Transforming Behavior and Cultivating Healthy Habits [MASTERCLASS] EP 1444

The Summit of Greatness is back! Buy your tickets today – summitofgreatness.comIn this powerful Masterclass episode, a group of exceptional individuals come together to share their wisdom and daily practices that foster personal growth and self-improvement. Through their expertise and experiences, this episode offers a transformative journey towards self-discovery and empowerment. You can expect to gain valuable insights and practical healthy habits that can inspire profound personal growth. Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s foremost writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. Ryan shares powerful insights on life, how to be self-critical and self-aware, humility, philosophy, reading, learning, research, and strategy. Terry Crews discusses the recognition of childhood anger, Terry’s final push to try therapy, some lessons he learned in therapy, and why competition is the opposite of creativity. After making a big pivot in his life, his talent, hard work, character, and dedication have made him one of the most sought and respected talents in the industry. Gary John Bishop is a leading personality development expert, coach, and New York Times bestselling author for his book – Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. Gary’s “urban philosophy” approach brings to light a new wave of personal empowerment and life mastery that has helped countless people in improving the quality and performance of their lives. Gabby Bernstein is a dear friend, an international speaker, podcast host, and, of course, New York Times bestselling author. I’ve always left our conversations feeling inspired, motivated, and with more tools and resources to improve my life. So, make sure you check out those other episodes. In this episode you will learn,Why people struggle to have courage and how to overcome that. The biggest lessons we can learn from stoicism when it comes to finding peace, wealth, and developing discipline. Why thinking about our own mortality can help us rather than hurt us. How getting revenge isn’t the best solution to your problems. Why it’s important to own your truth and be vulnerable. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1444Ryan’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1171-guestTerry’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1258-guestGary’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1251-guestGabby’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1235-guest Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:01Ryan Holiday?

  When you realize like, hey, life is already short and fragile. If I'm spending my time cowering in fear or worrying, what you're actually doing is...

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  If there were three things that everyone could take away from the Stoics to improve the quality of their life right now, first, what would that be?

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  I got some good ones. So, one of the questions we ask ourselves when we're afraid of something, when we're thinking about, we go, but what about me? What would I do if? Right? Like, we're worried. And Marcus realist goes, you'll meet that with the same weapons you've met all your other problems. So remembering that, like, hey, you've been scared before, and you're still here. Right? So we often, often what our fear is really doing is underestimating or undercounting how good we actually are at what we do. Like, you're not, you're not suddenly tomorrow gonna be a helpless loser. You're the same person you are today. And what will you do? You'll figure it out.

• 2:43Ryan Holiday?

  Just like, if you quit your job, you'd be like, I'm quitting, and I'm gonna go find a new job. But if you got fired, that suddenly feels like disempowered, whereas the other one feels very empowered. So remembering what you're capable of, to me, is really important.

• 2:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:58Ryan Holiday?

  Number two, the Stoics say that we should always be training. So one of the reasons I think it's important to have a physical practice, one of the reasons it's good to seek out adversity and difficulty, is so when stuff happens, you're right, Epictetus, one of the early Stoics, he's actually a slave, and he says, like, you wanna get to a point where when stuff happens, you're able to say, like, this is what I trained for.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 3:27Ryan Holiday?

  Like, you knew this could happen, and you did the work.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Before you go into the next one, it's, right when the pandemic happened, I was like, this sucks, and yet I've been training for this for the last, like, 12, 13 years of my life.

• 3:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  Because in 2008, when I, well, in 2007, I got injured and had surgery, and then 2008, the housing crisis, and there were no jobs for someone like me without a college degree that was ignorant from school. I was like, I better develop myself so that when this happens again in five, 10, 20 years, I'm ready to take on any adversity.

• 4:00Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's not fun, and it's still challenging, but I'm prepared and ready. And I spent 13 years training for that moment. And I felt a sense of... Kind of weirdly, I felt a sense of peace. That gave me the energy and the clarity to take action and shift where I needed to and lead from a place of courage as opposed to, and I wasn't perfect.

• 4:21Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  But lead from a more calm, peaceful place as opposed to frantic, fearful place.

• 4:27Ryan Holiday?

  Well, look, preparation makes you brave.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:29Ryan Holiday?

  Right? You prepared, so you were ready. And then I think also because you remembered what you felt then.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 4:36Ryan Holiday?

  You were also in a position to lead and understand what people who were not as prepared.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  What they're experiencing. Yeah, what they're experiencing. It sucks.

• 4:46Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  So you can have empathy like you talked about. You can connect with people in that way. Okay, so always be training, always be learning something new, training yourself physically, mentally, emotionally.

• 4:56Ryan Holiday?

  And the third, the third one would be this Stoic exercise of memento mori, which basically means remember you will die. I actually carry a coin in my pocket that says this. But I think when you realize like, hey, life is already short and fragile. Like, I don't need to, if I'm spending my time cowering in fear or worrying, I'm acting as if I have a certain power over things that I don't. There's this famous Stoic story where like the emperor sees this Stoic philosopher he hates and he's like, he's like, I'm threatening you to, or I'm sentencing you to death. And he's like, I was already sentenced to death.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  At some point.

• 5:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. He's like, you have no more power over me than, than I had, than life itself.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Than Mother Nature. Yeah, just be dying.

• 5:44Ryan Holiday?

  And so realizing that, that life is fragile. I, I think sometimes people can miss this, like memento mori doesn't mean like, oh, like, don't wear a motorcycle helmet or pretend the pandemic is not real. That's not what it's saying. But it's saying like, hey, focus on the parts of safety and concern that, that are in your control. But if you're wasting your time being afraid, I, that's something I thought a lot about in the pandemic. It's like, look, I don't know, especially early on, we don't know where this is going, don't know what it means, don't know what is ticking clock is in anyone's body, right? What pre, pre-existing condition you might have or bad piece of luck you got. So you take it seriously, but within that.

• 6:27Ryan Holiday?

  What are you doing with your time, right? Like, what are you gonna spend your time on? So if you're spending that time worrying, stressing,

• 6:36Lewis Howes?

  Watching the news all day.

• 6:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, what you're actually doing is rejecting the life that you have in front of you.

• 6:45Lewis Howes?

  It's kinda like a longer eclipse. It's like there's an eclipse that's happening. We don't know what this is, but you know, you could sit there and worry in fear for those five minutes of eclipse or whatever, or you can look up and enjoy it and do something with your time and

• 7:00Ryan Holiday?

  Exactly.

• 7:00Lewis Howes?

  Make the most of this and prepare and strategize and organize your time.

• 7:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, James Stockdale, who spent seven years in a prison camp in Vietnam, who reads the Stoics, he says, you know, he gets there and he goes, "I never lost sight of the fact that I controlled the end of the story." Right? So if he got out, that he would control the end, he would decide what, he said, "And that I could turn this into something that in retrospect I would not have traded for."

• 7:31Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 7:32Ryan Holiday?

  That's incredible.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  It's like Mandela as well, it's like 25 years or something.

• 7:36Ryan Holiday?

  So I think we have, it takes courage to say, "This thing happened to me and I wouldn't have chosen it, I didn't want it, but now that it's here, I'm gonna face it. I'm going to apply all my training and experience towards it. And then I'm not gonna waste my life being bitter, resentful, afraid, passive about it. And I'm just gonna get to work turning it into something."

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I'm not sure if this is 100% true or accurate, but I heard someone say that Bhutan is like the happiest country.

• 8:14Ryan Holiday?

  Really?

• 8:14Lewis Howes?

  I'm not sure if you've heard of this. It's because, I don't know if everyone does this or just some people do this, they're, they focus on their death five times a day.

• 8:21Ryan Holiday?

  Interesting.

• 8:22Lewis Howes?

  They think about their death five times a day. And so there's an app, I think it's called Croaked?

• 8:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 8:28Lewis Howes?

  Or you will croak or you, something like that, where five times a day. I had it for a while. It sends you a reminder, you're gonna die.

• 8:34Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  With an inspiring quote. That has you reflect on your death five times a day to remind yourself. Do you have this on your phone?

• 8:42Ryan Holiday?

  No, no, did I give you one of these? This is what I carry in my pocket.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I see. Oh, nice.

• 8:46Ryan Holiday?

  You should just carry that. I keep it's like a nice way to I spin it and the idea is.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  You could leave your, you could leave life right now.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  And the rest of that quote, so Mark Suri says you could leave life right now. And he says, let that determine what you do and say and think.

• 9:03Ryan Holiday?

  And so that, so to me, the, the power of meditating under death is that it puts everything in perspective. Right? It doesn't make things meaningless. It actually makes them meaningful because in, it, it, it says like, if this doesn't matter, I shouldn't be doing it. And if it does matter, I should be doing it as if it is the last time that you get to do it.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:28Ryan Holiday?

  Like, I think, one, one of the things, I don't know about you, but like, as like an ambitious or driven person, I find myself like rushing a lot, right? Like, like, gotta go here, gotta go there, this is taking too long, I don't want to wait. I haven't found myself like, like my son, he, he often like naps in the car. So it's like, he's, you're in the car as long as he's asleep. And I'll, I'll find myself like you're behind a slow driver. And you're like, I gotta get around this. And then I'm like, I'm not going anywhere, right? Like, I'm rushing. And so what, what I've, what I've started to remind myself is like, what are you rushing towards? You're rushing towards death, right? Not just because speeding is unsafe, but you're rushing towards, like as you're rushing out of a moment, you're rushing away from life.

• 10:13Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca talks about, he says, don't think of death as happening in the future. Think of death as happening right now.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  Really? Why?

• 10:20Ryan Holiday?

  The time, says, because the time that passes belongs to death. Right? Like, so when you, when you die, you're like, you've lived 80 years, but you also, that's 80 dead years that can never come back. So if you think about the time that passing as being death happening, like you're, every minute, you're getting closer to death. You don't wanna rush through a moment. You want to fully experience the moment.

• 10:45Lewis Howes?

  Even if you're waiting in line or behind a car or impatient.

• 10:49Ryan Holiday?

  This is life. And when you're rushing, you're rushing away from it. Or you're rushing toward death. And so you slow down and you go, okay. I've been alive thirty four years. What do I have to, like, did I, was I alive for thirty four years?

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  Or was I rushing?

• 11:03Ryan Holiday?

  Right, or was I rushing away to, to get to thirty five? But maybe I die at thirty five. Right, you don't know. So, so if you, if you just go like, the present is here. I'm gonna be controlled enough and courageous enough to just. This is enough. This is it. Doesn't need to be anything or anywhere else. I'm just gonna be here and I'm not gonna rush away. And, and I, kids have really been helpful for this because you're like, oh. Not only am I rushing potentially like towards death, but you're, at the very least, they will never be this age again. So as you're trying to, as you're trying to get this over with. You, you, you have to intellectually.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Miss those years.

• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and eventually you're gonna, you'll be like, oh, if only they were five again. Right, like, I, you know, but you, when they were five, you wanted it to be over. And so.

• 11:55Lewis Howes?

  The screaming, the crying, the pooping, or whatever it is. It's like, oh, I wish they could do this on their own, but you'll look back and.

• 12:00Ryan Holiday?

  You don't really want that.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Ryan Holiday?

  So, so.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  You want them to stay there forever. You're like, wanna capture this moment.

• 12:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, and, and that's, this is true even for the shitty stuff. Like, even when you're stuck in traffic, even when you're home with the flu, even like.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  So true, it's like, I don't know if you think about this. I mean, you've, you've always just been like talented and successful your entire life. Unlike me, where I struggled and went through pain for years. But I feel like, especially the years after my dream was over, playing football. And I was like, well, who am I? What is my identity? What is the value I add to the world if this was my value? How can I, you know, just survive and thrive in this world without that value or identity anymore? I remember just being in a state of uncertainty for a while. And wanting to get out of it.

• 12:53Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Wanting to have a job, wanting to launch a business, wanting to have money, wanting to have an audience, wanting to have a book, all these different things, wanting to have something.

• 13:02Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  And when I look back and I'm like, man, those moments are really meaningful of what I was living and learning moment and day by day, the struggle, the pain, the adversity. Like, I'm recreating that in other ways, just by trying to get to the next level, but I'll never live that aspect, those moments again, the specific time.

• 13:20Ryan Holiday?

  Well, and when you got those things, was it as magical as you thought it would be? It never is.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't, yeah, I mean, it wasn't as fulfilling. Uh, it was cool to see like a full circle and reflect back, but it was never like, oh, this is, I've made it, you know?

• 13:34Ryan Holiday?

  You never feel like you've made it. And so that, like, I, I talk about this a little bit, uh, in some of my stuff where, like, what will happen is you get to the medal stand, right? You, New York Times bestseller, Olympic gold medal, you know, uh, All-American, whatever the thing is, right? And it, there's an anticlimacticness to it.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  Very. After 10 minutes, you're like, now what?

• 13:56Ryan Holiday?

  You talk about this in the School of Greatness, you're like, now what? So, the problem is, people can learn, you can go two ways. You feel the now what. So you can go, now, oh, I gotta find something really meaningful.

• 14:07Lewis Howes?

  You gotta go bigger.

• 14:08Ryan Holiday?

  Well, no, no. So you either, either you look at that and you're like, oh, it was never about accomplishments. It was always about being present and meaning and connection and the friends you made along the way.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 14:18Ryan Holiday?

  Or, or you go, oh, it's that I have to do it again. Or, oh, it wasn't a million dollars, it was a billion dollars. And so you can see why that moving of the goalposts creates really successful people. But they're rarely happy people.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Happy or fulfilled.

• 14:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  Or peaceful inside.

• 14:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. And, and I think it's, the journey I'm on, what I'm trying to do, I would like to be proof that it is possible to be world-class at what you do and come from a place of contentment and fullness, not have to do, not being like, I just need this, then I will be good. Cause you're never. Ever good.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  There's always gonna be some writer better than you, or someone that writes a book in a way that's different than you, or some, whatever. This could be someone more talented, more successful.

• 15:10Ryan Holiday?

  I remember.

• 15:11Lewis Howes?

  Richer, you know.

• 15:12Ryan Holiday?

  Of course. I mean, you meet someone, there's a, there's a story about Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five, Joseph Heller wrote Catch Twenty Two, two of the great writers of the 20th century. And they're at this party, and you've been at parties like this, where like, you're a much richer person, right? Like, like, one of those, you're like, why am I even here? And, and Kurt Vonnegut is teasing Joseph Heller, and he says, like, you know this guy made more money this week than your book will make in its entire life.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:42Ryan Holiday?

  And he says, yeah, but I have something he doesn't have.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 15:45Ryan Holiday?

  What could that possibly be? And he says, I have enough.

• 15:48Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 15:49Ryan Holiday?

  And.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 15:51Ryan Holiday?

  And, and it's, it's not that that guy just wrote Catch Twenty Two, and then he sat on his, he wrote other great stuff, he did great work, he just wasn't coming at it from a place of craving. Like, you know, we had that word thirst, like, he wasn't thirsty, he was, he was quenched, but he was doing it because he actually liked it. I remember the first time one of my books hit number one, I was mowing the lawn at my house. And my agent, Steve, called me, and I was like, now I have to finish mowing this lawn, you know? Like, it was like.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay, at a 10-minute moment, I saw here, like, pushing this thing.

• 16:27Ryan Holiday?

  And, and then you realize, like, oh, it's never gonna be, I don't know what I thought it was gonna be, but I didn't think it was gonna be that. And I feel grateful that I didn't think, oh, I have to have back-to-back number ones, that will be it, you know?

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I remember Steve, when Steve called me, because we were the same agent, and when I hit number, I didn't hit number one, but I went hit the New York Times bestseller list. And I remember for like, an hour, just being like, wow, this is something I dreamed about. But then, after an hour, like, calling everyone, and being like, congratulations, I was like.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Did anything change? Like, nothing really changed. I accomplished a, yeah, there wasn't like opening up the gates and money dropping down or people calling me. It's like a few people noticed and a few, okay, you do one post on Instagram and then people compliment and then people move on. And time moves on, you know, it's.

• 17:14Ryan Holiday?

  On this book, I'm actually thinking about that because you know, when you do a book, there's this whole lane of prioritization of like, how do you get on the list?

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:22Ryan Holiday?

  And it takes a lot of your time and energy.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 17:24Ryan Holiday?

  And why do you do it? It's obviously there's some business reasons, but part of it is, if not ego, it's this like, people said that's important. So you're like, that's as good a target as any. On this one, and I'm a little bit of a thing when I publish where I'm like, no, I just want to like, get as many books in people's hands as possible. So I'm like ignoring all that. But there is a kind of a fear there because it's like, the one benefit of that strategy is that the success is clear and objective and recognizable by other people.

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:53Ryan Holiday?

  So like, the book's going to come out. I, I know it's doing well. I already know the track that it's on. But like, I'm not saying I'm going to get condolences, but there are people are going to be like, oh, I guess it didn't work as well. You know, like, so, so.

• 18:04Lewis Howes?

  Well, it's kind of been like all your books. They're like, didn't hit right away. It's like two years later. Now it's number one. And it's crushing.

• 18:11Ryan Holiday?

  Just the idea of like, hey, I, you have to determine what success is to you and to not base it on what other people like.

• 18:19Lewis Howes?

  That's so hard. That's courage.

• 18:20Ryan Holiday?

  It, it's hard to do that.

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  I'll tell you what, for me, the last two years, I've been working on developing a new book, but I've also been like, gosh, do I do the traditional publisher thing? And I've been having these conversations, but I'm like, I just want to let that go and just write a good book that people are impacted by.

• 18:38Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  But it's like, oh, do you worry about, you know, the advance and what people are going to ask you about it? Or do you not care about that at all? Self-publish it and just try to help as many people as possible. Is there a balance? And literally it has been holding me back until the last like six weeks, the last couple of years. I've been in this limbo. I think one, because I've been trying to like build my business in the pandemic and shifting and, but this has been on my mind, this conversation for two years during all this. And it's not until now where I'm just like, okay, I need to get clear. I just need to take action and do it from the highest level place possible. Do things that are smart as well for business, but also just do what's going to help as many people.

• 19:19Ryan Holiday?

  What's a safety net, right? To do it, to, to do the conventional, like this is how it's done. Is safer because like then no one's gonna be like, what an idiot.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:29Ryan Holiday?

  Or like.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh, he's falling off the wagon.

• 19:30Ryan Holiday?

  Exactly. Yeah, he's a loser. It didn't work. Uh, you know, he's on the decline.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Ryan Holiday?

  And, and so the decision to like do stuff that you care about that, that requires sort of like burning the boats behind you. And just going like, I'm on this journey. And I think it's particularly hard in today's world where, you know, there's view counts and likes, like there's so much more public quantification of what, uh, what's done. And, and like when I talk to sports teams, I sometimes say that I'm a little bit jealous. It's like, it's obvious whether they're doing a good job or not.

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  You're jealous?

• 20:06Ryan Holiday?

  Some, I'm like, I, I. I love the clarity of sports, like win, lose.

• 20:10Lewis Howes?

  Win, loss, track and field. Yes. Did you get the height or not? Yes.

• 20:14Ryan Holiday?

  But the reality is in the, the world that the rest of us exist in.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like a committee and how many people like it and who you're following.

• 20:21Ryan Holiday?

  You're running your own race. Like you have to decide what success is. And that means, uh, that means criticizing yourself when you fall short of your own metrics. And it also means congratulating yourself on a success that perhaps other people don't recognize.

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

  Right. The success could be just, I'm proud of this chapter I wrote in this week or this month, even though no one's gonna be see it.

• 20:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  No one's like buying this, but I'm proud of the work that I'm putting in, the effort, the energy, the process.

• 20:49Ryan Holiday?

  I've tried to get to, I, I would say that on my first book, I was 10%, this is a success because I made it and it was the best I was capable of. And 90%, let's see what the results are. Like, let's see how it does. And I would like to think that as I've gone forward, that's slowly flipped. And that I'm now 90, it's already a success because it exists.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Even if no one buys this.

• 21:15Ryan Holiday?

  It's my best work.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:17Ryan Holiday?

  And then 10% like.

• 21:20Ryan Holiday?

  Bonus like, hey, it worked, won awards, got recognition.

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  But isn't the, like we talked about in the beginning, there's kind of like three levels to like a book. There's the, the mastery of writing the book, which you've become one of the greatest writers of our time. And, and distilling wisdom, ancient wisdom, and creating practical examples on how you can actually do this for today's life, and millions of people have read your books. But you could master writing the book, but you also have to master doing the marketing and promotion and putting yourself out there and communicating it. And then master being patient of like, maybe you put out the great book. And no one cared about it right now for a few years, but then you'd be patient and people start buying it.

• 22:03Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think you want to rank them. So the Stoics say that their first task in life, the most important task in life is what is up to me and what is not up to me, like separating things into the category of is it in my control, is it not in my control? So as I look at like any project or business or whatever, I prioritize based on like what's most in my control to what's least in my control. So like the first mastery of the thing itself, like is it the best album, the best video, the best, you know, live event it could possibly be, you have as much control over that as you're going to have of anything.

• 22:43Ryan Holiday?

  Cause that's yours. So like there you have the ability to get most of the win before it's even out. Then marketing and promotion and communicating and talking about it, that's like more something you have influence over as opposed to something you control, right? Because it's like, uh, what's happening in the world, you know, like how on point or trend is your thing, you know? Are you, but it's also, are you willing to put in the time? Are you willing to, so many people just think they're better than that. And so they don't do it. Um, and then the third part is the patience or the time, it's like you gotta, the, the audience will like it.

• 23:24Ryan Holiday?

  Imagine you're Herman Melville, you write Moby Dick, it gets savaged. Everyone's like, this is not just not good.

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  This is horrible.

• 23:30Ryan Holiday?

  Horrible. You should be, we're offended that you did it. And then only like towards the end of your life and after your life, does it finally get the recognition you just, so that, that part's the least in your control. And you have to be somewhat detached from that. Because if you're sitting, if you wake up every day and you're like, is this the day that people finally recognize me for all my contributions? You have handed your happiness over to something that's not up to you.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  It's true. As funny as you were saying that, I grew up in a religion called Christian Science that a woman discovered this religion and wrote a book called Science and Health. And this is the same time, back in the late 1800s when Mark Twain was around. And they were kind of like frenemies, I guess. And Mark Twain wrote an entire book trashing this woman, Mary Baker Eddy, and her findings of, you know, the science behind healing. It was essentially like the science of Jesus's healing. Here's how it works. Here's how the mind works and how we can heal ourselves. And he wrote an entire book bashing her and the religion called Christian Science,

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  which was like this critical of her work because she kept writing the same book with expanded updates every year, like so many different editions of the same book. And it kept hitting number one. And he had to write new books all the time. So I think he was frustrated that this woman kept writing the same book over and over with like, here's more finding and research and science of how the mind and body is healed through the mind. And it's funny, like, she just kept going because she was focused on the work and healing people one at a time and the message spread. But I think it's interesting that, for a reason that came up for me, because the more you put your work out there, the more criticized it's going to be open to. You know, there's more people are going to be willing to criticize it.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  And I think a lot of people aren't ready for criticism. They're not trained to deal. No one teaches you how to deal with criticism when you have an audience.

• 25:35Ryan Holiday?

  No, no one teaches you, because it's a champagne problem that a lot of people never get to. So there's not like a lot of instructions, but it is inevitable. And like, you have to realize, I've realized a couple of things. One is like,

• 25:51Ryan Holiday?

  Critics are almost always louder than your fans. Like, people who dislike something are much louder than the people who are like,

• 25:57Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 25:58Ryan Holiday?

  That's pretty good. I think it's one feels more strongly than the other. Like, the stuff I like, I'm like, cool. Right? You know? But then, when you really hate something, you're like, I need them to suffer how I am suffering. So, a lot of times, I think you're just, just different levels of enthusiasm.

• 26:17Lewis Howes?

  So, when was the moment, then, where you were able to look at yourself and realize, I have either conquered this inner rage, beast, whatever you want to call it, and you do have control?

• 26:32Terry Crews?

  Well, I have to go, now we go flash forward.

• 26:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:35Terry Crews?

  Okay. My wife and I had been through, you know, first of all, in 2010, it was the end of our marriage. We had been married 20 years.

• 26:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:44Terry Crews?

  And, you know, this whole time, I had had an addiction to pornography. And I had never told her. And 10 years earlier, I had, you know, basically cheated on her at a massage parlor.

• 26:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:59Terry Crews?

  But I vowed I'd never tell anybody. I vowed, I said, "Man, I'm taking this to my grave, it's not happening." But see, you gotta understand another thing, too, is there's this competition, but also this guilt that I was always carrying.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  Because of that, yeah, yeah.

• 27:14Terry Crews?

  Creates rage.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. And shame.

• 27:16Terry Crews?

  Shame. I used to get in arguments, so she asked me questions, like, "Have you ever, do you watch porn?" "Hey, no, don't even bring that up, what are you talking about?" You know what? "No, listen, I don't know who you think you are." And start an argument, so she'd be like, "I'm out." Just so she wouldn't bring up more, because I knew what I was doing.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:36Terry Crews?

  And I knew that I wasn't living right. I mean, the one thing is, it's almost like, you know, you say one lie, and it turns into two, turns into 10.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  It eats you inside of you, too.

• 27:48Terry Crews?

  You're talking about 10 years. Now, I vowed I'd never tell anybody. And my wife was always like, she would just bring up stuff like, "What is it? What are you doing, man? I don't, I don't know, you ever cheat on me?" Stuff like that. And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about, you know, and angry, angry. And what you would do, and one thing that I would do is project. Of course. So I was like, why are you saying that? Are you thinking about cheating? You know, in turn, and again, this manipulative game that you could play with the people you love, or people who love you, or you claim to love, just so you can keep your thing together.

• 28:29Terry Crews?

  You know what I mean? And this thing was, is that I realized that the image of Terry Crews was more important than who Terry Crews was. Dang.

• 28:41Terry Crews?

  And I had to worship that image. Who? And it ran everything. Because what would happen if who Terry Crews was really came out instead of the image? What would happen then? Well, my mindset, I had to play, I was like, I'd lose everything. First of all, my wife would leave, people who knew me would be ashamed, people who knew me would be, they would run away, everybody would be done, all of it would be finished. Every bit of who I, you know, if people found out who I really, really was, or what I was really, really thinking and contemplating, how I had done, then it would be the end of me. Wow.

• 29:24Terry Crews?

  So I decided, and we're gonna, we're gonna put this image up, and we're gonna prop it up. And it's like having an image on these really weak posts. You know what I mean? And we'd get bumped, and it's like way swaying, and you're doing everything you can. I gotta put another beam up on there just to hold it up, because it's getting rickety. And the longer it goes, the more rickety it gets. And it all fell, 2010. Wow. And my wife was like, I'm out, I'm done. And because what happened was she finally asked me, because we had just been getting farther and farther apart Yeah. over the years, and she said, you know, what is it I don't know about you, Terry Crews?

• 30:10Terry Crews?

  And I told her, I told her about what happened 10 years earlier, not in my head, I'm like, hey, that was 10 years ago. But for her, it was today. And she was like, I'm out. Wow. Don't come home.

• 30:26Terry Crews?

  And what I realized is that she had married an image.

• 30:31Terry Crews?

  And what she realized is that she didn't know me. Right. She was like, who are you? And I let her stay in that. And one thing about men is that what we're looking for is intimacy. Like, literally, someone who knows us inside and out and loves us anyway. But if you never reveal who you really are, you can never, ever have intimacy. Mm, amen to that. You understand what I mean? You can't. It's impossible because you have to know who you are. Absolutely. You have to share who you are. But the game is not to share who you are.

• 31:12Terry Crews?

  So you can have sex all day, lots of sex, because that's still part of the image. But it doesn't have anything to do with intimacy. Right. Anything to do with someone. This is why, this is why you always love your mom. Because your mom knows who you are. Right, right. Everything. Everything. You know what I mean? She cleaned, she cleaned your nose, she wiped your butt. She knows when you lie, she knows the bad you, she knows the good you. Yeah. And she loves you anyway. That's why mom, mom is queen of the world. But you didn't tell everything to this chick. Nah. To this lady, to your wife.

• 31:54Terry Crews?

  I'm like, oh my god. And dude, years of therapy. I finally went in to deal with these issues, man. Now, the thing about, in my culture, where I grew up. No one, no one does therapy. The mind was, you can't cure crazy. That was the phrase, that was, you can't cure crazy. And then you're talking about in religious circles, they were like, oh, you're gonna get them demons. The demons are gonna come if you go to a psychology, they gonna mess with your brain and make you crazy. So my father, there was one time my father went to a psychologist to get help for his alcoholism. And a week later, the psych, the psychologist jumped off a bridge. And I was like, what? Wow. Huh?

• 32:39Terry Crews?

  Oh man. He jumped off a bridge, man. And I said, okay, that don't work, that's, that's not gonna work, so, no. And I thought these guys are gonna make me crazy. So that was the thing, like. When it, when that broke for me, when my wife left, I was at my wit's end. Like, I said, man, I gotta try this therapy stuff. You know, cause I'd heard enough about it. Mm-hmm. Over the years. What was the greatest lessons therapy has taught you then? Man, assembly required. Okay? When I say this, we all think we as men or people are as good as we are. We, we just, take me as I am. We make songs about it. Take me just as I am.

• 33:25Terry Crews?

  But the problem is, this thing is, it's like, it's not anybody else's job to assemble you. You are like Legos. Okay? Legos come in a box. You shake the box, it's, it's just pieces. And in a very competitive world, people tell you, you're broke. Hey, man, look at your box. You broke it. But what I learned is that you're never, you're not broken. You're just not finished. You, it's up to you to assemble yourself. You have to work on you. You have to take, take off the parts that are bad or broke, or that don't fit. Cause nothing's broken. It's just things don't fit.

• 34:10Terry Crews?

  And you pull it off and you put it back together the right way. It's like when you go, but you gotta go deep. And you gotta go down. With, with computers, it's a bit. With, with, uh, um, with property or, or the minerals, it's atoms. And, and with human beings, it's genes. I mean, it's down into the core. You get one little gene. And you can rebuild yourself. That's what I got from therapy. I was like, holy cow, you could take the bad out. It's not automatic. You know, a lot of people have said, it's either nature versus nurture. But nurture always works. No matter what your nature started out as.

• 34:54Terry Crews?

  You understand what I mean? Like, nurture is, you're in the wo, uh, nature is you'd be born naked in the woods. But nurture is, you learn to bu, to make a coat. And put it on. You, you know what I'm saying? You can build a house.

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think it's so hard for us to be 100% authentic in relationships?

• 35:15Gary John Bishop?

  Yeah, if you ask somebody about your characteristics, like your personality, for instance, what your strengths might be, that's what you've come across that you feel as if is a good machinery to make it in this life, right? So this is like, you know, I'm, maybe I'm charismatic, maybe I'm hardworking, maybe I'm analytical, maybe I'm, you know, competitive, maybe I'm these ways. Somewhere along the lines of your life, you realized this would be a good thing. And this gets me a little further forward.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Gets me resolved, yeah.

• 35:48Gary John Bishop?

  Very good. So then there I am in life, being this way, and the more successful it is, the more I'm gonna be this way. So now I'm more and more and more like this, to the point where there's no distinction between this thing and me, like we're the same now. It's this, there's no line anywhere. It's just all how you would explain yourself now. What you also realized though was that those ways don't work everywhere.

• 36:11Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:12Gary John Bishop?

  And so what people call imposter syndrome is basically just the realization that your your shtick don't stick.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:21Gary John Bishop?

  Like you're like, my stuff don't work here. And so people are like, oh, I feel like I'm an imposter. Well, well, you are in many ways, but not in the way you might think. You are an imposter, there's a you there, doing another you. But behind that you really is you.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get behind that you? How do we break down the thing that's been working for so long, but maybe won't continue to work in the next evolution?

• 36:46Gary John Bishop?

  If I'm, for instance, competitive, right? And it's a trait of mine, and it's stood me in good stead, and I've created a life from that, and maybe some success from that, or in my case, hardworking, right? But it could be other things, it could be analytical, and it could be... And this is obviously a kind of, these are ways of being, this is an ontological element, right, or the element of being a human being. So if I'm competitive, I can point to all the places where that's really done me, done me well, right?

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Sports and...

• 37:18Gary John Bishop?

  Maybe, or maybe I'm in sales, right? Or maybe I'm, you know, like I'm building my own business, right? I mean, these are, this is a strength here, right? Yeah, try taking that home.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  And relationships, it doesn't work.

• 37:30Gary John Bishop?

  It's a crap show, right? Like, it's like, this is not gonna work for me.

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's fascinating, I would say I defined my identity, a piece of my identity, most of my life, as a competitor.

• 37:41Gary John Bishop?

  Yeah.

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, being in sports.

• 37:43Gary John Bishop?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Lewis Howes?

  And using sports as a tool to make myself feel better, to prove the bullies wrong from childhood, all those things, and say, I'm gonna make something of myself.

• 37:52Gary John Bishop?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna win at all costs in sports and things like that. I started early in my twenties to translate that into business, and it worked in a sense.

• 38:01Gary John Bishop?

  Yes.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  But it left me feeling more, I don't know, against people than it was with people.

• 38:08Gary John Bishop?

  All right, can I ask you a question?

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Gary John Bishop?

  Right, so there you are, and you were having an experience that this competitiveness actually wasn't working for you.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:20Gary John Bishop?

  Right?

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  It was getting, it was getting results in some way, but not results in the other ways.

• 38:24Gary John Bishop?

  Right, so you're starting to see something there, though, that's really interesting to me, and that is, here you are, being yourself, but, hold on a minute, is this myself?

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  And why am I suffering inside, and why am I going through these challenges?

• 38:38Gary John Bishop?

  Right, so I wanna know is, what's the thing that's suffering then? Like, what's that?

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I guess it was, uh, the identity that this isn't working, like, who I am, or the way I'm being, isn't working fully.

• 38:51Gary John Bishop?

  Right.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  It's working partially to get certain results, but it's not creating peace inside.

• 38:56Gary John Bishop?

  All right, so I would flip it the other way. I would flip it the other way, look at it from the other direction, that is, it's fine for the, this competitive expression, but not okay for you.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 39:08Gary John Bishop?

  And it's the you, that you, that I'm interested in. I'm interested in that, because that thing right there... What matters to that thing? And so you actually point it out. So the thing that mattered to you then was people.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 39:25Gary John Bishop?

  But you see how like that competitiveness was now the barrier between you

• 39:30Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 39:30Gary John Bishop?

  and people.

• 39:33Gabby Bernstein?

  Each moment is an opportunity to detour into fear. And then we create a world of fear-based perceptions. And so what we must do to live and thrive and feel good is undo those fear-based perceptions. And I believe through a spiritual path or through maybe a therapeutic path. I think spirits in all of it, whether you realize it or not. But to make a commitment to feel better means that you're committed to returning to God. Or love, or spirit, whatever you call it, yes.

• 40:04Lewis Howes?

  You also talk about how we have guides. And it's funny because my girlfriend, who's amazing, and she'll always tell me, she's like, you know, your angels are always watching you.

• 40:16Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, she's a spiritual being, right?

• 40:17Lewis Howes?

  She's like, I have, there's angels that are always supporting me whenever I'm in trouble. I'm like focused on my angels. I'm like, where are these angels? Like, how do we know they're here? What were these guides? Like, how can we tap into this belief that there are, whether it's our ancestors, spiritual beings, whatever it may be, are here with us, are guiding us,

• 40:36Gabby Bernstein?

  I thought we were talking about this on the School of Greatness.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  protecting us, are leading us into a path of love.

• 40:42Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, so what I write about in my book is what I believe. And I always have a big disclaimer that says, this is an opportunity to crack you open to believing something new. And if it's not for you, you choose how you choose to perceive this. So not only do I talk about spirit guides and angels and deceased family members, but I also talk about your higher self. So if this is too woo-woo for you, start to tap into what is the voice of my higher self.

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 41:06Gabby Bernstein?

  Right, that voice of my inner guidance system. And that wisdom that I believe in is my, is my true nature, right? But I personally, Gabby Bernstein, I believe that we all have guides, ancestors, family members, teachers, beings of, light beings, energy beings, that are supporting us in a form that is able to step in, able to channel through us when we write books, able to be there in those darkest moments, pick us up off the floor, and hold us in discomfort, and guide us to business opportunities, or babies, or whatever it is that we're looking for. And it's always available to us, that guidance, but we just, we cut it off, we block it.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Why do we block the guidance?

• 41:50Gabby Bernstein?

  Fear is the reason we block it. Fear.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Fear of what?

• 41:53Gabby Bernstein?

  It's not even fear, it's that false-based perception that we've built up around ourselves from those traumatic events, right? So, we have these traumatic events early in life, and they continue to build, and build, and build. We build up a world of false perceptions. "I am this body, I am Gabby Bernstein, I am Lewis Howes, I've got the School of Greatness, I'm a New York Times bestseller."

• 42:11Lewis Howes?

  People are out to get me, I can't trust people, we create these beliefs.

• 42:14Gabby Bernstein?

  Right. And you believe you're separate from others, you believe you're better than, or less than, or not good enough. And all those stories, all those false pretenses are what many spiritual practices call the ego, right? And that fear-based perception of yourself is misaligned with God, with love, with spirit, with angels, with guides. And so, this book is all about how to get back into alignment, so that you can hear that guidance, and receive that guidance, and be a channel for inspiration. And when you clear and undo those patterns of fear, and start to claim the pattern of love, that's when you are hooked up, super attractor.

• 42:54Lewis Howes?

  Unstoppable.

• 42:56Gabby Bernstein?

  Unstoppable, invisible doors open for you. It doesn't matter how low you are when you're starting this, you will go way further than you could possibly have imagined. And I am standing behind that subtitle, "Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams." Standing behind it.

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  I love that. What's the difference between spiritual guides, or guides, and intuition?

• 43:20Gabby Bernstein?

  You could call it the same thing. Your guides, your guides are your bridge from your fear-based thoughts back to your love, right? So if you pray and say, "God, guide, higher self,"

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Angels, whatever.

• 43:33Gabby Bernstein?

  "I give this to you. Figure it out, right? I don't, I don't know I'm gonna get through this time, but I give it to you." That's how we surrender. People are like, "I don't know how to surrender. I don't wanna let it go. I don't know how to." Through prayer, okay? Prayer is the conduit. And then when we say that prayer, or that intention, whatever you wanna call it, and we allow ourselves to give it over to a higher power of our own understanding, a guide, God, spirit, grandma, whoever, then we're, we're taking that difficult experience, we're handing it over, and then we relax.

• 44:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:03Gabby Bernstein?

  Because we think, "Okay, it's not on my, my shoulders anymore."

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  It's like taking our ego out of ourself and putting it over here and saying, "Someone else is gonna handle it."

• 44:10Gabby Bernstein?

  "Help me undo this." And then their job is to pay attention, what's gonna show up for us. And so pay close attention.

• 44:16Lewis Howes?

  How do we pay attention?

• 44:17Gabby Bernstein?

  Just, just be aware, stay calm, and stay chill, right? And be conscious of, of how things start to speed up, or the synchronicities that begin to happen around you. Or if you are like, you know, "Guides, I wanna see a sign," and you're like, "I need butterflies," and butterflies are everywhere. Yeah, I'm, I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails from readers that are reading this book in the last two weeks it's been out, and they're just like, "Gabby, every single sign I've asked for is coming to me." And like, it just speeds up. Ask for a sign today. If you're having a difficult experience, say, "Guides, uh, what, what would your sign be? Don't think, just say it. Just say it, don't think."

• 44:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, the sign itself?

• 44:54Gabby Bernstein?

  Like a pumpkin, or anything.

• 44:55Lewis Howes?

  Uh, an eagle.

• 44:57Gabby Bernstein?

  Eagle is your sign, that's a good one, it's strong. See how everybody, how he answered that? That'd be the first thing that comes to mind. And now, if there's an issue that's happening in your life, just say to yourself silently today at the end of this podcast, just say, "Thank you, guides, thank you, universe," whatever you believe in, right? "For showing me my eagle, to remind me that I'm on the right path."

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  So ask for the sign, the eagle.

• 45:21Gabby Bernstein?

  Thank you for revealing my eagle.

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  Thank you for revealing it before I see the eagle.

• 45:25Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, thank you for revealing my eagle to remind me that I am being guided.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 45:29Gabby Bernstein?

  Okay.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  And the eagle will mean whatever I give the meaning to, whether it's to make a decision on something.

• 45:33Gabby Bernstein?

  If it's just being guided in general, or if it's being guided towards that, that job, or that healing, or that whatever, right? Sometimes I'll use a sign like, I'm like, am I supposed to, to, to take this deal? And I don't know what to do, and I'm feeling so uncomfortable about it. And I'll say, show me a sign, and I'll get this. And the thing is, if you don't get your sign, that's a sign too. But you absolutely will get your sign. If you're asking to be shown that you're being guided, 100% you're gonna get your sign. Lewis is gonna text me later, everybody.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  It's on the eagle.

• 46:00Gabby Bernstein?

  My eagle! Just have me a photo, like some massive eagle.

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  So, so give me an example for people.

• 46:05Gabby Bernstein?

  It could be an eagle, like, in a photo, or an eagle, you know, on a napkin.

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  Not some eagle sitting on my window, which is, would be amazing if that happened.

• 46:12Gabby Bernstein?

  Could be that too.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  So give me, so let's give an example, practical example for someone. Say someone says, uh, there's a, a female listening, or a male listening, and saying, okay, is this, should I go on a date with this person? A second date with this person, right? Just something small.

• 46:27Gabby Bernstein?

  Show me my sign.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Show me my sign.

• 46:29Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  And what if you don't see, and the sign is to reveal if you're supposed to go on this date, or to give you some guidance.

• 46:35Gabby Bernstein?

  And if you don't get the sign, if you don't get the sign, then, and you decided to go on the date anyway, it's okay, there's still some learning in that.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:43Gabby Bernstein?

  There might be not, there have been times where I've done things where I didn't get my sign, and they didn't work out necessarily, but I still learned something from the experience.

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  Has there ever been a time where you didn't see a sign and it did work out?

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Maybe you saw the sign later or something.

• 46:58Gabby Bernstein?

  It worked out in a different way.

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Gabby Bernstein?

  Right? So like, if I was like, I need a sign about this situation, and I didn't get the sign, oh, here's an example from the book. So I was, uh, my, my, two weeks before I was meant to conceive, my doctor, who was like a very conservative Yale-trained physician in my little tiny country town, was like, you're, you're turning, no, I just turned 39. I was 38 when I was pregnant, and I just turned 39. So he considered me 40, okay? I was like, dude, I was 38 a week ago. And now I'm fucking forty. So he makes me forty. And he's like, we believe that you need to deliver forty, forty, forty weeks when you're forty years old. And I was resisting and resisting. And I was like, I'm not forty and I don't want to be induced. And I don't want to force the baby out. I don't want to have that kind of thing.

• 47:44Gabby Bernstein?

  And I, um, so I was so torn up because he was so nervous and that was infiltrating my fear, my fears. And so I was in his office and I was like, okay, universe, I can't make the decision. I need a sign. And so I said, show me a sign if following this path is the right move. And he walked in the door and he was wearing this necktie. And I said, Howie, what's on your tie? And he said, it's a, it's a cardinal. And I said, okay, in my head, I'm like, that's my sign. It's a cardinal. And so the next day I had to make a decision if I wanted to get booked. So I didn't have an opportunity to see my cardinal before I made that quote, that decision. Cause I had to book him in the schedule and he was leaving the next week. It was, it was mess. So I made the decision without seeing the sign.

• 48:28Gabby Bernstein?

  I said, okay, to be induced, to schedule an induction. And it's not what I wanted. And so I made that decision. I was in my bath. I texted my girlfriend. I said, okay, I'm going to be induced. This is happening. And she writes back to me, that's a great decision. I feel really good about it. And I know it's good for you because I saw a cardinal land on my window just now. Cardinal land.

• 48:48Lewis Howes?

  No way. Did you tell her the sign?

• 48:50Gabby Bernstein?

  She had no idea about that.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:51Gabby Bernstein?

  But here's the thing. So I got my cardinal. It gave me the guidance that I was on the right path. I was meant to be induced on a Wednesday. On a Monday, I'm lying in my bed and finishing the finishing touches of the book. Cause I wanted to deliver the book before I delivered the baby. So I stand up to go to the bathroom and my water breaks.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 49:11Gabby Bernstein?

  And here I am and I have the most epic Beyonce birth. Like there was nobody at the hospital. I had like rolling hills out my window and like, I was the only one birthing in the maternity ward.

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  My gosh.

• 49:22Gabby Bernstein?

  And I had, you know, the sun setting. So the whole point is, is that my sign was saying, yeah, you're on the right track. Make the decision. So that I could relax. Because if I hadn't made that decision, I wouldn't have relaxed. My water wouldn't have broke because I would have been too freaked out and tense. And everything worked out. Do you see what I'm saying here?

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 49:40Gabby Bernstein?

  So if you don't see your sign, that's still guidance. And then, you know, if you get your sign, even if it's something you didn't want, you know?

• 49:45Lewis Howes?

  What has, uh? Been the biggest lesson of motherhood that you were unexpectedly because you have lots of friends who are mothers.

• 49:53Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, I had no idea.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  You have so many fans of yours who are moms that you speak to all the time. And maybe you thought you knew what they were going through. You could speak into some of their challenges. But what have you really learned? Maybe three biggest lessons so far about

• 50:07Gabby Bernstein?

  All right, good.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  motherhood and what moms experience.

• 50:10Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Lewis Howes?

  In the first year of motherhood.

• 50:11Gabby Bernstein?

  So in terms of what moms experience and what happens. And I think my son has taught me, has given me the greatest gift of healing I could ever have imagined. Because as soon as I became pregnant, what happens for women is all your shit comes up and for men too.

• 50:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:25Gabby Bernstein?

  You know, when you're like about to bring life into the world and be responsible for that life. Your, your darkest demons start to come to the surface. And so many people just push it down, push it down, push it down. And so I don't push things down. I was like, let's go. Okay, I'm ready, I'm willing, let's go for this. And so I, you know, I worked out along the way and then the postpartum. And that gave me even a greater, greater step of healing. So his presence in my life has already put me on a massive healing path. I've had, you know, fast forward healing in the last year and a half. So that I'm grateful.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:56Gabby Bernstein?

  My son has taught me that I am going to make my highest priority in life to honor his feelings. People keep asking me, like, what's your parenting advice? I'm like, look, I've been doing this for 10 months, but I can tell you this. Honor their feelings. Imagine that was something that we experienced.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 51:17Gabby Bernstein?

  I mean, you'd be a different person, I'd be a different person. And, and, and if we could honor any human's feelings, any human being, particularly a child. And then I guess the third thing that I've learned as a mother, there's so much, but is that they are, they have their own guides, they have their own, they're, they're not, oh, this is big. He is not, not my son, Oliver Rockland. He is not, you know, the son to Zach, the son to Gabby. He is his own spirit, having a human experience. And he is a person, he's not a baby.

• 51:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:52Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  And you're just here to guide him?

• 51:54Gabby Bernstein?

  I am in an archetypal position to be a guide and a love and a support for him. But I find myself often being like, my baby's so cute, my baby, my baby. And then I have to stop myself and say, Oliver, not my baby, he's not my baby. He's him.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  So when we reflect our judgment on someone else, we don't like something, we're angry at them, we're pissed off at them, whatever it is, how can we shift that to see the good in them?

• 52:24Gabby Bernstein?

  Read Judgment Detox.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 52:27Gabby Bernstein?

  Because I'm sitting here, sometimes I'm just like, yeah, I wrote a book about it.

• 52:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, I get it.

• 52:30Gabby Bernstein?

  But I'll answer your question fully right now, which is like, when we are in judgment of somebody else, what's happening is that we're projecting onto them our own wounds.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 52:39Gabby Bernstein?

  And so the second step of Judgment Detox is to, well, the first step is to-

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  Heal your wounds.

• 52:43Gabby Bernstein?

  Is to honor your wounds.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:44Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:45Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard, so hard to not judge other people, isn't it?

• 52:50Gabby Bernstein?

  Gets a lot of, I gotta tell you, that book helped me so much. And do I not judge all the time? Of course I still judge, but when I judge, I don't believe in it.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:59Gabby Bernstein?

  And I get out of it quickly.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  So what do you say when you're judging someone else?

• 53:02Gabby Bernstein?

  I witness my judgment without judgment, step one. I honor the wound, okay, oh, I'm judging them because I'm feeling insecure, I'm judging them because they're triggering something, right? And then I continue on the journey of the Judgment Detox, which, you know, just releasing and forgiving and, and seeing someone for the first time, choosing to see them through the lens of love. It's, it's a fabulous book.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  See them through a lens of love, yeah.

• 53:25Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 53:26Lewis Howes?

  Get that book too. What is, you think is your greatest accomplishment in 40 years of life?

• 53:31Gabby Bernstein?

  My greatest accomplishment in 39 years, two weeks away from 40, don't age me, I can't believe I'm 40, oh my God. So my greatest accomplishment is the freedom I'm feeling right now, today, here with you, is my greatest accomplishment. My, my recovering from trauma is my greatest accomplishment. It will be the best contribution I can give to the world. I am going to help people because I, even just being in this state of freedom will help people watching because they will see what they are capable of.

• 54:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:02Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. And do you feel like- You'll be able to make a bigger impact in the world by being a mother? Or?

• 54:11Gabby Bernstein?

  Already, yeah. So I've noticed myself in my talks, I would always have a really good boundary, which you have to have, as you know, when we do the work we do. Because if I'm gonna get up and answer questions, people, a lot of my, my audience is like, you know, coming up being like, I have a brain injury, or I'm suicidal, or, you know. And I have to hold them in their, in their, in their transformation, but not take it on. But as a mother now, I don't feel that I'm taking it on, but I have a way deeper level of compassion for people that I'd never had before.

• 54:39Lewis Howes?

  Because you're experiencing all this stuff.

• 54:42Gabby Bernstein?

  I'm seeing their innocent child in them.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:44Gabby Bernstein?

  I don't see them as an adult who hasn't taken care of themselves, or as an adult who's done stupid things. I see them as a wounded child, and all I want to do is just hold them into love. And that's, I mean, even in one of my talks, this one woman was so wounded, and I actually went as far as asking her to come up so I could just hug her. And that is so against everything I've ever done in my career.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 55:04Gabby Bernstein?

  I would never, like, touch someone, or, you know, have, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't hug somebody, like, casually, but I held her like an "I'm a hug", you know what I mean? I was like, this is, and I kept holding her, and I said, "You're safe, you're safe, you're safe." And I don't know what came over me. The other thing that's happening is I'm becoming more unapologetic about my mediumship. So, we're all mediums, we all have the ability to listen to spirit and let, but I can, you know, I've throughout my life have always heard messages, and, you know, now I'm just like giving messages to people. And I always have channeled throughout my talking, but now, where normally I would say, you know, "Okay, this is the guidance." If I'm hearing it as a guide, I'll say, "What I'm hearing for you is this." And I'll deliver it in a different way.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so people can receive it, not if they don't believe in some type of medium stuff, they can, they can receive.

• 55:47Gabby Bernstein?

  Sometimes I'll just tell them, like, "I think, you know, your grandmother is telling me something."

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Tim's telling you this, yeah.

• 55:51Gabby Bernstein?

  Sometimes, not always.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  I've never had a, someone who calls himself a medium that does this practice on the show. I've been pitched, like, different mediums to come on, and I've always been kind of resistant, but lately, I'm like, you know, I think it'd be a fun experience.

• 56:04Gabby Bernstein?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, you should have someone.

• 56:06Lewis Howes?

  Is there someone that you think is like the best at what they do?

• 56:09Gabby Bernstein?

  There's so, there's so many. I mean, um, yeah, let's talk offline, because I can sit here and tell you five or six different names, and I don't want to offend anybody out there. I know a lot of mediums. I don't want that one being like, "Why didn't you save me on Lewis' house?" So, I'll give you some suggestions, yeah. They're all good, though.

• 56:22Lewis Howes?

  It'll be fun. What do you think is missing from you to get to the next level in your life, whatever that looks like for you?

• 56:30Lewis Howes?

  What's missing?

• 56:31Gabby Bernstein?

  There's a little bit more trauma work that I've got to face. It's not missing, though. It's not like it's in perfect time.

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  Around what? What's the trauma around?

• 56:43Gabby Bernstein?

  Just a lot of the sexual trauma, the shame around the sexual trauma.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because you talked about it on our show a couple of years ago, I think, a couple of years ago. And I know you've been doing a lot of work over the last few years with it, but do you feel like you're not fully healed with those things yet? I don't think I am either, even though I've talked about it for the last six years.

• 57:00Gabby Bernstein?

  You're more healed than ever before, but every...

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  I'm at peace a lot about it, but there's still little triggers.

• 57:05Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, EMDR.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so I keep hearing that.

• 57:07Gabby Bernstein?

  I really recommend it to you.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I'll try that.

• 57:09Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 57:10Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'll be once you have that final healing?

• 57:15Gabby Bernstein?

  Freedom is my end game, right? I hope to live for a long, long time feeling free. I did talk with Deepak Chopra yesterday, and I was on the plane with him coming here. And we were chatting about, you know, I was like, do you feel triggered or traumatized? You know, he's like, not at all.

• 57:34Lewis Howes?

  With nothing?

• 57:35Gabby Bernstein?

  Happy all the time. And it's because of his practice. It's because of his devotion to his practice. So I'm getting closer and closer to that. It doesn't mean I'll be enlightened. It doesn't mean I'll have bad experiences. It doesn't mean I won't be a human, but that I can feel free, even when things are tough.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  What do you think it is that he has or people like him have that allow them to have zero connection to or not allow the ego to affect them in a triggering way, in a reactive, defensive way, guarded, when maybe something bad happens to them?

• 58:08Gabby Bernstein?

  He's the person who grew up being taught that the divine is the direction. That, you know, God was the... I don't want to use language that's not his, but he had a very spiritual upbringing, so it was a foundational experience for him. And he's devoted his life to being at ease and meditate. He's up very early, meditates for two hours, I think, in the morning. And, you know, I think... It's his devotion and commitment that's let him be that way.

• 58:36Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it amazing that when I am consistent with my meditation practice, I feel like I'm unstoppable. Like, the longer I meditate, I feel like I see, it's like the Matrix. You'll see someone saying something to you.

• 58:48Gabby Bernstein?

  And it's exactly what you need. You become a super attractor. This is what the whole focus is about, baby. Is that the more we practice being in alignment, the more that unstoppable experience occurs. But when we are just living out of alignment, we feel out of alignment.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 59:05Gabby Bernstein?

  Things don't work.

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 59:06Gabby Bernstein?

  We're pushing.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is missing, from your point of view, as a friend of me, what's missing in my life to help me attract more of good things that I want?

• 59:15Gabby Bernstein?

  I think there's a little more trauma work to do. I can feel it, and you've said it a few times. And so, I'm gonna hold your hand while I say this, because I love you so much. And I will help you if you need any guidance and support just to be, listen and be there for you. Because you have the potential for that same freedom that I'm talking about now. We all do, but particularly, you're right there. But there's some shame and there's places to go to that I think you're ready to go now. And it hasn't been, there's been no step along the way that's been an accident. It's all been perfect order for you, and it's all been unfolding perfectly. And, you know, humbling moments and difficult times and things that come up only to get you to the place where you're ready to crack open more and face some of the darkest stuff. And you need to do that with a, so I am hearing

• 59:59Gabby Bernstein?

  that you need to do that with a facilitator that you trust, someone that you feel safe with, and someone that will really give you that, hold that space for you to go to the places that scare you.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Sounds good. I'm in.

• 1:00:12Gabby Bernstein?

  Because you're doing really big shit in the world. Big stuff, big work. And it's gonna be massive the more free you become.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited. I'm excited to continue to work.

• 1:00:22Gabby Bernstein?

  And I'm really proud of you, because the fact that you even asked that question is so major, because it means you're willing.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:00:30Gabby Bernstein?

  I'm so proud. I love you so much.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. I love you. Yeah, and you said the first step is willingness. And what, you said willingness is the key for something before in one of our interviews.

• 1:00:38Gabby Bernstein?

  Willingness is the catalyst for change, because the moment that we become willing, it's like we invite... The next right action. We invite God into our life to show us where to go and what to do. The willingness that you've developed over your life over the last 36 years got you into this seat right now with me while we're talking about things that we've both been through for you to say what's next and for me to honestly and authentically say this is what I think is next. Yeah, okay. I trust you. I trust you. That's your willingness.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  there and do something great.