From Doubt to Dominance & The Science of Cultivating Confidence EP 1482

The Summit of Greatness is back! Buy your tickets today – summitofgreatness.com – Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi emphasizes the importance of balancing physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. He shares practical techniques for cultivating mindfulness, managing stress, and staying focused in a world filled with distractions. His teachings encourage listeners to reconnect with their inner selves, fostering a sense of purpose and direction. Ed Mylett explains that visualizing success and using affirmations can rewire the subconscious mind, making it more receptive to self-assurance and optimism. He provides practical tips for incorporating these techniques into daily routines. Simon Sinek addresses the role of mindset in cultivating confidence. He encourages listeners to adopt a growth mindset, which entails viewing failures and setbacks as opportunities for learning and improvement. By reframing their perceptions of challenges, individuals can avoid being paralyzed by fear and instead use adversity to fuel their confidence-building journey. Evy Poumpouras’s insights on body language and nonverbal communication as tools for exuding confidence. She provides practical tips on using posture, gestures, and eye contact to convey self-assuredness in various situations, whether it's during public speaking, job interviews, or everyday interactions. In this episode you will learn,4 mindset hacks to gain more confidence. How to take control of negative emotions. The benefits of breathwork in high stress situations to regain confidence and poise. How to visualize the future of your dreams and confidently pursue your greatness. The common traits of all confident and successful leaders. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1482For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Shi Heng Yi’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1428-podEd Mylett’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1274-podSimon Sinek’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1478-podEvy Poumpouras’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1270-pod 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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection. I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josprey Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sanchero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/summit2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  The physical appearance of that laziness, of that dullness, of that heaviness, it's apparent, but why is it there? You are not creating any identity of yours in order to harm. If this is what your initial intention is, then I think the penalty will come.

• 1:20Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:44Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  What was your biggest weakness that you had to overcome? As you started to grow up, you know, studying martial arts, living in the modern world and then becoming, you know, a teacher, a student in the temple? What was the biggest inner enemy that you faced and overcame? Or you're still in the practice of overcoming?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  It seriously is still the five hindrances. Because it is just something common.

• 2:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  So, for example, one of the next hindrances is laziness.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Very easily. The lack of energy. Meaning, you have great ideas, you have great plans, all of this. But the spark to put you under fire is just not there.

• 2:55Lewis Howes?

  Why do so many people lack the spark to act, to launch, to build momentum, to be consistent? Why do so many people lack that? Energy, desire, and stay lazy or dull?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I think it's a combination of the way of life people have lived before and the lack of vision, what lies in front of them. So, both of these things. Yeah, so what I mean by that is, not always, it's just like, let's say, the physical appearance of that laziness, of that dullness, of that heaviness. It's apparent, but why is it there? And this has so many different variations now. When you look into the past, it can really be because of the food that you're eating. Because the lack of movement that you're having.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Because of your habits, whatever type of habits it is, that caused you to now end up in that body, which is at the moment pretty inefficient.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  To generate fire. You know, I have to say, sometimes in my... In my spare time, I I like to build engines. Really? Yeah, I build engines, I I build race engines. Uh huh. And therefore, me, if I look at it, I really like that similarity. You want that engine to perform well. One of the things that then normally needs to be optimized is, number one, airflow, the intake, and then also the amount of the air that gets in there. Hmm. The quality of it. That's why on the engine, we filter it, so, but now it comes to us. What are you breathing in?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  How is it with your lung capacity? How much of your lung capacity are you able to really use?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  How clean are you inside of it? Hmm. Because what is it eventually that with that oxygen that we are taking in? What is it that you are burning and try to make into energy? Now, there are a lot of things that you can eat and try to burn, but the quality of this energy is very little. There is other food, they have a very, very high amount of energy once you burn them.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  So that means, of course, these things, the diet, has an effect also on the dullness of the body. Hmm hmm. This is the one thing. Yeah. And now, looking into the future, well, if you are expecting fast results, this is,

• 5:45Speaker 01

  you know, if looking out into the world, what comes fast, goes fast.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And especially, something that is changing the status quo of your life, your lifestyle, let's say, something that is changing it too quickly.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  It is like, let's just say,

• 6:14Speaker 01

  you know, at the moment, I visit you, I see you like this. In one month, I come back and you might have thirty kilograms more on muscles. I know, whatever you did, it was not good.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  It was too fast.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah? Because all these quick changes, also when we look outside sometimes. I mean, let's just take the earthquake or the tsunamis or a lightning strike. Anything like this, the natural forces.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't tell you one month before that they are coming. The problem is, when they come, they very often have this destructive character. Not always, but often.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  And when it comes now to creating our way of life, when it comes to the transformation of ourself, at least in my worldview, I take this into consideration. Meaning, I don't even expect myself to make huge jumps.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  Quickly, yeah, quickly.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Because I just feel like, okay, that might just not be sustainable. That might not just be something that is helpful on the long run. And therefore, to take pressure away from you, make small steps.

• 7:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And this is what I mean by how far is your view on your future vision of what you wanna achieve there?

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  How far should we be thinking out in terms of our vision or our mission? Is it based on the season of life we're in? You know, if we're eighteen years old and we're going to school, we should just be thinking out, you know, the next four years? Or should we be thinking out five, ten, twenty years? Because so much can change so quickly in life and situations and...

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Okay, I can only talk about myself, yes? And I have to say, I'm a dreamer.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm a dreamer and a visionist. A visionary, probably. I don't know how you call it.

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  Visionary.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Visionary.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  My way of seeing this world where I am embedding in is super huge.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  That's why, of course, you can always say, "Yeah, but this is just your imagination." Yeah, yes, which is your most powerful source. Your ability to put something into your own mind where nobody else has impact on. And only you know that day in, day out, you just still walk this path and feel for yourself how it's getting real because it's unbroken. Because there's nobody who can interfere. It's all small things. And probably, I can just say that maybe to try it out, okay?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Of course, you should not like dream too big, which is like unrealistic. Let's say like this, of course not.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  But the vision that there is something you can bring out about yourself that this world has not seen yet. This is something which is quite appealing to me.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And is therefore also something that I also, let's say,

• 9:43Speaker 01

  continuously practice and keep on the mind.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  And now comes the but. Whatever vision and dream you have upon yourself, that you are projecting upon yourself, I do think that you need to have at the same time a commitment.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  And first, for example, the commitment and what are you going to do with that identity of yours if you're gonna get there?

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  So you mean a commitment of like the daily actions you're gonna take that you're committed to, or once you're there, what are you gonna do with it?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  The commitment now, very clearly.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  You are creating because you want to help.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, to serve.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  To help others, yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  You are not creating any identity of yours in order to harm. Because I think if this is what your initial intention is, then I think, um, the penalty will come.

• 10:53Lewis Howes?

  What if your intention is to only serve yourself? Is to look good, to make money for you, to get famous for you, to buy things for you because you want to be successful.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  But you're not including doing it in the service of other people as well. What happens when it's only about me?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  You might reach it in this lifetime.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  But if you bring this one to the, to an end, or if you continuously go there, not, and in my vision, not only in this lifetime.

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  You're gonna be lonely.

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  You're gonna have everything you want. You're gonna have everything that blinks. You have all the reputation, it's all great, everything you ever dreamt of, you have it. What you don't have is something that gives you real stability. Something that gives you real value in this life.

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  What is that?

• 12:00Speaker 01

  I think it is something that can't be taken off from you.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I think it is the, it is the connection to

• 12:10Speaker 01

  other fellows. It's a connection to people, to humans, to animals, to this world, and ultimately the connection of this life. And what happens with this person if he only lives this way of life? He's gonna repeat himself.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Repeat, why repeat? Or what do I mean by repeating?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Now, I jump a little bit, but sometimes this life seems to me is like a video game. And if you're at level one and continuously fail at level one, you're never gonna move up to level two and get into touch with the next challenges of life.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  So if somebody is still stuck on the material level of wanting this and that's really materialistic. So this is really the basic plane. This is a very, very basic plane. This is like level one.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Sometimes it's necessary. You need to have it first. And then your relationship towards these things starts to shift. And suddenly you find yourself that now it's not these things anymore that start to matter to you. Now suddenly, since you're in level two, now you're starting to ask yourself, okay, now it's not material things anymore, but I love my wife, I love my husband, I love my children, I love my dog, I love the jobs, I love my employees, but they are getting sick, they are starting to die away. This is now starting in level two to trouble you.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  So now it's the time, figure out a way, how do you walk through this lifetime, figuring out these challenges of life that our ancestors, lost people, our future generations are going to lose beloved people. It's nothing new.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  How do you learn despite the fact of that is existing? How can you still find something about yourself to still keep going, stay strong, and still keep going and supporting and helping despite of these things? And then maybe level two, you manage to find a way for yourself.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  And then you're going to be exposed to the next type of challenges that this life is giving to you. So what I'm talking about is that I'm not sure if life is getting easier.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I just think that you are becoming more mature. You are becoming more skillful in order to tackle the challenges of life. I think this is what ultimately, for me at least, seems to me like this.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's learning to become a better leader for yourself. It's developing these skills, overcoming the challenges so that, I think I heard you say like, "Life doesn't get easier, you just get stronger." And you can manage it with more peace and grace as these challenges and pains come to you, right? When do you think is the easiest time in life? When you're younger or when you're older?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  When you're younger. Out of just the fact that you have not learned yet and have not been exposed yet to all of these adult ideas of what you're supposed to do with your life.

• 16:05Lewis Howes?

  How do you manage the level that you're at now? I'm not sure what level you're in in the video game. Is it level seven or 28 right now for you? But how do you manage this level? Where you're stepping into new seasons, new decade, you know, of the material number of the world you're in? The platform that you're building around the world globally? How do you step into that?

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  And master it?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  I think before, we talked about it already a little bit.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  That within the last three years, four years,

• 16:47Speaker 01

  I could really witness in a way how like this type of teachings, or let's say my name was really spread out into the world and more and more people starting to also participate in listening to what is it that is being shared out, for example?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  And at the same time, I can also feel that...

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Everything I have to say, everything that I like shared. The reason why I could share all of these things is because the first thirty-five years before that, I was not the talker at all. There couldn't be any more quiet person than me. So I was very... Really? Yes. Until when? When did you start using your voice?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I think it happened in the moment where people asked me to explain what I'm doing.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, and then I just said, "Look, I'm not just doing like my punch. This is not punching for me." So in the martial arts, for example. I started to explain, for example. The punch is not just for me something, let's say, physical. It has also something to do, what are you doing to prepare inside of you before you throw out that punch? Because if you throw out something, if something moves outwards, the question for me is, where does it get in? Because if you throw out punches, five hundred punches every day, you just throw them out, where do you get the energy from to throw five hundred things out? And now, different ways how you can express it.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  But for me, coming from this field of martial arts, where the yin yang symbol does matter and also does matter why it is around.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Means for me, I started to explain.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  If you wanna throw a punch, there are different ways how to throw it. If you have a lot of mess already on yourself, you probably can just use straight line movements, no issue at all. But if you look at me, small Asian, I have to compensate for the lack of mess somehow. And therefore, I need to use another method. I need to use different methods to compensate for the lack of mess that I have in comparison to other people. So, and suddenly, out of a question, "How do you punch?", starts the talking discussion. Yeah, and honestly, I think this is where the beginning lies. Where then people found it interesting.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  That apparently there's a whole philosophy just behind like a punch. And I said, yes.

• 19:30Lewis Howes?

  How did you, I can resonate with the fact that, you know, you were shy most of your life, right? You didn't, you didn't speak that much, you didn't use your voice as much, you were more introverted with your voice, is that correct?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  So, how did you have the confidence and learn that skill of confidence to use your voice? When you really didn't use it that much beforehand? Were you fearful? Were you nervous? Were you afraid? Or how did you step into that?

• 20:00Speaker 01

  I just had to laugh right now. Because I just imagine in my mind, there were very often, also now in school time already. Of course, my, my, uh, my friends, they were standing in the break time, everybody having discussions. And I was always quiet.

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  But internally, I could already like, feel like I knew what I would say if I would open my mouth. It's just that I didn't.

• 20:27Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Because ultimately, I just thought that it's, it's pointless.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  It's pointless because sometimes, just sometimes the topics are just.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's superficial or whatever, yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it doesn't bring benefit to, to anything, yeah. It's just meaning maybe that you are like profiling yourself, but that was it, yeah. So that's why I kept it for myself. But internally, observing people, watching, just listening. Inside of me, the language was always speaking. I always knew, like, what would be my answer if somebody speak to me like this.

• 21:06Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And so ultimately, I really think it was for me not difficult at all to then, when I was asked, to just let it out.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  Say it, yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Because I already had it inside. I just had to, let's say, allow my, my mouth to speak it out.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  So what I'm hearing you say is also link confidence to intention. Some people say link it to the effort, right? Like the effort that you show up, that you just keep showing up. And others talk about the results.

• 21:39Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Should we be thinking about it?

• 21:40Ed Mylett?

  There's two, I have a whole, I call it the holy trilogy in the book of self-confidence.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  What is this?

• 21:45Ed Mylett?

  But the confidence trilogy is faith, have confidence. So if you're a person of faith, no matter what you believe in. It's amazing to me how people that believe in energy, quantum energy, or they believe in, they're a Christian like me, and I believe in both, by the way.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Ed Mylett?

  But whatever their faith is, that they have it on Sunday, they have it in Bible study, or they have it when they get together with their friends, or when they meditate. But somehow when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone. So why are you alone then, but you're not alone these other times? So I'm never alone. So that's number one. Number two is my intention. And third is my associations change my confidence. But here's the biggie. If you don't have self-confidence, here's what you have. You have a really bad reputation with yourself.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 22:23Ed Mylett?

  You have built a habit of not keeping the promises you make to yourself. We've all heard this before, but there's a level. I have a book, a chapter in the book called "One More Standard." Here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. Think about that. Superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. And it's exactly what you just said. It's an effort play. If you don't have self-confidence, you've never kept the promises you make to yourself. Check that box. If you have self-confidence, you've started to keep the promises you make to yourself. If you want to have superhuman self-confidence, you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more. So if I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna work out, and I'm gonna do 10 reps in the gym, I do one more. If I'm gonna do 45 minutes on the treadmill, I do one more. If I'm gonna make 10 contacts in a day, I do that and one more.

• 23:06Ed Mylett?

  If I'm gonna tell my daughter I love her every day, I'm gonna do that and one more. And so that higher standard, because in life, we don't get our goals, we get our standards long-term. And so if your standard is one more, what starts to happen is you go, I'm willing to do things other people aren't willing to do, and I combine that, that I have great faith, great associations, and I intend to help people. This is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you have it.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  So when did you learn this one more mindset? Was this from your dad or the on or was this?

• 23:37Ed Mylett?

  It's from my dad. So we talked about this, you know, a little bit earlier, but my dad had these couple of theories he would always say to me. And so one was when he got sober, he gave it one more try. He was gonna stay sober one day at a time. And then my dad, there's no dreaming in my house. There's no like, my jet, you know, I've had, I've been blessed with like multiple airplanes, right, in my life. My jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house. He's never been on any of them.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:01Ed Mylett?

  And I would say to my dad, I would say, hey, let's go, go play golf in Maui. Let's go, there's these great golf courses in the ocean. And my dad would say, well, why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite person, my son, when we can play here in Chino? It's not about there, I wanna be with my son. So this, my family had none of that stuff. But my dad knew I was a dreamer. And my dad would always say, you know, I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time. One choice. And he'd say, Eddie, you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are. And I'd say, really dad? And he'd go, no, you're actually a lot closer than you think. But because you think it's so far away, you behave in accordance with that belief system and it always keeps it that far away from you.

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  So how do we bring our dreams closer to us?

• 24:44Ed Mylett?

  The first thing is, that's a great question. The first thing is you need to believe and know that your one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that, then you begin to look for them. And so in the second chapter of the book, I have a thing in the book called the matrix. And your matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain. It's the filter for your entire life. Okay? And this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you. Again, example of it is, I just, I like what Musk is doing. So I just bought a Tesla. I drove it here today.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  I got a Tesla too. Model X or what do you got?

• 25:18Ed Mylett?

  I got a Plaid.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Okay, wow.

• 25:19Ed Mylett?

  A Plaid, it's a good one.

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 25:21Ed Mylett?

  And so I bought this Plaid and all of a sudden, man, everywhere I go, there's Teslas.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  I see them everywhere.

• 25:26Ed Mylett?

  I'm like, whoa. The other one, three lanes over, other side, they're like, freaking Tesla, this is crazy. They were always there. Why didn't I see them before? Because they weren't a part of my RAS. So the key thing, I teach you in the book, how to slow down time and create the matrix of your life. When you make the Teslas of your life, those relationships, those meetings, those thoughts, those encounters, you can very easily do this. But there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated. It's chapter two of the book and it will shift you. The other component too, I have a chapter in the book called, become an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever. Here's how most people's framework works. They don't have an RAS program. They're not intentional. So they keep getting. If the things most important to you are your worries, fears, anxieties, problems, bills, you will continue to have people, places, and things revealed to you that confirm it.

• 26:11Ed Mylett?

  And if you operate out of your memory and your history, if this is your pattern, your framework, you will continue to find those things. You need to learn to operate out of your imagination and your dreams. This is a different framework for life. Imagination is different than dreaming. Imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happened. When you imagine something, you create a space. Once you have a thought, this is powerful. When you have a thought, you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought. And that space now exists. And the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that space, whether it's a negative or a positive thought. It starts to hear things it wouldn't hear. That's why like when you're in a crowded room and they say, "Louis." You can hear Louis auditorily over all the noise.

• 26:56Ed Mylett?

  Why? It's in your RAS. It's why you see the Tesla. Okay? So the key thing is being able to operate out of this imagination. Why is imagination so important? When you were a child, three, four, five years old, you were probably happier than you are right now. Why? Two reasons. A, you were closer to God. You had just been with God more recently. And two, you operated out of your imagination. You didn't operate out of a history and a memory because you didn't have one. And slowly over time, by the time you were 10, 11, 12 years old, loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs, their software into you. Because most things in life are caught, not taught. You catch them. And so now you're starting to operate out of history and memory. And you repeat it. And your RAS begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory.

• 27:41Ed Mylett?

  And so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters in a different environment, but the same emotions. You have the same emotional home. My dad used to say to me, every call, bro, till the day he died and I'm 50 years old, blah, blah, blah, whatever we're talking about, last thing he would always say to me, "Be careful."

• 28:00Ed Mylett?

  Be careful. And I go.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Careful with what?

• 28:03Ed Mylett?

  I don't know. I never knew. But what is that programming from the time you're eight years old? Be careful. Hey, go to school. Be careful. So with that, it operated out of this fear thing, right? Oh, I need to be careful. I need to be careful. But don't make this risk. Don't take that business decision. Don't start a podcast. Don't get on that stage and speak. Don't do this. Don't do that. You say that to an already unconfident, insecure person. He meant it lovingly. By the time I'm 50, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Be careful. He didn't even know he was saying it to me. But what was he doing? He was installing, God bless him, his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy. So a lot of these things that you believe. You were defenseless when you started to believe them. They were installed in you by loving people who were around you. And even though your life may look differently, your emotional home, the four, five, six emotions you experience pretty regularly.

• 28:47Ed Mylett?

  Might be very familiar from your parents, one or two of them, right? And so you need to look at your emotional home.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  What's your most powerful emotion and the emotion that you wish you could let go of?

• 28:57Ed Mylett?

  Love is the most powerful emotion in the world. We will all do everything for love. If there were more love in the world. The way we treat one another, the way we express our thoughts. You know, you'll do anything for love, right? So love is by far my most powerful emotion. It's like. Like, I love you. And like, when I just saw you, we didn't just, like, people, we didn't just hug for like, one second.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Ed Mylett?

  And you do this better than I do.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  I hold people, I make it uncomfortable because I just want to hug and love on people.

• 29:22Ed Mylett?

  But it's not uncomfortable, bro. Because the reason you're so successful is you truly do love people.

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Ed Mylett?

  And you come from that place. And I know we're bigger dudes and like. Like, that's a beautiful expression of a man. A real man is capable of real love. That's a sign of real strength. So that's the most powerful one. And then, for me, I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have. It's chaos.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:45Ed Mylett?

  I.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  How often do you experience chaos?

• 29:47Ed Mylett?

  Less because I'm aware of it. But I'm going to tell you, all the time till about five years ago, even when we first met. Why? I used to even say this. Man, I operate great under chaos. Man, you should see me operate under chaos. Most people can't handle chaos. I'm calm under pressure. Well, the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home. So I'm very familiar with chaos. It became a very familiar emotion. And what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life, even if they're not ones that serve us. And I don't think there's negative or positive emotions. I say this in the book. There just are.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 30:18Ed Mylett?

  Fear isn't negative. It fear in abundance is negative. But some fear, being afraid to do this podcast, say, to some extent, causes us to prepare. So a dose of it, it was given to us in the caveman days. So T-Rex didn't eat us, right? So some fear is good, some anxiety is okay. Some frustration, some anger is appropriate. It's to the dosage level. And we get these four or five of them. For me, some chaos is okay. It's fun, it's exciting, it's exhilarating, right? But getting it every day, every week, every month, all the time. And so how do you get rid of it? Well, one way you get rid of it is just be awareness. When you have an awareness of a thought, it loses its impact and power over you. It almost becomes like this. I'll do it like I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm doing the chaos thing again. Everything's great right now.

• 31:02Ed Mylett?

  All the houses are paid off, my kids are happy, married to a great woman, got great friends. I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? You dummy, you're doing it again. And it kind of loses its power over you. So I have a chapter in the book called One More Emotion and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have. And so, yeah, man, mine's definitely love. And the one I don't want is chaos. Because chaos causes me to act out of anger and frustration. It can depress me.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  And your intentions are not going to be as, I guess.

• 31:28Ed Mylett?

  It's pure. It's a gateway emotion. Chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want. Chaos gives me stress. Chaos gives me anger. Chaos gives me frustration. Chaos gives me fear. So it's a gateway emotion.

• 31:39Lewis Howes?

  What is the result when you create from that space of chaos?

• 31:43Ed Mylett?

  It's funny. I have been, I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:50Ed Mylett?

  But stay with me on this. But the process in getting there is destructive. The process in getting there is not beautiful. And I used to think, and a lot of successful people.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Forcing your way to get the results.

• 32:01Ed Mylett?

  Almost through force.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Ed Mylett?

  You know? And the, and I still do it sometimes. I'm thinking of a situation this week where I did it. And I used to think, well, that's a superpower though, because I've created all these external.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Look what I made.

• 32:12Ed Mylett?

  Look what I did. And I'm doing it because of that. The truth is, I did it in spite of it.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  I believe self doubt is one of the biggest killers to anyone's dreams.

• 32:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone develop self-confidence? And sustain it with the ever-going changes and stresses and uncertainties that always come up?

• 32:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  Once you reach a certain level, there's a new uncertainty.

• 32:37Simon Sinek?

  No. So I think it's ironic that we call it self-confidence. Because I don't, for one, think it comes from the inside. I think our self-confidence comes from the outside.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  You mean, that's the wrong way of going about it? Or you think that's where it comes from in general?

• 32:55Simon Sinek?

  We are being misdirected by the name. When we say, "Build your self-confidence," that's the instruction of saying, "Go inside. Look inside oneself." But I think that's a false direction. Children aren't born self-confident. Their confidence is built from their parents and their friends and their teachers. Where they're rewarded when they do well and they're pushed when they fail. When they can do better. We know this, that simply telling kids that they're great all the time actually doesn't build self-confidence. It actually does the total opposite.

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:34Simon Sinek?

  Right? And I, for one, I can tell you, in my own experience, my own self-confidence 100% comes from the relationships that I have. It's not some deep internal fortitude. You know? A world-famous trapeze artist is not going to try a brand-new, death-defying act for the first time without a net. So it's the people in my life. It's when I do doubt myself that somebody says, "You got this." When somebody says, "I believe in you." When somebody says, "No matter what happens, whether it succeeds or fails, I'm going to be by your side."

• 34:18Simon Sinek?

  That's when I have the confidence to do difficult things.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:21Simon Sinek?

  Right? I don't have some natural battery that I just...

• 34:28Simon Sinek?

  You know? That, to me, is bravado.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Simon Sinek?

  I don't know if that's self-confidence. You know?

• 34:35Simon Sinek?

  Being a huge risk taker is not an indication of self-confidence to me. You know, jumping out of a plane and jumping out of a plane with a parachute are two different things. Right. Right. To me, self-confidence is measured and there should be a degree of doubt. But I think true self-confidence, belief in oneself and belief in one's cause. You know, I could not do the things that I'm doing and I would not have the strength

• 35:05Simon Sinek?

  to have made the sacrifices that I've made or continue to wake up on a daily basis to drive to spread this message if I were alone. And so when we talk about building one's self-confidence, I think the mistake that we make is that we look inside. I think the reality is when we're trying to build our self-confidence, we should be looking to our friends. We should be nursing our relationships. When I'm looking to build my self-confidence, the question is, who around me do I need to take care of? You know, the way we build our self-confidence is by helping somebody else build theirs. Right. It's an act of, we will build our confidence with an act of service. So I'll tell you a true, a true story. So I did an experiment. I love doing experiments in my own life. Yeah, me too. You know, I had mad thoughts. I'm like, well, let's try, let's try this one out.

• 35:49Simon Sinek?

  So I have a very dear friend who has stuck with me through thick and thin, who she is absolutely profoundly one of the reasons that I am who I am today, right? And I have my confidence in large part because of her, right? She's one of a small group of people who I, I look at and say, mm-hmm, yep, yep, good friend, right? She was struggling, like seriously struggling. Oh, let me take a step back. So we decided that we were gonna...

• 36:21Simon Sinek?

  She, look, she was, she was struggling. She goes through, she was going through some hard, hard things in her life. Career wasn't going the way she wanted. Her personal relationship was struggling. There was, there was a lot of rough. She was lacking confidence. There was a lot of rough. She was lacking confidence. Yeah. And we would get together on a regular basis and I would attempt to coach her. You know? And she'd feel great for the hour after she left me and then it would very quickly go back to normal. Right. And we'd get back together and I would coach her and she felt great for the hour after she left me and then it would go back to normal. And I wouldn't, I can't say that there was some profound change being made in her life. So I had a harebrained idea. I went to her and I said, I need your help.

• 37:06Simon Sinek?

  I said, I'm struggling. I don't have a coach that I love and trust. You've known me for years. I trust you with everything. I feel unbelievably safe around you. Can you put together a program? And can you coach me? I think you're good at it. And it wasn't reciprocal. It wasn't I'll coach you, you coach me. I said, I need your help because I'm struggling. It was legit. It wasn't like I was just making stuff up. You were stressed. It was legit. I could do with the help and I trusted her to help me. And something profound started to happen. Over the course of just a few weeks, it wasn't even a few months, but over the course of a few weeks, she started to gain way more confidence. Her career started to really move in a more positive direction. Her relationship firmed up.

• 37:51Simon Sinek?

  And the more that she was in service to me, the more that she grew herself. So I think self-confidence, I wish we didn't call it self-confidence. Because like I said, I think it gives a false direction. The way we build confidence is with. You know, con means with, doesn't it? Interesting. So I have no idea the etymology of confidence. That's interesting. Just making stuff up here. But con means with. The, I mean, to confide. Let's look this up because fidelity is something to do with truth. So confide, right? Yeah, look it up with the etymology of confidence.

• 38:36Simon Sinek?

  You know, to confide is two people, like a conspiracy, is a co-whisper. That's what conspiracy is, is a co-whisper. So confidence is co-fidelity. Right. So let's see if the instinct is matched by the etymology of the word. And which if it isn't, I'm still OK with it. What does it say? So it comes from late Middle English. Confident translations, origins and meaning. Here we go. On late NMLD dictionaries. God love it. Where does the word come from? It's about trust or reliance. But what's the actual etymology of the word? Yeah, I'm not gonna sit here and waste everybody's time.

• 39:19Simon Sinek?

  But it comes from "cum fidre." And fidre means to trust.

• 39:25Lewis Howes?

  To trust yourself or trust other people?

• 39:27Simon Sinek?

  So "cum," what does "cum" mean?

• 39:32Simon Sinek?

  It means with.

• 39:36Simon Sinek?

  It means with trust.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  It could be with trust with yourself.

• 39:40Simon Sinek?

  I think it's been missed. That's my point. I think it's been, I think it's like a conspiracy require. A conspiracy requires two people. You cannot have a conspiracy with one person. It's a co-whispering. You know, you commit the crime of conspiracy when you tell someone something. And you're both in on it. So I think confidelity, confidence is the same thing. I think it's, I think it's at least two people who undertake the task of trust and reliance.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  So she was coaching you and you saw a change with over a few weeks of her confidence.

• 40:13Simon Sinek?

  Her confidence built.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  And her belief in herself.

• 40:17Simon Sinek?

  Her belief in herself grew when she was in service to helping me.

• 40:24Simon Sinek?

  To helping me. And so, and so that goes back to the root of the question. How do you build your self-confidence?

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  Or how do you overcome self-doubt?

• 40:32Simon Sinek?

  How do you overcome self-doubt? Help someone else overcome self-doubt.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  I love that. I love that.

• 40:36Simon Sinek?

  You overcome self-doubt by helping, like, and it's not a selfish thing. I'm only helping you so I can. You have to genuinely love and commit to the person, this person that you're helping. You have to genuinely care about their success and their confidence and their lot in life. So.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  It's so true. Everything comes back to service.

• 40:54Simon Sinek?

  And like I said, it goes back to the origins of humankind, right? Which is, which is we are naturally tribal animals. And we are, we are, we actually are at our best when we are in service to each other in a cause greater than ourselves.

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  The more we focus on what we're lacking, what we don't have, what's not working for us, the challenges we're going through, the more doubt we're gonna have.

• 41:13Simon Sinek?

  Correct.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  When we're inwardly focused on what we don't have.

• 41:17Simon Sinek?

  Oh, I wish we'd had this conversation about eight months ago because I would have written half the stuff in the book.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Well, I'm writing a book on self doubt right now.

• 41:25Simon Sinek?

  Well, because this is what the infinite mindset is all about. A finite mindset is win, win, win, be number one, be the best, me, me, me.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Win, win, win, meaning win at all costs, not win, win.

• 41:38Simon Sinek?

  Correct, not win dash win. It's win comma win comma win.

• 41:43Lewis Howes?

  Because the infinite game is you win, I win, the world wins, right? We all win, humanity wins.

• 41:50Simon Sinek?

  Correct, a whirlwind, that's funny.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  It's not, it's not win.

• 41:54Simon Sinek?

  Right, so, right, so we are, we are players in infinite games every day of our lives, whether we like it or not. There's no such thing as being number one in marriage, like, good luck with that.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's not gonna work.

• 42:10Simon Sinek?

  There's no, there's no one who's declared the winner of life. Like, we come, we go, like, if you make more money than somebody else, you're not the winner of life. Someday you just die and you don't take it with you, you know? And there's no such thing as winning business or winning global politics. But if we listen to too many leaders, they talk about being number one, being the best and beating their competition.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  This was, this was me in my entire life.

• 42:31Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it's a lot of people.

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Until like six, seven years ago, when I learned that that doesn't work.

• 42:36Simon Sinek?

  And you're an Olympian.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Well, I haven't made the Olympics, but I'm on the Olympic handball team, yes, on the national team.

• 42:41Simon Sinek?

  Okay, whatever, you're at the highest levels of athletics. And you know this from spending time with athletes, which is individual athletes.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  I know, it's all about.

• 42:53Simon Sinek?

  Where team athletes tend to be a lot healthier. So like individual athletes, when they reach the top of their game, Michael Phelps, Andre Agassi, they become the greatest in the world. The next thing that happens to them is depression, right? Whereas team athletes, you win the World Series, you win the Super Bowl, it doesn't, like, deep depression is not the next thing that happens.

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  Some people maybe, but not in general.

• 43:15Simon Sinek?

  But it's not in general, and the, you know, Olympic athletes are such a unique, and I talked to a bunch of them for this book.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  Especially the gymnasts who are like 16, you have a billion people watching you, you win the gold medal, now what?

• 43:25Simon Sinek?

  And it is one of the most selfish finite pursuits, because the entire pursuit is, I'm gonna be number one.

• 43:31Lewis Howes?

  The gold medal.

• 43:32Simon Sinek?

  Right, and they all say the same thing, I wanna win the Olympics. Well, you don't actually win the Olympics, you win one event, you know? But they all say the same thing, I'm gonna win the Olympics, right? And. And then they say nonsense like, you know, no one inspire all the little children. You know, not a single one of them on their vision boards has pictures of little children overcoming adversity. You know, they have pictures of them standing on podiums, you know, holding medals, holding up trophies on the vision boards. It's entirely a selfish pursuit, right? And any inspiration to little kids is just a lucky strike extra that's really good for the press conference. Right? But not a single one of them is waking up, doing it for the kids. I drag myself out of bed, I'm running in the rain. I miss Thanksgiving for the kids.

• 44:17Simon Sinek?

  Didn't happen, never, on any planet, right? It was for me, right? And so there's this, you know, whether they medal or not, when they, when they're done, even if they were medalists, when they're done with the Olympics and their ability to pursue, they spent their entire lives from their childhood to adulthood striving to be number one. You know, and let's be honest, they're not the best. They're just better than everybody else that day. That day. Which is really funny to me, right? Which is, you can get a gold medal in, pick a sport, ice skating, and you fell in your routine. But if everybody else fell twice. You're the best. You're the best! You're the winner. But you're not. You're just better than everybody else in the competition because it's finite.

• 45:01Simon Sinek?

  And finite has known players, fixed rules, and agreed upon objectives. It's only the players. But it's not life. And there's an imbalance. Yes, finite games are very important. Finite games and finite objectives are essential in an infinite game, right? But they're, but the infinite game is the context for those finite games. I need to excel or be the best here in order to X, right? And recognize that this is not the end all be all. The analogy for living with an infinite mindset is not about winning. The better analogy is exercise.

• 45:39Simon Sinek?

  So how do you be a healthy person? Well, you have to eat well, you have to sleep, get enough sleep, you have to nurse your personal relationships, and you have to exercise. If you do some of those things, you'll be healthier than doing none of those things. But you kind of have to do them all, right? Living in infinite mindset is the same thing. There's a series of practices. Do some, you'll be better than none, but you kind of have to do them all, right? And the way the finite mindset fits into it is, I want to get into shape. I've been sitting on the couch for most of my life watching TV. I'm gonna get into shape. And I have a fitness goal, a finite goal, that I can easily measure, my weight. I can look on a scale and I can measure the progress. And I've made the goal that I'm gonna lose this amount of weight by this date.

• 46:23Simon Sinek?

  And so I commit to a healthy lifestyle. I eat better, I exercise more, I'm getting more sleep, and I'm watching the weight fall off. And I miss my goal. I don't lose the amount of weight that I wanted to lose by the date. So what? You're still healthier and you're on the road to being healthier. And I can see for a fact that you absolutely will hit the goal later on. And even if you hit the goal, the problem is, you can't stop exercising. You have to do it for the rest of your life. Yeah. That's what an infinite mindset is. An infinite mindset is more like a lifestyle, which is, yes, absolutely. Having finite goals is very important. We are absolutely driven by goals. We like measuring things.

• 47:03Simon Sinek?

  It is much easier to get into the lifestyle of exercise and the habit of it if I have metrics. Look at the insanity of Fitbits and things like that, which overdone is actually unhealthy and has adverse... Obsessiveness. But we'll talk, you know, it's not a... But the point is, it's helping people get up and have a healthier lifestyle. We like measuring stuff. It's just, it's a human thing, right? But it's not about winning. It's not actually about the goal. The goals and metrics are simply a way to help us measure speed and distance. I've lost this amount of weight over this amount of time. Right? You cannot run a marathon without mile markers. It's unnerving. The mile markers help me measure how far I've gone. How far I've gone and how fast have I gone.

• 47:48Simon Sinek?

  And the metrics we have at work help us measure how far we're moving and how fast we're moving towards a vision that is, for all practical purposes, unrealizable. Right? That's the infinite game. There's a context. And so when we beat ourselves up because we miss an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date, but the question is, are we building a healthy organization? And I would rather organizations do all the right things to build a healthy organization, even if they miss arbitrary dates. One of my favorite stories is Gary Ridge from WD-40. WD-40 is a public company. Huge company. It's a decent-sized company, which is kind of incredible because it's basically one product. It's just oil. Basically one product. It's like grease. It's very sophisticated lubricant that was actually made for the space program.

• 48:33Simon Sinek?

  But, by the way, we talked about fancy food and their offices, they just moved into a new office recently. Their old offices were a dump. Really? And yet the morale? Through the roof. Why is that? People love work because it was never about the office. It was about the people. It's never about the office. It was about the people. Right? Anyway, they have a lovely new office now, but it's still about the people. That's why I said before, is it the food? Well, it depends on the company. Anyway, he was on one of his quarterly analyst calls and one of the analysts said, "You missed your numbers." And Gary said, "No, I didn't. I missed yours. Mine are fine." Wow. Right? And that's the point, which is there's nothing wrong with having metrics and goals.

• 49:18Simon Sinek?

  Those are very important to human beings, but to what end? What are we serving bigger than ourselves? Right? So my analogy is like an iceberg. Right? So we know that the majority of an iceberg lies underneath the water. So when there's a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of the iceberg sitting above the ocean, right? It's the visionary who can see beneath the ocean. It's the visionary who stands there. And even though everybody sees a tiny, or nothing, they can see nothing. The visionary is able to explain what exists in their imagination only.

• 49:54Simon Sinek?

  Okay, it only exists in their imagination. And and they inspire a few people to join them because like that's yes, we can do that. And they start working and a little bit of the iceberg shows. And a few people go, oh, it's gonna work. And so they commit to joining the movement or the company and a little more of the iceberg shows. Right. And before too long, enough of the iceberg shows that people can go, this is a real thing. You're not insane and crazy. What you're doing is actually in reality. But the thing is, the vast majority of the iceberg still exists under the ocean. And so what the visionary does is constantly remind us where we're going and how much more we have to do. And though we can celebrate how much we've achieved, how much of the iceberg is sticking up above the ocean.

• 50:38Simon Sinek?

  The reality is we have way more work and when I die, it's it's still gonna be the majority underneath the ocean. And that's what the movement is all about. The metrics help us measure how fast and how far of of the how much of the iceberg we've revealed. But the infinite game is understanding that the that the majority of our work still lies undiscovered.

• 51:01Lewis Howes?

  How can someone overcome that fear of, you know, a classmate laughing about them or saying, oh, that was a dumb question? Or just something maybe bigger, they're putting something out on social media and getting attacks or or whatever it might be. How do people overcome that insecurity?

• 51:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Well, I think do you think we've taken a step back actually in in-person communication? A huge step. Everything now is people are more comfortable in texting and communicating communicating through social. And then when it comes to in-person, something's completely shifted. You can see people having a harder time communicating in person. And everyone's kind of deviating towards typing, texting or email. It's become the comfort.

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  What's the most the easiest way to communicate without? Yeah, exactly.

• 51:45Evy Poumpouras?

  Text is the easiest. Email. So here's the thing, in-person is the best way to communicate, by the way. Whenever I can speak to somebody in person or sit down and see them like this. This is where you get the best. The best is where you get magic. Right. Then there's you. Okay, then there's the phone. Phone is another great way. But when you go to email, you still have to write. You can, but long form sentences, you have to write properly. Texting is just a couple of words.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Evy Poumpouras?

  And that is where everyone's kind of shifted to gone. It's also the, on an, um, when I text or when I post on social, I'm not as, it's keyboard courage.

• 52:24Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:25Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm not.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't say it to someone's face.

• 52:27Evy Poumpouras?

  You never say it to somebody's face.

• 52:28Lewis Howes?

  I feel like you should only say things online with what you would say to that person's face. Otherwise, what are we doing?

• 52:34Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes. If you can't look at somebody and say it, then you shouldn't write it. But it's the anonymity. That I can write this stuff and then I can take out whatever's going on in my life, out on somebody else. And I can feel brave in that way. But it's such a false way to be brave.

• 52:54Lewis Howes?

  What does that do to the person communicating in that way? Having that false bravery by saying something strong or powerful or aggressive online, but the unwillingness to do that in person? What does that do to that person?

• 53:08Evy Poumpouras?

  You have to check in with yourself and realize it's, am I being a coward?

• 53:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 53:13Evy Poumpouras?

  If I can't say something to somebody's face, but I can do it over text, there's something that's missing.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:20Evy Poumpouras?

  I think bravery is something that we don't speak about and courage is something we don't speak about. We don't do it in a very overt way, in a very physical way, in a very engaged way. It's talked about as this like thing. Oh, be brave, be motivated. Wh- where is that? You have to manifest that with your body. You have to do it. And it's doing it in the day to day decisions that you make.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:45Evy Poumpouras?

  So going back to my class, it's interesting. We talk about criminal justice, right? Criminology and sometimes we'll talk about even being, uh, for example, I showed them a video of somebody who fell on these New York City train tracks in New York City. And there were all these people in the platform. One person gets down to go help the person. And so I asked them, would you do that?

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:07Evy Poumpouras?

  The majority of the class, no. No, hell no. No. Whoa. I'm not gonna do that. And I hear that and I think something is lost there amongst us. When the answer, at least I feel through my belief system again, is that the overwhelming answer should be like, I would wanna help save another human being's life. I would wanna help save somebody else. But we've come to this place where it's very much self-preservation. Don't say anything wrong. Don't do the wrong thing.

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Right? And attack in a way that's safe and comfortable. Or not even attack, but you can disagree. And here's the other amazing thing. I think we don't understand how to disagree. So you can disagree. Or you can be competitive. It's something actually that you're taught in interviewing and in, uh, interrogations.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Is this, are you trying to be competitive in interrogation or just?

• 54:59Evy Poumpouras?

  So, you, so when I say competitive, I mean that I can disagree with you in a healthy way.

• 55:05Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 55:05Evy Poumpouras?

  So you call it competitive dialogue.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  How's that look? If I say, you know, the sky is green today.

• 55:12Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay. Well, tell me why you think the sky is green.

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  It's just, it just looks green. You know, I just see the color, you know. I don't know, maybe it's a reflection of something, but it's green. It's not blue.

• 55:25Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay. So now, what I would do in that moment is ask you why you think of it that way. Why you see it that way? What is your belief system?

• 55:32Lewis Howes?

  Disagreeing with me and saying, oh, you know, you're an idiot. It's blue.

• 55:35Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  You're not doing that. You're not getting like defensive or aggressive.

• 55:39Evy Poumpouras?

  Because that is your value system.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 55:42Evy Poumpouras?

  So I may, for example, I have a very strong belief system, fitness and working out. It's been part of me. But that's my belief system. It is not somebody else's. If I try to impose it to somebody. So for example, when you hear, hear somebody say, I have to lose weight, I have to lose weight. Their belief system is not really based upon working out and fitness. So I can turn around and be very direct. And that's, being direct with someone is the way you lose people. So what you wanna do is, you wanna always let people talk, even if you don't like what they have to say, even if you don't agree with them. Let them go, let them explain themselves.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  What happens when you let someone explain themselves, even when you know they're a hundred percent wrong?

• 56:20Evy Poumpouras?

  You shut up. You shut your mouth. That's like the, that's like, I always say that, that's my, the, i- i- the gift to any great communicator is this.

• 56:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:30Evy Poumpouras?

  Let them go, don't correct them, don't tell them that they're wrong, just let them be in their world. Now, here's the important thing, one, they're gonna say everything they wanna say, you're gonna understand what their mindset is. And two things happen, one, you can speak now, because once somebody's done sharing everything, now they can hear you. Well, what you do is, you're speaking, I cut you off, I insert myself, you get frustrated, hey, you're not listening to me, I'm talking, she's dismissing me. And so when I speak, you come, you come back at me, I come back at you, and now we have conflict. And so, for example, when I used to do interviews, I would sit in rooms with people who-

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  When you mean to interview, you mean interrogation.

• 57:11Evy Poumpouras?

  I use, you know, it's interesting.

• 57:13Lewis Howes?

  You call them interviews though.

• 57:13Evy Poumpouras?

  Interviews and interrogations are the same thing, so what you see in TV, in Law and Order, that you did it, you this, you that, that's garbage, it doesn't work. Doesn't that work, you're, the best confessions I've ever gotten, they've been almost like psychology sessions or conversations. Where people progressively, over a bit of time, give you what we call admissions.

• 57:36Lewis Howes?

  A little more, a little more.

• 57:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, so it'll be like, yes, I was there at the house, oh, yes, I was there at the time, yes, I saw her, or I saw him, yes, I left upset. Yes, this, yes, that, and then incrementally, they get to, you get to the confession, yes, I did it. Whatever that is, right? Whereas we go straight, most people go straight for the kill, tell me, and it's because of this lack of patience, this thing that we know everything. And, you know, maybe you are right in that moment, but it's not what you think, it's what the other person thinks, understanding how they think. Getting into their head and speaking to them, so now if we bring this back to what you asked me about.

• 58:17Evy Poumpouras?

  Being competitive means, I can compete with you in ideas, without being, it being ugly, without being confrontational or conflict. But what we've done is, we've made conflict a confrontation, this very negative thing, we don't want it, when it happens, people lose their minds. I have so many people reach out, especially when I do consulting, how do I, the question's always, how do I avoid confrontation? How do I avoid conflict? Why do you spend so much time avoiding it? Why do you spend so much time avoiding speaking what you want to say? Speaking your truth or sharing your ideas? And why can you not present them in a way?

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Where there is disagreement, there is competitiveness. I compete, you compete. No, the sky is green. Well, I see it this way. Oh, I see it blue. But why do you see it this way? And you have that dialogue.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  But it's not an aggressive competitiveness. It's a, it's an, it's an open dialogue.

• 59:15Evy Poumpouras?

  It's not me being a jerk to show you how smart I am.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:18Evy Poumpouras?

  And it's not me shutting you down. And it's not me having an attachment to the end result.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 59:23Evy Poumpouras?

  Me being right and me showing you how right I am.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.