Channel Your Creative Brain 3 HACKS to Break Through MENTAL BLOCKS (Let CREATIVITY FLOW!)

How can embracing simplicity, improvisation, and mindfulness transform your creative process and lead to groundbreaking personal development? In today’s episode we explore how to harness our creative brain and elevate our creative output! First, we have the legendary music producer Rick Rubin, who'll share transformative insights from his #1 New York Times bestseller, "THE CREATIVE ACT," highlighting the power of simplicity and nurturing environments in the creative process. Joining him is the phenomenal freestyle rapper Harry Mack, who will discuss the pivotal role of improvisation in enhancing personal and artistic expression. Rounding out our trio is Diego Perez, known as Yung Pueblo, a meditator and bestselling author who delves into how meditation and self-awareness can dramatically elevate creative output. Get ready to unlock your creative genius with today's incredible lineup! In this episode you will learnEmbrace simplicity to unleash your full creative potential. Harness the power of improvisation to transform your artistic and personal expression. Cultivate mindfulness to tap into deeper levels of creativity and self-discovery. Create environments that nurture innovation and inspire breakthrough ideas. Overcome creative blocks and discover new ways to think outside the box. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1607For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Full episodes from today’s mashup:Rick Rubin – https://link.chtbl.com/1536-podHarry Mack – https://link.chtbl.com/1321-podYung Pueblo – https://link.chtbl.com/1512-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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We've 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. What do you see is the thing that holds people back the most from being their most creative and best self?

• 0:23Rick Rubin?

  I think it's being concerned what other people think and a feeling of

• 0:32Rick Rubin?

  that the people who make great things are somehow special and that they're not special. And that's just not true. We're all, everyone has the capability to make great things. And none of us are special.

• 0:47Lewis Howes?

  It seems like a lot of people, they're focused on what other people think, like you said, and it almost, it blocks them into this kind of rut feeling, I guess, that they feel like they're stuck in a rut. I don't know if you've heard this before with a lot of your artists, but with, with me as a writer and an author, I've heard so many people come to me and say, I want to write a book. And I ask them, how long have you been, had this idea that you wanted to write this book about this thing? And some people will say five, seven, 10 years, but they've been worried about what people think, or they feel creatively stuck in a rut. Do you ever feel stuck in a rut? And if so, how do you personally get out of that?

• 1:25Rick Rubin?

  I think taking action is a really great thing and not, not setting up barriers of entry. Like, um, I can imagine a musician saying, I can't play this song because I don't have the right guitar, or I don't have the right equipment to do it. And there are no barriers to entry. There's always a way. I come from a punk rock background. So in punk rock, it was a do it yourself mentality. And, um, you know, I started my first record company not knowing, not knowing that was something you can do. It just really happened automatically. I wanted to start making records. I wanted people to hear them. I never knew that you could get signed to a label. I just thought, well, if you want to make a record, you make a record.

• 2:07Rick Rubin?

  So I made records and, you know, printed up 500 copies of a seven inch single, for example. So I think there's always a way. You don't have to wait for permission from someone else.

• 2:21Rick Rubin?

  I think that's a big part. People are waiting for permission.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  To actually make their art.

• 2:26Rick Rubin?

  To make their art. Someone has to say, you know, I'll hire you to do this, or I'll publish your book if you write a book, or set the stage to allow you to do it. But I don't think that's the way great things are made.

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  When you did those, when you printed those first 500 singles, what was your dream or your vision? Was it, okay, now I'm gonna, how do I sell these? How am I gonna give them away for free? What was the process for you?

• 2:53Rick Rubin?

  Combination of giving them away for free and selling enough to be able to make another one. That was always, any of the things I've made, it's always been about sustainability. As long as I can make another one, it's a success.

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  But at this point, you know, you're sustainable probably for life, I'm assuming, with the success you've had. So you don't have to make something to try to make your money back, you know, or get your time back or whatever. So what is the vision now?

• 3:21Rick Rubin?

  It's still, I still think in those terms, though. I want, I feel like I want to make it where it's sustainable by itself. There's something that feels good about that, that you make something that can live on, not because of an endowment.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's interesting. I know you're-

• 3:41Rick Rubin?

  I don't know why. I don't know why that is, but that's just my, and maybe it's just the way I was brought up. It may just be-

• 3:47Lewis Howes?

  What does an artist need to be thinking and feeling at the same time to create great art?

• 3:52Rick Rubin?

  I would say thinking is the least part of it. It's much more about feeling and

• 4:02Rick Rubin?

  being true to themselves, whatever that is. Feeling, feeling their truths.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  And how do you know when an artist is being truthful in front of you?

• 4:13Rick Rubin?

  It's a, it's just a feeling. I feel it.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I think something that you said was- I have no skill set. It's all intuitive. It's not what's in my head. It comes through me.

• 4:26Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  So you're not analyzing or thinking about it. You're saying, huh, something doesn't feel right.

• 4:31Rick Rubin?

  It starts with a feeling always. It starts with a feeling. The analysis comes in later to try to understand either the feeling. If there's a reason, like if I'm just feeling something, I can experience it and be fine. If we have to act on the feeling, then it's like, okay. This feels like this. Can I? Is there a way to figure out why? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. And if you can figure out why, or if you think you know why, then you can say, hmm, could it be this, this, or this? Let's try those things, see what happens.

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  Do you have a process when you're starting the first session with an artist after you've been introduced and you say, okay, let's do this. We're going to work together. Do you have a process where you set a personal intention that you don't tell them, but then also you tell them what the intention is for your time working together?

• 5:25Rick Rubin?

  I'll say when we're starting a new project, I always have anxiety.

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:29Rick Rubin?

  Always. Always. Because I don't know what's going to happen. You know, there's a real question mark when we walk in to start. And I know that it could go a lot of different ways. And I don't have, I'm not interested in having a playbook in advance. I'm interested in seeing where it's going to go. And it's scary because it could not go good. And sometimes there's an, you know, some artists have an expectation that I'm going to do something. I can't do anything. You know?

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:01Rick Rubin?

  It's like, it's either going to happen or it's not going to happen. So, but then usually within, sometimes it's the first day, sometimes it's the third day, sometimes it's the second week where something happens like, whoa, what was that? How did that happen? And then that might give us a clue. It's like, oh, this is, this is what it wants to be. And that may change also. It may, that may be the first inclination. It could start that way and then it makes a left turn, turns into something completely different. The, the work itself tells us where it wants to go. So because we have, the reason it's so scary is because we have so little control over it. That's what's scary.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  There's no control.

• 6:39Rick Rubin?

  None.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  And if an artist has a big expectation, I need to put out a record that's gonna do well. I need to make money. I need to make the label happy, whatever it is. My, my fans need to love this. Then that could feel like a lot of pressure, but do you allow that pressure to affect you?

• 6:54Rick Rubin?

  No, because I know it's not in the interest of the work. It's like, we're all on the same page. Even the, even the people who are ignoring the, you know, the record companies, the managers, the agents, the people who are yelling, I need this, I need this now. Ultimately, for everyone involved, if the artist makes the best possible work that they can, everybody wins. It's just that no one involved in the process understands what it takes for that thing to happen. I had a conversation with a basketball player, a member of the Golden State Warriors, who told me, um, there's all this pressure now to do a lot of stuff on social media.

• 7:38Rick Rubin?

  And he said, and it's getting in the way of our plane.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 7:44Rick Rubin?

  And I said, well, if you tell the people who are asking you to do the social media stuff, don't you want us to win? So if you want us to win, let us focus on winning. And he said, they don't seem to care. They want us to do the social media stuff. They, they want us to distract ourselves from the work of the game.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  From the flow, from the practice, putting in the reps, yeah, showing up.

• 8:05Rick Rubin?

  And then I say, well, if then it's up to you, what's more important, to please them or to win?

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  Man, this is fascinating. Was there, um, was there, what was the experience for you where the artist or the band came in? And it was the fastest, best flowing process you've ever experienced? Where just like, everything was lining up, authenticity, truth. You know, raw realness was happening every, every day. And it was also, it was a great success for them personally to have the art be real and honest, but it also landed. Commercially and took off.

• 8:49Rick Rubin?

  The first thing that comes to mind would be Johnny Cash because he had gone, you know, 25 years of not having success. And he'd been dropped from two labels. And when I signed him, he didn't, he didn't even know why I was interested. That really was the conversation is like, what, why, what do you, why do you think working with you is going to be any different than working with anyone else? Like he had given up.

• 9:16Rick Rubin?

  And to, for him to get into it, we recorded in my living room. And he would just play me songs on acoustic guitar. And there was an honesty in what was happening there. We didn't know that we were making a record at that time. We were just looking for songs. So he was playing me songs. It was almost like a way for us to, to musically meet each other. He would play me the songs he loved, either from childhood or songs that he thinks he'd like to sing. Or a song he wrote. And it was just a very honest experience. And then we went into the studio. We picked some of those songs. We went through hundreds of songs and then picked a handful to try to record.

• 10:01Rick Rubin?

  And we went, when we went into the studio with the band, it didn't sound, it didn't have what the living room recordings had. There was some intimate honesty. And we'd never heard Johnny Cash that way before. So that led to the first album, which was a solo acoustic album. Again, we didn't set out to make a solo acoustic album, but it revealed itself as that's the most interesting thing to do. And that ended up being very successful and very successful with young people, which he had not experienced since the 1950s.

• 10:41Rick Rubin?

  So that was a. And after that, after the success of that album, we made five more albums together. And he had confidence.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:52Rick Rubin?

  Based on the experience of the first one, which he'd expected nobody to care about. Really took to cold with people. And then on, I think it was on our fourth or fifth album. He did a cover of Hurt, the Nine Inch Nails song. And that ended up being probably the biggest, you know, maybe the biggest hit of his life. Certainly of his later life.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:17Rick Rubin?

  And, um, and that was a real revelation.

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  How important is confidence for an artist in your mind to have? Because I've, I've been around some of the greatest athletes that are freaks of nature athletically, that are gifted beyond anything physically, who can do anything in practice. But then they lacked the confidence in the game and they looked like an average player.

• 11:40Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 11:42Lewis Howes?

  Does that, is that the same thing with, with artists, singers, guitar players, you know, musicians where there's, they could be so gifted, but if there's a time when the pressure is on to record, then on the confidence, does that hold people back? Have you seen that?

• 11:56Rick Rubin?

  I'll say it's, it's not as simple as that because there's a,

• 12:01Rick Rubin?

  there's a vulnerability required for the artist. That if you're confident to the point that it disguises your vulnerability, that doesn't work. So it's a, it's like a dance between being wildly open and vulnerable and commitment to do whatever it takes to get your work through. That combination, which is a difficult combination.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like what I'm hearing you said, this is really interesting point. It's almost like you just have to have courage to be vulnerable, which is not really confidence. It's more of like, you just gotta, if you're unwilling to be courageous with your vulnerability, you just won't be able to share your art.

• 12:49Rick Rubin?

  That's true. There's, I'll say though, to get up in front of people and sing takes a certain amount of confidence.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:56Rick Rubin?

  It's just part of the, it's a hard thing to do. I couldn't imagine doing it.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  That's true. My, a friend of mine, uh, just, uh, Rachel Platten, she just, um,

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  She wrote a song called Fight Song that was, you know, really popular over the last six or seven years. But she had a, you know, she started a family over the last five years. So she's got two, two young kids and she just played at the Troubadour a couple nights ago. And I'd seen her play in the past where she was uber confident, but she hadn't played in a while. And so she came out and she was like, guys, I'm actually really nervous. And this is my first time playing, you know, kind of with a man with these new songs in a while. And I'm revealing myself of these new songs. You know, you could sense this, you know, vulnerability, which was actually beautiful. It was like, we're rooting for her. You know, she, she messed up a few times, but she kept going. And she was like, hey, I'm gonna restart this and thank you guys, you know.

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  But it was like, wow. And it made moments of like awe and magic happen. It was so cool.

• 13:56Rick Rubin?

  Yes. And, and it's not about perfection. That's the thing. It's like, humanity breathes in the mistakes, you know, in the, it's what, it's what's not ordinary. If it was, if it was machine-like perfect, it's not so interesting. It's cookie cutter. It's all the same. So it's the, it's the edges, it's the frayed edges that make it interesting.

• 14:23Lewis Howes?

  Talk about transcendence, you talk about manifestation in the universe. I know you're a big meditator. How long have you been meditating for?

• 14:31Rick Rubin?

  I learned when I was 14 and it's been a big part of my life the whole time. I can't say I've done it continually, but I go through phases of five years on, two years off, or, or something might replace it. That's another kind of a meditation. Like, I may go from TM, sitting meditation, to learning Tai Chi. And Tai Chi will be, will fill the slot of my TM time.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  Right. Transcendental meditation, yeah. Do you think it's more impactful to make your art from a place of pain, anger, or sadness, or from a place of love, peace, and harmony?

• 15:14Rick Rubin?

  I don't think it matters. I think I think it's true to your experience. So if you're feeling anger and sadness, a sad angry song will probably be good. And if you're feeling love and peace, then you're in the right frequency to create that kind of song.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:29Rick Rubin?

  You can also, sometimes if you're in a real pain, you can write a yearning song for love. That can have be very deep. But one of the things about when you're in pain,

• 15:46Rick Rubin?

  you tap into uh,

• 15:50Rick Rubin?

  you tap into things to, you're looking for, you're not satisfied in your condition. So you're yearning for change. And sometimes the energy of yearning for change can lead to really beautiful music.

• 16:05Lewis Howes?

  Right. Wow. Is there someone that you're able to talk about or share that spoke and created from a place of yearning when they worked with you? That later said it was extremely healing process for them, working with you for a few weeks on an album. And and expressing their diary in that way and allowed them to heal and have lightness on the other side.

• 16:31Rick Rubin?

  The most recent one was um, I made an album, the last album of Kesha. And her, she had gone through a very difficult experience.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Rick Rubin?

  And she told me that it was a very healing experience working on the album and different than any experience she'd had previously. Where it was much more about commerce before.

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  What's the most painful thing you've been through that you've had to heal and overcome?

• 16:58Rick Rubin?

  Probably the biggest one was um, you know, I was overweight most of my life. And it was just, it was, I was not comfortable in my body. And I always felt like an outsider and felt like it limited what I could do.

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. So I think probably.

• 17:18Rick Rubin?

  Weight was my biggest issue.

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  What was the root behind that, you think?

• 17:22Rick Rubin?

  I think it was mostly bad information. Although my mom was obese, so I thought it's just genetic. And I tried everything. I tried every, uh, every type of diet. Nothing worked. And then eventually I found the, the correct balance and, you know, I was a vegan for 23 years and I weighed 318 pounds as a vegan.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Yeah, you can be a signian.

• 17:50Rick Rubin?

  I was, I was very sick as a vegan and I wasn't getting what I needed.

• 17:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:56Rick Rubin?

  And it's a carb, it's basically a carbohydrate diet.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you can have all the sugar you want being a vegan, but that doesn't mean it's healthy for you as well. So it's like, what do you think was,

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  you know, it sounded like you tried a lot of different things for 20 years, but it didn't work. But you found the right combination. But was there something you needed to mend or heal emotionally that allowed you to shift internally?

• 18:19Rick Rubin?

  It was just information. I was always, I was always, um, willing to do it. I would say probably the biggest, maybe there is an aspect, which is, I thought I knew what was best. So there was a sense of turning over control to someone else. That was a surrender.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:38Rick Rubin?

  I saw a doctor at UCLA who a friend of mine recommended I go to. I knew it wasn't going to work because I had done everything and nothing worked. And, um, he put me on a particular diet and I remember thinking, it sounds terrible, but I, and it's not going to work, but I'll, you know, I'll do what you say. I had no belief and, uh, but I put my faith in him. Or I, I gave up faith, I gave up, but listened and,

• 19:07Lewis Howes?

  And committed to the process.

• 19:08Rick Rubin?

  And committed to the process and the weight fell off.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  Really? How long did it take? Was it like a six month, year process?

• 19:14Rick Rubin?

  14 months and I lost 135 pounds.

• 19:17Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's awesome. Congrats on that.

• 19:18Rick Rubin?

  Thank you very much.

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And when was this?

• 19:22Rick Rubin?

  12 years ago, something like that.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  12 years ago. You look really healthy right now. Maybe that, that suntanned, you know, wherever you're at.

• 19:29Rick Rubin?

  I spent a lot of time in the sun. I'm, I'm. Sun worshipper.

• 19:36Lewis Howes?

  Now, do you feel like when you were able to, I guess, get that support, see the changes physically, did something transform inside of you spiritually to be a better artist? Once that transformation started to happen? Or did you think you were still making great art, you know, when you were a hundred pounds overweight?

• 19:59Rick Rubin?

  I think we were making great art the whole time. The difference is between losing weight and then meeting Laird and starting to train and get into my body, because I was sedentary my whole life.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  And Just sitting all day?

• 20:17Rick Rubin?

  Sitting all day or laying down all day. I liked laying down more than sitting. This is the longest I've been in a chair that I, since I've been on an airplane.

• 20:25Rick Rubin?

  With Laird, when I showed up to Laird's the first time, I couldn't do one push up.

• 20:29Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 20:30Rick Rubin?

  Swear to you, could not do one push up. And with his support, I worked up to being able to do a hundred consecutive pushups, which was mind blowing.

• 20:45Rick Rubin?

  So what changed between the weight loss and meeting Laird was I now see anything is possible and that you could train for anything. There's nothing you can't do. You can't be the best in the world at something, but you can be a lot better than you are at anything you want to put the time into learning, whatever it is, you could do anything. And that's a great, inspiring feeling. And I feel like I bring that into the art where I already had great confidence, but even more so, I now know anything is possible at any time.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:28Rick Rubin?

  Just if you have to do the work.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  So this was 12 years ago when this started to happen, right? And so if I'm got my wrath right, are you 60 right now?

• 21:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, I just turned 60.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Just turned 60 in March. I just turned 40. If you could go back to your 40 year old self, what would the the number one piece of advice be for you at 40? If you can think about where you were then, who you were working with, the products you were working on, the people in your life, knowing what you went through the last 20 years, what would you tell yourself then?

• 22:01Rick Rubin?

  I would always say just have as much fun as possible because we, um, I'm a workaholic by nature. And I love making things and I love making good things. And a great deal of time and effort goes into that. And, uh, and I'm hard on myself in that way in that I I have high expectations. Um, and I think we can have fun too.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. What brings you the most joy?

• 22:31Rick Rubin?

  I think probably quality time in nature with my family. That's probably the best. Being in a beautiful place, being close to my family, breathing fresh air, walking on the beach, um, laughing together,

• 22:49Rick Rubin?

  reading together, watching movies together.

• 22:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:52Rick Rubin?

  You know, watching wrestling. I like pro wrestling.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 22:56Rick Rubin?

  Pro wrestling with my sons. Fun.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  That's great. Are you more of a wrestling fan or UFC now?

• 23:01Rick Rubin?

  Always been pro wrestling.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Rick Rubin?

  UFC feels like they might hurt each other.

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  They do hurt each other.

• 23:06Rick Rubin?

  That's why I like wrestling. It's like it's more, uh, everybody's on the same side.

• 23:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:12Rick Rubin?

  For it to be the best show.

• 23:13Lewis Howes?

  They wanted to be a win win. Yeah.

• 23:14Rick Rubin?

  It's a win win.

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you talked about that and you know, this documentary series about, you know, I love the video of you being like the ultimate promoter with the Beastie Boys in a commercial, like just being this hype man promoter like, you know, um, how much has, I guess, pro wrestling influenced you as an artist?

• 23:36Rick Rubin?

  A lot, a lot, because it's a, it's a world where you never really know what's true. It's a world of mystery.

• 23:47Rick Rubin?

  And great skill is involved in what they're doing. And there's a story. And it's a story, sometimes of people who seem to hate each other. Do they hate each other? They might be best friends. You know, it's like, we don't know. But sometimes they really do hate each other. And then the matches are different when they really hate each other. But you never know when it is. So there's this, there's a sense of, and I think it's more honest than any other form of any other sport or any other form of entertainment. See, it's funny, I say it's the only legitimate sport is pro wrestling. Because it's the most like the world.

• 24:24Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 24:25Rick Rubin?

  In the world, we don't really know what's true. Everybody has a facade. People put on a, you know, airs or a performance.

• 24:34Lewis Howes?

  A mask.

• 24:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, or the politician talks and we don't really know who they are. They say these things that are often written for them. We don't know. Um, so there's this like performative aspect of the world that wrestling, that's what the world's really like. We say that the, you know, wrestling is fake. It's like, the world is fake and wrestling is real. That's what it is.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  I wanted to go back into what you talked about, what, you know, you mentioned transcendence. And I think you mentioned, you know, the universe having your back when you asked for an answer with this, you know, particular song with System of a Down. What's your thoughts on manifesting? And manifesting something you want and alchemizing it into the world? Do you believe in manifesting? Do you believe in a, you know, artists should be thinking in that way? Or what's your thoughts on it?

• 25:31Rick Rubin?

  I believe in it a million percent. It's something.

• 25:39Rick Rubin?

  That I've experienced before I knew what it was. So I, so when I say it's like, uh,

• 25:48Rick Rubin?

  I feel like it has to do with the purity of the intention behind what you're doing. If your intention is pure, and you're doing it for the right reasons, it seems like things tend to work out. Uh. And that ends up being, um,

• 26:08Rick Rubin?

  a manifestation mindset, but it didn't start for me that way. It just was like, I really believe in what I'm doing. I really care about it. I want to be the best it could be for me, and I'm excited to share it. And the results have shown me that you can manifest things. It happens. It's it, but I'll say when I do it, it's never based on that outcome. Ooh, what do you mean? I'm never asking for a result. What are you asking for? I'm asking for, to, to rise to the occasion to make the best thing that I can, for the thing that I make to be great. Great is a vague word. I don't know what great means.

• 26:51Rick Rubin?

  I came to realize recently what great means, but I didn't know, most of my life I was aiming for great, but I didn't know what that was. And I've come to realize that great means, it's, it's a devotional, it's a devotional kind of greatness. It's a gift to the universe. It's a gift to God. Wow. If you're making, if you're making a gift to God, there's no greater, uh, you can't put more into it than that. Uh huh. You know, you can't, what about the single? What about, what about what someone's gonna say? Who has anything to say if we're making a gift for God? That there's, you're putting all of your purest intention

• 27:35Rick Rubin?

  into this thing for the universe. Wow. That's where it's at. I didn't know that, that I came to realize that recently. I, again, my word was greatness. Yeah. That was the word of what I was shooting for. But I've come to realize what it is.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow, you have a whole, you know, kind of section about greatness and success in the creative act, a way of being, which is, which I loved your explanation in there. That is fascinating. So greatness for you, what I'm hearing you say is a pure gift of yours to God.

• 28:07Rick Rubin?

  Yes, and it's a gift of yourself to God. It's like, this is the best I can do. This is my offering. This is what I have to offer.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  If you think of a formula for manifesting as an artist, what would that formula be?

• 28:27Rick Rubin?

  I don't think there's a formula.

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  Is there an art to manifesting?

• 28:32Rick Rubin?

  I don't know. I don't, I think,

• 28:37Rick Rubin?

  it sounds like a shortcut, and I don't think there are shortcuts. I think it's always

• 28:45Rick Rubin?

  a version of doing the work, of finding your way into what it is that the universe wants you to do, and then really dedicating yourself.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  I don't want to have to wait for somebody else to give me permission to have my success.

• 29:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  I want to be able to manifest my own success using my own creativity and do it sort of on my terms, you know, and in a way that aligns with my heart and makes sense for me and showcases what I do in the best possible way. And I think one of the challenges that freestyle improvisers, because there's a long lineage of incredible freestylers way before Harry Mack, you know? One of my biggest influences is MC Supernatural, who's one of the greatest freestyle rappers to ever live. Yeah, and there's many others as well. That's just one. But one of the biggest challenges they faced is that like a freestyle rapper doesn't fit in easily to sort of the machine of the music industry.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Right, because people working at record labels, they might hear an amazing improvised freestyle, all about their outfit and the label name and maybe the whole catalog of the last year, and it might blow their mind, right? That's happened time and time again. And then they say, oh, this, this person is amazing. This is great. Do you have a single for radio? Do you have something we can promote? Where's the album? We want to put you on tour, but we can't do that unless we have streams, radio plays. Structure. People need to know that they're going to be able to come out and sing along. What do they sing along with? You know, what are you gonna do, basically, to help us make money? How can we monetize? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so the monetization was all kind of outsourced in many ways, because like pre-social media,

• 30:39Speaker 02

  that was kind of like the best avenue was to hope that you got discovered and signed by a record label, because they're the ones who actually have the budget to promote. You really didn't have the power, for the most part, as an independent artist back then. There just weren't the tools available to you in the same way they are now to kind of take control of that. So I have a huge privilege, you know, coming into my career now, in this era where there's all these free social media platforms that you have access to, and everybody has this phone in their pocket that's also a 4K video camera, you know, and we can capture anything and we can share it with the world. And if it has creative merit or if it's marketed creatively, if you're able to connect with an audience, then you're able to build an audience organically

• 31:24Speaker 02

  and you're able to succeed. And you can do that on your own terms without waiting for anybody else's permission. Right. And you can make mistakes and learn from them and you can experiment and try things. You can do things when, when you want to. You never have to wait, you know, for someone to say, oh, it's not the right time. Maybe we'll try it then. Or, oh, I don't know if this is the right direction. We don't want to waste time or money doing this. You get to make those decisions and it really gives a lot of power to, you know, the independent artist. And I think one of the, one of my missions and goals in what I'm doing is to change the landscape for freestylers in particular. Because to me, it's an absolute

• 32:05Speaker 02

  travesty that all of these great freestylers who inspired me are not as well known as their peers who maybe had big radio hits, you know, and went more the traditional path. These improvisers are some of the highest level, you know, creative musicians on earth, you know, similar to a Miles Davis or a John Coltrane. Right. And and they deserve to have that light shine on them. And I think for young freestylers coming up today, hopefully I can play a part in them looking and seeing, oh, there is a path for this, you know, or there is a way to pursue this on my own terms. And even if I prefer to freestyle and create kind of in the moment, and I prefer to have it be different every moment and and not, you know, write it down and recite it the same way every time.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  That doesn't have to mean that there's no future for it. Right. Because for so long, that's how it was posed to freestylers. It says, oh, this is great, but when are you going to pivot? When are you going to do what actually matters, right? It's like, okay, you can freestyle, but when are you going to make a song? Because until you do, it's not really a thing, you know. It's a cool little gimmick or whatever. Exactly, exactly. It's a fun, it's a fun way to sharpen your sword, so to speak. It's a good practice routine. You're obviously very talented and anyone who sees it knows that, right? But we can't monetize it. We don't know how to sell it. And so that's the whole thing is that piece about you're obviously very talented and anybody who sees it knows that. Well, now it's like, okay, let me film it. Yes. And anybody who sees it will, you know, acknowledge the talent.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  And and if it if it moves them or speaks to them personally, then they may be moved to to follow along with what you're doing. And and and maybe if you get to a point where you're having a show, they'll be the ones to buy the tickets. Mm hmm. Um, so, yeah, I I would love to sort of make that kind of wave where, you know, it it for so long, I was talking to somebody and. They talked about how, you know, you'll say, oh, they're a great freestyler, but they don't know how to make a hit song. He said, well, do you ever ask the freestyler, do you want to make a hit song? You know, it's like, and it's the same thing for comedians. It's like, oh, he's so good at stand up, but like, he's never written a TV show. Did you ever ask, right? Do they want to do that? You know, and, and it's almost as though, you know,

• 34:20Speaker 02

  somehow only the, the latter is relevant or important. And what, you know, what about just being a good freestyler? Maybe that, you know, is in and of itself, I, I of course personally believe it is valuable. You know, I'm very passionate about it and I'm not the only one. And, and I would love to create a world where up and comers can say, oh, dope, this is, this is my thing. And I get to show it myself and I don't have to wait.

• 34:42Lewis Howes?

  Have you created a freestyle membership yet?

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Not yet. Well, I'm on Patreon.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. Of other freestylers?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  I'm saying like a club.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  That would be dope.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  A membership where you are the, you know, kind of the leader, the host of the community.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:56Lewis Howes?

  That pays to be a part of it, where you provide resources and tools to help them expand their reach or something like that.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  That would be really dope.

• 35:03Lewis Howes?

  The next, next thing for you.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  When did you realize that?

• 35:09Lewis Howes?

  Cause you kind of grew up in the social media world.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  When you started doing freestyling and doing it more full time, with 2016, I think you said, or 20?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  And yeah, 2017, basically, end of 2016.

• 35:20Lewis Howes?

  So the tools of, I guess you really, you know, TikTok started to come along, 2018, I guess.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:26Lewis Howes?

  YouTube started to make it more for live streams and Instagram started to have video, I think around then. So you kind of transitioned right when live video, vertical video started to come around in the last four years.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  When did you realize like, oh, this is a, a way to make a great living? And not just make 50 bucks a night and some chicken nuggets at the local bar, you know, drumming. After, I didn't get a commercial, but I mean, with the, with the social media wave, when did you realize, oh, I can make a real living here?

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great question. You know what's funny? My first sort of taste of having a viral video was the end of 2016. I made a video with my friend and, you know, it was for his channel.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Um, and it got a hundred thousand views overnight. It was me freestyling while driving down Sunset Boulevard and rapping about the changing scenery around me. That was my first taste. That was kind of the catalyst for me saying, okay, I gotta dive in on this and see what I can build. You know, it gave me the excitement.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Had you made any content before then?

• 36:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 36:33Lewis Howes?

  As a freestyle? You were just kind of like doing it for friends, for fun, but?

• 36:36Speaker 02

  I had various, you know, I had my band in, my group in middle school and high school. We became pretty popular, but it was, it was written songs. It wasn't really freestyling. In college, I, I put in just an absurd number of hours freestyling in the dorm with my friends. I mean, insane, like.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Every night, just like.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  Whatever's happening, I'm rapping.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, at least like two or three hours almost every night.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  That's fun.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, and, and became known around like, you know, party circuits as this crazy freestyler guy.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  It's like the trick that you could pull out and bring out to a party.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was always fun, you know, make little circles at the party and freestyle, which is how most people get started freestyling, you know? Um, I had a band for a while with my, with my, uh, you know, jazz studies cohorts at USC. It was dope. It was kind of like, you know, we, we looked up to the roots and groups like that that had live instrumentation. So we had, you know, drums, bass, guitar, keys, horn section. And then I was the front person freestyling.

• 37:27Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Uh, which was a lot of fun. We became a very popular party band. Um, so, you know, we would play all around the USC campus and, and, uh, and, and things of that nature. But, uh, yeah, the first content that I made was at the end of 2016. And it was for my friend's channel and it got a hundred thousand views overnight. And that was enough of a catalyst for me to realize I need to start my own thing. Didn't have a YouTube channel, didn't have like a professional Facebook page or even like, you know, my IG was just a personal IG, you know, which I barely ever posted on. I wasn't a social media guy.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  Didn't know anything about it.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  You're an introvert.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was an introvert, you know? Uh, so I, I just wasn't that into it. But all of a sudden I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is a way that I can, um, create energy around my freestyling. Like, that's interesting, you know? Um, and so I set up my YouTube channel. But what's so funny is my first, you know, uh, I, I made a couple of videos that didn't really get too many views. You know, I was starting from scratch. Eventually we went out to Venice Beach and I had sort of my first like, you know, hit, so to speak. I had a very viral. Yeah. Um, it was called Venice Beach Freestyle Part One. And we posted that on YouTube and it went pretty crazy on YouTube, but on Facebook it went bananas. It got reposted by this viral conglomerate site and ended up getting like, you know, 20 million views

• 38:40Speaker 02

  or something on that one repost and across all the reposts, it was upwards of 40 million views or something like that. And that had never happened to me before.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  2016, 2017?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  2017, February 2017.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you remember the exact day.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, I remember. Cause it was, it was mind blowing for me, you know? I, I, it was just insane. I had never experienced that before. Just all the, all the comments and, and just seeing it reposted and shared here and on blogs that I knew about and seeing my video up there was just wild. But what's so funny, I did a few videos after that, but I, I didn't turn on the ads for any of those videos.

• 39:13Lewis Howes?

  I did this for years, man.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Cause I thought it would annoy people.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Dude, I did for six years on YouTube.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Did you do it by choice or did you not know that, that it was there?

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  I did it by choice, cause I didn't want, I wanted to serve and add value. And I didn't want like some sleazy marketing campaign in front of my videos, right? So I was like, alright, I'm just gonna add so much value to my community and build this up for free. And we did this for five or six years.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  I went back, I, I started turning on the ads a couple of years ago.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  And the first month I go, oh, this is not bad. And it just kept growing. And I went back and just looked at the views from the previous five years.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  And I about threw up when I realized that I lost about a million dollars.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Minimum.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 39:56Lewis Howes?

  And it probably would have been three or four because had I known I was making the money, I'd have been like, let me pay attention to like really go all in on YouTube.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  And make better content and update the, I didn't do any updates of thumbnails. It was like, just threw it up.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  And so just based on the views, it would have been a million dollars.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:13Lewis Howes?

  Over five years, which is a lot of money in five years for a business. And, um, and that's why I said, okay, let's, let's really go all in on this and see how we can optimize this. And, and then at that point, it was also kind of the tipping point where I think they were just putting ads on every video anyways.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  If you had it turned on or not, they're like,

• 40:30Speaker 02

  I see.

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  We're monetizing your videos. So we're like,

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Might as well make money from it.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  Everyone sees ads anyways. So it's like, okay, it is what it is.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  But, um, So you didn't start doing that originally, but then you turned it on after these.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I never turned them on, uh, because, I mean, similar to you, I I just thought that it would turn people off from the videos. I would rather have more people see it. And at that time, I felt like the ad would deter people from watching it. And I don't know if that's actually true. I think, you know, it's hard to say. Like you say, now that the ads are so ubiquitous, I mean, they're everywhere. Uh, I think people just expect it.

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  They accept it too, yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  And it's it's totally normal. Uh, but that was my philosophy back then. I really didn't know anything about YouTube. I have kind of a funny situation too. We talked about it a little bit earlier, but um, around that same time, after I'd been making these sort of non-monetized YouTube videos for a while.

• 41:27Lewis Howes?

  Viral videos, yeah, yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  I got called to do this Mitsubishi commercial. And uh, it was it was the craziest thing at the time because, you know, even though I was having these viral videos, I really wasn't making very much money. I mean, I was very much living month to month, which I was used to because I'd been a gigging jazz musician for all those years. So um, I had no overhead, no savings, you know? And I basically just covered my expenses, my rent, my groceries and gas.

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  Food, yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and sort of started over again at the top of each month. I got called to do the Mitsubishi commercial and it ended up being a national TV ad for nine months in the US and Canada. It's a trip. It's me dressed up like a Mitsubishi salesperson and they come in to, you know, test drive the car. And then we go in the car and I start freestyling the features of the car.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  And did you freestyle the whole thing every time or did you kind of have pre-planned, like you knew some of the terminology of the whatever?

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so for the like, you know, for the ad agency and for like the Mitsubishi Corporation, they want to like approve the copy.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. So hard, man.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I uh, I I wrote a verse about the uh, the full disclosure, all right, for your audience. Yeah, no, I I've talked about this before. I wrote the verse out uh, word for word about the car features and shared that with them. And then we came up with this concept where I would do one take like that.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  And then one freestyle.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, completely freestyle. Just rapping about their outfits or whatever came to mind.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  Mix it in somehow.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Mix it in with the stuff. So the the final product included some of my preconceived lyrics and then some freestyle.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Um, but you know, for me at the time, that commercial, you know, I I made more money than I had ever made in my life. Um, to do that commercial and it wasn't any, you know, insane jaw dropping amount, but for me, living month to month, it was like, oh, wow, I can breathe now. Um, for the first time and that felt really, really great.

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  But I also learned a really, really important lesson at that time, you know, I had always had the goal of making an album. You know, writing songs and sort of making more of like a traditional hip hop album.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Even though, you know, I I didn't really have experience doing that since my high school days, it was something that I really wanted to do. And I also felt at that time, a lot of pressure to do that because I felt like that was the obvious pivot, like we were talking about earlier. You know, it's like, okay, this freestyle thing is cool, but.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  If I want to go make real money, I gotta do this album thing.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Exactly. I have to, you know, go to radio and I have to become, you know, whatever image you have of a famous, successful rapper. I felt this incredible amount of pressure to somehow embody that, you know, rather than, you know, remembering that I should just be myself and do what comes naturally to me. I wasn't quite there yet mentally.

• 44:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  So I was struggling with that. Um, and then here comes this Mitsubishi commercial. And so I said, oh, great. This will be my record label advance. You know what I mean? This will be the the money that I can sort of live off and use to fund my album and, you know, um, uh, get producers to work with and make some music videos and things of that nature. So.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  And you you stopped making content during that time?

• 44:32Speaker 02

  I stopped making content. I took a break. This, I took a break from YouTube for almost a full year.

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  It could be irrelevant if you go a year away from your content.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Easily, easily. I mean, now we post, you know, daily on multiple platforms. You know, we go hard. But at this time, I was like, well, I'm not making money on these YouTube videos anyway, because I didn't turn the ads on intentionally, because I didn't want to turn people off for the video. So it's funny, but I thought, well, you know, I gotta figure out how to pivot and actually make this career happen.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  And so I lived off the Mitsubishi money for almost a full year, and I used it to sort of fund my album. And then it got to the end of the year, and I was basically out of money, you know? And I looked up, and all of a sudden, there's this panic, you know? And I'm saying to my girlfriend, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I think I'm gonna have to go apply to, you know, Trader Joe's down the street, or Starbucks. You know, I gotta get a job, you know, I'm gonna have to get a job soon. And shout out to my girlfriend, and she basically said, you know, that's nonsense. You know, you have an audience, and you have this talent. You know, you just have to activate your audience, like, let's actually figure out what that looks like for you.

• 45:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  And so at that point, I said, you know what, you're right. And I said, I'm gonna change my approach, and I'm gonna actually do YouTube like a YouTuber. You know, I'm gonna learn how to monetize a YouTube channel. I'm gonna learn how to do social media in a way where I'm able to build it out as a business, you know? And I started really doing the knowledge and doing the research to understand how that works. And so from that moment on, that's when I sort of rebranded and started calling those man on the street freestyle videos Gorilla Bars. And I sort of came back at that phase after doing the album. The album was not very successful, by the way. It was a big thing for me, and I'm proud of it, and I'm glad that I did it.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  But it didn't make too much of a splash. And so it was like, okay, let's get back into this YouTube thing. Rebranded the series as Gorilla Bars and started doing the videos monetized, with the ads on from the onset, and...

• 46:43Speaker 02

  You know, we made, I think, six or seven episodes. We made six episodes. And then the seventh one came out and went super viral on YouTube. And that, and so it was like, yes, I'm back in the game. Just enough.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  So you started making money from the ads there a little bit?

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  And then you start going hard on all the platforms, right? Like, I found you on TikTok, I think, you know, later, earlier this year or something. Started doing TikTok, Instagram, and just kind of creating content for all platforms.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 47:12Lewis Howes?

  And now you're trying to maximize and monetize wherever you can there, right?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Hundred percent, yeah. It started then, it was me trying to learn how each of these platforms work and what specifically works well for Instagram as opposed to YouTube, Facebook as opposed to TikTok. You know, like, what are the sort of idiosyncrasies of all of these platforms? And how are people using them to build businesses? And then seeing how I can apply that to what I do. And in the beginning, like, at that time, you know, I'm doing every part of it myself, essentially. Um, which is a really important phase of the whole journey.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  That I'm really grateful for, you know, I'm.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  You're not just outsourcing it right away. You're learning it first so you can understand the language of how these things work.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:54Lewis Howes?

  And then work with other people eventually.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, learning the language of it, but also just out of necessity. Like, I couldn't afford to pay somebody else to do it.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Um, but it's good. I mean, even if I could have, I think, uh, it's better this way, right? And this is, I'm sure you can relate to this, you know, I think pretty much every content creator out there goes through that phase.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I spent years broke learning this stuff back in 2009, 10, 11.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, I had no money, so I'd obsess about it all day.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  Until I could start hiring people, yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  What do you think happens if we never process and acknowledge our emotions?

• 48:35Speaker 03

  I think repetition, you keep repeating, you keep sort of living through, going through the motion and you end up slowly just accumulating more and more density because you're just repeating the same reactive habit patterns over and over again. And we don't realize that every reaction, it creates an imprint on the mind and it predisposes the mind to react in the same way, to perceive in the same way. So you can just get denser and denser and denser. I think those moments are where the real sort of like, this is a test, right? This is like, I don't need to join you in this anger. Actually, I'm okay. Like, I don't want that heaviness. I could even practice, like especially if it's a dear loved one,

• 49:18Speaker 03

  I could even practice listening to you and seeing you, but also just maintaining my peace while I'm trying to see you. And it's really difficult, right? It's not like a, you know, get a hundred percent type test, but you can do your best to just keep your energy as it is, especially as you're moving through different environments, you know, moving out of the work environment, you know, different situations that you're in. Cause I think being able to manage your own energy, I think it's just a sign of mastery.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  It is a huge sign of mastery. And when you are in reaction mode, something else has power over you.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  Something else is more powerful than you are.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  And it's, when I learned that, it me off because I felt like I was always in control. But when I was reacting or defensive or guarded or frustrated, I realized later, I was like, man, I allowed that person, that moment, that thing to have power over me to get into a negative state.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  That's not fulfilling. That's not fun.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  And so I had to learn how to deconstruct that and have more mastery over my emotions. And it doesn't mean I'm perfect and I still get frustrated and I still have moments of, you know, anger. But I'm aware of it quicker and I'm like, you know, let's shift out of this. This isn't serving my vision.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:37Lewis Howes?

  It's not serving me.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  And you know, when you're in a group, in a situation like that, where maybe the whole group is getting upset by a particular situation, if one person is able to put their head above the water and they're like, oh, actually, we're okay. You know, this sucks, but we're gonna be fine. And then everyone kind of can, you know, gets another opportunity to kind of wake up a little bit and they're like, oh yeah, we're good. You know, we don't have to just roll in anger right now together because people don't quite get like you can be skillful without creating all this immense tension in your mind. You can still assess the situation and be like, oh, this situation needs my attention. I need to solve it without producing so much stress in the process.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  You talk about focusing on four fundamentals that can massively change your life. I want to see if you can read, I've been reading your book, but I want to see if you can read these four.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Oh, so I wrote this one after finishing a 45 day meditation course. It was like the first thing I wrote.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Focusing on a few fundamentals can create a massive change in your life. Number one, make your healing, personal transformation and wellbeing top priorities. Number two, refrain from harming yourself or others. Three, create mental space for gratitude. Four, be kind and generous to others.

• 51:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, this is, if everyone on the planet made these four things their top priority, the world would be a more harmonious, peaceful place. And it starts with making healing, personal transformation and wellbeing your focus.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Because when we don't make it our focus, it's not present. It's not in us and we become sick, we become sad, we become cynical, all these different things. And that doesn't create positivity in the world. It doesn't move things forward in a powerful way.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  So making your healing, personal transformation and wellbeing a top priority, that alone.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  Most people aren't spending the time like you talked about to create mental space

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  For that to happen.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  They're not living in gratitude even for a moment throughout the day. They're not creating 10 minutes to just think in peace without being on a distraction or a phone or a TV. And really think about where can I invest my time in well-being? And if people could spend one hour a day on just well-being, whether it's calm mind, whether it's meditation, whether it's walking, whether it's working out, going to therapy, one hour a day on their well-being, it will drastically improve the quality of their life.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  It totally does. I've gotten so many messages from especially like mothers, you know, mothers who like have so many responsibilities and so many things they're doing and, you know, hearing stories about how they were inspired to just take like 10, 15, 20 minutes to themselves to just like do whatever it was that they needed to recollect, right? To whatever practice, whatever tool they had to just like get back into a certain degree of balance. And it's fun, it's, you know, you know, it's good for you, but it's until you practice it, until you do it, until you see the results, you know, you see the payoff of the investment. And until you see the payoff of the investment, you're not like, then that's when you double down. And I think that's what happened to me personally when,

• 54:04Speaker 03

  you know, I would go to these 10-day meditation courses, like I told you, like I was doing that for two years and I think I did four, about five of those courses before I started meditating two hours a day.

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  And I had seen, I'm like, this is completely changing my mind. Like, I'm not fully healed, not fully wise or anything like that. I got the inspiration to start writing, but then I knew I was like, if I bring this into my everyday life. The results would be even bigger.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Not just a weekend at a time.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  Right, not just, not just like going away for a little bit, but it's like bringing it into my daily life. And I think what inspires me and still inspires me to this day is like, I know how when I put this time to be silent on my own every day, that it affects my marriage positively, my relationship with my parents and my siblings, my relationship with my wife's family, my, you know, the relationship with all of my friends, all of my work is affected positively. So if I don't do this, every, every part of my life is gonna just not be as great.

• 55:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:10Lewis Howes?

  Here, here's a question for you, because I'm sure someone watching or listening is thinking this. You know, Diego, this all sounds great.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  But, um, you know, your parents immigrated here and there's millions of immigrants that don't have time.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  Because they're working whatever jobs they can get, probably two or three jobs a day to provide for their kids.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:34Lewis Howes?

  Uh, there's a lot of single moms that the, the husbands or the, their partners left.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  And they've got kids and they don't have time because they gotta work full time.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:43Lewis Howes?

  And take care of their kids. They don't have that 30 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day to, to focus on their wellbeing. What would your current self say to your parents before they moved? The day before they're about to move to America?

• 55:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  What would you say to them, knowing everything you know about the 20 years that they went through of not having time to focus on wellbeing? How would you coach them or set them up for success?

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Ah, such a wonderful question. I've never thought about it and, you know, especially in regards to my parents, because I know there's, we, we live in a world of tremendous difficulty and a lot of people are like literally trying to just keep their head above the water in the economic situation. Um, but in regards to my parents, I think I would tell them that they, like, I would try to give them the advice that my wife and I now follow because it's not in regards to meditation or not, but it's what we practice.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  Daily, where we are constantly checking in about where we are in our emotions. So when we wake up, we tell each other like, this is, you know, I'm feeling tough. Or like, I feel, I feel heavy. And it doesn't necessarily need a reason. It's just, sometimes you wake up, you didn't get enough hours of sleep and you just, you feel like crap. Right? And being able to know, like, when I know what my emotion is and I am accepting of it. And then my partner also knows what my emotion is. And we know where each other is at. Then we can actually, that creates a situation where there's information that wasn't there before. And we can move forward in the day, where, you know, being cognizant of how that emotion is affecting what we're saying.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  And I think we found that a lot in our relationship, my wife and I, where when we know how we feel, we, it just creates less possibilities for unnecessary arguments. And I think if my parents were, you know, put that into practice, especially back then, that could have become a long-term habit where it's like, oh, now I know, my, you know, my wife just doesn't feel good today. So let's, let's be cool. Let, let me try my best to support her. And similarly, I think when conflict arises, don't try to win. Winning, when you both try to win, you both lose automatically. Try to focus on understanding. And I'm glad that this is becoming a much more popular thing that more people are talking about because it's needed.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Like, if an argument arises, I need to do my best to understand things from your perspective. And then you take the time to understand things from my perspective. How did this series of events move for me? You know, what, what, what emotions was I going through as this was transgressing? Same thing for you. When there's more understanding, then there's a possibility for love. And I think that's something that, you know, hopefully as a society, we can start shifting towards. Because when, and granted, sometimes there may be times where one of us needs to apologize or whatnot. But overall, trying to understand each other creates more opportunity for love.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  And those are, those are things that, whether you have time to meditate or not, if you try to put them into practice in the way, you know, when you're interacting with another human being, I think they could be really helpful.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you know, the experience you grew up with your parents in terms of how much stress they were facing or just kind of, I'm assuming, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but a kind of like a, a tension, a constant kind of low-level tension of like anxiety, of fear, of lack, of scarcity, of like. Nervousness of kind of like a rush-ness, not enough time, not enough to catch up, like always behind feeling. And I don't know if anyone else can resonate to that. But what practical things could you say, or what could someone in that situation do? Who feels like, I don't have time to take care of my wellness because I've got three or four kids, three jobs.

• 59:35Lewis Howes?

  I can't even think about the feelings of my part, my, my husband or my wife. I can't even think about that because I'm in such survival mode myself.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:45Lewis Howes?

  What would be the difficult thing to say to your mom and dad that they would really need? Like if they could have done that differently, or anyone in that situation now, if they could just do these three things? Even if they don't have the time to do it, what would they do?

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  I think the reality is like, right, we wanna, especially if it's someone that you're close to, like I would remind them, I'm like, dude, you're thinking, you're thinking the whole day, right? You're thinking constantly.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  So you're, you're like, you're, you're thinking, but what are you thinking about? You're thinking about things that are sort of rotating that wheel of misery, like rotating that reaction. And I think trying to interject moments of positivity, even in the mindset, can be incredibly powerful. Like, you know, finding time to, not finding time, but like even as you're going through the moves of whatever it is that you're doing, whatever you're, you know, whatever it is that you're working or whomever you're helping.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Thinking about moments of gratitude, right? Like putting into mind, like what am I grateful for? What's there that I'm, you know, I'm so, even though I'm in this hardship, I'm so glad that this is there, or this person is there. Also, moments of where you can reflect, even intellectually, about impermanence. Cause I think this is incredibly helpful. Understanding that a moment of difficulty, like, right? Life may be hard throughout, but it's not always going to be at the same intensity. So understanding that everything is always changing. And letting that inspire you to be more present in the times that you do have. You know, cause even interspersed with all of the like difficulty that I had with my parents, that we all had growing up as a family, there were definitely still beautiful moments like on a Sunday

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  or, you know, when they would both have a day off and. And we'd be together as a family, you know, and we'd be enjoying each other's company. And I think being like, really, you know, letting the fact that things change inspire you to be there, to be with the person that you love. I think it's incredibly valuable and can bring a lot of joy into life. Wow. And I want to, you know, I love that you're hitting at the reality of how, you know, where so many, you know, hundreds of millions of Americans may be and people around the world, like, the world is rough. And I think when we talk about this, it should inspire us to try to make a better world. I really like fundamentally believe that. And I know like people have very different ideas of how the world can be better. But whatever the idea may be,

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  whatever the structure we may implement in the future, it needs to be something that's centered around compassion. And I think it's just so critical that we can try to, you know, let love design the world. Because I feel like we, you know, we think so often in terms of right and left, but we never go up. We never, we're like, how can we elevate this situation? And I think it's, um, my hope is that we like, we live in a historic time. We live in a time where there are not only these tremendous challenges that are in front of humanity, right? We have this like incredible income inequality, poverty around the world, um, so many diseases that should be eradicated. There's so many, so many different challenges that we're facing, especially over this hundred year period,

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  that are pushing us to mature as a collective humanity. So to me, what can we do is try our best to heal ourselves while we're dealing with these global societal issues. Because our healing will actually create more creativity in our minds and help us see different solutions that weren't once there. So instead of just repeating the same solutions over and over again, and they're not working, it's like you clear heal your mind and you'll be able to look at a situation and be like, oh, I see something that I didn't see before. Let's try things a different way. And this is, we're talking a long game, right? Long arm of history. But I, I think it's so, to me, it's so inspiring and kind of,

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  it creates a lot of awe in me that the same time that there are so many challenges, there are all these healing modalities that are becoming more and more accessible than ever before. Like, right at this time, can you get access to? So many different forms of meditation, so many different forms of therapy, psychiatry, so many, you know, and there's tons of other healing modalities that I'm not even mentioning. But people can actively try to find something that can heal them.

• 1:04:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  And, you know, for those who have time, definitely try to heal yourself. For those who don't, like, we need to support each other and we need to create a better world.

• 1:04:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of healing modalities,

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  have you ever done like ayahuasca or like plant medicines or anything like that?

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  No, never done ayahuasca. I've tried like mushrooms, LSD and all that and I found it to be helpful to an extent, but once I started meditating, it just kind of blew everything out of the water. It was like, you know, when you're meditating and you're sitting there, you're literally, it's almost like you're getting a degree in universal law. Like you're just like, you're understanding how the universe works, but within the framework of your body. And you get this sample size and you just start observing it. You can make your awareness so sharp that it literally can feel like your body is this like flowing river of atoms and you can so crisply feel and, you know, attend and observe to this ever-changing impermanence that layers every fabric of existence.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Like it happens at the atomic level, the cellular level, the mental level, the, you know, cosmological level, everything is always changing. And we struggle when we have a combative relationship with change, right? But we feel peace when we embrace change. So to me, it's like meditating is just like, it's opened the world to this, I mean, it's opened this, these doors to this incredible learning that, you know, every time I go, every time I sit, I'm like, I'm like, wow, got a lot more to learn.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  Right. Do you think if you, I mean, I've never done plant medicine. I've never been high or drunk in my life.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 1:05:42Lewis Howes?

  And

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Your brain must look great. I just saw Doc Amen.

• 1:05:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you did do it.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, did you do the brain scan?

• 1:05:48Lewis Howes?

  I did it with him as well.

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Lewis Howes?

  But I have like some trauma from football stuff.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  Did he fix the dents?

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  It's getting better. Yeah.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 1:05:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but I had some definitely like some

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:05:56Lewis Howes?

  Deeper dimples from like football trauma.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  I fell once, uh, when I was, I fell down the stairs once when I was 20 intoxicated. He was like, that's, that's where you hit your head. Also, you hit the back of your head. You didn't even, That's from 15 years ago and it's still there.

• 1:06:09Lewis Howes?

  There's still the trauma there, right?

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  It's crazy, man.

• 1:06:12Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, your personal thoughts on

• 1:06:17Lewis Howes?

  Using healing modalities that include external medicines, drugs, or stimulants, hallucinogens,

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27Lewis Howes?

  to put you into different states of being versus

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  internal medicine.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Lewis Howes?

  Through meditation, silence, and using the chemistry within your own body as opposed to the chemistry outside of your body.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is more effective? I know lots of friends that swear by like how powerful ayahuasca things have been for them. But I also see like a lot of challenges and struggle within them after they swear by this.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Lewis Howes?

  So they get like this awakening or awareness or like insights, which are like awesome.

• 1:07:03Lewis Howes?

  But I still feel like it it doesn't solve everything. So I I don't know because I haven't done it. So I can't speak into it, but you've done both, it sounds like, or some of it.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Lewis Howes?

  And it sounds like you're not doing the external medicines anymore.

• 1:07:16Speaker 03

  None at all. Yeah.

• 1:07:17Lewis Howes?

  What, why? And what do you think has been more effective?

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  I can speak to it in two different ways. So one is from my, from my personal experience, I found that when I would do psychedelics, they were incredibly helpful because they were eye opening. They were, they were showing me the interconnectedness of the world in a way that I couldn't quite see before. But after they were done, it felt more like an intellectual understanding as opposed to a knowledge that was fully mine and I could permanently live in. So

• 1:07:51Lewis Howes?

  Integrated understanding.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, fully just part of my being.

• 1:07:55Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  When I would do psychedelics, it felt like I was opening a window to a door. I mean, you know, I was opening a window and looking outside and looking at how the world really is. And it was beautiful. But when I started meditating, it was like I would open the window. And then I just walked outside the window and just started like living in this world. And

• 1:08:16Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it became into me. And then, and now I want to say this, right?

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  I think it's really important to understand that like right, meditating works wonderfully for me. I have this, you know, very specific, I practice Vipassana in the Goenka tradition, the same style that Yuval Noah Harari practices in and a bunch of other great people. And it's difficult, but it's for the people that it works for, you know, that connect with it. It's like, it's like you struck gold, like you just, you found this thing and you're like, whoa. Now you can just accelerate your growth and, and really develop and move on this path that leads out of suffering.

• 1:08:53Speaker 03

  But with that said, I really believe that individuals have to find modalities that meet them where they're at. So there are some people who have experienced, you know, so much trauma, so much heartache, so much, they carry so much pain that, that they might need something that's either a little more external or, you know, might, might need to speak to another person as opposed to just closing their eyes. Cause when they close their eyes and they feel, it's like too much, they're just like, they can't, right? So each individual has to find something that meets them where they're at, like where is their conditioning? And something that clicks with their intuition, although it should be something that's challenging, right? Because in the challenge, you're going to build new strength, but you also don't want it to be overwhelming.

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  And I think that's a lot of things, and that's why some people, you know, will either stay away from ayahuasca or, you know, just the different things that they, they themselves might find overwhelming. Because then if it's overwhelming, it's not productive. You, you might want to stop the healing process.

• 1:09:52Lewis Howes?

  You won't stick with it. You won't stick with it. Yeah. I think that's really interesting to talk about too. It's, it's finding the thing that meets you where you're at. And maybe you gotta try a bunch of stuff.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  Until you figure out what that thing is.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  A lot of people have to try the sort of like spiritual buffet and then they find like what actually.

• 1:10:06Lewis Howes?

  This works for me. Yeah. I remember when I first started meditating, it was really hard for me to sit still for like five minutes.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, nice.

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  I was like, okay, like I need something else.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Lewis Howes?

  And so I went into, you know, different modalities. I was like, I'm going to go extreme heat therapy. I'm going to go extreme cold therapy, like more physical, feels like a workout.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:25Lewis Howes?

  And see how I can let my mind process and heal and work through these things in a different way.

• 1:10:32Lewis Howes?

  Then it was, okay, let me go back to meditation and doing a two week meditation retreat.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 1:10:37Lewis Howes?

  I actually became a meditation instructor, I don't know, seven years ago or something. And then. Going back to different things. And so it's, I think it's a process of discovering and figuring it out.

• 1:10:46Speaker 03

  I love that you tried it again too, because a lot of people are like, they sit down, they meditate and they're like, I can't do this at all. And it's like, of course, we all suck at it.

• 1:10:54Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah. When you first start, you're gonna suck.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's something that you won't get, like, like I said before, it's a mental gym. You're not gonna be able to bench press like 300 pounds on your first go.

• 1:11:05Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Right? So you need to train the mind and to help it develop focus. And that takes determination and the ability to just be like, I'm gonna try again.

• 1:11:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 03

  Gonna try again.

• 1:11:14Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  You keep trying and then the quality develops.

• 1:11:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's it. 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.

• 1:12:02Lewis Howes?

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