721 Charlamagne Tha God on Success, Anxiety, and Mental Health

TAKING CARE OF MENTAL HEALTH IS POWERFUL, NOT WEAK. It’s time to open up. No matter what you’re dealing with, you’re not alone. There is nothing shameful about having anxiety. Think about this acronym for FEAR- you either Fear Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. The more you confront the things in your past you don’t want to do with, the more you’ll be able to move forward. So, are you going to run from your fear, or face it? On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about anxiety and PTSD with a man who has become an unofficial mental health advocate: Charlamagne the God. New York Times Best-Selling Author Charlamagne Tha God is best known for being co-host of the nationally syndicated hip-hop iHeartRadio program The Breakfast Club. He is also a social media influencer; an executive producer with his own production company, CThaGod World; and co-host of the popular podcast Brilliant Idiots. Charlamagne says that refining his life’s mission and examining his past helped him take control of his anxiety. Don’t allow anxiety or depression to cause you to keep suffering. Learn about Charlamagne The God’s mental health struggles and what he did to restart his life on Episode 721. Some Questions I Ask: What are the tools you’ve learned in the last year to deal with anxiety? (12:55) What was your first job? (17:57) When was the moment that you realized you made it in radio? (20:17) Why did you get fired from your radio jobs? (20:47) How do you manage working with other big personalities? (37:45) What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from doing radio? (38:52) What’s your mission moving forward in using your platform? (42:48) What’s your biggest fear? (51:38) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Charlamagne decided to go to therapy (5:47) Charlmagne’s experience in the prison system (16:49) How Charlamagne’s radio career started (19:20) How Breakfast Club changed Charlamagne’s life (35:55) What made Charlamagne change his life mission (44:02) How keeping a journal of the things that cause anxiety can help (48:15) How to have healthy boundaries on social media (55:44) 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 721 with New York Times bestselling author Charlamagne the God. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Plato said, "Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety." And Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, and faith looks up." We've got an important interview today with Charlamagne the God, who is best known for being the co-host of the nationally syndicated hip-hop iHeartRadio program called The Breakfast Club. He is also a massive social media influencer and executive producer with his own production company, See the God World, and co-host of the popular podcast Brilliant Idiots. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It,

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  and the new book, Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me. And in this interview, we go deep, guys. We talk about how his struggles with anxiety and mental health led him to want to start opening up and writing about this book and doing therapy. Also, why men need to take off their mask and talk about mental health more. He discusses the pressures that social media tends to have on us and what it does to us, and how to be authentic and true to yourself when the odds are stacked up against you. It's going to be a powerful one. It's going to shake you up in a powerful way. Make sure to take a screenshot of this right now, tag me @lewishowes, @charlamagne thegod on Instagram,

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  and let us know what you enjoyed most about this interview while you're listening to it. Big thank you again to our sponsors, and I'm excited about this one because we dive in deep right away. And no matter what you're dealing with, I want to let you know that you're not alone. There are people that can support you. It's time to open up and share with other people and not allow anxiety or depression to to make you suffer in pain anymore. Start talking about it and I think you'll be a lot more inspired after listening to this interview with the one and only Shah the God.

• 2:37Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got my man, Charlamagne the God.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Louis.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  In the house.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  What's up, my brother? Thank you for having me, man.

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  Glad you're here. Gary Vee connected us about a year ago, I think, when your last book, Black Privilege, came out.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51Lewis Howes?

  And we tried to make it happen, but then you were running around the world and selling millions of books. And we made it happen now.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yes, man. Finally, I mean, I feel like, you know, I believe in divine, God's divine timing.

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, timing.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything happens when it's supposed to happen.

• 3:04Lewis Howes?

  And this book is awesome, man. It's called Shook One, Anxiety Playing Tricks On Me. Make sure you guys pick it up right now. Powerful stuff. I mean, you opened up in a big way in this. You talk about anxieties and fears and insecurities and all sorts of things. Masculinity and what it means to be a man. I mean, everywhere you go there.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I feel like it's weird, man. I turned 40 this year.

• 3:24Lewis Howes?

  Forty?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I started going to like therapy last year because I just was starting to get overwhelmed and I was starting to question everything and.

• 3:34Lewis Howes?

  What were you questioning?

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Just life in general, you know? I was doing, I was guilting myself a lot, like a lot of, why am I here? Why am I who I am? Why did I, why am I so blessed? You know, I don't, I don't have any college degrees. I don't necessarily have a particular skill set. Like my mother was a teacher growing up that made $30,000 a year. My father did construction. I grew up in a single wide trailer in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, on a dirt road. And the only reason I'm in the position I am is because I believed I could be here. But then it's gotta be a little bit more than that, right? And then like everything feels so surreal. And I think that I'm so used to.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Pressure, and I'm so used to always being under the gun, so to speak, that when everything felt calm and peaceful and serene.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  When there was no pressure.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  When there was no pressure, I was like, okay, when's the shoe going to dry?

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  What's wrong?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I really was on some Chicken Little, the sky is falling type shit. And you know, I got diagnosed with anxiety nine years ago, but I never did anything to deal with it. And when I go back and I think about all the times I've had panic attacks, anxiety attacks throughout my life, it started when I was probably like nine or 10. And I remember them up until that point in 2009, when the doctor finally said, you have anxiety, you had a panic attack. You know, what's the problem? But I didn't do anything about it. And the reason I didn't do anything about it was because um.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  It's not cool to do that, or it's.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Well, no, it was, alright, two times I've been to the hospital in my life, thinking I was having a heart attack, right? And the first time I went was like 2007. It was the day Pimp C died, Pimp C from U G K, rest in peace, Pimp C. And I'm like a hypochondriac, like I'm the type of person that if I see something happen to somebody, I think it's gonna happen to me. So the day he died and they just found him laid out in a hotel room and they didn't know exactly why he died yet, in my mind, he had a heart attack. So I just was thinking that all day long, I'm gonna have a heart attack, I'm gonna have a heart attack, I'm gonna have a heart attack.

• 5:41Lewis Howes?

  Too real though.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:43Lewis Howes?

  A panic attack.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:44Lewis Howes?

  Anxiety attack, yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  So I checked myself into the emergency room.

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  The doctor checked my heart, the EKG and all of that. And he's like, yo, you're fine, you got an athlete's heart. And he was like, do you have anxiety? It sounded like you had a panic attack. And I was like, no. And he was like, did you have any caffeine or energy drink? I said, oh, I had a Red Bull earlier. So I blamed it on the Red Bull.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  That was your excuse, yeah, yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Then two years later, I had just gotten fired from my fourth radio gig. So I'm like 31, 32 years old, I'm back living at home with my mom. My daughter's like two, my now wife is back living at home with her parents. And I remember just driving down Interstate in South Carolina, I-26, and just feeling like I was having another heart attack.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  And like I went to the hospital and same thing, you got an athlete's heart. Yo, do you have anxiety? No. Sound like you had a panic attack. Well, no, I don't think that's what you stressed out about anything. I'm like, hell, yeah. So, once again, I could point to something else. I got fired, I lost my job, I was thinking about my kids. Yes, but then, so in my mind, I'm like, all I gotta do is get back in position. Get another radio job. I'll be fine. Everything will be fine. But that happens. Life turns out great. New York Times bestselling author, nationally syndicated radio personality. Daughters are great. Life is good, but I still feel like it's about to be a home invasion. When was this? In my house. This was last year. Last year? Yeah, last year, like, last year. I mean, it's been getting overwhelming the past couple of years.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  But, I mean, there's a lot of fat reasons for that, though. Like, I'm the guy who has almost been jumped in front of the radio station. Dudes walk up on me with the camera, punch me in the back of the head just to try to embarrass me because they feel like I'm always trying to embarrass people on radio. I go across the street to the ATM to get some money out the ATM and me and a dude get into a fight. Dude just walks up on me and swings on me for no reason. Getting in altercations with different rappers when we're out and about. So, it's just like, that level of PTSD was developed for a certain reason. But then you put that on top of the PTSD of just growing up selling crack and getting guns pulled on you and getting in fights in the hood, like, that never, ever, ever leaves you, like, never. What's that feeling? Is it kind of like you're always having to look behind you to see what's happening?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Always. I mean, imagine, imagine going to the Walgreens, leaving the Walgreens, driving, hearing bass. Looking in your rearview mirror, it's a car behind you. And you stop at the light and immediately you're looking in this mirror, you're looking in that mirror. You're looking to make sure ain't nobody running up on the side of your car. And then you pull off and then the car gets on the side of you just because it's trying to pass you. And you're, in my mind, I'm bracing myself, like, oh, my God, here come the gunshots. And that's based off- It's just a normal car. It was freaking logic. Not really logic, but somebody that looks like, some kid that looks like logic, just driving, you know, playing his music, minding his business. Just sitting there, no care, just like having fun, yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  But I've had dreams where people pulled up on the side of me and shot at me. And, you know, I've had guns pulled on me in real life. Wow. And like, you know, when you looking at social media every day and people are telling you, "I'm gonna kill you." I wish you'd die. Oh, all the time. Like, that's happened, that happens constantly. So somewhere in my mind, my brain just got wired to think that the worst was going to happen. Like, this gotta be all a dream. Like, life can't be this sweet, you know?

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  What if life could be this sweet? And what if people weren't out to get you, but they were out to support you? And what if they were here to protect you and lift you up and celebrate you?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Those people are there, you know? But one thing that I've always spoken to my therapist about is the fact that, why do we focus on the negative? I don't know. It's something I'm trying to rewire my brain to do. Like, we focus on the negative. You're absolutely right. Like, it's people that love me and support me, pray for me, you know? Tell me, I got friends that always, like, I'm constantly lifting you up in prayer. And I'm lifting them up in prayer. So they are there for me, but for some reason, human beings, we tend to gravitate towards the negative instead of the positive. And that's, that's the weird part for me. And that's why anxiety is so dangerous for somebody like me, because I truly believe your thoughts become things.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  And I feel like the things that I want to happen in my life, I constantly think about. The things that I don't want to happen, I try not to think about at all. But that negativity is constantly bombarding your brain. That negativity is constantly filling your brain. And that's what causes me to have panic attacks, because I feel like if I hold on to this negativity too much, I think about it too much, then eventually, I'm gonna make this negativity manifest.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, like you have in the past, by going to the emergency room twice.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Stressing out.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Stressing out, yeah, yeah. Letting all that cortisol off in your body, you know what I'm saying?

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  A lot of stress.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  So what have you done in the last year since you've learned about this and really dove into it? Through therapy, through practice, through, I'm assuming you might have some type of meditation practice or awareness practice now? What are, what are the tools you've learned to support you and not having it take your body over and your mind over, but actually letting it go?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Therapy has been the best thing for me. And the reason therapy has been the best thing for me is because therapy, to me, is like... Like you got like this real junky closet. And like you take boxes into your closet because some things you gotta pack up for goodwill and just get rid of them.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? That just don't serve me anymore. Like it'll serve somebody else. And then you take the stuff you do want and you hang it up nice and you fold it neat. And now you even got room for new stuff and you arrange that. So that's what therapy is for me because I just feel like. I just feel like I have forty years of a lot of baggage and forty years of a lot of bullshit. You know, that I never addressed, you know, I suppressed it. I acted like it didn't exist. I've never been afraid to unlearn any BS that I've learned in my life, you know, but I feel like. Sometimes you just gotta take those old blueprints and rip them up and not be afraid to start anew. And that's what I feel like happened from thirty-nine was like the beginning stage of that process, but then like.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Forty hit and I remember, you know, forty, I was on vacation. I was in Anguilla with my family and friends and. You know, I was drunk off some tequila and like my, my wife played this video of like all my friends. Doing like a happy birthday video to me and I'm like crying like, like this, but I could feel. My evolution. I could feel myself going into a new realm spiritually, you know.

• 12:24Lewis Howes?

  At forty, that moment.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was thinking, I was like, yo, did this happen at thirty? Did this happen at twenty? Because I don't remember. But at forty, I absolutely positively felt it. It was like I was exiting. My body and stepping into a new body, just in another dimension. Just that's just the best way I could explain it.

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest lesson you learned in that moment or the biggest awakening in that moment?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  That um, everything I thought I was, I'm not.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  What did you think you were?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  I thought I was fearless. Hmm, your whole life or like the last decade or? My whole life, pretty much. Cause you know, when you hit, when you get those panic attacks and those panic attacks hit you and you know, you can like taste, it's like a taste that anxiety puts in your mouth and you know, the, the shortness of breath and everything, but you still rise to the occasion like you. I got friends that have the type of anxiety that paralyzes them. Cripple them. Cripple them. They not leaving the house, nothing. I have those moments and then I'm like, fuck that, like we gotta, I gotta, I gotta get to it. I always chalk that up to being fearless, but then I realized a lot of things that I've been doing.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I've been doing them because I was scared. Like I feel like my father would always tell me that if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  That scared me. Being in jail, being dead or being broke under the tree gave me a type of anxiety that made me say, I gotta do whatever it is I need to do to be successful. To not be those things. To not be those things and, and I was always wise enough to learn from the mistakes of other people. That's what they say, smart people learn from their own mistakes, wise people learn from the mistakes of others. I was wise enough to learn from the mistakes of other people and you know, just realizing at a very early age that my father was right. When I started to go to jail myself and. Forty-one days, is that right? Yeah, for the, the first time, but then it was just like weekend stints after that. Cause I would just get locked up for selling dope. Like one time me and my pops was locked up together. Cause they stopped him and he had like less than a gram of coke.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  And then they came to search my mom's house and they went to the trash can and found some residue. And it was less than a gram of coke with me. So they had us both sitting in a jail cell. Teenager or you're? Uh, was I? Maybe late teens, early twenties, maybe twenty, twenty-one maybe. It was just like, I had all of these different experiences, man. And it's like, when I started to go to jail and see people around me go to prison and see people around me actually get killed, like that scared me. Those three options scared me, gave me super anxiety, super panic attacks. I refused to be the people, I had older cousins that I thought was so cruel, where they were broke, sitting under the tree, doing nothing with their life. I refused to be that guy.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Like, I would have literal panic attacks, literal anxiety, thinking about-

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  Thinking about that, yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that made me, I'm gonna go get a job. I don't care that I got felonies, I don't care. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Yes, on the application, so what? Never stopped me.

• 15:39Lewis Howes?

  What were the first jobs you got?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  The first job I got was at a company called Industrial Acoustics Company. It was a warehouse. I got fired after about a month. Yeah, I remember the supervisor, her name was Gail Cobb, I'll never forget it. And it was my fault, I was, they had like this big platform in like a field. And I would get on the field, I would get on the, I would get on the platform and act like I was on stage. And just be making the, the, the people I was working with laugh. And I remember one time Gail was just sitting out there, just looking at me. And she called me and then she was like, you know, you don't fit in here, moving in another direction. Alright, cool. Then it was, um, where else did I work? I worked at a, I worked at a flower garden. That was the next job I worked, flower garden. And I worked there for like a week. Like, hell.

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  Hell, yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Hundred and ten degree heat.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  South Carolina, I'm the only black guy damn near. Everybody, all the other black guys are like, like bad, off. Like, maybe crackheads. And then it's a bunch of Mexicans. And then the school buses driving by and they're like, oh, shoot, look at Larry. You know what I mean? Because that's my middle name, but they called me Larry in school. And then I worked at, um, a telemarketing place called Paragon Solutions. I worked at Taco Bell for a couple of weeks, you know? Because my sister was the manager there, so she hired me, fired me after two weeks. I worked at a clothing store in the mall called Demo. And then I stumbled across radio by-

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  How old was I? I'm so bad with that stuff now.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Mid twenties.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  No, it was like ninety-eight. So I might have been twenty, twenty, twenty-one. Yeah.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  Twenty years ago.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I started off as an intern in ninety-eight. Yeah, I started off as an intern in nineteen ninety-eight. And I used to wanna rap.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Like most brothers in the hood. Cuz you know, when you from the hood, the people that you see who look like you are usually black. I mean, usually in athletics or entertainment.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, playing ball or whatever, yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I wanted to rap. I was in this recording studio and I met this dude named Willie Will. And Willie Will was a radio personality in Charleston, South Carolina. So I just asked him. I said, "Yo, how'd you get in the radio?" And he was like, "I went down there and I got an internship." And I was like, "It was that easy?" And he was like, "Yeah." So that's when I went and did it.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  Went and got an internship?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Went and got an internship.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  In South Carolina?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  In South Carolina.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  At like the local radio station?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Z ninety-three jams in South Carolina, South Carolina in nineteen ninety-eight. And I mean, that's how I got my start.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, in radio.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  When was the moment where you felt like I kinda made it in radio? Like I've got my own gig, like they're, they want my opinion. I'm in a bigger station, like things were happening.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  I think I may have felt like that last year. And that's one of the reasons.

• 18:16Lewis Howes?

  Not until last year?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Not until last year. And that's, that's what scared the shit out of me.

• 18:20Lewis Howes?

  Twenty years.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Twenty years.

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  And then you got it in the last year.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I mean, you got, I'm a guy that's been fired four times from radio. I've been fired four times.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  Why you been fired?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  First time, I absolutely deserved it. I was working at Hot ninety-eight-nine in Charleston, South Carolina. I had left Z ninety-three jams, started working at Hot ninety-eight-nine. And truth be told, I was just feeling myself, man. You know what I'm saying? I was a young kid. I was twenty minutes. Yeah, I was twenty minutes from Mouse Corner, which is my hometown. We used to go to the club, ten, fifteen deep. All my boys was still selling dope, so they had the nice cars. And like I was on the radio and we was immortalizing the hood by shouting out the, the, the hood. And it's just like, I was really feeling myself, man. Like to the point where I remember going to this club. Called The Nightlife in Kings Creek, South Carolina. And pulling up to this club and seeing my name on the marquee and being like,

• 19:15Speaker 01

  "Oh shit, my name's on a marquee. Like, I never saw that. Mind you..."

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  You were just a radio guy. You weren't like the artist.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it wasn't like a... Now, when I look, it's not a marquee. It's just like a...

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  It's a sign.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Bullshit sign that you see in front of a juice bar. You know what I'm saying?

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it was like a sign on the ground. It wasn't like the...

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't no huge. It was like small. Yeah. And it said, "Charlamagne the God." And I remember this young lady saying, "I'mma do whatever Charlamagne the God tells me to do." So, they was really treating me like a celebrity celebrity. And I remember that young lady definitely provided groupie love. And it's like, it's like, I remember thinking to myself, "When I got fired, I got fired because of that situation."

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And the reason I felt like I got fired because of that situation is because I felt like God was upset with me because I was misusing the platform he had gave me. Yeah. Yeah, so that was like a very humbling experience for me.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  And the next three times you got fired?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Next time I got hired by the Big DM 101.3 in Columbia, South Carolina, after I got fired from Hot 98.9 in Charleston. I got a mentor. His name is Dr. Robert Evans. Him and his son, DJ Bless, own a record label called Never So Deep Records. But Dr. Robert Evans is such like a well-rounded man because he was a 15-year NYPD veteran on the police force. He was a medical doctor and he was like a millionth-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu. He's still training jiu-jitsu to this day. So, it's like, when I got fired from doing radio, he was just like, "Don't worry about it. We got this." So, I made this CD called Charlamagne the God Concrete Champ. And it was all the artists from Never So Deep with me talking on it. And it was structured like a radio show.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  We started passing that out to all the different radio stations throughout South Carolina. And I ended up getting hired at a radio station in Columbia called The Big DM, which was the biggest station in South Carolina. It was 100,000 watts. So, I worked there. And that's when like I really started to develop the celebrity interview aspect of my game. And then that station went from a urban AC station, I mean, went from a hip-hop and R&B station to a urban AC station. But they bought the competition, which was Hot 103.9 in Columbia, South Carolina. I was working there, Monday through Friday, 7 to midnight. And Wendy Williams was syndicated on that station.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  The Wendy Williams Show?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Wendy Williams Show.

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  Before the talk show.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Before, yeah, before her daytime show.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  She had a radio show, that's right.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  And she was syndicated in Columbia. Her and her husband used to come down and I just used to show them love. Like, you know, we would get them weed, they buy bottles in the club. Like, they would just show love.

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I remember we just built the relationship and they asked me to come to do their... They asked me to come to a party. I'm skipping a lot. I'm skipping one good part.

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Wendy used to come on, she was syndicated.

• 22:09Lewis Howes?

  She used to come on, you used to interview her?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Well, she used to come on before me in the afternoons. I used to come on at nights. My man, who I used to do the night show with, his name was Bill Black, Big Sexy. He left to go to Georgia. So, everybody was like, aight, the night show is eventually gonna be Charlamagne's. What happened was Wendy was syndicated in the afternoon. My then, my program director at the time, he was on in the afternoon. He hated that they moved him. And nobody was really feeling Wendy in the afternoon at the time. So, people complained. They ended up moving Wendy's time slot to 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM. I used to love listening to the show because it was big market radio. I didn't get that. This was before the internet, so to speak. I mean, internet was there, but you couldn't really like just tune in and listen to shows. So, they started just rerunning the same show over and over. And I was like, why are they keep rerunning the same show?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  So, I didn't know if it was coming from New York or if that was something that was happening in South Carolina. So, I called Wendy's husband and told him. And he was like, really? And he was like, I'm coming down. He came down, heard it for himself, went back to New York, raised hell with them. And then, it was a club in Columbia, South Carolina. All of this coincides. It was a club in Columbia, South Carolina, where the guy, it was always alleged that the guy was putting date rape drug in girls' drinks. The manager of the club, but nobody could ever prove it.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  So, one time, this girl actually pressed charges on the guy.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So, the guy got arrested. They had his mugshot up on Richland County website. I saw it. I took the mugshot, put it on my MySpace page, wrote this whole thing about how we need to really ask ourselves if we should be supporting this establishment. We've been hearing about this for years. Now, this guy got arrested. The police went to his house. They found that they were drugging the girls' drinks. All of this is in the mugshot in the police report. This guy sues me. The club sues me because they were advertisers of the radio station.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Radio station settles with them for $2,000.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  And demotes me to one day a week on Saturday nights. I was on Monday through Saturday. They demoted me to one day a week, Saturday nights because of that.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Because you spoke up, you shared your voice.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Kev actually heard about it, Wendy's husband, because of another young lady I used to work with at the station named Venom. And so he called me up, but he thought they demoted me because I gave him the information and then repeded my show.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  So he was like, yo, man, come to New York next week. And I'm like, all right. So I got on a plane, me and my boy DJ Frosty. We went to New York and we was in the club with Wendy and Kev. And Wendy was like, yo, Charlamagne, what's up? She was like, yo, come on my show tomorrow. I'm like, excuse me?

• 24:38Lewis Howes?

  The radio show.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Say what? You want me to do what? She's like, come on my show tomorrow. I'm like, you want me to come on your show? Okay, I'll be there.

• 24:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  So you can't tell me stuff like that. I got a DJ Khaled level of annoyance. So I'm calling Kev all next day like, yo, Wendy told me come on her show. Wendy told me come on her show. Wendy told me come on her show. Wendy told me come on the show. He was like, all right, all right, all right. He said, I'm gonna call you right back. He called me back. He's like, go up there right now.

• 24:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  So I go up there and I was there for 25 minutes. And that night Wendy, well Wendy's husband was like, yo, Wendy's looking for a co-host. She's trying to make the transition to television. You know, she don't want no comedian. She wants somebody that's from radio, that's edgy. Like you fit the bill.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  We can't pay you, but we can give you a place to stay. I'm like, cool. Because I recognize opportunity when there's not a paycheck attached to it.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  So I was out on the next thing smoking.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  You were in New York at that moment?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  And you stayed there?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Well, I went back home, you know, got to tell my girl, like, look, this is what it is. And my mindset was, you know, it's my girl. We love each other, so if it's meant to be, it'll be. And we together now with three kids, so it was meant to be. So I moved to New York and I moved to New York and I worked with Wendy for a year and a half. Let me get to my second firing was from the station that I had just left, Hot 103.9. Because they were still letting me do one day a week. But then after about two months of coming back and forth, flying back and forth with Wendy, they told me I couldn't have my cake and eat it too. So that's my second firing, so I'm gone. So I'm working with Wendy. I worked with Wendy for like...

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Two years and a half. Not paid. I didn't get paid for like a year and a half. So I think I was on payroll for like a solid year before I got fired again for the third time. So how were you making money when you worked? I wasn't. I wasn't. I would fly home to South Carolina, do some parties, host some parties, come home with a little pocket change. Hustle on the side, yeah, yeah. That's it. But, I mean, I had a place to stay. That's all I could ask for. Free. Catch the, catch the bus into the city, take advantage of the perks of being Wendy's co-host, getting free clothes. Free food here and there. Free food here and there, you know what I mean? Eventually started. Your van, so that's. Yeah, eventually started hosting parties, you know, doing a little ghostwriting for people and things like that, like as far as like other talent. Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  And that was it. And so I worked with her. I remember I got fired November 2nd, 2008. She fired you? No, what happened was, it was a combination of things. Wendy's assistant at the time, her name was Nicole Spence, good friend of mine to this day, she actually sued Wendy's husband for sexual harassment and making it a hostile work environment and things of that nature. She ended up getting a settlement for that, and I think that that was all backlash. Plus like, it was a new rating system called PPM in the market and, you know, PPM caused Wendy's numbers to drop, you know, so she went from like number one to number like 25 in the market and it was just a combination of things, so

• 27:31Speaker 01

  they just got rid of like Wendy's whole team except for the board out. But they also fired like 20 people from the actual station that day. So it was just kind of like a mass. You were in it. Layoff and I was in it. I was out of radio for like six, seven months, but I was cool because my wife had a job and she was holding it down, going to work. My daughter had just been born June of that year. I was home with her. Yeah, you're in South Carolina now, back. Well, I'm, I'm still in Jersey. We still in Jersey at the time. Still in Jersey at the time. Your wife moved up or your girl moved up? Yeah, my girl moved up. I'm, I'm skipping a lot. There's a lot that happened. She had moved to Jersey. She moved to Jersey, yeah. She moved to Jersey. She, she started, first she was living in Brooklyn with her grandma. And then she eventually moved to Jersey when I got put on the payroll and I could afford to get us a little apartment in Jersey.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Wow. And then, um. And then what was the next six months, no work? Six months, no work, being at home with my, my, my baby. Staying afloat by doing the Hood State of the Union web series with my man, Little Duval. That kept my, my name out there. Angelie, who's my now co-host, she would bring me on her satellite radio show and, and have me do stuff on that. And what year is this, this now? This was 2009. So tiny, eight, nine years ago. Yeah, and then Vlad TV, Vlad TV didn't come into play yet, but this is 2009. Yeah, 2008 going into 2009. And then like around April and May of 2009, I got offered the morning show position at 100.3 The Beat. They wanted me to do my own morning show based off. Pretty big. Yeah, based off what they had heard me doing with Wendy.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  And I worked there for like six months, seven months. And I had great ratings. I was like number two in the city and they brought in a new program director named Boogie D. And, um, Boogie D wanted to fire me. But the beauty of the firing was my last interview was with Beanie Siegel. Beanie Siegel had just put out a diss record to Jay-Z and everybody, nobody could believe it. Like this was like the early stages of Twitter, so you know, all of the artists were tweeting like, yo, I never thought I'd see the day Beanie Siegel going in on Jay-Z, yada, yada, yada. So I'm like, damn, I'm on the radio in Philly. K-Slay is playing Beanie Siegel beef record in New York. I gotta get Beanie in the studio tomorrow on the phone. I got him on the phone.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  He called in, that, that, that call's available online on YouTube and he's just going in on Jay-Z and talking about all his issues and problems with Jay-Z and that interview went crazy viral, like super, super, super viral. So much so that Jay-Z was on tour and they asked Jay-Z about it at the press conference for the tour and he had to acknowledge it. And then I come into work that Monday and I get, I hear those infamous words where moving in another direction. You're fired. You're fired, you know, and I'm like. You just had the biggest, most viral interview of the, the country. Yeah, and I had been killing on that station for a while. Like I had been performing on that station. Like I had other viral moments other than that one. So I was like, damn, why am I getting fired? But I didn't trip. I just sent out a tweet like, yo.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Thank you Philly for holding me down the last six, seven months. I appreciate y'all. And you know, by that time, I already had no, I knew the routine. So I did have an office, but I ain't keep nothing in it. You know, because I just never know.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  Never know.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Even now, to this day, that's part of the PTSD of being fired. I don't have an office at The Breakfast Club. Cause I just never know. Not saying, I know that's, that's, I'm, I'm in a much better position now. Much more job security now, but I just, you know, that's just how I felt. And when I sent that tweet out immediately, it was all of these headlines. Did Jay-Z get Charlamagne the God fired?

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's actually probably good for you.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  It was, it was incredible.

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  Because it got so much attention in these radio stations. I want to back this guy. I want to support.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  It was, it just made me larger than life. And I always thought about when Wendy got fired from Hot 97 allegedly by P Diddy. And how that just made her larger than life. And I'm like, I remember doing an interview with Vlad TV in 2009 and just saying, I said on the interview like, man, you know, this is just a game of radio. And one hot second, another radio station is going to come, you know, asking for my services. And this, I said, I don't know if Jay-Z got me fired, but it's going to read great in a book one day.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  And that book is Black Privilege. A New York Times bestseller. You know, so I was fired. I got fired from there. And then I was out of radio for a whole year. That's when I had to move back to South Carolina. Cause I just couldn't afford to live in Jersey. You know, me and my wife, at this point, my wife couldn't fit all the bills anymore. My wife had to go stand in front of the eviction people, you know what I mean? And explain why we couldn't pay the rent and stuff like that. So, and what was so funny, the day I got fired from Philly, I had all my stuff already packed in my truck. Because we were about to move into a townhouse in Philadelphia.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Yes. We were about to literally move into a townhouse in Philadelphia. The day I got fired, I had my stuff in the truck. Cause after I got off the air, I was going to go to the townhouse and start unloading stuff. And I got fired that same exact day. And so, um, we moved back to South Carolina. And that's when I had that major, major, major panic attack. And in my mind, I was just like, yo, as long as I get back in position, I'll be okay. And I ended up getting back in position, which was with The Breakfast Club.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  When did that start?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  November of 2010. So I got fired

• 32:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  around this time in 2009, because it was Halloween. Because I remember I had a Halloween party that Saturday in Philly. So Halloween was the 31st, so I must have got fired on like

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  Like today.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  The 2nd, yeah, like the 1st or the 2nd. Yeah, what's today, the 30th? Yeah. So it had to be, yeah, it had to be. Yeah, I got fired and that's what I'm thinking, I'm trying to think, I'm putting the timeline together. I got fired in Philly. Yeah, and then I started The Breakfast Club around November of 2010. So it was a whole year.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  So you've been there for eight years now?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  It'll be eight years this, this, this December, yeah.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Eight years this November, December.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  It's been a pretty amazing ride, huh?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  It's absolutely been everything. No, I'm lying. It's been more than I ever could imagine it to be.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow, how so?

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Because I always knew that I'd be a nationally syndicated radio personality. When me and Envy and Angela Yee, you know, came together, I remember my man Cadillac Jack asking me, who would I want to do the show with? And I said Angela Yee. I didn't even think of Envy in the equation, but they added Envy in the equation because Envy is like the New York staple, the anchor, you know? And so they put us all together, and I knew we were going to be syndicated. Like, I just knew we were going to be a nationally syndicated radio show. It was just one of those things to where when they put us together and the news of that hit, when the rumors of that started to, started to hit, it was a big, big deal. And the fact that, you know, at the time, they had to fire a legendary radio personality named Ed Lover to make way for us.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  So, you know, they fired Ed Lover, and then they brought us in, and it just became this like huge deal. And we did like a viral video basically saying, whose show is it? Because even though all of us

• 34:39Lewis Howes?

  You're all big personalities.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and all of us come from the background of being co-hosts and sidekicks, but then we've also had our own shows. I had my own morning show in Philly. Angela Yee had her own morning show on Shade 45. And we had his own afternoon show on, on, um, Power 105. So we all came together and did this viral video about whose show is it? And it was like, we were arguing from the beginning. And I remember we put that out, and it got like 700,000 views, some crazy, crazy number of views. And it's just like We just were rolling ever since. You know, we had our, the first year was a little rough. Because they were expecting instant ratings results because of what happened with the viral stuff that we did initially. Like when we first put that video out and everybody got all excited.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  But we didn't have that initial ratings success. You know, that took a while to build and, and get there.

• 35:30Lewis Howes?

  What's the hardest thing working with other big personalities and other, you know, driven people who have their own identities and?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Ego.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  How do you, how do you manage and handle it?

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Hey, you just gotta learn to get out your own way. As much as you think you're always right. And a lot of the times I am. You know, especially when it just comes to content and stuff like that. You have to understand that it's a, a show, a collective group of people. And, and we wanna do different things and you gotta give in order to get, like if it's us three in this room, it's me, you and it's Tiffany. And Tiffany wants to do something and we ignore her every time. And then when we wanna do something, Tiffany's not on board, that's our fault. So we just gotta be on board with each other for certain situations. You know what I mean? If she got the topic she wants to talk about, even if I don't like the topic.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Give it a shot.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  What's the, what's the least that can happen?

• 36:23Lewis Howes?

  You never know, yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  That's all, same thing if Envy wanna talk about something and I don't like the topic, give it a shot. Same thing with me, if they don't like a topic that I brought up, just give it a shot. And I think that that's a formula that's pretty much worked for us.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  You know?

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's been the biggest, uh, lesson you've learned through the last 20 years of doing radio? You got fired from four different places, now you've been at a place for eight years. You've gone through anxiety, PTSD. You talk about struggles of, uh, you know, cheating and other things throughout the book that you talk about, which I thought were really powerful. What do you think has opened up the most for you in the last 20 years?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  I think truly learning what it means to be yourself.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  What's it mean?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Being authentic and true to you. Not authentic based off somebody else's standards of being authentic or being true to what other people think of you. Like, you know, I used to always say, you don't want to become a caricature of yourself. But a lot of times, it's almost impossible, especially if you're reading magazine articles about yourself, or if you're looking at what people say about you on YouTube, or any other social media.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, or looking at what people say they like about you. Oh, I like Charlamagne because he's this and he's that, he's the hip-hop Howard Stern. Or like, you get caught up in that shtick and you start doing dumb shit. Like, you know, that's when you start stimulating masturbation and interviews and talking like really wild and reckless to women and, you know, like.

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Did you do that for a while?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely had a little scratch of that, definitely. I definitely had a scratch of suck a fart out your butt, you know? I definitely had that, that, that.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Mentality, yeah, yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's because that's what I thought people liked.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  And you'd say that?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. Oh, yeah, that was my thing. I had a list, I had a top five list of women who I wanted to suck a fart out their butt. Just because I thought that's what.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  People liked.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  People liked from me. And then, you know, you got your wife checking you like, what are you doing? That's not even who you are, and you're disrespecting me.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  And, you know, you're like, ah, man, I'm getting, I'm, I'm, we gotta get this money. And then you think like.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Ratings and for the show.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you're like, have I become that person? Have I become that person who is motivated by ratings and money and whatever else? And you think you're being yourself, like you really truly think you're being yourself. You're not. You're being a caricature of yourself. You're being, you're being what you think people want you to be. Like, you're wearing a mask, you know?

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  A mask of masculinity, yeah.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's just like three, I can't wait to read that, by the way. So it's like three or four, three or four years ago, I just realized I was moving all the way wrong. You know, yeah.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  When, what brought you that awareness? Was it your wife? Was it just other people saying stuff to you and saying, hey, man, this isn't you?

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Combination, combination of all that.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  You're just not feeling good inside?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Not feeling good inside, wife on my ass, homegirls of mine, like, what's up with you?

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Different on radio than you are, yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Exactly, you know, and I'm like, huh. And then you start to sit back and, you know, maybe, maybe just watching my daughter get older and, you know, having another daughter and realizing like, you know, you gotta be the change that you wanna see in the world for your, for your little girls, you know, I don't want my daughters to see me in studio doing this. Like, they're always asking questions, Daddy, what do you do on the radio? What you wanna tell her? You know, I play jerk off simulation game, you know what I'm saying?

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, that's not inspiring.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Exactly. So it's just like, I just started to really realize the power of the platform, which I always knew. I just think I, I got, I got let astray just a, just a little bit.

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  You feel like you're back on track now?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Oh, too much back on track.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  And what's, what's your mission moving forward in using a platform, your platform?

• 40:38Speaker 01

  My mission moving forward is just to empower, like, you know, I, I really feel like your true purpose in life is service to others. I feel like I'm a public servant.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  That's it, man.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? That's like, that's the only reason I'm here. Like, I'm not here for anything else. I'm not here for money, I'm not here for fame, like, don't get me wrong, there's things that I want to do. Like, I can't wait to host a late night talk show on network television one day. I feel like I'm gonna definitely be in that space. Like, there hasn't been a black guy doing that since Arsenio Hall. I feel like I'm gonna definitely be in that space. But right now, I have all the means and the resources to empower people. Like, I love it. Like, I love bringing new voices on The Breakfast Club that people haven't heard of, or voices that are really dope and helping them elevate their voice, whether it's music, whether it's comedy, whether it's, you know, civil rights activism, whether it's business. Like, I just love empowering people. That's what gets me off. Like, I'm not even gonna front.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Like, I love executive producing these TV shows and saying, yo, let's hire her, let's hire him. You know, I, I, I live for that. Like, I can't even tell you how much of a thrill I get from doing that. So I just feel like from, from here on out, my mission is service to others. That's what truly makes me feel good. Like, I like helping people. I like... Giving to people, that's what makes me feel good.

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's powerful. I think more people need to do that. Mental health, when did you start to really think that like, okay, I need to take control of mental health and start talking about it more and start embracing it and not think of it as something as like weak, but as something that's powerful for yourself?

• 42:13Speaker 01

  This year.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Because last year, when I started the journey that became this book, I did not set-

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  This current book or the last one?

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Current book, shook on, Anxiety Playing Tricks On Me. My first book came out April of 2017, Black Privilege.

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Um, instant, instant New York Times Bestseller.

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  You were doing a tour.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  It was like seven weeks.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Thousands of people at your tour stops.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  You're seeing that, it was crazy, man.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  And that's what got me so overwhelmed, because I remember being here in L.A. And, you know, feeling like, okay, I'm gonna smoke me some indica, take this edge off. It ended up being sativa, and the sativa made my anxiety go through the roof. So I'm like laying in this hotel room, literally shaking, like, I'm talking about like-

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  You were literally-

• 42:57Speaker 01

  I could not stop shaking, like, and I just was thinking all the worst thoughts in the world, I'm gonna overdose off marijuana. I just got on the New York Times Bestsellers list, people are gonna be saying, this stupid motherfucker just started to achieve a a different level of success, and look at him, already overdosed on drugs in L.A. And I'm like, you're not famous enough to overdose on drugs in L.A. Like, you're not gonna trend on Twitter, like dumb shit.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  That's what your mind is thinking.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Oh, it's going crazy, and I would like fall asleep and feel like these black shadowy hands was reaching up to grab me and pull me down, and I would jump up in a cold sweat, and my wife was high too, and she was laughing at me. And my wife was-

• 43:34Lewis Howes?

  You were scared.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my wife was like, you're not about to start running around naked on some Martin Lawrence shit right now, I was like, I don't know, so I got dressed, put all my, I put my Timbs on, I'm laying in the bed, and it's just like I had this massive anxiety attack, and I was like, yo, why do I feel this way? And that's when I started to question everything, I started to question all my success, I started to question where I was, I started to question, am I truly putting the right energy out there? Am I really using my platform the way I need to use my platform? And I remember being on vacation in June. And I was so happy to take vacation because I just had this whirlwind book tour. This is like literally what I'm about to do now. I'm this whirlwind book tour and then we're going right into the holidays and I'm done. I'm shutting down. Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  You know, so I'm going to, I'm going to Thanksgiving, South Carolina, then I'm going to Africa in the beginning of December, and I'm going to Angola at the end of December. So just sitting around questioning everything and I'm on vacation and I'm sitting by the pool and all my family and friends are there and I'm getting a haircut and Jay-Z 444 album is playing and I'm sitting there and I just all of a sudden felt a calmness. I felt a moment of peace. I felt serenity like I haven't felt in a while. No anxiety, no worry, no stress, no nothing. I know where everybody's at. We're on an island. Life is good. My nieces, my sisters, everybody, life is good. Wow.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  And I said to myself, how can I feel like this all the time? Yeah. And it popped in my head, therapy. Wow. You've been flirting with the idea of therapy for so long. You've been talking to all your friends about therapy and your friends have been telling you the benefits of therapy and you've been getting all of these signs that you should go to therapy and your wife told you to go to therapy. Why haven't you gone to therapy yet? So that's when I started the process of finding a therapist and I found me a therapist and I was writing down everything that was making me anxious. Wow. Everything that historically had given me anxiety. And then when you're talking to a therapist, you know, they used to start talking about your, the source of your PTSD and... The root of it all. The root of it all, the root of, you know, old traumas that happened to you when you were young.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  And like, like all of this stuff is, is unpacking itself and, you know, I love my father, but then I hate my father. I mean, therapists make me hate my father and I love my father and like all of that is, is happening over and over and over and over. And, um... I just started like keeping a journal, basically. And then next thing you know, I've written all of these things out that worry me, from parental paranoia about my kids to social media anxiety, to fear of failure, to fear of not, you know, being connected to my roots in my hometown anymore. Like I'm outgrowing my friends, we don't got nothing in common, we don't got nothing to talk about. Like all of this stuff that gives me really bad anxiety and causes me to go on these weird panic attacks.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Like I was keeping a journal of all of that stuff. I started talking to my man Chris Moreau and then like my business partner. And I was like, yo, I think I want to write about my anxiety. I just want to write, I want to write about all of this stuff I'm learning in therapy. I think that would be really dope. And I remember Chris just saying like, this is a book about mental health.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I didn't even know anxiety was considered a mental health issue. I didn't know PTSD was considered a mental health issue. When you think of mental health, you think of schizophrenia and bipolar and stuff like that. Like I had no idea this stuff was under the mental health umbrella. And so when that started to take shape like that, I was like, yo, we got to reach out to the experts. Cause I'm not an expert at anything. I'm just a man with some experiences. And I was trying to transcribe what my therapist was telling me, but it wasn't coming out right. I felt like what she was telling me was for me.

• 47:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not for everyone.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was able to explain my feelings better because of what she was telling me. But I couldn't give any diagnosis for anyone. So I brought in this brother named Dr. Ish Major, who's a black man, mental health therapist, graduated from the University of South Carolina. And he does the clinical correlations at the end of every chapter. So I didn't set out to write a book about mental health. It's just something that took shape and now I see the need for it. And being that I see the need for it, I guess I've become like a unofficial advocate.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like, you know, before this year, that it was a weak thing to talk about mental health and your insecurities and your anxieties? Or is it a non-cool thing coming from where you come from? Or are you just supposed to suck it up and deal with it and handle it?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Definitely coming from where you come from, you're supposed to suck it up, deal with it and handle it. But you're only supposed to suck it up, deal with it and handle it because you don't know what it is. So you don't think that you're actually just, you don't, you don't, you wouldn't say suck up, suck it up, deal with it when it comes to depression and anxiety. You know what I'm saying? If you knew that's what it was. But you're saying suck it up, deal with it to whatever pressures you think you're facing in the street. You know, that's where the whole acronym for fear comes into play. Fear, you either fear everything and run or face everything and rise. My homegirl Kate Fox told me that. So it's like, so that's what we do in the hood. Like in the hood, like you kind of don't have a choice. But then I think about times where I definitely ran. If I knew I owed somebody some money or like I can remember times,

• 48:51Speaker 01

  I'd be walking down my dirt road, doing nothing but minding my business. See one of my homeboys all the way down the dirt road, have a panic attack about whatever it is that he was going to try to make me get into that day and go hide in the cornfield.

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  I'd go hide in the woods so he would pass. You know what I'm saying? Just because I didn't want the interaction, like I didn't, I didn't want to be bothered.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  Get in that trouble or whatever, yeah.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I feel like, you know, like I said, I didn't, I didn't plan to write a mental health book. It's just something that happens and I feel like it's something that's actually bigger than me.

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's your biggest insecurity and fear now?

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Biggest fear is, I don't even like to talk about it, but in only reason I don't like to talk about it because I don't like to manifest that energy, but it's my, anything, something happening to my kids and my wife.

• 49:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I see those stupid stories about human trafficking and, you know, you, school shootings and dumb stuff like that, like I hate it. I would hate to grow up in this era if I was a kid, you know? So I just got to protect my, my baby as best I can. That's my biggest.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  Fear.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Fear.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  And personal insecurity?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Personal insecurity, I definitely would still, I'm still, still trying not to deal with the opinions of others. And it's not even the opinions of others when it comes to how they feel about me. I just like stu-, I hate stupidity. You know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes you open up social media and you can tell, you didn't do no research to what the [BLEEP] it is you're talking about. I know, man. You know what I mean? Like, like, I literally had somebody tweet me yesterday because I did an interview with BuzzFeed, I think it was, and BuzzFeed asked me about Kanye West, and I said that I feel like we should have more empathy towards people who have told us that they're going through mental health issues. And I broke down the thing with Kanye, and I talked about how Kanye

• 50:42Speaker 01

  went from embracing the fact he was bipolar to now saying, you know, he got sleep deprivation, and that's why he's off his medication and things of that nature. And I'm like, yo, I wonder if, I feel like Kanye did that because everybody gave him so much backlash. When he initially came out and said he was bipolar and he was on medication and all that kind of stuff like that. I feel like he didn't like the response from that, so that's why he backtracked and said, yo, I'm not that. So I was like, yo, we're reinforcing stigmas when we have a lack of empathy. And I'm not saying you gotta agree with anything that he's doing. I'm just saying, like, we gotta take a lot of this with a grain of salt, because this is a brother who was adamant about being bipolar,

• 51:24Speaker 01

  adamant about being on medication, to it was just sleep deprivation, I'm not on medication anymore. And we're watching demonic behavior. So it's like, yo, let's all be a little bit more easy when it comes to talking about Empathy, yeah. our guy, and, and, and anybody dealing with that. And like, the headline said, Charlamagne said we should be more, have more empathy for Kanye West. And this guy tweets me and is like, You want to have empathy for a guy who literally said he's not even bipolar anymore? What does that have to do with his political views? I'm like, you didn't even read the fucking article. Because I addressed all of that in the article verbatim. You didn't even read it. Then when I said that to him, because I can't resist. My thumbs couldn't.

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  You gotta let it go, man.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  I had to let it go. I know, I gotta let it go, but I had to. I couldn't resist. I was like, you didn't even read the headline.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  And then it was like a whole...

• 52:13Speaker 01

  He sent one more tweet and I didn't reply back to him. He said back, "I didn't read the headline because I've never liked your aura." Get the man, shut the... You know what I'm saying? Like, that don't even make any sense to me.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  So it's like, I just responded back like, you know, the most intelligent amongst us have been made to look stupid because of headline culture.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  You know, and that's that for me. I don't pay him no attention anymore. So that's my biggest insecurity is like the stupidity of people and how they can make me question myself.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  Your intentions, your... yeah.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I hear you. I just try to not look at that stuff.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  It's hard, man.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  So hard, because I want to defend myself. I want to like tell him, well, this is what really happened, or this is what it mean. It's tough.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  We're in a verbally abusive relationship with our smartphones.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  We're in a verbally abusive relationship with social media. You wouldn't let anybody yell at you, scream at you, berate you, talk down to you, tell you that you ain't shit the way we allow people to do it on social media. You wouldn't allow that in your workplace. You wouldn't allow that at home. You wouldn't allow that in a personal relationship. So what is the reasoning that we allow it from our phones? And I have yet to figure it out. My therapist, and she pisses me off when she says this, because she'll be like, "Could you just put the phone away?" And I'm like, "I pay you $150 an hour for you to just state the obvious to me." Like, I know I can put my phone away.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  But I do feel like in the future, it's gonna be, we're gonna see the ramifications of smartphones on our mental health.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  PTSD from being on smartphones six, eight hours a day.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Listen, I get attacked on social media all the time. Like, every few months, they canceling me for something. Like, I get attacked. And that shit does not feel good. You know what I'm saying? You know, even sometimes I call it on myself.

• 54:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  And I'm like...

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  Investigate it, yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I take the L's on that one, but then sometimes it's just like, people be making up stuff. Like, literally, like, they've been tweeting me two nude pictures of me that's not me.

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  New pictures, yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  For years. Like whenever I say something they don't like, they be like, "Explain this." And I be like, "I have no idea why you have this naked man in your phone, looking at the camera with his ass in the air." You know, just because he's bald headed and brown skin doesn't mean that's me. Like you can clearly look at the pictures and say, "That's not me." It's an HD picture. It's not even pixelated. Like, you can tell that's not me. But they don't care.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Nobody cares about the truth and the lies more entertaining.

• 54:41Lewis Howes?

  The lies more entertaining.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. They don't care about what the truth is. So it's just hard to navigate yourself through those murky waters of social media. And you know, if I was a 14-year-old kid and I had to like constantly be perfect, because social media gives off this, it paints this false picture of perfection.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  You know, where, where, where everybody's saying the right thing and doing the right thing. And Pastor Steven Frederick said, "It's everybody's highlight reel."

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  You never see the shocks anybody misses. You never see any of the setbacks, the losses, none of that. I think that that right there would drive me crazy. But then the fact that they're taking that virtual reality and trying to bring it into the real world, and everybody's walking around and not trying to give off like the perception of truth anymore, like real truth, like who you really are. People are afraid to talk about the mistakes they've made. Because they think they're gonna be judged for them. And like, people are actually losing opportunities because of mistakes they made in the past. And even speaking on it now, like, you know how I learned? I learned from listening to everybody else fuck up.

• 55:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  That's why God allowed a certain, some of us to go through those experiences and not be afraid to share them, so other people can learn. And it's like, yo, they're not allowing people to do that anymore. So if I was a 14-year-old kid and I had to force myself to be perfect all the time, I'd probably kill myself as soon as I make one mistake.

• 56:05Lewis Howes?

  Stressful.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  I feel so inferior. Everybody perfect on social media, everybody trying to act perfect in the real world. I make one mistake, I don't deserve to be here.

• 56:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow, and that's why we're seeing a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety for kids.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  Got three final questions for you, but you talk a lot about your mistakes, a lot about the lessons you've learned, a lot about your mess ups in all areas of your life, which I thought are really cool and how you open up. In this book, make sure you guys get it, it's called Shook One, Anxiety Playing Tricks On Me, really inspiring. Get a copy for your friends as well, give it out to them as a gift, I think it'll help a lot of people. Three final questions I have for you, and make sure to follow you at, what is it?

• 56:42Speaker 01

  At C H. At C the God.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  C the God on.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  C T H A G O D.

• 56:46Lewis Howes?

  On Instagram.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and Breakfast Club.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  At Breakfast Club AM is all our Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff like that, YouTube page.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  The three questions that I hope that are the final ones, because I gotta respect your time. One is, if you could have any dream to create the life you want moving forward, any type of career, I heard you say like late night talk show host, like what would be the exact thing you could have? If you could manifest anything in your career for as long as you want it to be, what would that be?

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Exactly what I'm building right now, a multimedia conglomerate, because Malcolm X said, the person who controls the media controls the minds of the masses. And I just feel like I wanna put all the positive, you know, energy out into the universe via people, people who have great stories to tell, who have great stories that people can learn from, you know, the experts in various fields. I feel like I'm doing that now slowly but surely, you know, I have a lot of different things under my umbrella, you know. My man Noriega, we got his show On The Run Eating, which is like, he's just a black Puerto Rican guy with his crew, going from state to state, restaurant to restaurant, eating with your favorite celebrities.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  I have a documentary coming out with my man Bakari Sellers, you know, called As I Breathe, As I Breathe I Hope, or As I Hope I Breathe. Either way, it's a great documentary. And it just played at New Orleans Film Festival. And it's playing at the New York Documentary Film Festival coming real soon. And I mean, I got other projects. I got scripted projects that I've developed. We got a movie coming out on November 2nd called Body. That I'm a consultant producer in and I'm starring. It's produced by Eminem. And it's a movie about battle rap, but it's actually just exploring freedom of speech. So yeah, I'm building this conglomerate and I know eventually that'll turn into my own late night television show, which will become a staple in the culture.

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  You know, and they'll be like, wow, it's a black guy on late night network television now.

• 58:49Lewis Howes?

  Can't wait to watch it.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's just like, that would be my ultimate career thing is multimedia, you know? Books, podcasts, radio.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  TV.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  TV.

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  And not even just me being on these platforms, just creating these platforms to be able to empower other voices.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  I like it, man. That's powerful. The second question I have for you is, it's called the three truths. I ask this to everyone at the end. Imagine you've done all that. You've done everything you want to do, everything you dream of has happened, as I believe it will for you. You get to choose the day that's your last day on earth. As many years as where you want it to be, it could be hundreds of years, whatever you decide, but you gotta pick a day eventually that this is the last day. Hypothetical. You go back to your roots. You go back into the radio station one last time to share one final message. And these would be your three truths. And all the work you've created, you've got to take with you when you leave. So no one has access to the content you've created in the past.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  But you get to flip on the final radio switch button, whatever it is at the time. You got the mic out in front of you and seven billion people put on headphones. And they get to hear your final words. Your final three lessons you'd share with the world, your three truths. What would you say on the mic?

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  My three truths? Wow, I think that I would tell everybody that I hope I served you all well. I hope that I impacted you all in a positive way. For those I impacted in a negative way, don't die feeling that way about me. Cause I'm not about to die feeling that way about you. I've let my hurt go, you should let your hurt go too.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  And then I'm gonna tell everybody to keep God first, stay humble,

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  and keep working. Cause that's all I ever did, and now I'm about to clock out.

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  I like it, simple.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:01:05Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Well, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, my man, because it's been fun to watch your, your career over the last year since Gary introduced us, because I didn't know who you were before that about a year ago. And it's inspiring to see your evolution of impacting people and using your platform for, for a positive message. And really, because there's so many kids out there, people listening that look up to you, and they mirror you and the actions you take and the message you say. So for you putting out content like this, when it's probably not the most popular thing or cool thing to do, or whatever it may be, is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for putting yourself out there in a big way and showing up every single day, man.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know what's so funny about that content? They, they'll give you flack for that as well.

• 1:01:48Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Another thing I've, I've learned in my life is that when you're in this position, nobody thinks anything you do is genuine.

• 1:01:55Lewis Howes?

  No. Oh, you're doing this for this reason, you're doing it for...

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Exactly, like I literally saw somebody tweet yesterday, Charlamagne the God is doing with mental health what Kim Kardashian is doing with criminal justice reform or prison reform. And I'm like... Really? And then they were like, he needs to bring such and such and such and such on his platform and help elevate their voices. One of the guys already had on my platform.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Talking about mental health a couple of years ago. So you weren't paying attention. Then I said to her, because I couldn't resist.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Here's a link.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  I said to her, he came on my show already. And number two, so I'm supposed to not talk about my anxiety? I'm supposed to not talk about my experiences with therapy just because I'm who I am? That makes zero sense to me. Once again, I am only here because God has allowed me to experience some things. So I can use that experience to teach other people. Like, I truly believe that. So I kind of fell into this situation. Because I really feel like this whole situation is bigger than me. But the universe is conspiring for us to have this conversation. And I'm here to have it.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. What's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about you?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  I'm proud of being a good father and a good husband. You know, I know this may sound crazy, but it feels good to say. I haven't cheated on my wife in three years. You know, my wife and I have been together 20 years, though.

• 1:03:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  And like, we've been together since we was high school sweethearts. And I mean, she's cheated on me, she's done dirt, you know? And I've done dirt. I just did my dirt most recently.

• 1:03:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  And I think it's a number of reasons for that. Like, you know, just like with anything else. Like, Chris Rock told me one time, Chris Rock said, yo, every superhero is going to test his superpowers. So just like 20 years ago, when I was in Charleston, South Carolina, and I saw my name on that marquee, even though I'm not gassed up like I was back then. 20 years later, when you in a different position and, you know, it's women that you've looked at your whole life on TV or whatever, music videos.

• 1:04:01Lewis Howes?

  Now you have an opportunity.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Man.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Bruh, I got, what do you want from me? What's I already say, what more do you want from me? Like, but you realize, man, none of that is nothing at the end of the day. Yeah. You do it, it's done, and now you're like, man, I gotta go home. And I wanna be home. And so like, I live vicariously through a lot of my homeboys now. And it's like, their life is too stressful, bro. Like, I don't like- You don't need another anxiety attack. No, I, like, you ever, you ever, I wake up in the middle of the night, you listening to yelling in the hallway, I'm like, what the hell is going on? You hear one of your boy's voice and you just peek out the door and you see him and a girl. I'm, I'm not leaving. I'm not like, who got time for that? Yeah. It gets exhausting. It's stressful.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Like, I like being forty and being at home with my wife and my kids. I like finding new ways to love my wife. I like finding new ways to keep our relationship exciting. You know what I mean? Like, that is what makes me feel like a man nowadays. That's why I talk about in the book, you know, and that's why I can't wait to read your book, The Mask of Masculinity, cuz that whole definition of masculinity is trash. Like, what does that even mean? Every way they taught us how to be a man was absolutely wrong. And that's why it's a Me Too Time's Up movement right now. And we're lying to ourselves as men if we're not saying we caused that. You know what I'm saying? We are the ones that put women in those positions,

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  that, that, that put women in those threatening positions, positions all of these years. And the best apology is change behavior. So it's just like, everything I think of when it comes to being a man was absolutely wrong. And I, I, I know for a fact I was just feeding my ego. Yeah. When I was out there sleeping with a bunch of different women and, and cheating on my wife. So now, you know, I feed my ego in different ways. Cuz we all got an ego. You got your, you know, my man Ryan Holiday is up there holding the book. Ego is the enemy, yeah. We all got a, we all got an ego. It's just about what you feed your ego and how you feed your ego. My ego gets fed through service to others. And it's not even about- I love it, man. It's not even about bragging- Yeah. That I'm doing such and such for other people. I know, and that's enough for me. Yeah. You know? That's good.

• 1:06:20Lewis Howes?

  Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness, realizing your full potential as a human being on this planet and finding what makes you happy and doing what genuinely makes you happy. People that are great to me are the people who wake up every day and they love what they do and they do it to the best of their ability. To me, that is the pure definition of greatness. You ever been to Chick-fil-A?

• 1:06:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Are those Chick-fil-A workers not the nicest people you would ever meet in your life?

• 1:06:54Lewis Howes?

  Nice, man.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Those people go to work every day and want to be great.

• 1:06:57Lewis Howes?

  They get a day off every week.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:06:59Lewis Howes?

  Sunday, they get off.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  They get Sunday off.

• 1:07:01Lewis Howes?

  Benefits, probably.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Benefits, I heard. Like whatever it is that Chick-fil-A is offering, people love it and they enjoy it. So it's just like, that's greatness to me. Like, yo, of course you got people that like LeBron James is great at basketball. Drake is great at rap. But I'm talking about, what about the guy at Starbucks?

• 1:07:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Who, your day is better because you're going in there to order your latte or whatever, but he makes your latte just right. You know why? Because he's great at making lattes and he probably enjoys making those lattes for other people. Like, to me, being great is just doing what makes you happy. That's what I, that's my problem with America nowadays. We got this like unreal obsession with celebrity and we think that success and celebrity go hand in hand. Like, we equate success to just celebrity, but that's not the case. It's a guy right now in L.A. making $50,000 a year, $60,000 a year. He got a nice crib and his family's good and, you know, his kids are happy.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  He got food on the table and most importantly, he's happy.

• 1:08:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  He's living a great life. That's greatness to me.

• 1:08:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, Charlamagne, thanks, brother.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Louis, your turn, man.

• 1:08:16Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, brother. Appreciate you for having me, man. Get the book, guys.

• 1:08:25Lewis Howes?

  Big thanks again to my man Charlamagne the God. Again, make sure to check out all of his stuff, check out his book. Follow him on Instagram and on all the places on social media. Make sure to tag me at Lewis Howes and at Char the God over on Instagram. And let us know what you enjoyed most about this. Take a screenshot of this, link it up to your fans on Twitter and Facebook, Instagram, or text a couple of friends that you think would resonate with this message. Again, if you are dealing with something, anxiety, overwhelmed, stress, or any type of suffering emotionally and mentally, you don't need to suffer anymore. I want to remind you this. I want to wake you up in a way, and I hope that you're listening, that you don't need

• 1:09:08Lewis Howes?

  to suffer anymore, that we're all in this together, and that people are here to support you. Even if you feel like you haven't found those people yet, there are people out there that can support you. And I want to let you know that you are fully loved, you are fully worthy, and you are fully enough. I've been through different struggles in my life, through anxiety, overwhelmed, burnout, where I felt like there was no way out. And sometimes those thoughts can lead to darkness, and that darkness can lead to bad decision-making. And I don't want you to lead down that path anymore. I don't want you to think that there's no way out. If you don't feel like there's any friends or any family that supports you, then you

• 1:09:50Lewis Howes?

  can reach out to a therapist, or to a coach, or to a trained expert, a licensed expert who can support you. They are going to be there for you. So I'm sure that you could reach out to someone and they will support you. I mean, talk to a stranger, talk to anyone. Just don't hold it in anymore, because I want to let you know that you're not alone, and you are fully loved. I hope you enjoyed this interview. For me, it's very powerful when we get to open up about these things, the things that sometimes aren't posted about on social media, or aren't talked about at the dinner table, or out at the bar, or out at the club. These things aren't talked about, and I think it's important for us to continue to open

• 1:10:30Lewis Howes?

  up about it privately, small group fashion, and publicly if it resonates with you. Again, big thank you to Charlamagne the God for doing this. Love his work, love what he's up to, love his honesty here. What a powerful moment for us. What a powerful interview. Super grateful for this. Again, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up." Where are you going to be looking? Are you going to be looking back? Looking around? Or looking towards a greater purpose and vision for your life? Start looking outward. Start looking upward. Start focusing on something greater than yourself. And Plato said,

• 1:11:14Lewis Howes?

  "Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety." Nothing. Let the anxiety go. Stop allowing anxiety to cripple you. Stop allowing it to hold you down and hold you back because you were born for so much greater things in your life. You were born to make a bigger impact than to allow anxiety hold you back. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.