How To Make Vulnerability Your Greatest Strength w/Jay Glazer EP 1253

Today's guest is Jay Glazer, a TV personality and National Football League (NFL) insider for FOX Sports’ award-winning NFL pregame studio show, FOX NFL Sunday. The entire cast, including Glazer, became the first sports show inducted into the Television Hall Of Fame in 2019. In 2007, Glazer created the first mixed martial arts training program for pro athletes in America and has trained over 1,000 pro athletes. In 2014, he co-founded the Unbreakable Performance Center, a private training facility frequented by Wiz Khalifa, Chris Pratt, and Demi Lovato, as well as numerous NFL, NHL and MMA athletes. Be sure to check out Glazer's new book, Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too. In this episode, you will learnWhy it's okay to not be okay. How to find strength by being vulnerable. Learn to embrace your “messed-up-ness”. And so much more! For more, go to lewishowes.com/1253Buy a copy of Jay's book here: Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can TooMaster Your Mind and Defy the Odds with David Goggins: https://link.chtbl.com/715-podDr. Joe Dispenza on Healing the Body and Transforming the Mind: https://link.chtbl.com/826-podMel Robbins: The “Secret” Mindset Habit to Building Confidence and Overcoming Scarcity: https://link.chtbl.com/970-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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When you don't have any self-worth, or you don't have these roommates in your head tell you what a bad person you are all the time, it forced me to, instead of just lay in bed and say I'm cashing to my chips, it's gotten me to do all this great stuff so I can get some love from the outside in.

• 0:14Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:48Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. We've got the man, Jay Glazer in the house. So glad you're here, man. So grateful about what you're up to.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Last time I saw you was in my gym.

• 0:59Lewis Howes?

  Unbreakable, right?

• 1:00Speaker 00

  You came in there, you lifted every weight in the place, and we were never the same.

• 1:04Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yes. Unbreakable, yes.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  I know you live around the corner, let's go, man. We gotta get you back in there.

• 1:08Lewis Howes?

  I'm coming back in, I promise I will.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  It's a great little community.

• 1:11Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited, man. You've had an amazing story, and your whole book, Unbreakable, is about how you turn depression, anxiety into really motivation that you can accomplish things without feeling overwhelmed and stressed. But you just told me before we started that you've had a panic attack since 2005 until now, every week.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Every week.

• 1:30Lewis Howes?

  Every week. How did you, now when I grew up, and I'm assuming when you grew up, I grew up in the Midwest, I was never able to talk about my feelings. It was just like, suck it up.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  You grew up in the Midwest, I grew up in Jersey.

• 1:41Lewis Howes?

  That's even harder for you. But I wouldn't want to talk about, you know, how I felt. Playing football, playing baseball, playing whatever, it was just like, suck it up, keep going. When did you feel like it was okay to talk about feeling of anxiety, stress, mental health? When was this like a conversation you could have without being made fun of, laughed at, picked on, bullied, told you're a wussy, or whatever it is?

• 2:06Speaker 00

  No, look, for me, and you talked about the motivation part, right? My, I've got, I have depression, anxiety, ADD, elemental P, whatever, I got everything, you know?

• 2:21Speaker 00

  But, you know, we talk about mental health, but who describes it? Like, God blessed me with the ability to communicate. I want to be of service and give words. I was never, hmm, I was never, I don't want to say this. I'm gonna say I was never ashamed, because there's been shame. Like, I've been embarrassed to tell certain people and not others. But I also don't make the rules of depression and anxiety. Right. It's not, my best friend's Michael Strahan. I didn't really tell him until three months ago that I couldn't go out to dinner one night because I had a really bad attack. It just got me. And he said, "You want me to come over and talk?" I said, "No." "Would you just get on the phone?" "No." He said, "Why have you never told me?" I said, "Man, I don't know." Like, I just, with you, I felt embarrassed. I don't know. Really? But yet... Other people you didn't tell.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  When I'm at Fox and the sky's falling, Howie Long will say, "Hey, hey, hey, the sky's not falling." "Yes, it is." And so I talked to him about it. And so, right, I don't know. I have no idea why. Right. So, why I came out and started talking about this? Because I know I could help people, give them words. Yeah. And, you know, my own misery, my own darkness. Like, The Rock wrote the foreword. Yep. And he said, "Man, you're gonna be a voice to get through the gray for a lot of us." Us, him included, which is pretty wild, right? So... What does the gray mean to you? The gray is that depression and anxiety. So, I'll tell you this. I wake up every single morning and it hurts. And it sucks. Like, I get choked up talking about it.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Because I, you know, when I talk about it sometimes, I feel bad for this guy. Like, I don't know what it's like to wake up in the blue and like, you have a, man, your life is great. And I'm like, "My life is great." Like, I'm sitting here doing a podcast with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty awesome. You got great friends, you got a good business, you're on TV. People go, "What do you have to be depressed about?" "My life is great, but in between my ears sucks." And it's just the only way I've ever, it's my earliest childhood memory. Has it always sucked? It's always sucked. Really? Always. Earliest childhood memory. And, man, I was in trouble because I was acting out. But, again, the motivation part, when you have, when you live in this gray, you have no...

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Idea how to love yourself up from the inside out. I don't feel worthy of being loved from the inside out. Still today. Oh, my God. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being you love yourself. Zero. A lot. A negative zero, a negative. Even today. Man, it's awful. Why is that? Why do you think that is? It's what it tells me. I kind of call it, um, I wrestle with my abuser. Who's the abuser? Depression, the anxiety, those roommates in my head that tell me these things that aren't true. Like I said, I, I know it's logically it's not true. I know that. And I've had to build up this persona on TV all these years to hide it. So my friends all say Glazer's crazy. And that's a badge of honor in football and fighting in those worlds. Right. But they never knew how much pain I was in.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  And until now and then, I, I first talked about it a few years ago and I have a charity that I work with veterans. Right, MVP. So I talk about it openly to them. And we're veterans and ex athletes. Right, we, we've merged them together, MVP, merging vets and players. And I see how much it connects with them. And one day I was just, I did an article somewhere where I was being this vulnerable. How I am in the huddle with them, with the rest of the world. And the reaction was like, oh, my God, you two, you have depression, anxiety. I'm like, yeah, like I'm, I've never hit the crazy, if you will. And I just saw how the reactions, I was like, I could really be of service to people. Wow. And that's where I wanted to be. And I say the motivation part, because again, when you don't, when you don't have any self-worth

• 5:59Speaker 00

  or you don't have, these roommates in your head tell you what a bad person you are all the time. It forced me to, instead of just laying in bed and saying I'm cashing my chips. It's gotten me to do all this great stuff so I can get some love from the outside in. Right, how do you get the love from the inside? I'm working on it. In. I'm working, and that, um, as I start doing things like this, I hear the effect I have on people. And there are days that, um, that I feel it, I, I think, I feel, um, I cry a lot now of, um, and I think it's pride of, of being able to help people. Yeah. Like, man, the number of people that have reached out, and again, in the book, I really describe. What it's like to have depression, anxiety. What it's like to have these mental health issues. A lot of this, a lot of this self-worth.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Or like I wake up every morning feeling that the sky is falling. Every single day of my life, I wake up, sky is falling, the universe hates me, world's against me. And I've got to get myself out of that gray. I've got to work myself out of it. Every single morning, and there's different things I do. And I see therapists. I've tried a lot of beds.

• 7:03Lewis Howes?

  How long have you been seeing therapists for?

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Since I was about four.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. My parents took me to the psychiatrist like I was a crazy one.

• 7:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  Come on, gang.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a consistent thing you do as, as therapy support? Because I've found therapy extremely helpful for me. Because I felt like I was in a lower number of the spectrum for many years of lacking self-worth, which I think a lot of people probably feel that.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  Growing up in a challenging situation. And it's been extremely helpful for me to heal that inner child or that little

• 7:32Speaker 00

  You're grieving it, yeah.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  That little Lewis or the, you know, the psychology part of myself.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I call little Jason, which that's my real name, yeah.

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. But you're big now, you're a big

• 7:40Speaker 00

  I built that up.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  I built up Warrior J.

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  It's a defense mechanism.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  When really the warrior side is not the strength of me. The vulnerability is the strength of me.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  That's where you make the biggest impact.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Just like with this book and sharing vulnerably. You're able to touch more lives than being like bigger and stronger and tougher.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's only so much I could make people laugh on TV or, you know, give them inside information, right? And it, it definitely is a distraction from, that's where we are. We're escapism on TV. But to really do something like this, I was saying, I was, I'm getting people now, I'm getting grandmothers reaching out saying, "Thank you." For the first time in 80 years, I have the words to tell my to tell my husband and kids and grandkids what I've been going through.

• 8:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Or girl dads saying, and now boy dads do, like a lot of them saying, "Well, I don't have it." And I'm like, "Yeah, I probably do, but..." I didn't know how to connect with my child and now I do. And, and the book is filled with expletives and F bombs, this and cause it's, cause there's nothing pretty about what I'm talking about. Yeah. And so if you don't like curse words and man overlook it or that's my, that's, that's who I am. I just wanna be authentic. Of course. And that's how I talk. Um, but I have a lot of them saying, I didn't know how to connect with my son or daughter. And now I do, and they got the books to read together or to just say, okay, now I know what they're going through. So when they wake up in the morning, again, I wake up in the

• 9:03Speaker 00

  morning, every day of my life in the gray. It's never blue. And I've gotta make that decision to get myself out of bed. And once I make that decision, I decide I'm gonna be relentless in everything I do. Wow. Like, I'm just not gonna let this thing win. But it's a, it affects me physically too. Like it's, um, when it- Does it feel like a weight? It feels like these chains. Yeah. So it's both, so it feels like these, I wrote in the book, like it was almost like these heavy chains are pulling my soul down. Oh, man. And it's, it's heavy. It's, it, it hurts. And, but when I'm having really bad days, like this past weekend, Saturday night, I woke up, three o'clock in the morning, and it normally doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night, but man, a beast got out of

• 9:45Speaker 00

  the box and it kicked my butt. And when that happens, I feel it behind my rib cage, feels like I'm having a heart attack. Um, the left side of my gut, it's like, man, I get a gut punch for here. Oh, man, yeah. And my joints ache like I just got out of a, a fight, a fight in the rain, like, like a 50 round boxing match. So it, there's a physical visceral reaction for me. I've got to, and that's why I wrote the book too, to get, give people ways to get out of, at least the ways I've used to get out of it. And I gotta do it every single day of my life. So what have been the strategies to get out of it? Right. Therapy, working out? The, the three temples I put in here is one, uh, have a team. Of course. Don't do it alone. No, absolutely. But- You'll go mad.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  We have teams all around us and we may not realize it. So I've always, like, you played football, right? Mm-hmm. That's a team. This crew right here is a team for you. Yep. My dog is a team with me, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. God's a team with me. That one up there, you know? Exactly. There's, I have a little group. So Fox and Bull Sunday is a crew, right? My- Yeah, Unbreakable Crews. Unbreakable Crew, my gym crew, there's my team. And like this weekend, when I was struggling, called it, I called a teammate to come over. I called other teammates to let them know, man, today's just, it's a bad day.

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  Just to check in on you, make sure it's good.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  I called Dwayne.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  I literally like, he's my battle buddy on this.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Called him, dude, today's one of them freaking great, it, today hurts. And he stepped away from filming his 90 shows and

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  Hey, make sure he was there because I'm there for him. And that's what teammates do. It's not, it's, it's give, give.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Right? It's loyalty. I've, I've gotten to where I am too, out of loyalty. So it's this loyalty factor. Loyalty is a dying art, right? It's a rare, rare art now. And more need to do that, I think. So I, I have these teams.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  That's one. Number two is being of service.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  That's huge, man. That's why I'm, I'm right there.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Well, as I was, for everybody that I called this weekend to tell them I, I need help and man, I'm struggling. I called the same number of people just to see how they were doing.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  Right. The same day or mean before?

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Same day.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  So if, if I called four people, say I'm struggling, I called another four.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  Say, hey, checking in on you.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Checking in on you.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  How you doing? Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Being of service.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  Cause what happens when you're of service in that depressed, anxious, stressful state? Does it feel like it helps you get out of it a little bit?

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I, I humped the blue.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  You're not focused on you, you're focused on others.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  And it's being of service. And I, in the book, I give several ways that I've always, and look, my first 11 years of my career, I was making 9,700 bucks a year, living in New York City.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  Is it the TV, with TV or what?

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I was, when I was working at New York One TV for 450 bucks a year.

• 12:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  And I finally got a job at the New York Post for a whopping nine grand a year.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Trying to outwork the world, working a hundred hour weeks.

• 12:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Trying to be this reporter. So I couldn't get like side jobs to help.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  So I had no, my electricity got turned off all the time. You know, heat, all that, all the time, get turned off. I just grinded for all those years. You know, but even then I figured out ways to be of service to, whether it was just stopping, talking to homeless person. I still to this day. We'll go to the old 99 cent store with my son and go get toothbrush, toothpaste, handy wipes, Band-Aids, Band-Aids, socks, soap, pen, pen, gloves. It's eight bucks and I put them in a bag and I hand them out homeless. Yeah. So you don't have to be loaded to go be of service. Yeah. But also just calling somebody saying, just checking up on you. Hey man, just telling you I love you. Yeah. You know, that's being of service and it's, it's, it's hard for the roommates in your head

• 13:24Speaker 00

  to tell you how bad you are when you are lifting somebody else up. Absolutely. So that's huge. There's two. I'm so glad that that's a strategy for, what's number three? And by the way, therapists are part of the team also. Absolutely, yeah. And the third one is laughter. That's what you do really well. I laugh, I laugh a lot, I try and the gray edge laughter. And, and I do see blue when I'm laughing, but I'll tell you this that most don't know, and nobody knew until I wrote this, nobody knew. Again, I've had a panic attack, started in 2005. I was in empty Raider Stadium doing a hit for Fox Devil Sunday. And it's weird for me to have had one because I'm like, I suck in calm, but I'm really, really good in chaos. Uh huh, yeah. So chaos of TV for me, it's, I feel safe there.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  You're in the zone there, yeah. Great, so I don't know why it happened, but it was 2005. It was peaceful, no one was there. Nobody in the stadium but me and the cameraman. It stressed you out. I don't know, but I, but I've been on TV since 93. Right. And so I don't know why 12 years in, it suddenly happened. Wow. But when I have an anxiety panic attack, walls cave in. Wow. My eyes start going like this, my hands start shaking, I start sweating, I feel like I'm having a heart attack. Hard to breathe, um, for, and I've had it, it became habitual. So it's now between my ears. So every single time, I had a little mini one when we sat down here before. Wow. And. It just became like habitual, but they're not dangerous.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  But for 10 years, I didn't know that I was getting my heart checked out. We didn't talk about panic attacks from 2005 to 2015, whatever, like, no one knew who it was. That's why I'm trying to give these words for somebody to go, oh, that's what I have. Okay, so you're not alone. It's you're, a lot of us have them. And it may not be every week. And everybody out there also, like, I'm clinical depression, anxiety, but we all have something now. It's a harder role these days. Social media makes it harder. We just came through a pandemic. We had to isolate. Worst thing we could ever do, right? Especially if you're depressed. Especially, but we're all gonna have something now. Especially because we compare ourselves to everybody else's filtered, filtered fraction of one second of one day. Right.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  And we think, and we feel left out. And we think, man, I'm not successful. Look what this person's doing. Look at that person. It's not real. Or the bullying and hate we see on Twitter. The human condition is not made to see so much a thousand times a second. It's just not meant to. Something's gotta give. So now I'm trying to lead us all through to start giving together and be kinder to each other. But the laughter part, when you see me forcing a joke, the first segment of Fox, it's because I'm having a really bad one. Really? And See, that's why you tell the, that's why you tell the jokes. So if you see it like, well, that didn't fit. I'm trying to get myself out of a panic attack. Trying to get back in the zone and focused and present. So I'll, yeah, because I'm, man, it's, when I'm having this panic and anxiety attack,

• 16:19Speaker 00

  it's, yeah, you're not, it's, man, it's weird. It's like I'm not there. Again, I'm having all this physical stuff, but it's like I'm over there or some, it's just, I'm not, I don't know, it's, I'm not there. I am, I'm somewhere else, deep behind my eyes, somewhere else. So the quicker I can make you laugh or me laugh, I get out of it. And it usually lasts two, three minutes. Right. Maybe five. And then it moves on. Yeah. For the most part. I've had ones that, the Super Bowl a couple of years ago lasted an hour and a half. I have no memory of the first hour of our show. Oh, my gosh. How much does that suck? That sucks. Biggest show of my life, 100th anniversary of the NFL. Oh. And, and none of the guys knew I was experiencing this until this.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  And then Stray Anne said, why don't you tell us? I said, because I don't want to bring, bring down your day on live TV. You know, now, If I have one, when we're off the air, I'll say, hey, uh oh, it's coming on. Who and you know, I'll tell, I usually lean on Howie and Kurt Menefee a lot for that. Or, um, yeah, I'll be open about it now. So I just won't suffer in silence anymore.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  What's the, I mean, 2005 was the first time you started really having them, right? What do you think was the, the shift from not having them to having them in 2005?

• 17:33Speaker 00

  No idea. And that's the thing. It's like, not only that, it's not like I had a great story that day. Um, I remember it's D'Angelo Holland, Terrell Owens got in a fight on the field. They had some others and they didn't talk to anybody but me. So I'm like, hey, I got this great exclusive. So I had great stuff. Nobody was in there. It was actually really peaceful. I have no idea why my abuser decided to step up that day. I got no idea why I decided to step up the morning of the Superbowl, right before we're about to redo the Immaculate Reception with Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris. Like, are you kidding me, man?

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Little Jason's dream of dreams.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  I don't have any memory of it. It wasn't until I got in the car with Jimmy Johnson and Kurt Menefee. We started busting chops and laughing where I got through it.

• 18:19Lewis Howes?

  After the fact, yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. We were going to the next site.

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  We, you know, we had a three or four hour pregame show, whatever it was. Yeah.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Man, I mean, you've worked with thousands.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  By the way, that day, I just gotta tell you this, because the laughter part, again, it's the 100th anniversary of the NFL, right?

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Centennial, the NFL. We're standing on the field, on the sideline, ball just kicks off. It's Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, me, Strahan, uh, Tony Gonzalez is standing over there. Kurt Menefee, Jimmy Johnson will stand there and Terry Bradshaw, who is the funniest dude you'll ever meet. Legit funny like that. He says, you know what? This 100th anniversary, the NFL thing, this worked great. This centennial, this, this thing went great. We said, yeah, it was great. And we did it all year long. He said, great. He said, we should totally do this again next year. And we all went, what did you just say? He literally is just like, oh, I get it. Yeah.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  100 years.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  But I'm sorry to cut you off.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  That's okay, man.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  That's the ADD part, cutting you off.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  No, it's all good, man. Side stories are classic. You've trained, or you've worked with, or have trained, and I've also just seen thousands of athletes and pro athletes come through your facility and over the years, trained them. What would you say is the level of which the high level athletes face mental health, stress, and anxiety? Or do you feel like most of them don't face that?

• 19:36Speaker 00

  They all face it. You can't be great and not have some crazy. Like, your work ethic, you're just, it's not normal, right?

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  And that's good. Like, I want us to embrace it. Like I say, I messed up, but I'm good with my messed up-ness.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Right? Look at the stuff you've done. You're not normal.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  I don't think, I think most of us aren't normal. And what makes us not normal is we outwork the world, not by a little, by a lot. You gotta have, you gotta be off to put those hours in when no one's watching.

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Right? Not just when everybody's watching. It's those hours when everybody else is, when nobody's watching.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  But to be on that level, right? And this is what I tell anybody, right? You played arena ball. You playing football, right? Is not who you are. But what's behind your rib cage that got you to beat out millions and millions to beat? You're a record holder in NCAA. That's one of one. That, that, no one could ever take that from you.

• 20:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  And too many feel like, oh, man, I didn't do enough, or I didn't go here, or I didn't go there. Yeah, you did. Like, you playing the NFL, or you playing arena ball is not who you are. What's behind your rib cage that makes you so much different than everybody else? That's who you are. And that suddenly doesn't just go away. It's always there.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  But who reminds you all of that? Right? So, like, even you were telling, well, I didn't do, no, no, no. You played arena ball, dude. I never got to that level.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I got paid to play ball.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, most of the world didn't get to that level.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Right? You were, you were a top level athlete in decathlon, right? Just, there's something different about you there. We all have something different about us. We gotta find what that is. For me, like, do I wish I could have played football? Yeah. I'm a five foot seven Jewish guy, it's not gonna happen.

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Your parents were like, why don't you just play some chess or something?

• 21:18Speaker 00

  And then, for me, I got into mixed martial arts early.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Because I actually, I felt like I belonged in a cage. That's what led me there.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  You felt like an animal.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  I felt, but not only that, I felt like I belonged there, and I felt like I deserved to lose.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 21:33Speaker 00

  That's what my self-worth was.

• 21:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  So that was the easiest place for me to kind of take beatings. And it's not like my dad didn't beat me growing up or anything like that. So it was just my self-worth. And it wasn't until I started really, I started coaching, Fox made me stop fighting in 2003 or four. Um, I only had two fights. See, I just did it right there. I only had two fights.

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. At least you fought.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  But that, see?

• 21:55Lewis Howes?

  You did it.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  I started minimizing myself right there. And that's what I'm trying to get.

• 21:58Lewis Howes?

  Me too, I only played the arena ball.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  That's what I, that's, I was just getting on you about that. Now, I just did it, right? I took those three steps up in and it did make me feel special because we were kind of like the island of misfit toys back then.

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. It was just pre.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, yes. And, um, and it still makes me feel special from my physical scars from it. So when Fox made me stop fighting, I learned how to start coaching guys.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  And that's how it came to about, about where I opened up the gym Unbreakable and I've coached a thousand something NFL players, full teams.

• 22:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Um, wrestle every single one of them.

• 22:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Get in there with every one of them.

• 22:35Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  And like it's, that's my, that's my own messed upness. Um, when I, when I have a fight team, the roommates in my head talk a lot nicer to each other.

• 22:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  And so I've always bragged about these physical scars, even like internally, when I walk in a room like, man, I ruptured L4, L5 four times and L1, L2 twice from wrestling with Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell and Andrew Whitworth and Lane Johnson and this guy and that guy. But we don't brag about our mental scars. So that's what I'm trying to do now is, man, it's, it's time I give myself a break and learn how to brag about the stuff I've overcome mentally. Right? That's what we have to do.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Like we can't. What happens when we start to talk about it? What happens to us physically, mentally, when we start to bring it out to light? As opposed to hide it and be shamed about it?

• 23:19Speaker 00

  We don't have a secret anymore. You know, it's just, it's this relief.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Like, and I'll tell you this too, the fear of someone's going to tell us to suck it up or, oh, come on, man, just, you know, you're being a wuss or whatever.

• 23:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Every single person. Hundred percent that I've opened up to about this. It brought me closer together with them.

• 23:38Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. Vulnerability is the key to connection in my mind.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  I um, I talk about this openly on my, on my show, but when I was five, I was sexually abused by a man that I didn't know. And for 25 years, I held on to the secret, the shame, because I thought to myself, if anyone knew this, no one would love me. And so it was the shame that I held on to.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  It's a lot. It's a lot to overcome.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot, man. And so it drove me to become bigger, faster, stronger, you know, protect myself. Kind of like what you were talking about, building this defense mechanism, but it left me feeling less connected to people emotionally because I wasn't able to tap into that vulnerability. It wasn't until about nine years ago, I started opening up and it was like this weight came off me. And also, like you said, all my relationships got stronger, all of them.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  And how many people did you help because they're like, oh, it happened to me too, right?

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  So many men started emailing me.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Good for you.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  I wrote a book about it, the whole thing.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Good for you.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  And it's like, that was my most downloaded podcast in 1,200 episodes.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  And it was the one that made the most impact when I talked about the journey for the first time. And it's just like what you're doing now. It's helping so many people give a voice and give words, like you said, to what their challenges might be faced with in their head. I'm curious.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  Right, just go ahead.

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  So I know, look, it beyond sucked that happened to you.

• 24:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  It's the ultimate betrayal.

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  But if it didn't, like, like, think how many, think how many lives you saved because it did.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Right?

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  That one day, you opened up, think about, like the, my co-author here, I, Sarah, I only chose her because she overcame cancer.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  And she didn't know why. I sent over the last chapter about, and I said, I know it sucks you had cancer, I know it. But you came through that other side of that tunnel and it didn't break you, and that's why I chose you. So I know it sucks because you went through it, you're gonna save people's lives. So that's the thing, we've got to use our, our pain and the things that have happened to us to help others. And I'm not saying it's ever gonna be worth it, but who knows the people's lives that you've saved? And the good and great they go on to do.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. You never know. You never, you never know the ripple of the, the impact.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  I'm proud of you, man. I'm proud.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  Thanks, man.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  I'm proud to be here with you.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, man. Thank you. And I.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Very strong.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  I started talking about it.

• 25:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I don't know. I guess seven years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago. And I remember feeling terrified because at the time, seven, eight years ago, I never saw any guys talking publicly about, especially who kind of looked like me, the former athlete Jock, opening up and talking about any of this stuff. So I was so scared. I was like, I'm gonna lose my business. No one's gonna like me. No one's gonna follow me. Like, no one's gonna be friends with me. And it was the opposite. It was kind of like, it allowed me to connect with my audience even stronger. And I think that's what you're doing as well, is showing a side of yourself that really connects people, your athletes, you know, followers.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Proud of our scars.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  These are, this, no matter what happened to you, it's something you overcame.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  So we gotta look at this as something that happened to me.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  That broke me, or that...

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Or something that I overcame.

• 26:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  So we have a girl named Andy Ward, who is, and I can talk about it because she talks about it. She's a member of MVP. She came into, she's now, well, she came into our MVP sessions, an MVP up here. And we're in seven cities right now, but in LA, we train Unbreakable. We take the combat vets and athletes and we merge them together on Wednesday nights. It's free to all of them. And we train for about a half hour, just to give that burn. But then after, we have these mental health talks and these huddles. And, man, they have, the sexual trauma that they've opened up about in there has been just, wow, well...

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  It's probably healing for so many to talk about it and really release it. Absolutely.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  And every one of us is just, man, we got your back. We are there for you. Well, Andy, for the first year and a half, Andy, we met Andy, she was homeless. And I think she was living on the VA campus by then. But Andy's, and she came in, she didn't say a word for the first year. Just came in, didn't say anything. And after a year, she's like, wow, these, these are brothers and sisters I could, it's a team I could, a vulnerable team.

• 27:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  And she finally, the stuff she's held on to, she finally opened up. And she was, she grew up in a cult. She was...

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  repeatedly grew up by her father. She used the military to get away and then she was

• 28:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  And then came back over here homeless, drugs, alcohol.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  She is now my second highest ranking female executive.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, it gives me chills.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  She is, so she talks about this now. And last year we had Josh Burris in, who's the CEO of GNC. And he was listening to a session, she was opening up, she goes, guys, today's this anniversary of this, this, this, and she starts opening up and she's like, for the first time I have brothers who get my back, I have men who get my back. And Josh Burris is like, oh my God, this person just said all this, public, oh my God. And he said, I'm donating a million dollars right now.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  To MVP. And it was because this woman was so vulnerable and open with us, Andy, and she's, she went from homeless to our second highest ranking female executives. And she works at Unbreakable too, she's amazing.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  So when you, when you turn your, we just had a Dallas chapter opening, she went down there and spoke with me and Dan Quinn, so defense coordinator down there and a bunch of us and Troy Aiken was there and a bunch of people were there and Andy told her story. And afterwards I said, how do you feel? And she said, I think pretty cool. And I said, you're the biggest rock star in this room right now.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  There are people, and she goes, I actually am feeling it. And she said, but you know what? I deserved to, it was my suffering. I'm like, here you go. But that's what I'm saying, like we've all, this is, this isn't heaven where we live, right? It's not gonna be perfect. We've all had really bad things happen to us. We could overcome it, right? And we could use it to motivate us, or we could let us just, let it beat us down. And it's easier to let it beat us down, but that can't be the option that I want us to all take.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  But it's more worth it overcoming it.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Look how good you feel in it.

• 29:57Lewis Howes?

  I know. What was the biggest, the first thing you felt like you had to overcome early in life?

• 30:02Speaker 00

  No, it was, it was, so I was tiny.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  It was, growing up in Jersey, being the smallest one in a room all the time.

• 30:12Lewis Howes?

  You were getting picked on a lot, yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  We, not even, yeah, but not even picked on one, yeah. I just, I couldn't fight, I was, you know, I wrestled 101 pounds in high school.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  I was 101, right, so, kind of always kind of got left. I was a few years behind everybody, so that was always hard. But I was always kind of this in-your-face type of cat, but it was in-your-face, I knew I can only get a certain point.

• 30:36Lewis Howes?

  In-your-face until you started beating me up, yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Until the guys who were 200, just like, I'm 101.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  But I've always been like a tough kid, but I couldn't really do a lot about it. And, and I just also, yeah, I just never felt loved growing up. That was the hardest.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  You never felt loved? Did your parents love you?

• 30:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, I just didn't, I just didn't feel it, I just didn't, yeah, and actually, I'd go upstairs at night, I would always get punished, because I'd lash back out, and I was always, and I was afraid of the dark, and I just started talking to God by myself, like.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, just, no one taught me, I just did, and that's my choice to have faith. I believe in a loving God, and it's like my best friend, parent, and that's my choice. It's not, not a hateful God where I'm getting punished for everything, and, which is weird, because I always feel like I deserve to be punished.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  Punished yourself, yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  It's kind of odd that I think that way.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up, and who taught you that lesson?

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Biggest lessons were from my dad. Outwork the world and be loyal, and your dreams will come true.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  From your dad, huh?

• 31:36Speaker 00

  From my dad. Outwork the world and be loyal. So, loyalty was, man, it's always, it's my brand.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  And I have just worked my butt off my whole life to make sure, like, I got a text from a Navy SEAL buddy of mine the other day. He said, I had a dream the other night that, man, I was about to get jumped in these football stands, and you were right behind me, and he just said, I was good, because you were there. And it's just like, it's just this loyalty, and he goes, we all know you're there for us.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  And I was like, that's, yeah, that, that fills me up, but they know I am, like, drop of a dime, if you're stranded anywhere in the world, you know to call me, and I will drop everything for you.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  And I kind of view it, I view everybody like, I'm going to be so loyal to them.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Hoping, it's gonna sound a little morbid to hear, so loyal that I'll end up being their pallbearer.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Right, that's as loyal as you get. And if I can get 10 or 15% of my crew to treat me back the same way, I got a pretty good little team around me.

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  And you got 15 pallbearers for you too.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, wow, man. What was the biggest lesson your mom taught you?

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Um, biggest lesson my mom taught me. My mom, so, I have a million, I have six careers I do at the same time. My mom did the same thing growing up.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  So, she was like a stay-at-home mom, but she started all these businesses in the house, and they ended up starting preschools for communicative handicapped children.

• 33:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  So I worked at those my whole life growing up, and that's actually how I got diagnosed with ADD in 1989, through them. It took me, they had one place over by Princeton University, and they brought me in, and this is 89. So I got diagnosed with that. I got put on Ritalin, which, oof, talk about messing up your brain chemistry. Um, and then I have to go tell my teachers, hey, I got this new thing called ADD, and explain it, and they're like, and I was like Ferris Bueller, they're like, oh, yeah, you know what? You need to take a pill and step out of the room, yeah, whatever, right? So, yeah, they didn't, I was, it was my first year of college, or my first year, I didn't get kicked out of college. But, you know, I had to educate college professors.

• 33:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  And then I was also trying, and I've tried to do this, and I write a lot of this in the book, don't call it a learning disability.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, what should we call it?

• 33:53Speaker 00

  ADD. It's also, they've decided to lump it in altogether, ADD and ADHD. Not, like, my kid has ADD, and they call it ADHD, he is not hyper at all.

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  So, they kind of lump things in, but also like, man, when we're growing up, and they say, oh, this kid has a learning disability, there's a negative connotation to it.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  We just don't learn like everybody else. It's not a disability, but I know the way I learn is way better than the way that teacher over there may learn, or that coach over there.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  We didn't learn well in school format.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Yes, we didn't learn their way.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  Sports, and in the world, we were able to connect with people and learn in other ways.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Right, but if you brought them into a football meeting room, and they couldn't pick up your playbook, would you call them disabled?

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  They shouldn't call us disabled.

• 34:34Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 34:36Lewis Howes?

  You're just not good at that thing.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Not good at that, yeah. It's not disabled, we're just, we don't pick that up. We're not gonna call you disabled because you can't pick up playbook.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  And that, that would always hurt me a lot. When they would say that.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  And I was a remedial English early.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Here I wrote a book, so.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  I know, I almost smoked out English my senior year. My, my teacher, my, my senior year teacher, she was like, Louis, you can't go to college if you don't finish high school, uh, English class. And so she was great at just like tutoring me every day after class, like trying to help, trying to help me just get a passing grade so I could go play football.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, wow. That's it. My parents got me a tutor every day.

• 35:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  For my class. I just didn't get it.

• 35:15Lewis Howes?

  It's the worst, man. It's hard to remember. I would read like pages in a book and just have to keep rereading the same pages. And be like, half an hour, you're like, this is pointless. I'm gonna fail anyways. What's the point of doing this?

• 35:26Speaker 00

  I skipped the reading comprehension part for my SATs.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  So I was just like, skipped it. I knew I had no shot. But clearly, I'm not learning disabled.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Clearly, it hasn't held me back from reaching my dreams. I have accomplished my dreams.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  So, you know, again, it's, there are certain things I'm good at, certain things I'm not good at. We all have that. Let's not call us disabled in any way.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  What's the three proudest moments of your life?

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Um, three proudest moments.

• 35:55Lewis Howes?

  That come to your mind, you know, obviously if you have more time to think about, but what's the first thing that came to mind? Three proudest moments from early childhood till now?

• 36:01Speaker 00

  When I started getting comfortable with the Giants for all those years, just broke it and broke it. The first day I walked in that giant locker room in 1993, which is already four years into my career, finally got a break for that 450 bucks, which was like nothing, um, but it was my first real job. I walked in that giant locker room and I said, okay. I have no education compared to everybody else there. I have no, this is the Mecca of, you know, television, sports, New York City. I have no experience. How could I be different? And for me, I try and preach that to people. Let's not be a face in the crowd. Let's be the crowd. Be your own crowd.

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  That's what stands out, right? You're different. Everybody, we're different. So, how could I be different? So what'd you do? So I said, number one, if these reporters here work, I said, I'll be the last dude standing. So if they work forty hours a week, I'm not gonna outwork them by a little. I'm outworking by a lot, a lot. So I'd work a hundred hours a week. Jeez. And I had, I couldn't afford subway to bus to Giants stadium and back every day. So Michael Strahan drove me into New York City. How'd you convince him to drive you? Nobody talked to him for like, Michael didn't like make it to his fifth year. No one talked to him. He got drafted to be the top pass rusher of the Giants to replace Lawrence Taylor. Lawrence Taylor's still on the team. Right. Michael has bad teeth in his speech impediment and comes from Germany. Wasn't a good thing.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  So, no one talked to him. And those other reporters didn't talk to me. We met our first ever days on the job, ever. Wow. And latched on each other. And we just, every day, and what I would also do is I would get these other reporters. So he would drop you off? Every day of my life. So I owe him about twenty-nine thousand dollars in Lincoln cell fare. And, like, but Michael validated me to other players that you can trust this guy. Right, right, right. But I also, the other thing I did, is I said, okay, A, I'm not working by a lot. B, I'm not gonna use my pen as a weapon. You're not gonna call, you know, talk bad about them? Well, I'm just not gonna, I'm not gonna use my pen as a weapon. Back then, it was, everything splashed on the back pages.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Bad, right? I said, I'm gonna start relationships. I have more in common with these players than I do my fellow reporters. Yeah. So I'm gonna start relationships. It was so frowned upon back then. Really? Oh my God, they used to kill me and Michael. Now that's all they wanna do is try to build relationships to get the story. I've started a different way of doing it. So I had every scoop and every story. But that's the smart thing. Build a relationship, the scoops will come. If you go for the one scoop, you burn yourself forever. Relationship. Short sighted. But I also, again, me needing a team, even though I was the reporter and they were the players and the coaches, that was, they're my team for my own mental health. Like, I latched on to them. I needed that. So...

• 38:40Speaker 00

  It took me, again, overall 11 years to get a full-time job. Wow. But I just kept going. I kept grinding. And what I did too is I got those players that was covering, and the coaches to see my plight. Man, this guy's so broke, but he's the first one here by hours. He's the last one here by hours. We want to see him make it. Like, I got them to see my plight. I collected more of a team around me to walk this walk together with me. Finally, in 1999, I am on a driving range on Randall's Island with Tiki Barber, who's the Giants' cornerback. And my agent was still with me, Morrie Goss, who, I got turned down by 20 agents. I'm just, I was just trying to build this team that's not just me, like, doing this.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  And he just happened to be homesick one day and saw me doing a free show on Channel 5 there, and he's like, "Oh, this kid's good." He calls me up and he says, "Hey, what are you doing?" I said, "I'm playing golf with Tiki, a little driving range." He said, "Okay." And I get choked up here, because this is my moment. There's only time, there's a few times in life where we really find out who we are. And this was one of them. And he said, "You can excel." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "We finally got you a full-time job." Now, this is 11 years of, and let me back up. Not only did I outwork these guys, I was trying to get a job every week of my life. I got rejected more than any human being you'll ever see in your life. But that relentlessness I told you about of me having that depression and anxiety,

• 40:10Speaker 00

  I had to go for something bigger. So I felt that love from the outside in so hard. I'm like, "I'll be rejected over and over and over and over and over," just constantly rejected. And I had this thing where, actually, every week, so for six days, I got rejected. I covered the Giants, covered the NFL, grinded, grinded, grinded. It's exhausting. Swimming upstream. And again, I'm real spiritual, and I'm reading a prayer book, and the fourth commandment, "God commands you to take a day off and drink some wine." I'm like, "Don't throw me in a good time." I take it literal. Every week. Take one day and say, okay, whatever happened this past week, it's done, it's over. Like, all the rejection.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  Let it go, yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  It's over.

• 40:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  And I'm giving myself a day to heal. One day. And literally, after that one day, I would look up to guys, say, okay, God, I'm not asking you to get me this job. I'm not asking you to help me win this interview, and I think we do that too much, right? I'm not asking you to get me money. All I'm asking is you pick me up, brush me off, and let's keep walking this walk together.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Right? So I've never felt fully alone, right?

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  It's... And I didn't look at it as 11, an 11-year span of being rejected. I looked at it as 11 years of one-week periods.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So it's much more easy to manage. Because I'm like, I've been going for a decade and nothing's happening.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  I have a thing in here that says, you never know what lies around next Tuesday.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  I was always hunting for that next Tuesday when something happened. So finally, 11 years in, a Tuesday came.

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so he said, you can exhale. And what did he say? We got your job.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  And I said, he said, you finally got a full-time job. I said, with who? He said, the NFL Today on CBS. They just got football back. I said, oh, he said, you're gonna be their NFL insider. I said, I'll take it. And he said, don't want to have much to it for? And I said, I don't give a...

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  It's more than what I'm making now, probably.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  I said, and here gets the choked-up part. I said, Maury, this was my validation. When I walked in that giant locker room all those years later, and I said, I'll be the last dude standing.

• 42:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  This validated that. Like, all this stuff I've done, all the rejection, it validated it. And I said to him, before you tell me the salary, if it took me another 10 years to get this, I would've done it. And it's, and it takes, and listen, it takes a lot out of you. It does beat your soul down. And it was for 50 grand a year, and it was the biggest thing that ever happened to me in my life.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Like, so it's a long story there, but...

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  2005, is that what that was?

• 42:34Speaker 00

  No, no, no, 99.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, 99 when you got this. 2005 was...

• 42:37Speaker 00

  2005, I went to Fox.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Fox, yeah, gotcha.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Four, 2004. Um, I went to Fox.

• 42:41Lewis Howes?

  So five years later, you got the Fox.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  And that was more than 50K?

• 42:45Speaker 00

  That was, well, what happened when I got the 50 grand from CBS, and also, that internet thing came out.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Which I think is gonna take off. You should have invested it now. Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  And I became the first minute by minute breaking news guy in America. Me, John Clayton, who just passed away, and Len Pascagalli. We were kind of battling out and no one did that back then. So before us, there was no, it was you had to wait for the newspapers the next day. And before us, there was no crawl on bottom of the screen. So we started it and so I got an extra 50 from CBS Sportsline to do that.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  And another 25 or 35 from local CBS to do the Jets Giants. So I went from 9,750 bucks a year to 135 grand. Yes.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Pretty good coin back then, too.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, it was just.

• 43:34Lewis Howes?

  99? That's pretty good.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  It's good money back then.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, but again, what I, what I realized is as I started moving up the ladder. And then Fox saw me from CBS, which obviously way better fit. My wallet's not an antidepressant.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  It's not an antidepressant. What do you mean by that?

• 43:51Speaker 00

  I thought when I made it big, big, big. There was going to be rainbows and unicorns. That's why I've worked so hard to, man, look where I am now. I've had, now, I've had a lot of those moments. So it's, it was definitely, there's two sides. It was, there's a lot that's better. I've been broke and I've been unbreakable.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Right? But when you're broke, there's a lot of things like I had nothing to lose.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  So I didn't have that fear of losing stuff, that anxiety. Now, when you have all this, you're so horrified, you're going to lose it.

• 44:19Lewis Howes?

  Really? So you have more anxiety now than then?

• 44:21Speaker 00

  I think so. I think you're just petrified of losing it all the time.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Maybe that 2005 was when you went to Fox.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  And there was more to lose then.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  Well, now, as I've gotten to this level, it's like, you know, that whole more money, more problems thing. And it's all different type of problems. But I just think that, yeah, when you get, when you work so hard and you finally do make it, you're so afraid of losing.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to lose it.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, you almost, it's almost like fighting not to lose instead of win.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  So I've had to alter that. I've had to make sure I recognize and just go and like, hey, just be me.

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  Play, play free, man. Yeah, yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Just be me, you know, but it's, look, it's, it's all, and a lot of it, too, is like, I don't think logically a lot because those roommates in my head don't like me to have joy. Like, don't, so anytime I want to enjoy something, you don't deserve it. You're not worthy of it. So, and I think that's part of it also. I don't know if it's for everybody.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  It's part of for me and, and listen, I'm a work in progress, man.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. We all are.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm, I'm trying to learn to get there. That's why I'm, you know, I keep doing things like this to hope that, okay, maybe this is the thing. That's gonna help finally get me to meet in the middle.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Where I could feel that worth from the inside out. And I, it's like, I know I'm worthy of being loved. So here's the crazy part, I know I'm worthy of it, but I don't feel like I deserve it.

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:40Speaker 00

  No, it's probably the other way around. I feel like I deserve it, but I don't feel like I'm worthy of it. That's, that's it. Yeah, I'm kinda doing a little stuff.

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  When was the time you felt the most loved?

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Hmm, and this isn't good, because this isn't real love. But, like, when I would like, would break huge stories in the NFL, and everybody'd be like, oh my gosh. When, again, I was ahead of the game in this, and it was like, man, I was the first one doing this. It's like, on a different, like, I had the Spy Gear video. That was a crazy time in my life that, you know, that was, that was my second week in Fox. And that's the biggest scoop in the history of sports. The actual video when the Patriots got caught, you know, filming the Jets coaches and cheating. But you're asking me, like, the love, that's not a real love. I felt admired, and people like, oh my God, this is like, you know, this is, this is different. This is amazing. But the most loved, I don't know, I don't know how to answer that question.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know how to answer it.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  You have a son, right?

• 46:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Love of the son, or friends, or family, I mean.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  But you said most, I don't know how to.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  When have you had the most love, yeah?

• 46:47Speaker 00

  I don't know how to answer that.

• 46:48Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't like, I enjoy being with my friends. I love being with them.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  You don't feel loved, yeah.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I always feel like, hmm, they're gonna catch on soon to this fraud that I am, because I'm, you know, I'm this terrible person inside. And that's, that's what tells you a lot. Yeah, that's why you have this mask on.

• 47:09Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think you're a terrible person?

• 47:11Speaker 00

  That's what it tells me, I don't know.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  But my mother asked me that recently, she said, do you, because she sees how exhausted I am from it. It exhausts me.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  And she said, how do you, and I told her how bad, and I don't say to her how bad I do of myself. She's like, what? She's like, look at all the good you do. I said, I, I, I know, but.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  I just don't feel that I deserve that, right? And or worthy of that. And she said, it has to be exhausting. And I said, so exhausting. So I said, Mom, when I don't get right back to you, that's why. Like, I'm going through it.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Right? And it is totally exhausting. So yet, all I want to do is be loved. And then people kind of reach out to love me. I'm already so tired from.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  You can't receive the love. Yeah. It's hard to receive it, man. Well, that was your one of the most proud moments, you said?

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  When you got that phone call?

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  What was the second and third most proud moments, would you say?

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Man.

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  And it can be a big thing. It can be a small thing. It can be.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  Look, I would say, um, when I first started MVP, that was.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  That's pretty cool. Having, um, having kind of that say like, man, thank you. You saved my life.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  That's, that's got me a lot. Or we have another employee named Denver Morris, um, who's my, who's our national outreach director. We met him, he was living in a homeless shelter, coming off his third suicide attempt.

• 48:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  He still, first time he told that, man, you saved my life. Like, oh, my God. MVP saved my life. And those moments, now I, there's a lot of those.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  And those, those get me. Um, I have one two days ago from one of our guys here. Hey, brother, just checking in on you. Hope you're doing well. I'm coaching the weekend with a positive mindset. Love you, brother. Next time you look in the mirror, tell that guy, thanks for saving my.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  Tell that guy, thanks for saving my life.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Grateful you've made this impact in the world. See, I can't like, hey, listen, I'm a, you know, no one's questioning my manhood. I could cry in a drop of a dog. I could sit there like, oh, Glazer's a wussy, so, but let's think about that. To me, though, just read this to you. It's pretty, so these come in a lot. So there's a lot of proud moments now.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  And it's for me being of service to people. It's, that's pretty cool.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible, man.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  It's pretty cool.

• 49:34Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  What do you see? I mean, you've accomplished so much in the last, really last 20 years, I guess, 23 years since you, I call it 30 years, since you started the journey for 11 years of going after the dream.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  I'm 52 now. I look fantastic. Don't I?

• 49:50Lewis Howes?

  You look great, man.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  And then, you know, getting the job, you know, the bigger job and then on Fox and then Hall of Fame in TV and all these, you know, Unbreakable and all the thousands of athletes that you work with and all the-

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Don't forget Ballers.

• 50:04Lewis Howes?

  Ball-

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Five Years on Ballers.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  That's one of my favorite shows.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah, absolutely.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  You got a great role in that show.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  I know.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  Yourself.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Great looking Jewish reporter.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  And I didn't follow my lines because I couldn't remember them, so I just-

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  You just make it up again.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  And I just messed with Dwayne, so that's the whole thing, like- That's actually, like, we've been close for a while, but we really started having mental health talks way back then.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 50:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, we get real vulnerable with each other.

• 50:25Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson DJ has taught you in the space of mental health and also in just life?

• 50:30Speaker 00

  Matt, he is, he saw me a couple of weeks ago on TV promoting this, and he called, he said, "What's up?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I saw you today," I said, "Yeah," he said, "What's wrong?" And something was wrong. I was going through with another, an issue, and he saw it, but the fact that he stepped away and saw that and he said, "Okay, I'm gonna call you." Four times, "I got you, brother." And, but the biggest thing for him is, man, he is like this authentic dude. Same thing though, like he, that dude thinks he's gonna be broke next week. He literally thinks he's gonna have seven bucks in his pocket again next week. And for me, we're special. Here's the biggest star in

• 51:11Speaker 00

  the world, and yet, we call each other and send each other notes and lean on each other for mental health almost every day.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  Whether it's, when I had that anxiety attack the other night, I reached out to him, struggling, and there was another issue I was going through, "Hey, how did you handle this?" And boom. When I had the book too, again, he's like, "You're gonna be that voice of the gray for all of us, and I'm gonna put my team behind you also."

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Because it's gonna help you, it's gonna help me, it's gonna help a lot of us.

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  It's gonna help the next generation of Dwayne's and Jay's out there and stuff. So, he's very selfless. He's incredibly selfless. And that's the biggest lesson I learned from him is, you could be the biggest star in the world, and- Still be incredibly selfless.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Still just give, give, give. And I think he does so much charity work and all this work he does for people. Same thing, he's trying to show himself. I'm okay. Like when you work so hard and you get all that rejection that he did, or I did, or you did, right? He's showing up stream all those years, it's exhausting.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  So, yeah, it takes, it beats down your soul a lot. So we're there to love each other up, man. It's just so crazy he became him. My little niece. Who looks like Sasquatch.

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  When did you first meet him? Have you guys known each other for a while?

• 52:29Speaker 00

  I did a movie with him called The Game Plan, Disney movie, where I was just like, and I just started messing with him. Again, the laughter part, I mess with everybody.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  And it just kind of stood out. Everybody else is like, and I was just, so when I go down and do Ballers, like he'd be over there with his team and then everybody else would be over here and I'd come walking through and I'd be like, where's Sasquatch? I can't work like this. And I'd go through and, you know, he would sit there and he would be like, he'd have his lines. And I'm like, don't say it like that. He's like, who are you telling that to? I'm like, I got this what I do for a living. He's like, no you don't. I would just mess with them. Or I would change my lines. They eventually had, it went from scripts, they said to like Glazer scripts, at least from my side.

• 53:07Lewis Howes?

  Just notes.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, they just knew.

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  It's a bullet point. Yeah, just say something.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  They just wouldn't remember it. And I was just being myself. So I would mess with them all the time. And we try and get a little, you know, me, I run a fun locker room, so I try and make it rancid and dirty and kind of shock value. And they kept most of it.

• 53:23Lewis Howes?

  Ah, that's great, man.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  It was great.

• 53:25Lewis Howes?

  You got a great little cameo in there every time I see you. I was like, it's great.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  I have five seasons of that.

• 53:28Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty big, man.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  Right? It's pretty cool. It was all, it was like, that was, that's the, obviously Fox and Evil Sunday for me every week is just incredible because that's our locker room.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  And we sit back there and watch games together and just.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty awesome.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Crush each other. And there's six of us on the show and there's 19 personalities. And Bradshaw and I have 11 of those. So. But Ballers was so much fun.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Because I probably didn't care because I'm not an actor.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  Right. See, I'm just gonna be myself.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm not being jonesy. If they fire me, I don't care. I can't care. But I also know, they're not firing me. I got this camera.

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's gonna keep coming in there.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  I'm okay.

• 54:02Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  And he would just be like, yeah, just keep rolling. I would just, I mean, I would say.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, 90% of my stuff probably wasn't, it was supposed to be scripted, I just didn't follow.

• 54:12Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing, man. I'm really excited about people to get this book. Unbreakable, how I turn my depression and anxiety into motivation, and you can too. This is powerful because I think a lot of people feel unmotivated when they have anxious thoughts, stress, depression, or just issues where they don't feel worthy, don't feel loved, don't feel enough. I know I faced a lot of that in my life, but I was...

• 54:35Speaker 00

  What was your turning point?

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  Man, I was driven... The thing is, I had a drive to prove everyone wrong about me. So everyone, you know, just being bottom of my class, special needs, picked on, being kind of tall.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  That's a lot of pressure.

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  You were the short kid? I was this tall when I was like 11, but not this built. So I was like this goofy, kind of like, big-eared, you know, big teeth. Just they made fun of the appearance. So it wasn't until I really turned 16, 18, 20, where I started to fill out my body. So it's kind of like the opposite, you know, I was tall, but I was made fun of being tall. And so I just remember many moments being made fun of, picked last, and, you know, on the playground, whatever it is, for little sports. And just being like, I'm gonna prove everyone wrong who's made fun of me, who's doubted me.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Were you resentful to them? Do you want to get back at them?

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  I just wanted to show them, look, I did something that they never thought I could do. And it drove me to get incredible results. And that, it gave me motivation, but it was a motivation out of more anger and resentment than love and inspiration. And so I would accomplish and achieve, and then I transitioned from sports, and then I played with the USA handball team for nine years, played, you know...

• 55:49Speaker 00

  I don't know how your knees held up in that.

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  I know, right?

• 55:51Speaker 00

  You kidding me?

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  And, but I was like, I'm gonna do this in sports, and then I did it in business. But then I hit a turning point at 30, I'm 39 now, where I was like, I'm accomplishing and accomplishing and accomplishing, but I still don't feel lovable and I don't feel enough. The turning point was facing the sexual abuse and talking about it and allowing myself to be vulnerable. And that's where everything shifted because I was in such a competitive mindset. I had to win at everything. I had to be the number one and win at everything at everyone else's expense of being a loser. And if I lost, then I was worthless. I was not good enough. Even if I broke, the day I broke the world record for the most yards in a game, we lost. So I was beating myself up for days.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  That's a good quality though, because you lose is not.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Your team lost.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  It's great quality.

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but it wasn't until I hit thirty and I started down a healing journey of therapy and lots of different stuff where I said, it's not going to be about competition, it's going to be about collaboration. It's about how can I win and how can I get everyone else to win with me?

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:56Lewis Howes?

  And that collaborative, and I didn't know collaboration was a thing. I knew teamwork was a thing, but not against someone else like collaboration. So now it's just like, how can I win by lifting everyone else up?

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  How can I make you win?

• 57:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 57:10Lewis Howes?

  How can I shine the light on you, put you on a platform, support your message, your mission to serve people, and in return, good things are going to happen. You know, good things are going to happen to me. As opposed to, I need to be the biggest show, the best show, the most successful in the world to make me feel good. Instead, how can I serve the world?

• 57:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 57:29Lewis Howes?

  And I feel great.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  That's, and that's that give, give, right? That loyalty I talked about how to be and that, you know, whenever we train football players or I help a lot of coaches kind of move up in the NFL ranks, and that's why I have this loyalty, but I was telling them, listen, I know I'm crazy. If you follow along, man, we'll change your grandkids' lives.

• 57:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Right? So it's like, we'll lift you to such stuff, but it's not, we don't get anything out of it. This is for you to change your kids. And when I do see that and this guy gets a head coaching job or makes a Pro Bowl, it just starts getting up here where he can give back to charities that, again, when things happen to other people, you ask, so you, your question was, what's the best thing that's happened to me? I don't see that. If you said to me, what's made you feel the best out of it's when something's happened to everybody else like you're saying. You lift people up, then I have something tangible for me. Man, this has happened. That's happened. I've walked this walk with this person. I've helped this person overcome this. They've gotten up here now. That's, that's the key. That's really the key to success.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. The best thing that's ever happened to me that I think at this moment was learning how to heal my heart. Because my heart was in a prison for so long and it felt trapped and it felt painful and it felt tension and all these things. And learning how to, and it's a journey. It's not like it's one night. It's, it's all better. It's been like a journey of finding, having more inner peace than I did stress. Cause it used to be all stress and anxiety and I couldn't sleep at night. It would just be up all night thinking, worrying, stressed. Learning how to find inner peace has been a game changer. Cause I feel like I have more energy.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  And look at, it's hard to see right now that we live in a good world, right? There's so much stuff. However, look at two guys right here. We're in sports who've talked now about sexual trauma, suicide.

• 59:14Lewis Howes?

  Depression, anxiety.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  Cried here. So we are actually coming along a lot further in certain ways to make this world a better place. Like that's our only, kind of our only hope moving forward for this next generation.

• 59:25Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. I think specifically for men who are holding on to trauma, I think in order for the world to heal and relationships to heal, I think men need to heal personally and start talking more like this.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  And it's interesting because I thought obviously me being center of dudeism with, you know, football and fighting and bowlers. I thought it was going to be a male centric book and it's majority female of like, God, so they can, and they're saying, hey, to their boyfriends or husbands and they're all just like, yeah, that's not me. Yes, you, it's definitely you. And that's why I want it. We gotta get dudes to get it. So like, it's you, dude. It's so you.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  You're telling me, I wrote a book five years ago called The Mask of Masculinity, which was for men on how to open up and be more vulnerable. Almost all 80% women bought it and tried to give it to the men. But this is the challenge that we're gonna face where women are gonna hopefully bring this in and share with their guys more. And this is why we gotta continue to be a Trojan horse, you know, talk about sports and do the rough and tough stuff, but slide in the vulnerability when we can, I think.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  But were you able to make that, did it switch over it?

• 1:00:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there's a long tail now where it's like.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  So you gotta tell me off here, you gotta tell me what you did.

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no, it's been great.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  I was kinda shocked. I thought it was gonna, you know, but it's like I had dinner recently.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  And there were a couple there I'm friends with and this dude's a big dude and his wife was sitting there with me and his wife was like, she was just telling me what, somebody said, oh, just for a book and she's like, and we just talked about how Miss USA just committed suicide. There's the most beautiful girl in the world, felt that lonely, that alone, right? And this woman said to me, that's me, that's how I feel. And I said, well, talk to your teammate, he's right there. And she says, he won't get it. And I said, you deserve to have him understand what you're going through. You deserve this.

• 1:01:17Lewis Howes?

  At least try it, yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  Right. And she literally is saying that she wants, and I said, you need to, I called him over and I said, and she said, we have some homework. And he said, I heard about his book. And she said, I do need you to read a couple of these chapters to me. So like that's, yes, but that's exactly what you're talking about. Took a woman.

• 1:01:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  And she's like, he won't get it. Well, dudes need to start getting it.

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  They need to start getting it. They deserve to get it. Their wives and girlfriends and their moms and dads and children, they deserve for them to get it. But most importantly, the dudes themselves deserve it. They deserve not to be in this kind of pain that we're talking about.

• 1:01:51Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  I don't deserve this pain. I didn't sign up for it.

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  I know. Well, you're working through it too. It's beautiful.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  I can use it, man.

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  I've got two final questions for you before I ask them. I want people to get a copy of the book, get it for your friends. If you have a friend that maybe is feeling more stressed or anxious, get him a copy to really inspire them. Follow you all over social media. You're mostly on Instagram, right? Is that the main place you're hanging out?

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  Instagram, Twitter.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  Twitter, you're a lot on Twitter too?

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Instagram too. IG following sucks. I don't know what I'm doing.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  You can share more on Twitter.

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  Well, I used to break stories on Twitter all the time, but now I try not to look on social media because it's just, yeah, it pulls me out.

• 1:02:27Lewis Howes?

  So follow them too much, yeah, yeah. Check if you're in LA, check out Unbreakable. It's an amazing gym. It's world-class. It's so inspiring and it's gonna get you.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  Breakable performance.

• 1:02:36Lewis Howes?

  Another level of.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  And it is a great community. It's the only gym in America. I have a therapist in there.

• 1:02:41Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  I hired a full-time therapist in there.

• 1:02:44Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  So, cause that's when like for me, after I'm done working out is when I feel the most vulnerable, going to talk.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  That is cool, man.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  And our motto is we build you from the inside out.

• 1:02:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that I love that. I love that, man.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  And there's not, the only gym in America missing, no mirrors.

• 1:03:00Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  Cause I don't want anybody's back turned to the rest of the team. If you're sitting there checking yourself out, you got your back turned to everybody else. So we really are, we build you up from the inside out.

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  That is cool, man. So make sure you guys check that out. This is a question.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  And anybody can get in.

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of the show. It's called three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  Well, then it wouldn't be true.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  The scenario is it's your last day on earth, many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live. You get to accomplish everything. You put out more books, you're, you know, whatever you want to do, you do it, right? But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your books, this interview, video content, anything of you speaking or saying anything, written, audio, video, it's gotta go to the next place. So no one has access to your information anymore. Just memory. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true, and this is all we would have to remember you by. What would you say would be those three lessons or three truths?

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Vulnerability is true strength.

• 1:04:02Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, yeah.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  That's right out the gate. Vulnerability is true strength.

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  The secret of success is out working the world.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  And being loyal.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Last one would be, love yourself up.

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, we gotta give ourselves a break.

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  Amen.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Alright. Learn to love yourself up. Try to learn to love yourself up.

• 1:04:32Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. I want to, before I ask the final question, Jim, I want to acknowledge you for going on this journey. I think it's really hard for men in general, but specifically a guy like you from Jersey in this world, kind of growing up, you know, before me, when this stuff wasn't even talked about. To be able to open up about it, write a book, pour your heart out to the world, and really share a lot of rough stuff that you're sharing here, and the vulnerabilities at the platform that you have, I think it's really inspiring. And you're allowing other men like you to be inspired to do the same with, you know, their communities, their families, their, you know, girlfriends, whatever it might be. So I really acknowledge you for

• 1:05:12Lewis Howes?

  for doing the work, showing up, and being willing to not be perfect, not have it all figured out, you know what I mean? So, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful journey, man. I'm really, I'm really excited for you.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  And like I said, I'm, look, I'm trying to learn to love myself up. I'm trying to learn to be loved, because like,

• 1:05:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Speaker 00

  Like, that's all I want is to be loved, and have that love, right? And I haven't felt worthy of it since, it's gotten in the way of most of my, a lot of my relationships. And now I think I'm, if I can, you know, again with this, the more I can do that, I could hopefully feel

• 1:05:43Lewis Howes?

  Feel that worthiness, then I'll have that happiness I've been kind of searching for. Of course, man. It's coming. This is part of the process, man.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  It's that journey there where probably wasn't, I couldn't recognize it years ago, but now that I'm talking about it like this, this is the version of me that I do want somebody else to be with, and me to be with.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. That's beautiful, man.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:06:02Lewis Howes?

  Uh, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  It's this thing lifting somebody else up.

• 1:06:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  This isn't being cliche, like, again, it's, it's, um,

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  it's not success in like a career. No. It's how you use whatever you have for somebody else, but it's like,

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  You see what some of the great ones have done, what they've done with their platform. That's greatness. If you just do it for yourself, that's not greatness. You've just done a lot of really good stuff. You've accomplished some things, but it's not greatness. Greatness is when you lift everybody else up, right? Like, listen, I said it in Strahan's Hall of Fame speech. I said, you know, being a great player, you're, you know, you're great. But a Hall of Famer, you lift up everybody else around you. That's what greatness is, lifting up everybody else around you.

• 1:06:50Lewis Howes?

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