How Faith, Neuroscience, and Meaning Work Together | Arthur Brooks

Arthur Brooks opens with a startling truth: most of us are living inside a simulation, sacrificing meaning for dopamine hits from our devices. He explains that your brain has two operating systems, the ME self and the I self, and technology has hijacked the wrong one. Through neuroscience and ancient wisdom, Brooks maps the exact pathway from phone-enslaved to fully present, showing how boredom is not the enemy but the gateway to transcendence. The conversation moves from digital detox protocols to the four-stage neurochemistry of falling in love, then lands on something deeper: why success never delivers the happiness it promises. Brooks shares the specific daily rituals that transform relationships, the surprising intimacy of praying with your partner, and why your smartphone on the dinner table literally blocks your ability to bond with others. This is not another self-help conversation. This is the operating manual for being human in an age designed to keep you distracted. The Greatness Playbook: The Happiness Blueprint Edition Preorder your copy The Meaning of Your Life Arthur on Instagram Arthur on Facebook In this episode you will: Break free from phone addiction using three science-backed protocols that reprogram your neural pathways without going cold turkey Recognize when your brain is operating from the me self versus the I self, and why one destroys meaning while the other creates it Navigate the four neurochemical stages of falling in love so you move at the right speed instead of crashing from dopamine to oxytocin Apply the four-part algorithm that saves struggling relationships through eye contact, touch, fun, and spiritual practice Understand why chasing money and success before happiness guarantees misery, and how to reverse the order to find both For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1908 For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960 Follow The Daily Motivation for essential highlights from The School of Greatness More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes & Martha Higareda Price Pritchett Dr. Daniel Amen Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Your brain is designed to ask all the big why questions on the right, and then to solve how to and what questions on the left. And the reason people are depressed today is because they're avoiding the big right side questions. The whole culture of technology and hustle and grind and online presence is all about staying in the left hemisphere of the brain. That's the reason that people don't know the meaning of their lives.

• 0:22Lewis Howes?

  He's a Harvard professor, international keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author. He's spent the past two decades studying and teaching the art and science of happiness to millions of people. Dr. Arthur Brooks in the house.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Here's what's crazy about when you're living in the wrong side of your brain, because you're living in the matrix, you're living in the simulation of ordinary life. Your great grandfather never came home and said to great grandma, "I had a panic attack behind the mule today."

• 0:49Speaker 00

  It's laughable.

• 0:50Lewis Howes?

  How could someone start going to the right side of their brain to find more meaning and purpose in their life rather than stress and chaos?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. So to begin with,

• 1:00Speaker 00

  we have two kinds of dilemmas as human beings. We have complicated dilemmas and complex dilemmas in life. Two kinds of problems. Complicated problems are the how to and what problems that we're dealing with all day long. Like, how do I get from Orange County to Los Angeles? Which I was dealing with this morning, right? Or how do I, you know, how do I, you know, think about the next five years of the School of Greatness podcast? Which we were talking about, such an interesting complicated problem. How to and what problems. But those aren't the problems that you care about. Because what are we really talking about? We were talking about your babies and your marriage and your faith. Those are complex problems, which are impossible to solve. They're easy to understand, impossible to solve.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  You only live with them. And the reason is, believe it or not, these two types of problems are processed in different hemispheres of the brain. This is a theory called hemispheric lateralization, which is a fancy way of saying the right side and the left side do different things. The left side does complicated problems. Like, how do I get to LA? How do I build a toaster? The right side says, "Why do I love my wife? Who's God?"

• 2:08Lewis Howes?

  What's the meaning of life?

• 2:09Speaker 00

  What's the meaning of life? The mystery and the meaning. And you'll never come to a conclusion. And part of the reason is because that's not how your brain is designed. Your brain is designed to ask all the big why questions on the right, and then to solve how to and what questions on the left. And the reason people are depressed today is because they're avoiding the big right side questions. They're not even asking meaning questions because the whole culture of technology and hustle and grind and, you know, online presence is all about saying in the left hemisphere of your brain. That's the reason that people don't know the meaning of their lives. That's this whole book. How do you find the meaning of your life? It's go to the right side of your brain. How you do that? That's the challenge.

• 2:51Lewis Howes?

  How could someone start going to the right side of their brain to find more meaning and purpose in their life rather than stress and chaos?

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. So to begin with, most people don't realize that that's the problem, that they're using their brains in the wrong way. Not the way that our brains have not been designed. And again, whether you believe in God or not, our brains have unambiguously been designed with two halves for a reason. The why half and the what and how half. And they don't realize that the, our culture, our technology, our economy have ruled out the why half systematically over the past two decades. So I'll give you an example of this. You know, I started seeing this when I was out of teaching for a long time. I went and I ran a company for 11 years. And I came back in 2019 and it was a different world.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  And when I left academia in 2008, academia was happier than the rest of the world. People were falling in love and they're making, remember college?

• 3:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Falling in love and making friends, exploring big ideas.

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  Dreaming out the world, yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Having your mind blown.

• 3:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  2019, triple the rates of depression, double the rates of anxiety.

• 3:58Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I start asking them and they start talking about meaning. It's like, I don't know what I'm meant to do. I mean, I'm going through, you know, I'm studying this and doing that and trying to get a good job. And, but my life feels meaningless. And saying my life feels meaningless is the best predictor of depression and anxiety for people under 35.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  Saying that.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Saying that. That's the predictor. So then you start talking to them and how they and figure out how they live. And it turns out that life dramatically changed after about 2008.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  Social media?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, social media, but devices, the screens, the technology radically changed it. You talk to young people, they're like, it's like I'm living in a matrix.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting you say that, not to cut you off here. I saw a video recently, speaking of being on my device, but I saw a video talking about. A guy who's probably in his 40s, probably around my age with a, I don't know, eight, nine, 10 year old son, having a conversation. And he said, you know what our punishment used to be growing up, you know, back in the 80s and 90s, staying inside.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  I know.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  Not being able to go outside was our punishment. And the son was like, what do you mean?

• 5:01Speaker 00

  I know.

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  I want to be punished for me because I want to be on my phone or on the computer or on like video games all day.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  We're living the punishment voluntarily. Here's the weird thing about it. Here's what's crazy about when you're living in the wrong side of your brain. Because you're living in the matrix, you're living in the simulation of ordinary life. Your great grandfather, like great grandpa house, never came home and said to great grandma, I had a panic attack behind the mule today.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  It's laughable because his brain was working the way it's supposed to work.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  They might have had hard days and stress, but not this type of stuff.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  But, and here's the weirder part. His moment to moment life was actually pretty boring because he was behind that mule.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  But his life wasn't boring. A lot of young people today who are living in the matrix, living in the left hemispheres of their brains, moment to moment, they have zero boredom, but their life is grindingly boring.

• 5:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  See, that's the thing. There's the micro boredom and the meta boredom.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  And that's the way to think about it. To say, have I eradicated boredom from my life, but my life is actually boring? Then you know you're on the wrong side and you'll never find meaning until you can break out of that.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Because no one's actually bored anymore is what I'm hearing you say.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  We solved the problem.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  They can find, you know, all day long, getting a dopamine hit on something, watching something entertaining or funny or what's next or gambling or whatever it might be, some type of hit that they don't allow for space.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  To listen to what they're meant to do.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  I have a colleague at Harvard, a guy named Dan Gilbert. You ever had Dan Gilbert on the show?

• 6:28Lewis Howes?

  I haven't, but I know the name.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  You know him, right? He's the world's leading expert on boredom. He's a visionary social psychologist. He's the best in the business. And he's done these experiments where you bring people into the lab, young people, like undergraduates, they do anything for 20 bucks, right?

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  And, and he makes them sit in, in, in a room where there's nothing on the walls, nothing to do, completely silent. They have one choice besides sitting there quietly with a, have a little key fob with a button on it. If you touch the button, you self administer a painful electric shock. I don't know how he got through this, this through the internal review board, right? Right? That's all they can do. Cause he wants to know whether they choose boredom or shocks, boredom or pain. A quarter of the women shock themselves.

• 7:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Two thirds of the guys.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  It's like, I can't take it anymore. Give me something to do. That's all you need to know, men and women, right? But altogether, more than half the people gave themselves pain over boredom. We solved the boredom problem. Your iPhone is the solution to your boredom problem, your device. The problem is that it makes your brain work wrong. Because when you're never bored, you don't use what's called the default mode networks that are structures in your brain. And you won't find meaning, you'll be in the wrong side of your brain all day long. And so if you wake up and the first thing is you're falling next to your bed, big mistake. And you'll get your phone, then your brain is programmed to that for the rest of the day. And so you're looking at it while you're having your coffee and breakfast. And then you go to work, which is in your guest room, which is a zoom screen. And then you're gonna date by swiping right, right?

• 7:56Speaker 00

  And, and, and then your friends are a lot of them mostly on social media. And then you do a lot of gaming, because you know, that's how you get your sense of fun and accomplishment. And connection. And then you're 12 hours a day online. And guess what you don't have? There's one thing, that's a simulated life, that's the matrix. That movie was popular, I, I'm gonna shock you. Twenty years ago, right? Twenty. Twenty seven. Nineteen ninety eight? Nineteen ninety eight, ninety nine. I know. Is he right? I know, I know. But that movie said that there was a great artificial intelligence, a mechanical artificial intelligence that was subjugating the human race. It was sucking energy out of them in the form of attention, keeping them in these pods and giving them a simulation of real life that was pleasant.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  And, and the reason that there's a rebellion against that is because Neo, Keanu Reeves, wants meaning. Louis, we're in the matrix. And the one thing you can't simulate is the meaning of your life. And that's what's actually happening. So how do we start to simulate the meaning of our life? We gotta live like granddad house. Right? Now, the first thing that we need to do is get clean. The first thing that we need to do is to actually break out of the addictive cycle. Like a cleanse. Yeah, like detox, actually, is what it comes down to. And, and the problem is, you know, you can't just recommend abstinence. Because, you know, somebody asks you. Dude, I drink all the time. You're gonna say, stop drinking completely, obviously.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  But you can't do that with your technology because you can't get into your bank account and that ship has sailed completely.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Which means you need moderation. It's a much harder thing to do, but there's a lot of data. There's a lot of research, neuroscience research, that shows how you can actually moderate your device use that will revolutionize your relationship to the devices. You can solve this problem at basically three steps. Tech-free times, tech-free zones, and tech fasts. That's all you need to do. And the tech-free times are first hour of the morning, meal times, and last hour at night.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  That's all you need. Just those tech-free times. Why? Because of the neural programming that's going on first hour of the day. The, the, the neurochemistry of what's actually happening while you eat, which is that you're looking into other people's eyes while you're having a conversation. We're, we're evolved to do that. Over the last 250,000 years, since the beginning of the Pleistocene, Homo sapiens have actually communed with their kin while they shove pieces of yak meat into their mouths around the fire.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  Put it in there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  If you see your phone on the table, it cuts off the, the neuropeptide that, that is occurring to bond you to others called oxytocin. You cut the oxytocin flow by looking at your phone. Literally, there's experiments that show this.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  So what you said, first hour, meal time, and what was the?

• 10:35Speaker 00

  And the last hour.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Last hour, yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Last hour, because that's when you should be communing with your babies and your wife. And also, you don't want to interrupt the functioning of the pineal gland, which, which, as you know, melatonin, et cetera. You won't be able to wind down. You'll be stressed out.

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  So that's the times. You said zones?

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Zones. There are certain zones. This is physical zones. Number one is the bedroom. No devices in the bedroom. And you don't just say, I'm gonna stop scrolling, leave it downstairs, plugged in in a closet, and take a book to bed. I guess, crazy idea. You got two things. A book and an alarm clock. Nuts, right?

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  The challenge is I listen to the Hallow app at night. That's the challenge.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  No, it is.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  It puts me to sleep, and it's like in the morning, too, I listen to it.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  I know. And so you gotta figure out a way to get around this, and, and, and there are ways to do it with notifications off.

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  And then the second zone is, there shouldn't be a classroom in the world from kindergarten through PhD that has a phone in it.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  I don't understand how teachers can teach today. I don't know how teachers can do it.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Well, you know.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  With allowing kids to have a phone at their desk.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  They weren't really teaching when I was a kid either, but anyways.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  I mean, still, but it's even harder now, and I feel like.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  There's 27 states that still don't, that have completely unfettered access to telephones in public schools. It's craziness that we do this. And there's complete lack of will, of imagination and, you know, moral will on the part of politicians and educators for sure. And the last is tech fast. Everybody should have, I recommend spiritual retreats to people all the time. You know, Buddhist retreats, Hindu retreats, Jewish retreats. I go on a Catholic retreat, four days a year, silent retreat, no, no devices. Oh, it's man, it's like magic. It's a total cleanse.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've done it a few times where I've put, gone on vacation and I've left the phone at home.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  It's hard.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  First time was like, what do you do? I was like, how do I get to the hotel? How do I get my car? I was like, I forget.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  I don't know. I know it's like your brain doesn't work. The other day.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  It was such an adventure. I was like, I just stop at a gas station and ask for directions. How do I get here? It was like, oh man, I'm living in 1990s again. You know, it's like, let's go.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  I feel like Lewis and Clark. And so the other day, when that big Verizon outage, you just, were you aware of this?

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  I heard about that.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  I was in New York and I came out of it, you know, taping a show and my phone didn't work. It was the SOS thing. And I had to call an Uber and get to the Newark airport and fly back to LA.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  How'd you do it?

• 12:51Speaker 00

  And so I had to find a wifi network and actually call the Uber. And there was no phone calls and there was no texts. And then I got to the airport and got on the plane and there was no wifi on the plane for six hours.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  What do you do?

• 13:05Speaker 00

  I had a monkey on my back. I felt like I was like, I was like.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  What do I do? You have to be bored.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  I know.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  You have to be on a plane and read a book or?

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Like a heroin addict detoxing in jail or something, you know?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  So, so that's really helpful. The first day is hard. The second day is easier. The third day is good. The fourth day is bliss.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  It's like, I never want to go back.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  I know, all 40 days.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  All 40 days. So these are the three things to do. The first thing you do is you get clean.

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  And you get clean by doing those three things. And then you start living in a new way that systematically opens up the right hemisphere of your brain. That's really what this, my research is about, is the six ways you can do it. And I mean, again, it's, in a way, it's gimmicky because there's six big ways that you can do it. But if you do this in six months, you'll know the meaning of your life.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  A hundred percent.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  We're talking about your book, The Meaning of Your Life, which I think a lot of people are struggling to figure out these days. And I'm curious, because you are such a devout, what have you been, 45 years you've been all in on? Catholicism, right? Forty-five years.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm practically a cradle Catholic.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Cause I'm sixty-one, but yeah, so people can do the math, right?

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  So you've been doing this for a long time, all in. You go to mass every morning, six AM or almost every morning. You know, maybe once in a while you miss or something, but you're like in it.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  But you're like best friends with Dalai Lama.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  And other spiritual leaders and you actually invited me to go.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  I know, I invited you. I wanted you to go. Next time we'll go.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  Please. And so how do you navigate being all in as a Catholic, believing what you believe? But being very close to other spiritual leaders of other faiths that don't believe what you believe at all? How do you co-mingle, find connection and not judge others' beliefs? But also be close with them and find fulfillment and meaning from those relationships and those spiritual practices as well, which are different or maybe aren't in alignment with the Catholic faith?

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's one thing to think that you're right. It's something else to think that somebody else is wrong. And we want to solve every problem. The left brain solution is always, let me figure it out. And once I figured it out, then I know that this is right and everything else is wrong. I have a right brain orientation toward my faith, which is I believe that this is what God wants for me. I don't know what God wants for others. I don't know. And I can't know. I believe that people, that God puts people in my life for a reason. I believe that you and I met for a reason. We met at a thing in Idaho. It was awesome. I was like, oh man, I feel like I've known this guy for years. The first time I met you. There's a reason that you meet people, that people are actually put into your life.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  And, and for you to adjudicate that on the basis of whatever beliefs that you have, that's hubris a lot of the time. You know, it's, God put you here for a reason to, for me to learn and grow. And the Dalai Lama, boy, oh boy, he told me, I want you to be a better Catholic.

• 16:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:02Speaker 00

  I want you to be a better Catholic is what he said.

• 16:05Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Cause he believes that that's God's will for my life. That's what he actually believes. And I learned so much, you know, from my Hindu teachers, from my Jewish teachers, from my Muslim teachers, people that I've talked to, that have made me so much stronger in my own faith. I believe my faith is what God wants for me. I don't know. What's right? I don't know. I just know that I believe that this is right for me. And I'm not a universalist. You know, good. I mean, I want everybody to be Catholic. I want everybody to go to mass with me. Absolutely. That's the world that I want. But that's not the world that I find. And I believe that there's a reason that I'm finding the world that I am.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  But isn't part of the Catholic faith to preach the gospel and invite and recruit, but convert others to Catholicism, to the faith?

• 16:53Speaker 00

  Yes. And there's different ways to do that. There's different ways to be a missionary. A one good way to be a missionary, like I teach at Harvard University, which is not known as a big Catholic institution.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  No. But Boston is, isn't it?

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Kind of, except, you know, it's the Northeast. It's post-Christian, man. The way that I actually, I bring people closer, I believe, to my faith is by how I live my life and the excellence that I bring to things.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  But is that enough? Just being a good person?

• 17:20Speaker 00

  I think that that opens the door because people will see, there's two things to do. Be impeccable and great at what you do and have people know that you have a strong belief. That's really important. So people watching this are like, Lewis is on a spiritual journey and he's going to Catholic mass and he's unbelie, he's the, literally the best in the world at what he does. That's missionary work right there. That's the mission field. Right? I mean, it's like, it's a Mormon missionary told me this one time. A guy I worked for at the Rand Corporation. I was a military operations research analyst early, early, early on in my career. I was doing math modeling for the Air Force. And this guy was an old school applied mathematician. He was Mormon and Latter Day Saint.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  And he told me about his mission in France. I said, you have missionary in France? Cause they all go on a mission.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  Two years.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I said, how many people do you convert? He said, precious few. And there's a lot, there's the French, you know?

• 18:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And he doesn't speak the language. He has to learn the language while he's there.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  And, and, and he said, I said, so how did you, how did you, you know, maintain a good attitude about it? And he said, I would say, Lord, have them not shut the door all the way. Because he figured out that his job was getting the door open an inch. And his beliefs were that God would do the rest.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  So here's the thing, people, you meet people at different points in their own journey. You're at a different point in your journey, I'm at a different point in your journey. A lot of people watching us are at different points in their journey. And all we can ask them is to not close the door completely, to open the door one inch. And if we believe what we say we believe about God and His goodness, God will do what He's supposed to do in their lives. Our job is to not close the door. And if you go in and you say, repent or die, the door's closing. Right? That's going to close the door, not open the door. Your excellence will open the door.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  How do you navigate in your soul and in your mind? That if you're with the Dalai Lama, or another spiritual teacher, or anyone who's on their own journey of life, that if they don't convert and baptize and become Catholic, like they're not going to heaven essentially, like how do you understand? How do you reconcile with that? Knowing that you care deeply and love this person? And you want them to live a beautiful life here and after here? How do you navigate that world?

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Well, part of that is that there's a kind of a, there's a fundamentalist version of that, that a lot of people learn in the United States, which is literally if you're not this, then dun, dun, dun, then this, right? But the truth is that Catholics in particular, they don't believe that. I mean, there's a lot, we believe that there's a lot, a lot of people going to heaven who are not Catholics or even Christians. On the contrary, they have a different set of experiences from different parts of the world. And they're implicitly baptized, effectively. And they have a lot to teach us. You know, what that says is that if you were raised as a Catholic, then the standard is different for you. The obligation is different for you. The, the, woe be unto you if you're not living up to it.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  But the Dalai Lama has a, you know, has a, there's a, God had a different plan in the Dalai Lama's life. And there's a, there's a different trajectory for what he believes. And so I, I think that it's, it's fair to say that there's a lot of ways to interpret that. And it doesn't have to be literal.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Do you think it's possible for someone to find meaning without having some type of faith or belief in God?

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Yes, I do. And that's really comes from this idea of transcendence, which is one of the six ways of finding the meaning of your life, is transcending yourself. My path isn't the only path to meaning. It, it, it isn't. Now, religion is really, really good for this.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Spirituality is really, really good for finding meaning. But what you really want is to transcend yourself, because, you know, left to your devices, you're going to be in a psychodrama, me, me, me, me, my job, my car, my money, my, so tedious, Louis. It's so boring. But, but Mother Nature wants you to be the star of your psychodrama. I mean, think of all the dreams you had last night. You were the star in every one.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  It's like, ah. And, and what are the great truths of, that we find in all of the experiments in social psychology? If I can get you to think about others and stand in awe of something bigger than yourself, you will find meaning. Why? Because that's what illuminates activity in the right hemisphere of the brain. You'll start using your brain in a more meaningful way. There's two ways to do that. One is to stand in awe of something greater. Our mutual friend, Ryan Holiday, right? He talks about Stoic philosophy.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  That's a great way to actually be looking down at, or looking, standing in awe, uh, walking in nature before dawn. The Hindus call that the brahman mahurta, which means the creator's time in Sanskrit, without devices.

• 22:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Let the sun come up as you walk. To, to sort of a pasana meditation practice, to listen to the fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach, to do what you need to do to stand in awe of something that's not just my little psychodrama.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  The other way is to transcend yourself by serving. Serving other people. So one of the weirdest things is that we always want to serve ourselves. But when we're induced to serve other people, then meaning, meaning pours into the vessel that is your life.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  So much.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  And you've told me about this. I mean, you've been doing this. People watching the show, they don't know all the service stuff that you're actually engaged in. And you think, oh, Lewis Howes, what a great guy. Truly, truly is true, but, but it's also you need it. You actually need it to feel fully alive.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  I'm, every day I wake up and I just say, thank you, God. Thank you, God. And I really reflect on the beauty, the abundance, the relationships, the health, the opportunities, because they weren't always there.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  There was times when I didn't have those things and I really suffered for years and decades. I had an internal suffering because I was thinking of self so much.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Right. Oh, it'll make you suffer, baby.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Suffering. Why me? Why this? Why that person? Why am I experiencing this? Why me? Me, me, me?

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Right, right. No.

• 23:23Lewis Howes?

  And I had a big wake up call around 30 where I was like, man, I am a selfish ego maniac. You know, I wasn't really, I was still a happy guy.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  You were a monster.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't, but like to myself, I was like, I'm beating myself up constantly, focusing on myself. Sure, I was still giving and adding value to the world. It wasn't, and I was like loving and happy and joyful outwardly, but inwardly, I wasn't.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  No, no, because you're doing something that's got, so this is, this is a distinction that William James, the father of psychology in 1890. He called the me self versus the I self. Human beings are, you know, what the, the Homo sapiens advantage neurocognitively is the existence and size of the prefrontal cortex. That's the bumper of tissue behind your forehead. That's 30% of your brain by weight. That is the supercomputer of the ages. There's, you know, AI is never going to come close to that. It just isn't. I mean, people who say that it's going to become more human. No. The prefrontal cortex does amazing things. Among other things, it allows you to be two people and time travel.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it fascinating?

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Oh, it's amazing. So you go, you think about, you know, I did that thing and I feel, I really regret it. And what if it had turned out differently, then the present would be different. You're practicing to be better in the future.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  By time travel. I think I'm going to. Do this tomorrow, but maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do this. You know, you and I were talking about all the cool things that are happening in your business and five different things that could happen in your business. We were time traveling.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Five years into Lewis.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Imagining the world.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Exactly. And then we come back to the present and say, which one of the paths do we want to take? That's time travel. It's amazing how that works. We also can think about me looking out or me looking in to understand myself. William James said, the more time you spend in the me self, looking in, the less happy you're going to be. And the more of the time that you spend in the I self, you need both because you got to know what you're doing in the world and what's going on, but you also have to understand your place in the world.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  So you need both. The problem is that mother nature wants you to think me, me, me, me, me. Happiness comes by looking out at the world. I had this really interesting experience with this guy who did physical therapy for me because my back hurts a lot. My, that's wear and tear, man. That's, that's like, kids, when you're 61, you'll understand. And, and but he's the, a beautiful person and, and he was a loving person. Physical therapists are funny because you've noticed that the best ones, they're full of love.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  And that's their actual.

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  Listen to you and okay.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  They want to know you. They want to heal you.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  Is what it comes down to. And this guy was a classic. He did acupuncture and physical therapy and he was really helping me with my back a lot. I said, you have, you have, you have crazy gifts and you know, how did you get here? He's a young guy, he's your age. And, and he said, oh, it's a long path. I said, tell me more. Cause now I'm a behavioral scientist. I want to know, right? He says, yeah, no, I used to be a fitness influencer. Really? He said, yeah, he says, I was selling my body. I was selling pictures of myself, my shirt off. Yeah. Diet plans, exercise routines, et cetera. And he said, I realized I was just completely, I was miserable. He said, I hadn't eaten what I wanted to eat for 10 years.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Chicken and rice every day.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Cause you got, he's trying to stay at, at sub 10 body fat.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh. So hard.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Under, yeah, 10% body fat. Either you've got weird genetics or you're unhappy. Yeah. I mean, I got weird genetics. I mean, I could stay at seven, but that's because of my genetics, not because I'm making myself miserable because nobody wants me to take my shirt off on the internet.

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  So you should though.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Put it on. Anyway, so.

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  Huberman did it. It exploded the internet.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  I know. I know. He broke the internet, but I know. But somebody took a picture of him and he allowed it to be posted, but probably, I don't know. But, but, you know, he said that he realized that he was thinking about himself too much. He needed to fix it. So he's a smart guy. So the first thing he did is he's got rid of his social media accounts. Step two is he enrolled in physical therapy school so he could serve others, learn something new. The third thing he did was, this is gonna blow your mind, he took every mirror out of his house.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Every mirror, gone.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  God, I was just thinking about this the whole day about how mirrors, that invention of mirror has probably ruined.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  Awful.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  Human psychology.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  I know, because it basically it torqued I self me self.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  And then, and then, and then he showered in the dark for a year, so he couldn't see his abs.

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  He didn't see the water rushing down. It's like, look at my abs. Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  But he couldn't see it because he was so attuned to criticizing himself and belittling himself.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  Shaming himself, judging. What is this little, I gotta eat you more. I gotta, I gotta whatever. Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  The me self does this to you. It makes you crazy. It makes you completely nuts. So the whole point is that you need to look out more. Look at that self transcendence, standing in awe, serving others, puts you into the I self. And you find the meaning of your life because your brain works right. So this comes from the philosophy, the theology, the neuroscience. It all works together.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  You want to find the meaning of life? Stop looking at yourself.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  So true, man.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Around 29, when I was 29, 13 years ago, I guess, almost 14 years ago.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  I, I'd gotten off my sister's couch where I was like suffering and broke and had no purpose. I started building a business. I started pursuing these things and five, six years later, I'm 28, 29, 30. And I make my first million dollars and I'm building a little personal brand and I have some influence and I'm like, making a name for myself in this online marketing world. And I feel like I'm the most miserable I am after about five, six years of this because I was like. So focused on me.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:09Lewis Howes?

  And more and.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Well, there was also another error that people make that that really hurts their search for meaning. And it's very common. It's not, it's not, you never cast aspersions for people making this error. And this is what I say on my first day of class. I teach MBA students at the Harvard Business School. They wanna be unbelievably successful and they're gonna be, right?

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  They wanna make millions of dollars. They wanna raise a bunch of money. They wanna sell companies, all this.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  They wanna be masters of the universe. They wanna be rich.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Power.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  And here's what they think. If I get the money, if I get the power, if I get the fame, then I'll be happy. Right? And I say this on the first day of class and it makes them panic and you're gonna see why. Cause you're a striver par excellence. I say, go for the happiness and I'm gonna teach you how and then you'll be successful enough.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  And the rest doesn't matter.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  But you know what makes them panic?

• 29:57Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Enough. Cause at the Harvard Business School, there's no such thing as enough. And for all the strivers who, look, why do you watch the school of greatness?

• 30:06Lewis Howes?

  You want more.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Because there's not enough and and I admire strivers. I admire strivers, but this is the key thing. And this is what you were experiencing. If you think that the money and the power and the honor, but mostly the money for what you're doing with direct marketing. Right? And all the stuff that you were doing. You thought that that would bring you, that you would arrive at some level, that first million dollars would help you arrive at some level of happiness.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  It's a little peace.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  But now look at your life. Your life is full of love. You have a friendship with God. You have a, you have a, you're, you're living with, you're living with your guru.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  You got your babies.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, man.

• 30:41Speaker 00

  Who are the future you. That's, that's really the, the source of happiness and makes you successful enough.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  That's the beautiful thing. That's what people need to actually focus on. And that's what will happen when you take the mirrors out of your life.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, whether that's literal mirrors or, you know, other.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Metaphoric mirrors, like notifications.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Because you know, your view counts or whatever it might be because I remember reflecting at this time, I had a kind of a big breakthrough and I'm like, maybe over a three to six month window of my life during that time where I had it all, but all my relationships were falling apart. Business relationships, I was with a girlfriend that was falling apart, friendships, like, things were falling apart and I was at the center of all those.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  So in the beginning, I'm like, this person's doing this and she did it, he did it, and they don't, and then I go, oh, but it's all happening. I'm at the center.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  I'm the common denominator of all these things.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  The me self was saying, something is happening so that I'm not being loved enough. The I self says, I need to go love more.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  And that's what I started doing. I said, I went through my own healing journey around that time. I started opening up about the different things that I was going through from childhood sexual abuse and other things that I've talked about.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  You've been very public about that.

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, very public. And I realized I need to serve more. I was like, I felt my first big calling was like, you got to serve those that can't serve themselves. And I thought about, what is something that's meaningful for me? I struggled in school my entire life. I struggled at learning, sitting in a classroom, reading textbooks. It didn't work well for how I-

• 32:15Speaker 00

  Are you dyslexic?

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  Very.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:17Lewis Howes?

  And I was always in the bottom of my class. I was always like, and they used to rank us on our grade cards back in the day. I don't know if they still do it. So I was always in the bottom four from middle school through high school. And I just struggled. And I just felt like, man, I'm never gonna be smart enough.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  You felt stupid, right?

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Very stupid. Every day, not enough, stupid. The way I learned was through sports, through mentors, through coaches.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  And because you're super athletic.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  I mean, you're a professional athlete.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  I leaned into that. And I was like, okay, I can find value here. But I, I was like, I need to start serving. What is the thing that I care about? I care about education and I care about kids.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Because I struggled as a kid.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  So I said, I need to find ways to serve children to have education. And that's something I did. I've launched my first school with an organization called Pence the Promise. This was 14 years ago. And I don't know how many schools I've built over the last 14 years and brought others to serve and travel the world in these communities and seeing the joy of these children, having a place to go to learn. At least I had a school, you know, even though I didn't feel like it worked well for me. I had somewhere to go.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:22Lewis Howes?

  So many kids that don't have that. And I'm, it's something I'm doing through this mission now. Instead of just selling something to make money, I was like, how can I build something that serves? How can I do both and?

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it was, is intensely satisfying.

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  Intensely.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Because it did, it just jams you into the I self.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  You're loving outwardly.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Constantly.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Notwithstanding anything that comes back.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Without expectation of return.

• 33:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  That's what we're built to do.

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  Serving. The more I think about that, how can I continue to serve at the highest level? Use my gifts and talents and serve people at the highest level. It's the most rewarding feeling.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  I know, I know.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  It's the most rewarding feeling.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  That's, that's transcendence.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  That's what people want. That's what they, that's what they need. But, but, but, but Mother Nature and the current environment and the culture and the technology will force you away from that. And, and that's why we need to live in a very propulsive way. We need to live in an entrepreneurial way where we're living the startup of our own lives, doing something that, you know, people, people are very, very, and very positively interested in a lot of content on the internet that, that urges them to do uncomfortable, hard things, right? I mean, all the bro podcasts are out there like grind it out harder, work harder. And, and tons of dudes are like, yeah, give that to me. I mean, it's interesting because Jordan Peterson, my friend, Jordan Peterson, I mean,

• 34:47Speaker 00

  he's very, very, very successful, giving hard advice.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Giving really hard advice. And I understand why, because people have this, this sense that there's something bigger, there's something better. They're looking for meaning. And, and so they're, they're, they're willing to walk towards something that's incredibly uncomfortable. By the way, this is a second avenue toward meaning is understanding suffering.

• 35:09Lewis Howes?

  Do hard things?

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Is doing hard things, but understanding suffering. Cause when you understand the way that suffering actually works and you're no longer resisting it, you will find meaning. Your brain will work right is the bottom line.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  And that's what a lot of people are grasping toward. A lot of young people on the internet are grasping at this, this kind of thing. And that's the kind of thing that we're talking about here. That that when you're doing something that's an uncomfortable thing, it's a morally uncomfortable thing, it's an emotionally uncomfortable thing, it's a spiritually uncomfortable thing. Or, yeah, it's a cold plunge, or whatever.

• 35:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  You're doing this thing, so you're exploring the space, you're transcending yourself, you're exploring the space of actually non-resistance towards suffering.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  And you're saying, I don't know why I feel better, because the right hemisphere of your brain is illuminated and you're, and you have an understanding, an inchoate understanding, a wordless ineffable understanding of the meaning of your life.

• 36:02Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you work with a lot of high achievers. I feel like a lot of people that watch and listen to this show, they're consciously trying to achieve something greater in their life, that's why they're here. And I love this kind of like speech that I heard Jim Carrey give, I think it was at the Golden Globes one year where he said, you know, I'm two-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. If I can become three-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey, then I'll be enough. It's like this kind of anecdote of like,

• 36:27Speaker 00

  I know.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  How many more-

• 36:28Speaker 00

  He was making a joke, and people laughed.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  They laughed.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  But it's like, how, you know what I'm talking about?

• 36:32Speaker 00

  I do, I do. I know, that's very, he's a very profound guy.

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  God, I want to interview him so bad.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  He's a very profound-

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  I want to interview him.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  I bet he was, hey Jim, come on the show.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  I know, I want to interview him so bad.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  It's the best show.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  I think it'd be fascinating, but I love his thought process around that. And I'm sure he struggled many years because he never, maybe didn't feel enough for a long time, but-

• 36:49Speaker 00

  I think he's, I think he's talked openly about his struggles, actually, yeah.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  And there was another interview he did where he said he was going to retire a few years ago, and someone said, no, you can't retire, like you're too talented, the journalist was saying, like, please don't retire. And he goes, I'm going to say something that most celebrities will never admit to. And he said, I've done enough, I have enough, I am enough.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  And most celebrities will, won't admit to that.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  Now, easy for him to say at his age and his career and his success.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  But it's not, you know, it just gets harder and harder.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  It just gets harder and harder.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Like that need for validation, that need for being in the game, being talked about.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  The more famous you are, the more famous you need to be. The richer you are, the richer you need to be. That's just, and the reason is because you're, you're on the hedonic treadmill. There isn't enough, there isn't enough in the world. It's these rewards, these worldly rewards. This is what Saint Thomas Aquinas, he called the world's idols. And, and the world's idols are the things that beguile you. And they have a kind of a divine feel to them, but they lead you away from what you truly want, which is the mission and meaning of your life. They lead you away from it because they look like they're going to bring you to it, but they actually don't. So they're like drinking salt water. The more that you drink, the thirstier you get.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  And, and actually every single one of the, all the strivers watching us right now, and you and me, there's one that beguiles us more than the others. And if you have information, if you have knowledge about which is your idol, you got power. You want, you want to play, what's my idol? What's your idol? Yeah, I want to play with you. What's your idol? So let's find out, let's find out. So kids, you can play along at home. I played. So I play this game with my students because if they know their idol, they have power. Your idol is what will always lead you astray. And when you look back to the times of your life where you suffered the most, it's because you were beguiled by that idol the most. And it's always one of four things.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Money, power, pleasure, or honor. And honor means like internet famous. Yeah, prestige, admiration of the right people or admiration of lots of people. Success addicted people who got famous when they're young. They seek the admiration of strangers. That's the honor idol. And we can talk about that one because that was super dangerous. What was the third one? Pleasure. Pleasure, money, pleasure. Money, power, pleasure, honor. Those are the four. Now this comes from Aristotle, the Thomas Aquinas in 1265 and his Summa Theologia. He was an unbelievably adroit behavioral scientist way before his time.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  And all the stuff that I'm talking about here has been completely validated by modern neuroscience and behavioral science. Okay. Perfect. But it was the 13th century. It's unbelievable. Okay, so here's how it works. Here's how. What's my idol? So what I'm going to do is I'm not going to ask you what it is. I'm going to ask you what it's not.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  Okay, before we do that, what is the idol of most Harvard Business School students coming in? What is most of their idol?

• 39:56Speaker 00

  They think it's money and it isn't.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  What is it?

• 39:59Speaker 00

  We'll see.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Okay, okay.

• 40:02Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 40:02Speaker 00

  So, we're gonna take the idols away. And one of the reasons is because this is an elimination technique. That's the most accurate way for you to figure out all kinds of things in life. This is cognitively a very powerful technique for finding something. So I want you to look at these things and I want you to get rid of one you care about the least, which doesn't mean you don't have it. What it means is, what it means is you have the population average. Which, you know, you take away money, for example. You're the population average in the United States. That's pretty darn good. But the problem is this, you're not extraordinary in it, which means it sucks if it's your idol.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Okay, so money, power, pleasure, fame, which one do you get rid of first? Which one do you care about the least?

• 40:43Lewis Howes?

  What if you feel like you have all four?

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Because you do have all four.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  Inside it like?

• 40:47Speaker 00

  Because you're Mr. Big and of course you care about all four of them. But which one would you, could you kick away most easily? I can make a prediction for you already of what's not your idol.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Power means influence over other people.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  I guess power is gonna be the one, because I'd rather have honor than, I don't want to.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Look, with your.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  Honor is kind of power.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no.

• 41:10Lewis Howes?

  It's self-respect, it's like, oh.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Power is influence over other people, so they do what you want.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  No, I don't need that.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  Now, how do I know that about you?

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Because you're highly intelligent.

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  You'd be a CEO of a big company right now. And you're not. You're running an enterprise, that's an idea enterprise. It's not on a skeleton crew. I mean, there's a bunch of people around us right now that are doing good work. But the whole point is, you'd have a big company, you'd be running a big public company, and you'd be the chairman and CEO. And Lewis Howes could absolutely have that gig.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  If power were the thing. Okay, good, so you got three left. Money, pleasure.

• 41:41Lewis Howes?

  I already know what, I already know my.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  What's that? Well, let's eliminate a little bit more.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Which one do you get rid of next? It gets harder.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  I feel like.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, this is interesting because I was just telling Martha last night, I go, you know, I could live in a two bedroom apartment and be fine.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:58Lewis Howes?

  You know, and like.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  It's actually not money.

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  You're not, I mean, money's great.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  I like having it like as a security, I guess, but I don't.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  See, the thing is, security.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  I don't buy stuff.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Security isn't, security isn't a money idol.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Security is a pleasure idol.

• 42:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  What it is, is if you, and, and one of the things that people might, they'll say, well, I can't, I'm not money, I'm pleasure. How often you check, you, you check your stock portfolio? Every day.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So.

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  I don't, every day.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so comfort, security and feeling good are all the same idol.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting because money, I know it's not, I mean, listen, I'm a driven business entrepreneur that needs to make money to pay for people's lives and my livelihood, but I just, I turn down money all the time.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  Like, the reason I know it's not my idol is because I get sponsorship and deal offers all the time to pay me. I'm like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to make money to do that.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  And so for me, it doesn't mean I don't want lots of it.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  But I want to do it the right way.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  I get it. And it's nice.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  It's nice.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  It's nice, but the two bedroom apartment wasn't.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  I was living the dream in a two bedroom.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  It wasn't a lot worse than a huge house.

• 43:07Lewis Howes?

  I was living the dream and I had less things to manage.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:11Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm grateful for my home, but I was.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 43:14Lewis Howes?

  Still living the dream.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Okay, we've got number two is gone. Now it gets real hard because there's two left.

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  What does pleasure mean versus honor?

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Pleasure means there's three things that pleasure could be. Number one is feeling good, feeling good. Number two is comfort. Number three is security. That's the pleasure idol. And then fame is, there are very many different kinds of fame. One is, you know, the internet famous, which.

• 43:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  There, which by the way, you are.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  There is prestige in the, in the eyes of the right people and there's the admiration of people. Those are different kinds of fame, but they're all the same idol.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  And so what's the difference between pleasure and honor?

• 43:52Speaker 00

  Pleasure and honor is, honor is the reflection of other people's feelings toward you.

• 43:56Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  Pleasure is how you feel.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  So you gotta get rid, that doesn't mean, I know you want both.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanna feel good and I want.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  And you want other people to, you want other people's feelings about you, you care about other people think.

• 44:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, I wanna feel like, yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  So you gotta get rid of one of them. What really is motivating you more? And again, this is not the, this is not to live a life of vice and.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  No, this just means you're trying to find what actually would lead you astray.

• 44:25Lewis Howes?

  The one that I care about the most?

• 44:27Speaker 00

  No, no, and not the one that actually kind of, the one that drives you a little bit more.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  The one that I want more? Or the one that I wanna, that's less holding me on, um. I feel like.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  This takes work, I know.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, I might need to dive deeper on this because there, in some ways, I'm working more and more to care less what people think about me. That's why I'm taking the.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  And you know the reason, right?

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Is because it's your idol.

• 44:53Lewis Howes?

  Maybe, that's probably, that's probably it. In the last four years, I have done so much work, and maybe I talked about this with you when we were at the Mastermind, where I've had to create so many boundaries with influential people, billionaires, celebrities, or just everyday people that want things, or that expect something from me.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  They expect me to be the good guy that always delivers, that's like willing to do whatever it takes to help them.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, the fact that you're concerned.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  Indicates that you're self-aware, but that is the tendency.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Here's the deal, when you were a kid, when you were a kid, you learned something about yourself.

• 45:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Which is that you got attention and affection when you did stuff.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  Right? And you felt crummy about yourself when you didn't, when you weren't able to do something. Why? Because you were, you had a learning instability, which made it hard for you to do things, made you feel crummy about yourself.

• 45:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:44Speaker 00

  But then when you achieved, especially as an athlete, that adults gave you attention and affection. And what you learned from that is that love is earned. You learned that love is earned. That, that's actually wrong, by the way. Martha doesn't love you because of what you give her. She loves you as a grace. Love is a free gift freely given.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  It is.

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  The problem is that when you wire that in, when you have the programming as a child that love is earned, you will become a success machine.

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  And the success machine has to understand whether or not it's functioning. And how do you know it's functioning? Because of points on the board. And the points on the board comes from the affection of strangers and the admiration of other people and the, and, and the viewer numbers and the bank account. That's an honor idol.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Lewis Howes?

  So in the last few years, I've really worked to knock that down.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. And you're working on it. It's important.

• 46:38Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna be a lifelong journey, I'm sure, but it's. It was, and it was scary the moment I started to say, I need to create boundaries with all these people.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  And get on the phone and say, you're not a good friend. And no, I'm not gonna do this for you. And take the reactions and know that they might talk bad about me and know that they have a different viewpoint of me. And like the grieving, the loss of that, like clinging on to that idol was scary.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  For the last, for two, three years ago.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  And so I don't feel it as much. Like, sure, I wanna like, look good in the eyes of other people.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:10Lewis Howes?

  But not at the detriment of my own happiness.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Right. And here's the point. That's great.

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  The point is in your weak moments, you'll snap back into the honor idol.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully not.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, there's, we're all weak.

• 47:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  You know, it's not like you're gonna go on a bender.

• 47:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  You know, of that. You're not gonna become a monster, cuz you're not a monster. But the whole point is that self-knowledge is critically important. Here's mine.

• 47:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  I would get rid of power. I was a CEO. I, the thing I hated most about being a CEO is having power over other people.

• 47:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  When people called me boss, it bummed me out. And, and the reason is cuz I hate people having power over me.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  You always admire the people who have your idol. And so if you look at a politician who kind of admires demagogic, tyrannical despots in other countries, it's because that's what he wants. Right? You always admire, if, you know, somebody who admires billionaires wants to be a billionaire.

• 48:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  That's what I, admires the richness in, in their lives. Okay. Power, I don't even like it, let alone have it as an idol.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Number two is money.

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  So we're the same.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  I've had it, I haven't had it.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  Number three, I would get rid of, I would get rid of pleasure, cuz I, actually, I'm a pretty austere guy. Comfort is not important to me. I get up before dawn every single day, including Sundays. I work out every day. I lo, bring pain.

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  Right?

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  I'm in that place too.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  My problem is the same as yours, man. I mean, I want the admiration of strangers. Love is earned. I got the attention of adults when I played the French horn as a little kid. That was when I felt special. That's when I felt like you were cared about.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  And then teacher and then all these things.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  So the result is that I'm a success addict. And, you know, I'm, I'm a self-objectifying success addict. And the result is that. You know, my worst moments, Louis, are when I spent the 14th hour at the office looking for the admiration of strangers as opposed to the first hour with my kids. When they were little and they grew up. I wanted to be special more than I wanted to be happy.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  And that's my weakness. And consciousness of this has allowed me to take my life back. And when I take my life back, I understand what the real meaning of my life actually is. That's why everybody needs to play this game.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  What is the real meaning of your life?

• 49:20Speaker 00

  The real meaning of my life is to love and be loved. The meaning of my life is to lift people up and bring them together in bonds of happiness and love, using the gifts that I've been given, which is science and ideas. That's what it is. But I can't do that when I'm just trying to get applause. It's like, eh.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Why do so many smart, intelligent people sabotage their own happiness?

• 49:44Speaker 00

  Because they're in, well, there's a couple of different things going on.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're extremely smart.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  They'll leave, so they'll leave their happiness on the table. And then there's some that will actually sabotage their own happiness. And those are two different problems. Number one, many strivers will forego happiness because they actually know what they need. I was interviewing this woman in my research, who's a billionaire, I mean, in finance. Iconic in the industry, my age at the time, I was in my 50s at the time. And she was confessing to me that she was horribly unhappy. She said, I got everything I wanted, but I'm unhappy. I said, well, talk to me, sister.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  Right? And she says, well, my husband and I were like roommates. I'm cordial with my adult kids, you know? I think my employees are afraid of me, you know? I'm not taking care of myself the way I should. I drink too much, I'm not going to the gym. I used to be religious when I was a child that gave me so much joy, but I never even practiced my faith. What should I do, professor? And I'm like, you don't need a Harvard professor to tell you. You just gave yourself your own prescription. I mean, go away with your husband, get to know your kids, step back from your firm, go to AA, go back to church, do your thing. And she said, I know, I know, I know, I know. I said, so why not? And she thought about it and she said, Because I've always chosen to be special rather than happy.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  See, here's the calculus. Any loser can have love relationships, but not everybody can build a company. People will, Homo sapiens, we're weird, dude. We will, we will choose specialness over happiness all day long.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  Can you be special and happy at the same time?

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Of course, except there are sacrifices in your specialness that you need to do what every other person can do, because we are built to love each other. We are built to love our kids. We are built to, to, to, to serve our marriages. We're built to do that. And that's, it's not special because everybody can do it. And here's the thing, most people would look at you and say, man, if I had Lewis Howes' money and prestige, then I would actually be happy, but I can't get it. So, okay, I guess I'll do this dumb thing. I'll just take my kid to the park and play ball. That's the secret.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And because they feel like they can't be special, then they choose the happiness and they have a good life.

• 51:59Lewis Howes?

  But here's the thing, probably 80 to 90% of the world has the ability to be happy because they're not special. And yet they're still not choosing how to be happy.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  They're still not leaning into, this is the life that I have. I have a good life, but I'm still not happy.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  I know.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Cause I'm missing the special.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  I know.

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

  So they have it and they still diminish it because they don't have what they want.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Well, they're unsatisfied with what they actually have. And so they want that thing and they don't get that thing. They're frustrated about that thing. And they're also all missing the opportunity to do the things that they need to do. And that's, that's, there's a lot of desperation that goes into that. I wind up talking about that an awful lot. And just my general work on the science of happiness.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  But, but it's, but when it comes to the struggle, the striving and this paradox of striving, this is your whole audience. Want to know why? Because your show is not called The School of Good Enough.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  No, it's not The School of Average.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  It's not The School of, okay, The School of Awesome, kinda, you know? It's The School of Greatness. And I really admire that. But you can't sacrifice the love in your life on the altar of what you're trying to do in the world's eyes.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 53:06Speaker 00

  That's why.

• 53:06Lewis Howes?

  That's not greatness.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  That's not greatness.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  If you're, if you're special.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  But you have no great relationships. I don't think that's greatness.

• 53:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. If you're pursuing money, power, pleasure and fame, there's a problem per se. I mean, there's nothing wrong with those things, but they should lead you to what you should truly want, which is your faith, your family, your friends and work that serves. Faith, family, friends and work that serves. Those will bring authentic happiness.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and and if you it sounds like what I'm hearing you say, if you focus on your faith, your family, your friends and work that serves. It may lead you to more money, more power, more.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  I get the data, it will actually.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  More, you know, honor.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  You'll be successful.

• 53:48Lewis Howes?

  It'll be a byproduct.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  Of you doing that. And then it'll be your responsibility to not give too much emphasis on that.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  It'll be the, you know, Ryan Holiday, Marcus Aurelius, needing someone to say you're just a man.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:04Lewis Howes?

  Like reminding you, you're just a man.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  That's why you get married.

• 54:09Lewis Howes?

  You're just a man, right? Even when you're this like God or in your own world or something. It's like you need a reminder daily that you're just a man.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. And it's gonna be taken.

• 54:19Lewis Howes?

  All of it. All of it. Your life will be taken away.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  One day.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  That's right. You and I were talking about this earlier that that, you know, a great CEO one time told me who had managed. He was a private equity manager, meaning that he bought and sold companies. And he had seen the careers of thousands of CEOs. And I asked him, because I was a CEO at the time, close friend. How do I understand the end of my career as a CEO? And he said, there's two ways. You can quit before you're ready, or you can quit under some on somebody else's terms. Those are the only two doors. So his recommendation was quit before you're ready. But the whole point is, things end. Here's what doesn't end. Love. Love doesn't end. You know, what do you want to be doing on your last day? What do you want people to say at your funeral?

• 55:07Speaker 00

  Lewis Howes had five million miles on Delta Airlines. I mean.

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  That he couldn't use.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Cares. Who cares? And we all kind of know that. I mean, it's funny because, you know, that was the premise of a great George Clooney movie up in the air. Was he was looking for meaning and counting it in airline miles.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. And then he finally got that he arrived.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, he arrived.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  In the middle of a flight, right? Like he, the captain came out and sat next to him and said, what was it like something?

• 55:36Speaker 00

  I know.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Like you got the most points in the world.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  And the captain sat next to him and he's like, and then it just.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  What do you want to do now?

• 55:41Speaker 00

  He realized how empty it was. His new, he's got that George Clooney, what a great actor. He's got that new movie on Netflix, Jay Kelly. Have you seen it? It's called Jay Kelly.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  I haven't all watched.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  It's the same movie as Up in the Air. He's a movie star playing an aging movie star. Who's looking for the ultimate role. Because then he will have arrived.

• 56:03Lewis Howes?

  He'll be enough.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  And he sacrificed all of his happiness and his love relationships to be special. He chose specialness over happiness. That's the premise of the movie. It's a very, very beautiful movie, actually.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  Why is this drug or idol of specialness over happiness seem to captivate most of the world?

• 56:22Speaker 00

  So that's evolution. And there's an actual, we have an evolutionary biological explanation for this. We're born, Homo sapiens are not, are not made to be happy. We're made to be special. Homo sapiens, the brain of Homo sapiens is the same as it was at the beginning of the Pleistocene era, 250,000 years ago. When all of humanity lived in bands of 30 to 50 kin-based individuals. Hierarchical kin-based groups of 30 to 50. And what do you want? You want to maintain and rise in that particular hierarchy, which is like, and the way that you do that is with more hunting skills, et cetera. Why? Because you get more food and you get more mates.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  We're that simple in its way. And that is metastasized in modern society in wanting more internet followers, more Instagram followers. Having a lot of likes. That's how we're actually, you know, being rewarded for dragging in a slightly bigger gazelle into the cave. But that's all, that explains that milieu, explains so much of our relationships. You know, for example, one of the things that we find in relationships between husbands and wives. The reason that marriages fail is because women are not adored by their husbands and/or husbands are not admired by their wives. This is the fuel of happiness in these traditional relationships.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  And so what she needs to hear because of the evolutionary biology, like she has a huge commitment and investment in raising kids. Carries them. I mean, your wife's just carried your babies for months and she's taking care of them. They die without her, right? And so the result of it is that she needs the protector who has a complete commitment to her. And how does she know the commitment? Through the adoration. And so she wants to hear, honey. I would fight a tiger for you with my hands and only you.

• 58:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  And what do you need to hear? That is the biggest gazelle anybody's ever dragged into this cave.

• 58:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  You're so big and strong, you're gonna feed our family for two weeks. And that motivates all of this behavior.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  And we go out and risk our lives again.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Again, and again, and again, and again, all, I mean, like, I do 150 talks a year, public talks a year. And, and the, two weeks ago, I was in Columbus, Ohio.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Where I'm from.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  It's great. People are awesome.

• 58:40Lewis Howes?

  Cold right now, though, but yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  It's cold. Seventeen thousand Catholic missionaries in the audience.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  Seventeen thousand, right? And I was, I was super nervous. You wanna know why?

• 58:52Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Cause Esther was in the front row. My wife.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  Cause she was in the front row and you were nervous.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  That was why I was nervous, cause I want her to admire me. All I want is my wife's admiration.

• 59:01Lewis Howes?

  Not the seventeen thousand.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this is the night, the example of how the evolutionary biology, man, it has teeth. And when we understand ourselves in this context, we understand all the things that we do. This is why we go after those worldly idols. Is because we wanna rise in the kin-based hierarchy of thirty to fifty individuals, which has been

• 59:20Lewis Howes?

  Now, it's billions of people.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Exploded into billions of people.

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you know that, you got power. Cause then you don't have to be a prisoner of the more, of the animal impulse. You can get into the space of your moral aspiration. That's what the amazing human brain allows you to do.

• 59:37Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of marriage, you've been married for thirty?

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Thirty-four years.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-four years.

• 59:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:41Lewis Howes?

  You've got a lot of great wisdom on marriage and relationships. And in a time where it feels like people are struggling the most in relationships with themselves, but also in intimacy with the, the committed partners.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  What are the keys to having a successful, happy marriage or relationship? And why do most marriages fail?

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, so there, there's so much on that these days. But the biggest problem that we see is that your marriage is not a problem that you can solve. Your marriage is not a left brain complicated problem. Your brain, your, it's not, it's not an algorithm. And our culture has actually told us that, that we should be able to solve every problem. Right? And you know, with, with proper information, we should be able to solve the problem. And when, when people conclude that when they can't solve their marriage, that something is actually wrong with the relationship. So it's, the approach is wrong. Your marriage is a right brain phenomenon. You'll never solve it. You only live in it and love in it. That it's, it's a, it's a permanent state, state of disequilibrium. That's what your marriage is supposed to be.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  My wife might be totally pissed off at me by the end of the day. I know she loves me. We'll have a conflict. I know we'll have a conflict. We have 10,000 arguments. Because of me, because of her, because we're human beings living in this complex relationship. The number one thing is not understanding the nature of living with another person is what it comes down to. And, and appreciating the complexity of that and trying to force it into this complicated problem that you can Google, that you can ask chat G P T. You see, we think that those are the things, those, and, and yeah, and this is the wrong kind. In other words, they're dealing with the wrong kind of problem. That's number one. Number two is that the way that we've now entered into relationships is through complicated tools.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  So you don't just meet somebody and let sparks fly a little bit. It's funny because the way that the human brain is, is designed for relationships to start is kind of a four step neurochemical process. Number one is, is attraction. And attraction is largely governed by testosterone and estrogen, sex hormones. Men and women both have both, by the way. I mean, men have both and so do women. Men obviously have more testosterone, women have more estrogen. And that's how you, you spark, which is why no matter how emancipated and modern you are, you still want to look nice. Yes. And the reason is because that's what actually sparks in the brain of somebody that you're, that you're, that you want to connect to. Interest. The second part is where it gets really complicated and, and interesting.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  Which is when the, the, the neurochemistry actually really starts to flow in terms of noradrenaline, norepinephrine.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  And and dopamine. And that's anticipation of reward and euphoria. So when you're kind of interested in somebody, you have this undue interest in like, I think I'm gonna, I think I just got a text from her. It's a text. Who cares? You ask, wanna get dinner? Are you waiting for the next? That's because your neurochemistry is really, really hopped up. You've got high levels of norepinephrine, which is a stress hormone. And and dopamine, which is anticipation of reward. Then, when you're falling in love, this weird thing happens, which is that your serotonin tanks by like a third. Now, when serotonin is low in the synapse, that's, that provokes the feeling of clinical depression. And that, that, that starts this process of ruminative sadness.

• 1:03:01Lewis Howes?

  When you're falling in love.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  When you're falling in love, it's actually almost indistinguishable from, from clinical depression. And the reason is because you're ruminating on the other person. That's why you'll send a thousand stupid text messages when you don't hear from the person and you're getting digger and digging yourself into a deeper, deeper hole. That's because you're doing insane things, because your brain is slightly insane, because you're bonding to the other person. You ruminate almost depressively on the other person because you're bonding to the other person. Because you're basically creating kin for somebody with whom you're biologically unrelated, ideally. And the last is, what you want to get to is oxytocin and vasopressin, which are these neuropeptides in the brain, where actually you are kin. And that's your person. This person is part of your tribe. You've actually adopted somebody into your family.

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  That's, that's, you and Martha were, and you feel like you've been together forever. That's oxytocin. It's the way that that works. And you want to go one, two, three, four. When it doesn't work, when, when relationships are askew, it's because they go at different speeds through that neurochemical cascade, or somebody stops after stage two, that's when things aren't working.

• 1:04:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  There's some people who go through them too fast and freak out their other partner. These are people who have emophilia, not with an H, it's not a blood disorder, emophilia, which is excessively quickly falling in love. There's a lot of what I teach my students, you know, is about actually how the, this neurochemistry of actually how all this stuff works.

• 1:04:22Lewis Howes?

  You gotta slow the falling in love process down, I feel like.

• 1:04:25Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. You want to walk through this.

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  Not sprint and jump in, right? Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 00

  Well, and the older you are, the slower it is.

• 1:04:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Speaker 00

  If you, you fall in love and you're, people in their eighties will fall in love. But when you're in your, when you're 16 years old, it'll be like four days and you're going through the entire process.

• 1:04:40Lewis Howes?

  Love, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's kind of how it works. But anyway, this is how I teach an awful lot about it. And this is a miracle. I mean, our brains are amazing on how this whole thing works. So in modern life, the problem is that we're, with technology, we're torquing this entire process. And it's not working right. You know, I'll give you a classic example. Most dating apps allow you to curate your profile in a way that you're looking for yourself. Cause we're so narcissistic. I want somebody who votes like me. You know, for example, in, in, I'm not gonna say which political side it is, but one political side. Seventy-one percent of people say they won't, they won't date somebody who's not on that political side.

• 1:05:19Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 1:05:20Speaker 00

  The other side is forty-one percent. So. Use your imagination. Anyway, so, but the whole point is that, that we, we, we curate for compatibility. But the human brain wants complementarity. It wants sexy difference. And, and the application is what they do. It's compatibility is a left brain solution. Complementarity is a right brain phenomenon. And so all the technology is making us fall in love wrong. So we're not.

• 1:05:51Lewis Howes?

  I mean, if someone's been in a relationship for a few years or been married for a while and it's not working.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:05:56Lewis Howes?

  How do they improve their relationship or marriage?

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I have a lot of, my wife and I actually do a lot of this stuff together, but there are a lot of, you know, deep work that you can actually do. But I've got a kind of a break glass thing to think about. Actually, believe it or not, there's an algorithm of things that will save most relationships.

• 1:06:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Some of it's biological and some of it's actually more in terms of learning. So number one is, is, believe it or not, it's eye contact. So most couples, when they're on the rocks, is they've stopped looking at each other in the eyes. Believe it or not, that's characteristic of, of relationships that have gone cold. And part of the reason is because men, in a heterosexual relationship, a man and a woman, the man has stopped talk, looking at his wife or partner when he's talking to her. Because and and the reason is because guys are really good at that. You and I can talk to each other and have a, you know, men, when they're together, they tend to. Look at other stuff. Yeah, they're like what talking to each other deeply about things while watching a football game.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  That's called parallel play. Men have deep relationships as they're walking together towards something side by side. Right. Eye contact is not as common and it's actually not as necessary because men have less oxytocin. About a third as much oxytocin and oxytocin is pumped out when you're making eye contact. Why? Well, the reason is because women get a lot of oxytocin as they lay eyes, have eye contact with their babies. So when babies nurse, they're looking into their mother's eyes. It is powerful, man. My baby is staring at you while they're eating. You're like. I know, I know. And they're. Stare at you. It's like, stop. What are you staring at me? You're freaking me out, you know? And what they're doing is that's pumping oxytocin into mom's brain, which is really important for milk production.

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  So so this is kind of how the the biology works. But the whole point is that women get three times as much oxytocin. And that's how they bond to people more. And when dude, when you're not looking at her in the eyes, when you're talking to her, you're denying her the feeling of love. Man. And so the number one rule. Eye contact. Number one rule is never say a word to her without looking at her in the eyes. When you're talking to her, you're looking at her. Wow. And she'll be like, I'm happy. I don't know why. That's why. Number two. Yep. A B T. Always be touching. Always be touching. If you're with each other, if you're watching TV, you're touching for sitting in church, you're touching. If you're walking down the street, you're holding hands. When you, when, when, when, when you're driving, she's, she's got her hand on your arm. Touch, touch, touch, touch. That's actually more important for men than it is for women.

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  Because when she, you know, like when you're walking down the street with her and she hooks her arm. Yeah, yeah. It's like, that's a vasopressin pump. Man, you know, yeah. I know. You feel like you're, you are like seven feet tall, but you know, even I feel seven feet tall. Yeah. And, okay, always be touching, always be touching. Number three. Have more fun.

• 1:08:39Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  Now, that's important because couples that are on the rocks, they rehearse their grievance a lot. And a lot of couples therapy is about rehearsing grievances.

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  Talking about the past constantly, constantly.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  The problem, you talk about problems. You got a problem, you go to therapy, they're gonna talk about the problems. Have more fun. Fun makes you forget problems.

• 1:08:56Lewis Howes?

  Does. Add more fun into your plate.

• 1:08:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, add more fun. Wash out the dirt in the glass by pouring a gallon bucket of water into the glass.

• 1:09:05Lewis Howes?

  Not by looking at the dirty glass and talking about it all day.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  And not by stirring it up.

• 1:09:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, just.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  With a spoon.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  Pour fun into it.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  Right. And last but not least, prayer, meditate together.

• 1:09:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  The single most intimate thing that couples do together is prayer, meditate together. And most couples never do it. I mean, I talked to a Catholic couple who'd been married for 60 years. You pray together, it's like, oh, that's kind of embarrassing. But you have sex. You're not praying together because praying feels more intimate. And the reason is because one flesh in terms of sex is one thing. One flesh in terms of the right hemispheres of your brain, that's, you're looking into the soul, man. And you're praying in front of God with, in front of each other. It's scary. Do you pray with Martha?

• 1:09:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. And when you first started doing it.

• 1:09:52Lewis Howes?

  I'm not staring in her eyes like praying.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Well, no, I mean, you're praying together, but you're praying to God together. And at first, it was probably awkward.

• 1:09:57Lewis Howes?

  Very.

• 1:09:58Speaker 00

  And, and the reason is because it was intimate. It was the most intimate thing.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  And I was also used to kind of praying alone and like do my own practice and ritual. Now it's like we're doing it together in certain ways.

• 1:10:08Speaker 00

  And that's a really, really super, super deep right brain bonding experience.

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  This is the protocol. You know, dudes, protocols. This is the protocol.

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  Four things. Eye contact, always be touching, have more fun and pray together.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  That should, that should make any marriage last and be better.

• 1:10:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. And I know people would be like, yeah, well, what if there's abuse? I got it. What if there's infidelity? I got it. I mean, I, I understand these, these radical exogenous circumstances. What we're talking about is the cooling of the ardor that naturally happens.

• 1:10:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  And so if there's not these big audacious crazy problems, you're just kind of cold. Does that get it back?

• 1:10:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Lewis Howes?

  You're just kind of numb.

• 1:10:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  Walking through life, going through the motions.

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  Uh huh. You're basically, your brains are not neurochemically connecting.

• 1:10:54Lewis Howes?

  With all this information that you have and you've studied and you've taught and you've written about, what is the one thing you wish you would have done earlier in your life that maybe you don't regret, but you're like? Now that I know I could have done this better with my wife or with my kids or with my purpose or with my whatever, what is the thing that's like, uh, this is the thing I really wish I would have done differently?

• 1:11:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, there are things. There really are things. Um, I wish I'd chosen more happiness or specialness.

• 1:11:22Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  When my kids were little.

• 1:11:24Lewis Howes?

  But then you wouldn't have this opportunity you have now.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  I, I know.

• 1:11:28Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't have all the books and the Oprah and the Dalai Lama and the credibility and the money and the, you wouldn't have this now. You want to be speaking 150 times a year now if you didn't pursue specialness for those decades.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  I'd have more love in my life. I would have had more love. And, and, and related to that, um, here's a real regret. Um, when I was in my twenties and it was go, go, go. I wasn't doing what I'm doing now. I didn't get my PhD until I was 34. As a matter of fact, I was a professional classical musician. I was playing in the Barcelona City Orchestra. I was the Associate Principal of French Horn. I had a good career and I wanted literally to be the best French horn player in the world. I was pursuing a career as a soloist. And I wanted to tour the world. It was a lot of work, but it was also,

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  it meant that I didn't, and, and not all my relationships were bad. I had some very close friends and I, I got married during that time and you know, Esther's from Barcelona. And so, but the, the one relationship that I marginalized was with my parents. I did. I mean, I didn't, and my parents were interesting people. My dad was a, was a mathematics professor with a PhD in biostatistics. He was a really, really serious intellectual. My mother was an artist of, of some renown in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up in Seattle. And they were interesting, intelligent, cultivated, cultured people. And I knew that. I was like, I want to know them more, but, you know, I was in my twenties and yeah, I was, I was living in Europe and the whole thing. And then they died.

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  Both of them died.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, my dad died at 66 and um, my mom was, she suffered from dementia very early. And so there wasn't, it wasn't the same. There was, it wasn't the same. And then she died at 73, but she was, she was suffering um, a loss of who she was significantly by the time she was my age and younger. And I missed it and I missed it because my own negligence and I thought to myself, you know, for a long time, I really, that was a source of suffering for me. How, when you mean you missed it, was it like you saw them once or twice a year, holidays, like one week? Yeah, never more than that. Couple days here and there. Yeah. I talked to him. Once a month or something?

• 1:13:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, something like that. Yeah. I mean, it was like, it was always cordial. Yeah, but it was like 20 years essentially. It was like. Yeah, and I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna get to it and they died. And, um, and, and I, and I, I've suffered about that for a long time. I felt regret about that for a long time. And then I had this realization based on the research. This is your question. I realized I get a do-over and a do-over is with my kids and grandkids. Wow. That's my do-over. And I said, okay, what am I gonna do? And I looked at the work. I looked at the research on this and you know how you do it? You don't visit your grandkids. You live with them.

• 1:14:15Speaker 00

  And so we had a big. Every day you're living. You had a family meeting. We had a family meeting. Wow. On the basis of this and, and, and the family meeting was this. I said to my kids, you didn't know your grandparents very well. You almost never saw them. Um, I'm, I didn't see my grandparents very often. I didn't know my parents very well. I wish they knew them well. It's gonna be better for you if we help you with your kids. It's gonna be better for us if we have a relationship with our grandchildren. It's gonna be better for all of us if we get in each other's way a lot. Let's not visit each other. Vacation should be apart.

• 1:14:50Speaker 00

  Not together, yeah. And, and that was entirely based on this behavioral science research. Really? Entirely. I was, I was, and we had a big family meeting. So you read like a research paper on this? I read, you know, volumes on this. And what? Everything that was written on it. What did the research say about? The research said, you're gonna be happier and live longer if you're, if you're living around and with your grandchildren and your grandchildren are gonna be, have greater emotional, spiritual and cognitive development if they're around their grandchildren, their grandparents. And there's gonna be a better long-term relationship as people grow old if they have a day-to-day relationship with their adult children. That's what the data says. That's the way this big family meeting is literally better for every single generation.

• 1:15:30Lewis Howes?

  How old were your kids at this time?

• 1:15:32Speaker 00

  My kids were early twenties, mid twenties and and my kids got married early. My kids are their rebellion was like going super trad, like super trad. They think me and Esther, we think we're these freaked out hippies. Cause you know, free wheeling, there's musicians, man, and the whole thing. We tell them stories about, you know, when we're and so my kids, uh, you know, two of my kids are Marines. You know, and my and my, my two older kids got married at 22 and 23 and started having kids at 23 and 24.

• 1:15:59Lewis Howes?

  They're like military and marriage early.

• 1:16:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And they're all religious and all my kids are religious. And you know, when we were in our twenties, we were, I mean, we were screwing up and you know, it's like, and we were doing all the stuff you're not supposed to. We lived together before we got married and the whole thing that the Catholic church is like, uh, uh, uh, uh. And anyway, so, and, and so my kids rebelled by, by being like a Catholic family in 1940. So we had this meeting. It's like, it's like rebellion. So, and we're like, these kids are such squares.

• 1:16:28Lewis Howes?

  They're just doing everything by the book.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  I know. And so we had this family meeting and we said, here's what the research says, and we all know it's true. Where do you want to raise your kids? Where do you think you can have a good career and raise your kids? And they voted, they voted the Washington DC region where I had raised them, my wife and I had raised them. And they wanted to send their kids to the same schools that they went to, very, very strong Catholic schools, really good Catholic schools. And so we all packed up moving vans and moved there.

• 1:16:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  We all, we made a family decision, you know, we literally, it was one van had two families in it. And then the others came from California and, and my daughter, who's the baby, she's 22, she's still in the Marine Corps. So.

• 1:17:07Lewis Howes?

  What about the, the, the son-in-law or, or daughter-in-law?

• 1:17:11Speaker 00

  They wanted family life.

• 1:17:13Lewis Howes?

  They wanted to live with you.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  They wanted family life. And so we've got, one of the families is literally in our house. They're in the bottom floor, we're in the top floor. We have meals, family meals together in the middle floor and we get in each other's way. I mean, there's like some yelling.

• 1:17:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:17:25Speaker 00

  You know, because there's friction in any family, but I'm telling you, man.

• 1:17:29Lewis Howes?

  It's better than the ultimate.

• 1:17:30Speaker 00

  It is not overrated. It is not overrated. I go home, I come home and my little grandson Joey.

• 1:17:35Lewis Howes?

  My god. It's like your dad again. It's like you're like.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  He's like, I'm changing diapers at sixty one. And Joey's like, he calls me Yaya because I was in Catalan in Barcelona. The language is Catalan and that's grandfather and he's, my wife is Yaya. So I'm Yaya. Yaya, Yaya, wrestle, wrestle. He's two and a half. We wrestle every day when I come home from work. It's unbelievable.

• 1:17:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  It's, it's happiness.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  How do you, I can see how amazing that would be. But how do you in your mind as a father say, I need to not take the responsibility of like taking care of my sons. They need to get out into the world and like learn to go hunt themselves and learn to go provide and learn to whatever, do their taxes, you know, and not have like dad still taking care of them.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16Lewis Howes?

  When they're thirty five or forty.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Lewis Howes?

  How do you in that your mind live together?

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:18:22Lewis Howes?

  And have this rich, beautiful life together, but also allow them to be the man of the house.

• 1:18:26Speaker 00

  Right. And the answer is that you give them these responsibilities themselves. So my sons make really good living. They're, they're really, really successful. They're, they're making money. They're making good money. They're taking care of their own household economically. They're taking care of their own kids and I'm not telling them what to do. If they need help with something, I'll help them with something. And they always ask my advice, which is crazy.

• 1:18:48Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  But I'm asking their advice too.

• 1:18:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  They're helping me a lot. I mean, I was like this like freighted dumb thing with somebody in my wife's family. And I was feeling really, really, really crummy about it. And I called my son Carlos. And you know, Carlos is twenty five years old. He gave me, he's like, gave me really, really good advice. It was beautiful, actually, what he told me because and, and people never ask their adult kids advice. They're the best people to advise you because they're future you. I mean, they're, they're, they're you, man. And I asked my daughter, who's twenty two and a, a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at Quantico right now. She's tough as nails, four foot eleven.

• 1:19:24Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 1:19:24Speaker 00

  Killer of men. And, and I ask her advice and she always reliably gives me really, really good advice. And, and there are certain things that they do that I can't do. They're, they do things that I actually can't do. I'm not taking responsibility off their plate. What we're really doing is they're kind of family as a firm. We're dividing and conquering the world together.

• 1:19:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:19:45Speaker 00

  And, and they know kind of what the deal is. You know, I'm probably will die before my wife because that's generally speaking, the way that it works. It's God's law, not entirely.

• 1:19:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Speaker 00

  And, and she will live, she will live in family for the rest of her life.

• 1:19:58Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, and there will be intergenerational wealth. But the transfer of intergenerational wealth is because we're each other's safety net.

• 1:20:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  It's not like you can get a boat, dude. The expectation is that you'll, you'll leave more than you get. And, and that our family will be able to do beautiful things philanthropically. And we'll have goals together as a family. Is it gonna work? I hope. And if it doesn't, that's a lesson too.

• 1:20:22Lewis Howes?

  I've got a few final questions for you. This has been fascinating. We're talking about the meaning of your life. And this is about finding purpose in an age of emptiness. And I think there are a lot of empty people out here today. Again, if you guys don't have this book yet, make sure to grab a copy. Get one for a friend. If you know someone in your life who's struggling, going through a down season of life, get them a copy as a gift. They will appreciate it. Let's imagine you in 10 years, 71.

• 1:20:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Lewis Howes?

  What is the advice your 71 year old self is screaming at you right now?

• 1:20:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Lewis Howes?

  That you're not taking?

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:53Lewis Howes?

  That you know?

• 1:20:54Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 1:20:55Lewis Howes?

  It will, I get chills just thinking this.

• 1:20:56Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:20:57Lewis Howes?

  That you know will pull you to where you're meant to be. Whether it's your 71 year old, wiser self is more connected to God and knows what you need to go through or what you need to let go of. What is your future version of yourself saying to you right now?

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  Why didn't you stop the things you needed to stop in their time? My 71 year old self is not going to be telling this, is not going to be telling me today, is not telling me today that I'm missing opportunities to do more in the world. My 71 year old self is telling me I'm missing opportunities to love more. And that means I'm not stopping the things, the worldly things that I need to stop.

• 1:21:38Lewis Howes?

  So what do you need to stop?

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  Cause I don't know how.

• 1:21:41Lewis Howes?

  Ah, man.

• 1:21:41Speaker 00

  I don't know how.

• 1:21:44Lewis Howes?

  What are the things you think the 71 version of you is telling you to stop? And maybe it's through phases, maybe it's not all right now.

• 1:21:52Speaker 00

  No, no, it's not all right now because right, all right now probably means I got cancer or something, right? I mean, it's like a screeching halt where the car hits a wall. That's usually catastrophic.

• 1:22:01Lewis Howes?

  But just because you can do 300 days a year on the road, doesn't mean you should. Just because you can do this book with the next big celebrity, doesn't mean you should. Just because you can teach here.

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:11Lewis Howes?

  So what is he saying? That he knows best.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  That you missed an opportunity to love your guru and to be close to your guru.

• 1:22:21Lewis Howes?

  Your wife?

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  Yes. And the reason you missed that opportunity is because you saw a shiny thing.

• 1:22:27Lewis Howes?

  You went for it.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  And I went for it.

• 1:22:29Lewis Howes?

  But you're with your wife a lot.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  I'm with my wife a lot. We are best friends, but I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough.

• 1:22:36Lewis Howes?

  What would be enough to be with your guru, your wife more that you feel like your 71 year old self would say, we'll just do this.

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:45Lewis Howes?

  Just be like, that's it. You can still go chase these shiny objects because if you're being in service to something greater and you'll get the rewards of the idols, but you know, as long as you're in service, it's all good. But that was a good week there. That was a good month. Like, what would he be clapping at and saying, bravo, Arthur? What would he be saying?

• 1:23:04Speaker 00

  Probably there would be a film clip of Mrs. Brooks saying, don't you have something to do?

• 1:23:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably. Don't you have something to do?

• 1:23:19Lewis Howes?

  That would be like.

• 1:23:19Speaker 00

  I've never heard that once. I've never heard that once in my life. Never once.

• 1:23:23Lewis Howes?

  What would it take for you to get that this year? We're at the beginning of the year still.

• 1:23:27Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:23:29Lewis Howes?

  Is that even something that you think you should do this year?

• 1:23:32Speaker 00

  It is something I need to do this year.

• 1:23:34Lewis Howes?

  Is that a week long?

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  Is that a month? Is that a day? Is that three months?

• 1:23:39Speaker 00

  That's a cadence. That's a cadence of, and it really starts with the time that you actually have. I mean, one of the, you know, you always hear that you should have quality time versus quantity time. The truth is you need both.

• 1:23:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:23:53Speaker 00

  With the people that you love, your, your, your little babies.

• 1:23:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Speaker 00

  Who are not going to be little babies soon. They're going to be saying words and walking around and, and, and, and, and pretty soon they're going to have a lot less interest in you. I mean, you'll be the hero. The good news, by the way, here's the crystal ball. There, you're going to be their hero when they're in their twenties.

• 1:24:10Lewis Howes?

  I gotta wait that long?

• 1:24:11Speaker 00

  No, no, no, you're gonna be their hero up until they're 12. And then again, when they're 22.

• 1:24:16Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:24:17Speaker 00

  No, no, it's good. It's a really, really good dad. Dad's the best. Dad's not the best for this. Anyway. So quantity and quality are both really, really, really important. So what it would take, and this is the true for everybody watching the School of Greatness, is to be really there. When you're there, to be there more, and then to be really there when you're there. That's what it really takes. Now, let me take a side note. Let me tell you, which you may know or you may not know, why you're so good at what you do.

• 1:24:50Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 1:24:51Speaker 00

  Cause you're here now.

• 1:24:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, present.

• 1:24:53Speaker 00

  That's unusual. You're looking into my soul. The first time I met you. Why did I love you the first time I met you? Cause you saw me. You had just met me and you saw me.

• 1:25:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:04Speaker 00

  That's a superpower. You're super good at that.

• 1:25:07Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:25:07Speaker 00

  And that's what your babies need, and that's what your guru needs.

• 1:25:11Lewis Howes?

  My wife, yeah, everyone.

• 1:25:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what they, that's what they, and so the, the, the, the, the mistake that you could make or I could make is to be fully present when we're doing what we do for the admiration of the world and using that super strength for the applause of strangers.

• 1:25:25Lewis Howes?

  But not at home.

• 1:25:26Speaker 00

  And not bringing it home.

• 1:25:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Speaker 00

  And not bringing it home.

• 1:25:28Lewis Howes?

  You do that sometimes?

• 1:25:29Speaker 00

  Of course. And that's, that's the, that's the error I need to correct.

• 1:25:32Lewis Howes?

  What would that look like this year? If at the end of this year, your seven one-year-old self said, you know what, what you said on the School of Greatness was to, to really be there with quality and quantity.

• 1:25:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Lewis Howes?

  And you did it this year. What would need to happen from you to say, I did it just this year?

• 1:25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Lewis Howes?

  Not for the next 10 years, but this one year, I did it.

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  It would mean slowing down a little.

• 1:25:56Lewis Howes?

  So what does that look like? Give me an actual game plan.

• 1:25:58Speaker 00

  That means another, at least another day a week at home.

• 1:26:02Lewis Howes?

  One day a week at home.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  And, and by the way, I have already set protocols in motion where I'm always home on weekends. I don't travel weekends.

• 1:26:08Lewis Howes?

  But plus that, another day.

• 1:26:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and another day, and when I'm home, I'm home. When I'm home, I'm home.

• 1:26:15Lewis Howes?

  Another before texting you, that was strategizing.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

  No, because the problem is the cycles in the brain. You know that feeling?

• 1:26:21Lewis Howes?

  Thinking about the next day.

• 1:26:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it's, it's the castles in the sky.

• 1:26:25Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  The School of Greatness is a castle in the sky.

• 1:26:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  Right? It's what it comes down to. And, and that leads to a whole lot of success, but that is a tremendous sacrifice. And it's sort of, it's a, it's a sacrifice born by the people who love you the most. And you. And that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take something tangible, like a little bit more of a sacrifice when it comes to being more present physically. And also more psychologically, where my right brain is truly open, so that my meaning can find me, and that's only happening when you're truly present. Here's the thing that, have you read C.S. Lewis?

• 1:26:59Lewis Howes?

  No, I haven't read much, but yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  C.S. Lewis.

• 1:27:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  C.S. Lewis has this, uh.

• 1:27:04Lewis Howes?

  I know he is, yeah.

• 1:27:04Speaker 00

  He makes a point, he's a theologian, and it's really worth reading. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, which almost every kid knows about, but, but also very, very beautiful books about religion. And he makes this observation, which is scientifically very robust. It's a very important point. That we spend all our time in the past, in the present, in the future, right? But most people who are really ambitious are spending all their time in the future. You can't love in the future. You can only love now.

• 1:27:28Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:27:28Speaker 00

  And so if you go home and you're in the future, you're not loving at all.

• 1:27:32Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:27:33Speaker 00

  Love happens right now.

• 1:27:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:27:35Speaker 00

  And when you've spent your time in the cycles, living in the future, you've lost the opportunity to do the only love, to experience the only love that you can experience as a human being.

• 1:27:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:27:47Speaker 00

  And that's what I don't want to miss anymore. That's what 71-year-old Arthur says, "Stop. Fix it."

• 1:27:53Lewis Howes?

  So what would, what would one day a week look like? Is that picking a day every week that you say, "This is off and I'm..."

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  Not off, no. It's just, it's just actually, it's actually having dinner together and being home and, and, and after dinner.

• 1:28:04Lewis Howes?

  It can still work.

• 1:28:04Speaker 00

  Completely present. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like, no problem with that. I mean, she's gonna work.

• 1:28:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, okay. It's not just sitting around waiting for her.

• 1:28:10Speaker 00

  But it's really, and, and again, it sounds like I'm really, really, really geared toward my wife, but there's a reason that she's put in my life. She's my partner. She's my partner. It's like, and if you met her, man, she's ride or die, man.

• 1:28:21Lewis Howes?

  It's cool.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But ride or die deserves the very best. And when she gets the very best, then I'm in my bliss. And then I'm being the man that God wants me to be.

• 1:28:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're not.

• 1:28:34Speaker 00

  That's the state.

• 1:28:35Lewis Howes?

  You're not. In the specialness of the world, when you're in that moment, you're not getting an award and on a stage.

• 1:28:42Speaker 00

  Husband of the year.

• 1:28:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but you're not getting the dopamine hit of more idols.

• 1:28:48Speaker 00

  Exactly right.

• 1:28:48Lewis Howes?

  You're getting more, you're getting love and feeling the presence of.

• 1:28:52Speaker 00

  And I'm a success addict.

• 1:28:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  Because I have the same childhood that you had. I only got attention when I played the French horn, when I got straight A's, whenever I happened to do it. And so I still think that, that points on the board, points on the board. This is why I do my work, by the way, because I want the solutions for myself.

• 1:29:09Lewis Howes?

  Of course, I did the show too, yeah.

• 1:29:10Speaker 00

  It's me, sir, it's not research.

• 1:29:11Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it interesting that your parents are no longer with us, but you're still pursuing the same pursuits to get the attention?

• 1:29:20Speaker 00

  Oh, I know. You know, it's like, I ask this all the time, I wonder if my dad's, I wonder if my dad would be proud of me. He's been dead 23 years. I wonder if my dad would be proud of me.

• 1:29:27Lewis Howes?

  What do you think if he was alive?

• 1:29:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, he'd be like, yeah, my son teaches little school near, near Boston. He'd be making some sort of corny dad professor joke, right? Yeah, he'd be, he'd be, he'd think that's cool. He'd think that's cool. But I think about it all the time. Would my dad be proud of me? And this is how we are, and this is a normal thing, and it's a healthy thing, actually. But you can't be animated by it in a particular way where you're trying and where you're on the hedonic treadmill of more, more, more, more, more. You can't be subjugated to that.

• 1:29:54Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel sad that he wasn't able to watch everything you've done in the last 20 years?

• 1:29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:59Lewis Howes?

  Sad for me.

• 1:29:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, you too.

• 1:30:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, he, my dad passed four years ago. It's sad for me. Well, he was, he also had a brain injury like 20 years ago. So he was kind of like, I guess, maybe similar to your mom, where he wasn't able to have a relationship with me.

• 1:30:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:30:12Lewis Howes?

  He didn't have the memory, he didn't have the cognitive skills, and he was kind of like a child as an adult.

• 1:30:17Speaker 00

  He died when you were 39?

• 1:30:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes, 39, I'm 38, 39, but when I was 22.

• 1:30:23Speaker 00

  22, he had an accident?

• 1:30:24Lewis Howes?

  Died. He was alive, but he emotionally wasn't available.

• 1:30:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Lewis Howes?

  And when I'd see him, which was rare, it was, who are you again? And where'd you go to school again? Like, he could talk to you, but he didn't have the, it wasn't him.

• 1:30:38Speaker 00

  I understand.

• 1:30:39Lewis Howes?

  It's like a different human was in him.

• 1:30:40Speaker 00

  I understand.

• 1:30:41Lewis Howes?

  And it was a childlike version.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  You lost him and lost him in a, in a, in a fatherly way.

• 1:30:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:30:46Speaker 00

  You still loved him and he still had full dignity, but.

• 1:30:50Lewis Howes?

  He couldn't be on his own.

• 1:30:51Speaker 00

  The dad, the dad thing was gone. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:55Lewis Howes?

  So he kind of, so it's been like twenty something years of not having a father.

• 1:30:59Speaker 00

  And you think about him a lot?

• 1:31:00Lewis Howes?

  Think about him more in the last few years.

• 1:31:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's funny.

• 1:31:02Lewis Howes?

  More in the last few years. I got married and have kids. I'm like, dang, he would have really loved this.

• 1:31:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:07Lewis Howes?

  Like, he would have really.

• 1:31:08Speaker 00

  Is your mom alive?

• 1:31:09Lewis Howes?

  She's alive, yeah.

• 1:31:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  You have a relationship?

• 1:31:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. She lives in LA. Yeah.

• 1:31:13Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 1:31:13Lewis Howes?

  But I'm like, he would really love this, like, and he would be really excited, you know?

• 1:31:18Speaker 00

  He would love this.

• 1:31:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:19Speaker 00

  And you know what? He does.

• 1:31:21Lewis Howes?

  He does. Yeah.

• 1:31:22Speaker 00

  He does. He's proud of you.

• 1:31:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know that.

• 1:31:24Speaker 00

  He's proud of you.

• 1:31:25Lewis Howes?

  But what do you? How often do you think of your dad?

• 1:31:29Speaker 00

  Every day.

• 1:31:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:31:30Speaker 00

  Every day. Every day.

• 1:31:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:32Speaker 00

  I love my dad.

• 1:31:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. I wish I knew him better.

• 1:31:36Lewis Howes?

  When was the last time you had with him? Do you remember?

• 1:31:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, um, the last time I had with him was when he was dying.

• 1:31:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:42Speaker 00

  He was dying and, and he got sick. He, he retired at sixty-two from his professorship. He wasn't happy. He wasn't happy.

• 1:31:50Lewis Howes?

  Sixty-two. One year older than you.

• 1:31:51Speaker 00

  Sixty-two. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:31:52Lewis Howes?

  When's your birthday?

• 1:31:53Speaker 00

  Uh, May twenty-first. I'll be sixty-two.

• 1:31:55Lewis Howes?

  So he died at this age?

• 1:31:57Speaker 00

  No, no. He, he retired at this age. He got si- sick at sixty-four.

• 1:32:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:32:02Speaker 00

  And the doctor gave him fifteen to twenty years to live and he died in two.

• 1:32:06Lewis Howes?

  Sixty-six.

• 1:32:07Speaker 00

  And he was a, he was a biostatistician. And so I said, oh, man, I said, that's, that's lousy. And he says, yeah, but somebody's got to be on the left side of the curve.

• 1:32:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. No.

• 1:32:15Speaker 00

  Biostat. Biostat till the end.

• 1:32:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:32:18Speaker 00

  Biostat till the end.

• 1:32:19Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 1:32:20Speaker 00

  And, and, uh, and I, I would, I was living in Syracuse at the time. I was teaching at Syracuse University at the time, and I would go back every few weeks. And I, I got closer to my brother during those years. And, um, and my mom was really sick. I mean, she was really sick. And so she couldn't. And, um,

• 1:32:40Speaker 00

  and, and we talked a lot, you know, during that, during that period. And it was funny because he, you know, he had a, I think a kind of a spiritual awakening during that time, too. He was always a, he was a serious Christian guy, but I think that he, he drew closer to God as well. And, uh, and he was worried. He was worried about my mom. He was worried, worried. He was gonna take care of her. He was gonna take care of her. And, and, and he knew my brother. My brother's a good man. My brother's gonna take care of her, the whole thing. But by the end, he finally said, I have to let go now. I have to let go now.

• 1:33:10Lewis Howes?

  Of his life or the worry of his wife?

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  All of it.

• 1:33:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:33:13Speaker 00

  All of it. And he died. When you let go? Really, like the next few days or next weeks or something? Yeah, yeah. So soon thereafter. What was your biggest lesson of witnessing your father's death that taught you about life? That's a good question. It's a good question. It's that.

• 1:33:33Speaker 00

  It's that.

• 1:33:35Speaker 00

  In the act of actually, you know, and he wasn't holding on to the same stuff that I'm holding on to. I mean, I have a different kind of life and a different kind of career. You know, I'm doing a lot of stuff that he's never, he had never done before.

• 1:33:46Speaker 00

  But that I think that is pretty healthy to let go even earlier.

• 1:33:52Speaker 00

  You know, he was. He was, he was an anxious person, you know, and, and so am I. And you're an anxious guy, too. I mean, we're all tightly wound, right? And, and letting go was not a tragic act. It was a natural thing to do. And I think we could all. Exhausting being anxious. Oh, my gosh. Clenching on and holding on. Yeah, holding on. It's like white knuckling your life. Exhausting. It's like on the wheel of the car. No peace. No. And, and I think about that a lot. I think about.

• 1:34:27Speaker 00

  I can let go too more. And so I've thought about that an awful lot. I haven't succeeded, but I've thought about that an awful lot. And that really was a life lesson. Yeah. And he, he also, when my mom got sick. How old were you when he passed? Thirty eight, not young, but thirty eight. Same age for me. Yeah. My dad, yeah. Yeah. And he loved my mom. He loved her. He was totally devoted to my mom and she was sick and she wasn't present because of, you know, cognitive decline. And he loved my mom and he took care of my mom. And that was a great lesson to me that I learned. That I learned. That's good. That this is it, man. This is it. This is your life. This is it. This is it. This is your path.

• 1:35:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, I don't want to stop this, but I gotta, I gotta bring it to the end here because there's a lot here that I think people can take on and we'll probably do another episode about a lot of this stuff later.

• 1:35:20Speaker 00

  I would love that.

• 1:35:20Lewis Howes?

  The book is called The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. You guys can get it right now. You also have a virtual launch event for The Meaning of Your Life. You've also got a podcast, this is really cool, called Office Hours, I'm glad you're doing this, with Arthur Brooks. So guys, check that out. Everything is at arthurbrooks.com, social media, Arthur Brooks as well.

• 1:35:43Speaker 00

  There's a website for the book called themeaningofyourlife.com and all the resources for the book are there.

• 1:35:50Lewis Howes?

  But again, if someone, if you felt like any part of this has spoken to you, if you're watching or listening right now, please share this with one friend. Please get the book. If you feel like something is lost inside of you, if you feel stuck, if you feel like you're not fulfilling your purpose, you're not clear on what that is, or you just feel like you're not getting the most out of your life, make sure you get a copy of The Meaning of Your Life and get one for a friend that you know is struggling. We all have friends that we're trying to coach through life throughout the day that are just really struggling in some area of life. This will give them great stories, great science and great tools on how to start improving the quality of your life. So make sure you guys get a few copies for friends as well. I've got two final questions for you before I ask them, Arthur.

• 1:36:34Lewis Howes?

  I want to acknowledge you for the service that you have on people, even though that you're still tied around an idol.

• 1:36:43Lewis Howes?

  And we all are in some ways.

• 1:36:44Speaker 00

  Idol's an idol, yeah.

• 1:36:45Lewis Howes?

  But the fact that you care deeply about human beings getting out of suffering or understanding their suffering, to have more meaning with their suffering, to find more peace is such a beautiful gift.

• 1:36:58Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:36:58Lewis Howes?

  So even though you do get to take an extra, you know, evening a day or a week to be with your wife and your guru and your kids and be more present in those ways, when you are out there being present with the rest of us, it really makes a difference.

• 1:37:11Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:37:11Lewis Howes?

  So I acknowledge you for the gift that you are.

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  Thank you, Louis. Likewise.

• 1:37:15Lewis Howes?

  This, this.

• 1:37:16Speaker 00

  Much love and admiration.

• 1:37:17Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. Thank you. This is a question called the three truths. Imagine hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day on earth for you. It can be a hundred, two, or whatever it ages. You get to live as long as you want and it's your last day. And you get to accomplish all your wildest dreams.

• 1:37:36Lewis Howes?

  You do all the things that your future self envisions you doing. And it's like good and faithful son, everything you did it.

• 1:37:46Lewis Howes?

  But for whatever reason, we don't get any access to your work anymore. Left in this world, your books, your content, everything has to go with you. But you got to leave one final message with the world. That was your three truths, your biggest lessons in life. What would those three truths be for you?

• 1:38:03Speaker 00

  Number one, your life has meaning.

• 1:38:06Speaker 00

  That meaning you have purpose in your life and God created you for a reason. Number two.

• 1:38:13Speaker 00

  The world has a coherence to it. Things happen for a reason. Your job is to figure out what they are.

• 1:38:21Speaker 00

  Number three. Happiness is love.

• 1:38:26Speaker 00

  Your destiny is to love and be loved. That's the only job that matters.

• 1:38:33Lewis Howes?

  Puts it in perspective.

• 1:38:35Speaker 00

  I hope that all of the, you know, you bunch, write a bunch of books, do a bunch of shows. I hope it all kind of boils down to that. I really hope it boils down to that.

• 1:38:43Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:38:44Speaker 00

  The three truths. Beautiful question. Thank you.

• 1:38:47Lewis Howes?

  Final question, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:38:50Speaker 00

  My definition of greatness comes from the answer to the last question, which is heroically to love and be loved. To love notwithstanding what the world tells me, no, to love notwithstanding my feelings. To transcend myself. And to love notwithstanding all of those things. That's true greatness. That's the man that I want to be. That's the greatness that I think that actually all of us have within ourselves. Yeah. And you've made it easier for me to do that today.

• 1:39:17Lewis Howes?

  No, man. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it, Alvin.

• 1:39:19Speaker 00

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:39:20Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media. 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

• 1:39:59Lewis Howes?

  lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.