that are coming at you that you're burning all this energy trying to figure out, but when you're coming from a different place, you're like, "Oh, of course I do that." Or, "No." And how many things come our way that are no's? But we're not at full power, strength, whatever you want to say, clarity?

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:49Rob Bell?

  And so, how many, how many times you'll like sit on it and then you'll sort of, ah.

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  A lot.

• 45:53Rob Bell?

  And then, and then you're like, you realize later, you said yes because you don't want you, the person to think less of you. You want them to like you.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  And then you regret doing it. When the time comes, you have to do something.

• 46:02Rob Bell?

  And then you're doing it. You're like, why is this? This is because last February, I was tired on a Thursday and I said yes. So, as I began to think through, as I began to think through, oh, the, the more time I spend away from Screenland, when I do enter Screenland, I'm able to see Screenland for what it is. And I'm not, that's not my path. I'm not to do that. And letting that person down is the only path forward. So let's just let them down.

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:34Rob Bell?

  And I also was struck that it wasn't like we went a couple of weeks and then I was like, oh, good. I'm rested. Let's go back at it. The, the interior is infinite. See, for many people, the universe, does it just go on forever? Does it just push on forever? Could you just travel if you had a ship and you could just go and go and go? So exteriors were comfortable with the idea of that it's infinite. Or maybe there's a door that Jim Carrey goes through at the very back end.

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:02Rob Bell?

  But interiors are infinite.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:04Rob Bell?

  So, and you'd find this fascinating because you do speaking.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Rob Bell?

  It got like December, January, on a random day in January, sitting there, I would remember some event the previous July, where I was standing in line after doing an event, and somebody plugged in, you know, and wanted something, or took something, or, you know, let me feeling when, when people want a piece of you, and I would become aware of it. Oh, that was actually a deeply draining, troubling interaction. But in the moment, we gotta keep going, here we go, da, da, da, and I didn't spend time thinking about what that was.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:49Rob Bell?

  And that's in there. It's like we store, they talk about a pain body. We store all these experiences we have, and we're carrying them around. No wonder a relationship can be hard to sustain. This person isn't even aware of the stuff they're carrying around. And this other person has got a world of wound, desire, pain, hurt, loss, and then they're trying to connect when we often aren't even connected with what's happening inside of ourselves. Yeah, and that's what's, so now I'm like four or five months in.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Still going.

• 48:23Rob Bell?

  To this. And now my day is completely backwards from what it used to be. I used to wake up, turn on the email, and then it's like, here we go. And now I'm like, it'll be there. It'll be there when we get to it.

• 48:34Lewis Howes?

  And what's the big thing you've learned about this journey?

• 48:38Rob Bell?

  Most emergencies aren't.

• 48:41Rob Bell?

  And.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  You feel more productive?

• 48:44Rob Bell?

  That you're, oh, wait, oh, 10 times more.

• 48:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:47Rob Bell?

  And

• 48:50Rob Bell?

  that you taking good care of yourself, which is not rocket science,

• 48:58Rob Bell?

  is the best way that you serve others. And how you just start giving little pieces of yourself away, and then wonder why you feel like a shell. And it feels selfish, and it feels counterintuitive, and it feels like, oh, you're just, but it's actually the best way that you give yourself to the world. Is you begin by whatever practices, habits, routines, rituals, actually holds you together.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:19Rob Bell?

  Yeah, that's the thing right there.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Sounds nice for you, but most men are probably thinking like, oh, my wife would never let me do that, you know, just go to the beach for

• 49:27Rob Bell?

  Yeah, what's interesting about your, yeah, I'm not really at the beach every day. But I would begin with, your wife does want you fully alive. And she does want you at your best.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:39Rob Bell?

  So let's start there.

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Rob Bell?

  That might look different.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  You obviously have, you know, resources now and flexibility and freedom with what you've created for the last 20 years in your life. So you have those options, but.

• 49:50Rob Bell?

  Yeah, but I don't. I don't spend any more like surfing. I don't spend any more time surfing than most people would surf, spend going to the gym or something.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:59Rob Bell?

  And like my wife went back to graduate school. So. Um, our eight year old and then our 16 year old and 18 year old, I like step into some Mr. Mommy. But even then I get more done than I used to, simply because.

• 50:12Lewis Howes?

  You're taking care of yourself.

• 50:13Rob Bell?

  Yeah, yeah. Which, and that's been a long, slow evolving, just learning how to.

• 50:20Rob Bell?

  Be at, be at the best so that we can do what you do.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. If there was a, if you were the author of a new book called the Bible of today, right? And the, all the writers of these poems and letters and lectures and stories said, Rob, we want there to be a new Bible. And we want you to write it. And.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  We want you to do your best. Obviously, this is your interpretation, but we feel like you have the keys to the kingdom to be able to write something. That would help a lot of people in this world, no matter what religion, what they believe, what they don't believe. But this would be the new Bible. What do you think you would cover?

• 51:06Rob Bell?

  What would I cover?

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you write about? What would you cover? How long would it be to get the message across? And what would you want really people to feel at the end of reading this?

• 51:16Rob Bell?

  That is a fantastic story.

• 51:23Rob Bell?

  I would go to the poorest places in the world. And interview people.

• 51:30Rob Bell?

  What do you want? What do you need? What burns in your heart? I'd start there. I'd start with those who the system isn't working and feel left out and at the edges. I would always... You always go, you go looking for the divine, you start there. And then I would interview scientists and artists, and then I would go interview farmers about the earth. I would interview people. What do you see? What has been your experience? Tell me about your pain. Tell me what helps. Tell me about your wounds. Tell me about your healing.

• 52:14Rob Bell?

  Yeah, I would not write it as an abstract. I can't believe I even bought into your premise. I just realized I actually took your question seriously. Any guy who takes your question seriously should be questioned. But I would begin not with, with abstract intellectual ideas. I would begin with sweat and blood and wealth and poverty and strength and weakness. I'd begin there.

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  I'd read that book.

• 52:41Rob Bell?

  Yeah, yeah. That's where I'd start. And, and I would edit it together in such a way that you might, in reading those stories, think, something's going on here. Something's going on here that I could be a part of. That's how I do it.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  When are you gonna start writing it?

• 53:02Rob Bell?

  That, seriously, no one has ever asked a question like that. That's a good one.

• 53:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it is.

• 53:06Rob Bell?

  That's a bizarre one. I can't believe I...

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  I think it'd be a powerful book.

• 53:11Rob Bell?

  Actually, probably all my books are at some level me trying to...

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Answer that question.

• 53:17Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:18Rob Bell?

  Yeah, there's this interesting line in, I point to this, but there's this interesting line where Jesus says you'll do greater things than these. And it always strikes me, I wonder, like if, if, uh, if there was some, if there was a Jesus who came back, I wonder if he'd be like, why are you guys still talking about me? Like, my whole point was that you'd go out and do it. I actually think some of the Bible writers would be like, why do you keep repeating me? Why do you, I'm, thanks, fair play, appreciate it. But the goal was that you would carry the story forward.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  And help the people in your time, in your day, yeah.

• 53:52Rob Bell?

  Right, right. The goal would be that you would learn what you could from what we went through, but then new metaphors, new images, like for example, artificial intelligence.

• 54:03Rob Bell?

  This already, you have people saying, hey, hey, wait a second. Not all progress is progress. This could come with all sorts of things attached to it that we might be really wise to just watch carefully. Well, this is new technology. This is new fire. So how will it be used? What will it do? What will it say about what it means to be human? These are all the very questions that we're asking now, which the, I mean, they're talking about iron. They're talking about stepping out of a cycle of despair. All, it's all the same sorts of questions.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. A few questions left for you, but I want to make sure you guys go get this book. What is the Bible? How an ancient library of poems, letters and stories can transform the way you think and feel about everything. You can go get it at robbell.com or you can go on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, everywhere else that books are sold. I don't think I asked you this question on the last time, so I'm going to ask it to you here. And this is called the three truths.

• 54:56Rob Bell?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  I think I asked you this one before.

• 54:57Rob Bell?

  No.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  Cause I started asking, I think, after you came on. You've written how many books now?

• 55:02Rob Bell?

  This is like the 10th or 11th.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  10th or 11th, who's counting? Three New York Times bestsellers, tours, speaking everywhere, on tour with Oprah, all that's good stuff, documentaries. This is, let's say in a hundred years is the last day for you, right? You live for another hundred years, plus whatever, as long as you want to live. And you achieve everything that you set out to do, all your dreams, you create it, you do whatever you want. You make it come true. But for whatever reason, all your work is erased and it's not available for people to learn or read or watch anymore. But you have a piece of paper and a pen, you get to write down three truths. The three things you know to be true, the lessons that you would pass on to the people after you're gone.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  For the whole world, this is all they see, these three lines or lessons. What would your three truths be?

• 55:53Rob Bell?

  The first truth would be use the fine china. Cause when Kristen and I were married, when you have to register, this is like 25 years ago, whatever. You, I learned that you register for two different kinds of plates. There's the everyday plates and then, and I was just watching this as a dude who couldn't care less about any of this. And then you register for this fine china. And the fine china is basically these boxes of really nice plates that you haul around from apartment to apartment that you use once or twice a year. And when you do yours, you're like, don't break them, take good care of them. And when I went through a bad burnout a number of years ago, like crashed, hit the wall, didn't know if I could work again. I sort of started to get back on my feet. I started serving my boys breakfast on the fine china. Cause we only have today.

• 56:38Rob Bell?

  So we're gonna use the fine china cause we're feasting. Cause we have no guarantee of tomorrow. So the first thing I'd say is, use the fine china. Second thing I would say is, forgive everybody for everything.

• 56:55Rob Bell?

  And that doesn't mean condone what they did. Doesn't mean brush it under the rug. It just means, you have to take part in a larger flow of forgiveness. Because you hold on to any of that bitterness for anything anybody has done to you and it will eat you alive. You will drink rat poison and then wonder why the rat isn't dying. So forgive, forgive, forgive. And then,

• 57:23Rob Bell?

  the third thing I would write down is everything is spiritual. It's all connected. It has infinite depth. And don't ever think that all of this isn't related to every other part of it. Everything is spiritual. And that's where the wonder and the awe and the mojo and the juice and the joy comes from. Those are three things.

• 57:45Lewis Howes?

  Those are powerful. I like those. Is there a question that you've, I always wanted someone to ask you that they never have?

• 57:54Rob Bell?

  No, I don't think about interviews. I'm more interested in what you want to talk about. I never come into an interview with an agenda or assumptions.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  But you wish, is there a question you wish people would ask you more about that? It doesn't have to be, I'm just curious.

• 58:08Rob Bell?

  No, I don't, maybe I just don't, no.

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  And if you had to have a tattoo on your forehead in reverse, that only you could see if you're in the mirror?

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  What would that word or phrase be?

• 58:22Rob Bell?

  Uh, yeah, I would have grace and peace.

• 58:27Rob Bell?

  Cause these two polarities, grace and peace. Grace is it's all a gift. And peace is so in response to that, go help increase the peace in the world. One's about awareness, one's about action, one's about doing nothing, and one's about doing whatever you can. Yeah.

• 58:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay. I'll look for that tattoo in the future. One final question before I ask, I want to acknowledge you, Rob, for your, your childlike curiosity and play and joy. I think the thing I love about you the most is that you always have, you find wonder in every little thing throughout the day. Whenever we're hanging out, there's always like something interesting like-

• 59:07Rob Bell?

  We're cooking something.

• 59:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's always like you're just fascinated-

• 59:10Rob Bell?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Lewis Howes?

  -by things.

• 59:11Rob Bell?

  Yeah, I am.

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  By everything.

• 59:12Rob Bell?

  That's true.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  How it works, how it moves, an idea, a possibility, and you bring it with like love and joy and passion and childlike wonder. And I think most people that I interact with uh, who get older, don't have that childlike wonder. And I think that's what brings the most like love in the world, is this childlike curiosity and trust and questioning and connection. So I want to acknowledge you for that and your-

• 59:41Rob Bell?

  Thank you.

• 59:41Lewis Howes?

  Your ability to recognize also when you need to make sure you're taking care of yourself. And staying consistent with that because you're right, I don't think you have such a big heart and this mind of wisdom that could help so many people. And you making sure you're taking care of yourself is so powerful because you're helping more people in that process as opposed to being burnt out. So I acknowledge you for taking a step to the side to take care of yourself. So you can help more people. Yeah.

• 1:00:07Rob Bell?

  That's beautiful. Thank you.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:00:13Rob Bell?

  Greatness is when you leave the room and the people in the room have more hope than when you entered.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  Rob Bell, thank you enough. Appreciate it.

• 1:00:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh snap, there you have it guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. Rob again is one of my favorite people in the world and so fascinating the way he shares stories and his experience and knowledge and wisdom and I just love it. Every time I'm around him, I just feel like a better human being. So if you enjoyed this, then make sure to share it out. LewisHowes.com/484 And tag me @lewishowes and tag Rob Bell on Twitter and Instagram stories and let us know what you thought of this one. I want to connect with you more on social media, so tag me @lewishowes. I love you guys very much. You were given such incredible gifts on this planet. You were born with unique gifts and you can develop any talent that you want.

• 1:01:09Lewis Howes?

  It's your opportunity to make the most of every single day. Don't waste a second. Continue to stay committed to your vision. Stay focused on your vision. Eliminate negative thoughts and negative people in your life and be the light that others need to rid the darkness from within them. I love you guys very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.