5 Powerful Manifestations You Need To Say Every Day | Lewis Howes

Lewis shares how the main thing stopping you from manifesting isn't that you don't want it enough, but that you haven't gotten your inner self sorted out first. He breaks down the internal blocks keeping you from believing you deserve good things and shows you how your inner critic has been building a prison brick by brick. You'll learn why confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself, not from positive thinking, and how courage isn't a personality trait but a daily decision. This episode teaches you how to step into the identity of your future self through consistent action, trust the process even when it doesn't make sense, and open yourself to receive support instead of carrying everything alone. Make Money Easy: Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer LifeThe Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life TodayThe Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest LivesThe School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a LegacyIn this episode you will:Learn to trust that everything is working in your favor even during challenging timesBuild anti-fragile confidence by choosing courage over comfort in every area of your lifeDiscover why you'll never outgrow the level of worthiness you believe you deserveTransform your identity through the power of I am statements and daily practiceUnderstand how to surrender the need to control the method, and allow what is intended for you to enter your lifeFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1888For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Rhonda ByrneKatherine Woodward ThomasDr. Joe Dispenza 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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  If you're looking to manifest a new reality in your life, if you're looking to create a new dream and attract it and draw it to you faster, then you need to understand this concept. Manifestation is not about wishing for something. It's not about hoping and it's not about waiting for life to finally get better for you. It's not about that. Manifestation is not passive. It's not sitting back and saying, "One day, when things change, I'll start to feel different." Manifestation is about creating alignment in your life. Let me repeat this again. Manifestation is about creating alignment in your life.

• 0:43Lewis Howes?

  You don't manifest by waiting for your life to change. You manifest by creating alignment in yourself and where you want to go. Because life is always responding to you. Not to your wants, not to your vision board, but to your energy and your identity and the consistency you have with both of those things. And I've lived this decades ago. I was struggling to find success, to find meaning, to find fulfillment, to feel loved and joy, and really to achieve anything. But I learned that I can shape my life by saying these five manifestations to myself and then taking action upon them daily.

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  Consistency is what we need to do. And now I've attracted a life that is beautiful for me. It doesn't mean it's a perfect life that doesn't have any challenges that I need to overcome, but it is a dream life. If you would have told me 18 years ago, when I was sleeping on my sister's couch, that I would have the dream business, the business that I'd always dreamed of, creating impact, sitting across and interviewing some of the world's greatest leaders and inspiring the world. That was like my dream that I would talk about. If you would have told me that I would be married to my dream wife, that I'd have twin girls, that I'd be able to do all these things that I get to do in my life, that I'd be pursuing the Olympics.

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  I would have been like, wow, that sounds like an incredible dream. Is that really true? And I'm doing it right now. And now I want to break down what these five manifestations are that actually helped get me here. Because it wasn't always easy when I wasn't practicing these manifestations. So the first manifestation, I want you to be thinking about this and saying these things. Manifestation number one, I am worthy of the life I dream about. I am worthy of the life I dream about. This is the foundation of everything.

• 2:49Lewis Howes?

  Because you will never outgrow the level of worthiness you believe you deserve. Let me say this again. You will never outgrow the level of worthiness you believe you deserve. You can have big dreams. You can have clear goals, a vision of what you want to create. You can even have opportunities show up all the time, right in front of you. But if deep down, you don't believe you deserve a good life. You don't believe you deserve a great life. You don't believe you deserve to be happy. You will find a way to push all the blessings away in your life. You will break it so you don't have to own it.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  And this shift happened for me when I heard my good friend, Dr. James Doty, talk about this a few years back on The School of Greatness. And Dr. Doty passed away recently. And it got me thinking about this positive message that he wanted everyone to know. So watch this right here.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Everybody has an inner critic. It's just some are much more powerful than others. And so she also taught me to recognize that that wasn't truth.

• 4:02Lewis Howes?

  The inner critic.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yes, because if you, and being an athlete, I'm sure you know. If you tell yourself it's not possible, by definition, it is not possible. It cannot happen. And so, when people listen to that, they are giving their self-agency away. And in some ways, this is the nature of how we take control of our manifestation. And as you know from the first sentence in the book, it says, "The universe doesn't give a [bleep] about you." Because it has no [bleep] to give. There is not some external entity deciding your fate because you're a good or a bad guy. But we have immense power within us to control our destiny.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  And when you give it away and listen to that critic, then you're limiting your beliefs. So the key is, how do you unlimit your beliefs, if you will? And that is, understanding the incredible power you have within yourself. When you sit there and say, every day, "I'm not worthy, I don't deserve love, it's not possible, I'm an imposter, I can't do it." It's as if you're building a prison for yourself with bricks. And the wall gets higher, and it gets darker, and you feel more and more powerless. And you feel like there's some external force controlling your life. When you understand, within you is an incredible power to change your destiny.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  And you have that power, and finally, you recognize it, then extraordinary things can happen. And this is how you go from you being in charge, or, let's say, a belief that others are in charge, to actually you being in charge.

• 5:41Lewis Howes?

  The key idea here is about overcoming the inner critic by realizing that you hold immense power within you to control your destiny.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  And this is hard because a lot of us have learned how to have an inner critic that pushes us down, that says, nah, you'll never amount to anything. You're insecure, you're stupid, you're not smart, you're ugly, whatever insecurity we might have. For whatever reason, our inner critic has trained us to be allowed. And until we train something else to overcome that, that is going to be the narrative running inside of our own minds consistently. So many people want more out of life, and I'm sure you want more out of life, more success, more love, more peace, more freedom. But at the same time, they're carrying a quiet belief that says, who do I think I am to have that?

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  Who do I think I am to have a great relationship where someone truly loves me for who I am? Who do I think I am to have financial freedom? Who do I think I am to have a job or a career that is fun and fulfilling for me? Who do I think I am to go after this dream of writing a book or starting a show or doing something crazy that my friends and family are scared of me even talking about? Who am I to think I have the ability to deserve that? That I really deserve that? Have you ever felt this way about anything in your life? Have you ever had this thought? Who do I think I am to have this dream? Leave a comment if you've ever had that thought.

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  Who do I think I am to have that? And that belief doesn't come from the now, it comes from the past, from childhood moments where love felt conditional for you maybe at different times, from failures that turned into an identity. Instead of failure being feedback for you, which is what I talk about in the Greatness Mindset, that failure is something that we should be excited about because it just gives us information, data. It gives you knowledge about what's working and what's not effective. But so many times, people take a failure as their own identity, as I am a failure, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not talented enough, therefore I am a failure.

• 8:05Lewis Howes?

  We need to shift that. You need to not think about you as the failure just because you failed at something. Because you are going to fail at anything new you do. You failed at trying to walk as a baby a thousand times, but you never said, I'm a failure and I give up on walking. You failed at talking. It probably took me, I don't know, 16 years to learn how to speak proper English, because I was much slower. But now I'm speaking in front of millions of people every single week.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  You're not a failure just because you fail. We need to shift the identity from the outcome. You need failure to learn the skills and the tools. It gives you the information and the data. So don't make failures your identity. From shame that taught us to play small and to stay safe. So we learn to prove, we learn to, I'm going to prove them wrong. I'm going to prove all these people. We learn to overwork. Again, just raise your hand or nod if you've learned to overwork. I know I did that for a long time. We, we learned to achieve, to feel like validated. I was a big overachiever and we learned to perform. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to overperform to try to get attention and validation.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  And this is not because we wanted more, but because we were trying to earn the right to feel enough, to feel worthy and to feel enough. And when you don't feel worthy, it shows up in sneaky little ways. I mean, this, who, this lack of worthiness inside of your soul and your heart, sneaky little things start to show up in your life because you start to settle for less than you actually want. Again, just nod, put your hand up to yourself. Leave a like on this video, leave a comment if this resonates. You settle for less than you actually want. You self sabotage right before things go well.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Man, I have experienced that too many times in my own life, but I've also experienced this from just other people around me. I've tried to give so many people great opportunities and they just don't believe in themselves. They just, they're, they're not ready. They don't believe they're worthy and deserving of it and they self sabotage. And this is just only going to hold you back from the blessings that this world, this universe, God is trying to put in front of you. And if there's an opportunity to create something beautiful, but you don't feel like you're worthy or deserving of it, you're going to self sabotage. You're going to do something that's going to hurt you and hurt the opportunity. You're going to block what's coming for you,

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  which only trying to help you. And you've got to be finding a way to overcome this. So here's the shift you need to make. Worthy is not ego. Worthy is not thinking you're better than anyone else. That's not what this is about. Worthy is believing you don't have to punish yourself to deserve a good life. Let me say it again for you. Worthy is believing you don't have to punish yourself to deserve a good life. And when you can open yourself up to this belief, it allows you to step fully into manifestation number two.

• 11:29Lewis Howes?

  And manifestation number two is this. I want you to repeat this. Today, I will act as the person I want to become. Today, I will act as the person I want to become. Now, what does this actually mean? This is where manifestation becomes real. Manifestation is not about wanting. It's about practicing. And you don't attract what you want. You attract what you rehearse every single day. Attraction comes to those that can actually follow through consistently. And I know it can be hard to think about what it means to truly become this new identity. So I want to share this clip from my friend Jim Curtis,

• 12:13Lewis Howes?

  because he shares the two powerful words that will make this shift stick.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  The I am is an incredibly powerful thing. First, let's talk about the I am as identity. So our human identity, when we say I am, it becomes reality. Our identity is our reality. So the I am, I am smart, I am successful, I am grateful, I'm going to do this, I'm figuring it out, is much different than I am stuck, I am gonna be laughed at, I'm not good at this, I'm incapable. Right? The shift, what you tell your subconscious mind is waiting for directions. So the I am is the most powerful tool to use to direct who you are. The more that you say I am, the more your subconscious mind believes that that's your identity, and your identity creates your reality.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Say this again, your subconscious mind is waiting for directions?

• 13:09Speaker 02

  One hundred percent. It is, your subconscious mind is the servant. Now, it has all the habits, our conscious mind has all the logic. And we think that our conscious mind is in control logically, of course it has to be. But it represents five percent of everything we do. Ninety-five percent is in the subconscious mind, our reflexes, our habits, our autonomic nervous system, our beliefs. So it's waiting, that's why if you get hypnotized up on stage and you say, act like a chicken, and you act like a chicken, and like, your subconscious mind just took the direction, the suggestion. So we need to consciously know that our subconscious mind is our servant, and to tell it what to do. And we do that through our language and our identity.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, cuz if someone else can hypnotize you to dance like a chicken on stage, and you do it in front of 10,000 people and not feel fear, why can't you hypnotize yourself to go pursue your dreams?

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  To chase what you want without feeling that fear as well?

• 14:08Speaker 02

  You can.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  You can.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  But we get caught in the cage, we get caught in the illusion that this is all real. The illusion is that everything's happening in our life is real. That's the illusion. The reality is that our identity is creating our reality, and our programs and beliefs are creating our reality, so that we get caught in the movie. The truth is that we're the director, we're the writer, that we can say, okay, I'm gonna change this movie. I'm gonna change the movie, and then it take massive action to do it, so that it shifts the timeline, it shifts the energy. The second part of the I am, maybe the most powerful one, is the I am that I am. The I am that I am from was, you don't have to be religious to understand this,

• 14:53Speaker 02

  but the I am that I am was the first time that God ever really named himself in the Bible. And then the I am discourses was thought that the Grand Master, Saint Jermain, came to us and dictated these 33 discourses on the I am. And what it basically says is that I am the source. I am the resurrection, the light. This is take religion out of it. What that means is that everything around us,

• 15:26Speaker 02

  everything that we are, all this matter, all the light, all the manifestation, all of our reality, all of our thoughts is this idea that we are the source, the creator, the void, the quantum, the universal mind, the collective consciousness, experiencing its own human life through us. We are it.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  And so if we can understand that we are the creator and that we can shape what we want, and it starts in this human life, both human and spirit, that we can start to use this I am that we take for granted. We say that's so the greatest spell of the universe we use so casually, that we can take it and start using it. So focusing on the energy, expanding into source, and then using the words to direct the subconscious.

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  How powerful are words that we use about ourself in life?

• 16:18Speaker 02

  So powerful. Our body is listening. Our body is listening to every word that we say. Every word that we say is creating our reality because it creates our identity. We believe it.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  A key takeaway here is the power of the I am, and we have the power to change our reality.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  Your future self is not someone you have to wake up as one morning. Your future self is built through small, daily, consistent decisions. How you talk to yourself when you make a mistake. How you respond when fear shows up. How you handle failure without quitting on yourself or believing you are the failure. How you handle success without self sabotaging. Once you have this acknowledgement, this audience, this financial abundance, this accolade, this new position, because no one really teaches you how to handle success.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  And so therefore, a lot of people are afraid of success. This is one of the three key things that limits us, the three main fears that I talk about in the Greatness Mindset as well. The fear of failure, the fear of success, and the fear of judgment. And this is why competence doesn't come from thinking positive thoughts. Competence is built by keeping promises to yourself. The smallest of promises, the biggest of promises. The ones that are small timelines to the ones that take years to fulfill. A promise I made to myself 18 years ago was when I saw handball on TV in the 2008 Olympics.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  And I saw the sport for the first time and I said, what is this sport? This sport was meant for me. I want to figure out how to play this sport, how to get in the USA national team, and how to go to the Olympics. And that has been an 18-year commitment I've made to myself. And I have two and a half more years on this timeline of taking it every step along the way as far as I can go, all the way to the end. It's just keeping the promises you make to yourself. And sure, there might be a season where a promise gets broken because a new doorway opens, or that doorway shuts, and it tells you you're not meant to go there anymore.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  But when you still have the dream, the desire, and the ability to go for it, even when the odds are against you, even when the chances are small. You have to keep your word to yourself because confidence is built by keeping promises to yourself. And when I started the School of Greatness, I wasn't a world-class interviewer. I had no clue what I was doing. I shouldn't have been able to do what I'm doing now. I was a guy with a laptop and a lot of nerves. But I decided to act like the person who had a top-tier show. I showed up early. I researched for hours and I prepared. I acted like the professional I wanted to be before the world called me one.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  And every time you do what you said you would do, even when it's uncomfortable, this is when you start to build self-trust. This is when you start to build this inner confidence, this belief that, hey, maybe I can do this. Look what I just created in this month, in this six months, in this year. Now, the School of Greatness has been 13 years. Look what I had to launch, what I had to build, what I had to endure when there were challenging times and down times and struggles and where I'm at at this season. You build self-trust when you keep your promises to yourself. And self-trust is what allows you to dream bigger and to move bolder and to take chances and to risk at life.

• 20:14Lewis Howes?

  This manifestation is a daily commitment to stop waiting and start becoming, which takes us right into manifestation number three, which manifestation number three is a big one. And I want you to repeat after me what this is. I trust that everything is working for me. I trust that everything is working for me. Or you can say, I trust everything is working in my favor. I trust everything is working in my favor.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  This manifestation is about faith. Now, you may not like this because you want to have certainty that what you think about is gonna happen no matter what and it's gonna be easy. But that's just not what life creates for us. And if everything was easy, you know, it wouldn't be worth it. Sure, we like these things to be easy. It feels good because we don't have to have courage. We don't have to endure pain. We don't have to deal with uncertainty. We don't have to have setbacks. Sure, if it was just all handed to us, it wouldn't be called life. This manifestation is about having faith. Not blind faith, not denial, but a deep, grounded trust in the process of life. And I know you don't want to hear this. And I know you don't want to hear, "Trust the process. The universe is gonna give you everything you need."

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  I know you don't want to hear this. I don't like hearing this either. But gosh, I've just experienced it so many times that when I put trust in the process of life, and when I put trust in God, and I ask God, "Where do you need me to be?" Which is something that my wife Martha continues to remind me. When I feel friction, when I feel like, "Ah, why isn't this thing working easier? Why isn't it working out? Why is this process have to be so hard?" She says, "Remember, ask God." And you can ask the universe if you don't want to ask God. You can say, "Universe, God, where do you need me to be?"

• 22:15Lewis Howes?

  And when you have faith and you have a trust in life, that everything is working in your favor. When I look back and I think about breaking my wrist and losing my dream of being a professional athlete, sleeping on my sister's couch for a year and a half, making no money during a recession of 2008, 2009, being like, "Why is this happening to me? Why am I struggling so much? Why is it so hard to make money? Why am I going through all these relationships that are failing? Why am I dealing with so much internal suffering? Why, why, why?" I had all of these seasons of life where I was just questioning, "Why is this happening to me?" As I've learned and I've reflected, I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have this incredible

• 22:56Lewis Howes?

  marriage with these two beautiful twins, had I not learned those lessons in those challenging relationships. I would not have the tools emotionally to navigate where I'm at now. I wouldn't have the business skills if I wasn't broke for those almost two years, where I had to learn the hard way about certain things and find mentors. I wouldn't have been ready for what I'm creating now. We need those seasons of uncertainty, of scarcity, of sadness, of loss. We need those in some ways to enrich us, to develop the soil within us, to start creating a richer life. But if we don't have a deep grounded trust in the

• 23:38Lewis Howes?

  process of life, or in the trust of God, and if we don't say, God, where do you need me to be? Not, this is where I want to be, so make it easy for me. If that's where He needs you to be, cool. If that's where the universe wants you to be, the best use of your abilities and your talents, cool. But sometimes you get rerouted. A relationship doesn't work out, a career doesn't work out, something happens where it reroutes you. It puts you in a different direction. And I know that's happened for you. I know you've had setbacks. I know you've gone through a relationship breakup. I know you've had a, an injury that forced you to stop a certain career, or a dream, or something. But it's led you into

• 24:17Lewis Howes?

  a beautiful season of life. And when you can reflect back and see, oh yeah, okay, now that makes sense. If we just trust the process of life, when things are going challenging, and we ask, where do you need me to be? Then we start to hear better. We start to listen better. We start to communicate better. We start to develop better. Because when you don't trust life, you try to control everything. You overthink things. You force timelines. You need them to happen now. You panic when things don't move fast enough. Nod your head if this is resonating with you, or if I'm the only one who's ever been through that.

• 24:57Lewis Howes?

  And control, let's be honest, it is exhausting. Sure, I like having a sense of control. I like knowing that I can run my business a certain way. I can structure my time with my workouts at a certain time. I can do certain things and have a schedule and an organized life. But controlling outcomes.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  And controlling everything and everyone in your life, it's exhausting and it doesn't work. You cannot control everything and everyone. Control keeps your body tense. Control keeps your mind busy and loud. Control makes it hard to hear your own intuition. And to hear the message from the universe or the message from God on what God or the universe wants you and needs you to do. Trust doesn't, you know, it's not gonna hurt you. It does the opposite. Trust creates a sense of peace and peace creates clarity. Clarity leads to better decision making. It makes better decision making because now you're in alignment.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  Again, we go back to the first one. You gotta be in alignment. When you're in alignment, then you know what to make decisions on better. You can make clearer decisions because you're now in alignment. You're not going off track based on you. And I want you to look back at your life and you'll probably see this, that some of the things that were most upsetting about losing, about hurt, about pain, ended up making room for something better in your life, right? Some relationship that, man, this was like years, we're trying to make it work and then it ended, it was just miserable and we lost all this time and then boom, you met the person of your dreams within the next year.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Or it unlocked the next season for you. Some doors have to close because they were too small for who you were becoming. Some of these old doors in my life, they needed to close and because I lacked the courage to close them myself out of fear, they were, they were smacked closed in my face. And I had to experience more pain because I wasn't willing to go through the challenges that I knew I was meant to do them. And trust doesn't mean you always are gonna understand why something's happening. In fact, you're probably not gonna understand a lot of these things. Maybe 20, 30 years down the road, you'll, it'll make sense. But it does mean you believe.

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  There is meaning, even when you're not sure of what it is and you're in the middle of the mess. That's what it's all about. Again, I mentioned earlier about, you know, I, I had a dream of being a professional athlete. I made it to the Arena Football League. I was getting paid. I was living my dream, playing in front of thousands of people, catching a football. This was my childhood dream. And then all of a sudden, boom, I run into the wall trying to catch a football. I break my wrist. After the season, I have a surgery on my wrist. They take a bone out of my hip. They put it in my wrist. I'm in a cast for six months. And it wasn't fun. It wasn't pretty. It was exhausting. It

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  was painful. I had 15 staples in my hip that I had to remove eventually. And the dream was over like that. Boom. No more football. No more dream. You know, 15 years of pursuing this thing, gone. In a moment, it felt unfair. It didn't feel, it was like, what's the point of this? Why am I being punished? Why is this happening to me? I worked so hard for this dream. I sacrificed so much. I did all the right things to get here. Why me? Why now? And I get chills just thinking about it. If, if I knew that something was greater for me, coming, then I probably wouldn't have resisted it as much and been as depressed

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  for as long as I was going through that transition. Now, listen, it doesn't mean when something's bad is happening in your life, or you're going through, you get fired from a job, or a relationship ends, or whatever it might be. It doesn't mean you can't feel the range of emotions of sadness, grief, loss, uncertainty, fear, concern. It's okay. We're human beings. It's normal. But when we can get back on the, the train of positive thinking and manifestation around alignment and say, I trust the timing of my life. This is happening for me. It's happening for a reason. And it's so hard in the moment because

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  it doesn't make sense. But if I just tried it on, if I just said, I'm going to trust this anyways. I want to trust, what am I meant to do? What's next for me? Why is this happening? Let me understand the reason why. Let me develop better skills. Let me be more emotionally empathetic. Let me, let me use this tragedy for good.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  When you can do that, man, then you start to boom, transform into something special. And when I started to do that, I, instead of loathing on my sister's couch for a year and a half, I started to take action. I started to take action. I started to learn new skills. I started to reach out to mentors. I started reading books. I started creating content. I started writing because I had a dream to be a New York Times bestselling author. So I started practicing. And the next eight years became a practice for me to launch the New York Times bestselling book, to launch the show, to launch the business. It was just practicing and failure over and over again. But that failure became feedback and became little belief and micro belief into bigger beliefs. So I need you to start thinking about that if you're going through a hard time in your life right now.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  What does trust look like for you when you're in the middle of uncertainty? What does it look like for you? And that leads us into the next manifestation, which is manifestation number four. Today I choose courage over comfort. Today I choose courage over comfort. Every great life requires courage. Gosh, I did not like having courage when I was younger. It was just really hard for me. Even in my twenties, it was really hard. Heck, thirties, it was really hard.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  Now that I'm in my early forties, I feel like I've went through so much pain because I lacked emotional courage to have the hard conversations, to, to make decisions I know I needed to make, but I delayed as long as I could because I didn't want to experience that pain. Man, courage, it is an incredible gift you will give yourself if you can get comfortable being courageous every single day in every single way. It doesn't mean it's gonna be fun or enjoyable, but man, you're gonna live such a better life. Every great life requires courage, not just once, but over and over and over again

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  in every area of your life, every relationship. It requires courage if you want to have a better relationship. Everything you do requires courage. And my friend Price Pritchett talks about this concept of being anti-fragile. And I want you to watch this right here. It's powerful.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  You know, but talking about this thing about we need friction in our life. Too much equilibrium is a dangerous thing. But people get, it's kind of that status quo.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote this book. He's written several, Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan. And he wrote this book called Anti-Fragile. I love that book. Now, that book is that thick. And he is an amazingly smart guy. But he talks about how some things benefit from being punched around, from friction, from setbacks, failures, you know, stretching, stretching, putting yourself out there and taking the blows, the slings and arrows of life. You know, as opposed to sitting in your house, you know, leaning back in the T, watching TV all the time.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  And he says, okay, here's, here's a good way to picture it. Let's say that you have a box of fine crystal, baccarat, crystal champagne glasses, and you're gonna send them to Prague, some friend in Prague, okay? So how do you pack? You package these very, very carefully. And then close the box and you stamp all over it, handle with care, fragile, fragile, fragile, handle with care. Okay, but let's say you, because it gets damaged by.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Friction, we'll say, or turbulence, change.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Well, let's say that you've got a basketball. You're gonna send it to Prague. Mm-hmm.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  So, you put it in a box, same what, package it, you know, throw it in there and everything. If it gets slammed around the box, kind of crust, okay, the ball is resilient. Yes. The ball comes back and so forth. No damage to the ball. It's right back the way it was.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  But, if you have something else

• 34:36Speaker 03

  that benefits from change, from turbulence, from friction,

• 34:44Speaker 03

  you would put it in there. Mm-hmm. You wouldn't put any packing around it or anything, and you'd stamp on the outside. Throw it around. Throw it around, you know, sling it this way, whatever. It's anti-fragile, and it's good for it to get that. Well, that's what we need to make ourselves. We need to make ourselves anti-fragile. Um, and that means we need to create this equilibrium in our own lives. We need to stretch. We need to do things that are kind of difficult for us.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  And then we become less fragile. Yeah. We become better than resilient. We grow from it. Yes. We don't just get back to what we were. We get better. We become different, we become a different person. Yeah. That's, that's one thing about the difference between small goals and big goals. There's a lot that's been written about the small goals, you know, little bitty goals. And I'm, I'm, first of all, I'm just a massive believer in setting goals for your life. Small goals

• 35:55Speaker 03

  are good for to-do lists, or if you're trying to develop a habit, and some of those kinds of things.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  But, small goals

• 36:08Speaker 03

  create small energy. Mm-hmm. They attract small resources.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  And they're very, very incremental.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  Big goals create energy.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  They stir you up. They make you more creative. They attract other people. People want to be part of it.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  And so when you set big goals, you don't just achieve more. You become more.

• 36:44Lewis Howes?

  A key takeaway from this is you benefit from friction. It forces you to grow and change and develop over and over again. Small goals create small energy. Big goals create bigger energy. You don't only achieve more, you become more. And that's what this is about. It's not about achievement. It's not about making more money. Those things are going to come. All that stuff is going to come. The accolades, the awards, the success, the followers, the sales, the growth, the money, the ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. All these things are going to come. But stop thinking about just them. Sure, it's great to have goals of what you want to accomplish and achieve. I do that as well.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  But more importantly, you want to be thinking about who you want to become. Who do you want to become on this journey? If you're insecure right now, then your goal should be, I want to become more confident. I want to become more empowered in my body when I'm normally insecure. Whether it's around speaking with friends or colleagues or on stages, I want to become more confident. Well, to overcome insecurity, that means you have to put yourself in situations where you feel insecure over and over again and practice and overcome it. And over time, you will be more confident in those things. That is how I have done everything in my life because I was the most insecure kid growing up.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  I was in the bottom of my class. I felt stupid. I felt unworthy. I didn't want to be alive. I would get into trouble and I'd go to the principal's office and I'd say, I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I would repeat this over and over again. Because I would get in trouble so often, because I just struggled so much in school, that I didn't have the emotional tools to be like, you know, in 30 years, it's all gonna work out as an eight-year-old. And, uh, you know, this is all happening for you. And even though you have no friends, you get into trouble all the time. You can't pass any classes because you're not smart enough to pass any classes. This is all my internal critic. But it was validated by having the worst grades and no friends and people laughing at me

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  and picking on me and picking me last and all these things. So I was so insecure. The past kept me feeling insecure. And when I created a game plan for myself, when sports came into my life and I started to find ways that I could be more confident, I found a tool, sports. Sports became life. It's where I learned everything about life by playing sports. You've got to find out what that tool is for you. Where is the gift that you are excited about, that you want to get better in? Is that art? Is that drawing? Is that music? Is that sports? Is that content? Whatever it is, is it relationship advice? Is it money? Is it health and wellness?

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  What is that tool that you can lean on to build some confidence in your life? And then how can you find the things you are most insecure? And make those things you, that you are the most confident in? For example, I could not speak on stage to save my life. If I had to stand up in front of the class, you know, 20 kids and read aloud. When I would do that, I would sweat, I would tremble, I would stutter, because kids would make fun of me because I could not read. When I went into eighth grade, I had a second grade reading level based on the test that they gave me. So I just struggled. So I was very insecure.

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  I had no confidence in doing that skill. Now. When I turned 24, 25, I'm sleeping on my sister's couch and I'm a grown adult, but still a little boy inside. You know, I'm a 24, 25 year old man with the insecurities of a five-year-old boy. I remember thinking to myself, huh, in order to get any job, I need to have confidence being able to speak in front of a boss, someone hiring me, my colleagues, a boardroom setting, whatever it might be. I need to learn how to communicate effectively to be able to enroll people in who I am, in my abilities, in what I'm presenting.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  I need to be able to enroll people, but I have no abilities on how to do this right now. I can't do it. I couldn't do it at 25. And so what I did is I found a mentor who was someone who is a speaker professionally, someone essentially doing what I wanted to learn how to do, have the confidence to speak professionally in front of others. I didn't know I was going to be speaking professionally in the future, but I wanted to have the skill set to be able to communicate effectively without fear or insecurity. And he said, join Toastmasters. Go once a week for a year and report back to me at the end. Toastmasters is an international

• 41:41Lewis Howes?

  organization. I think it's like 50 to 100 bucks a year to be a member. And you get a workbook that gives you 10 different speech exercises that you have to complete over the year. And each one is about five to seven minutes long of a speech and you need to complete them to develop skills. It just gives you practice in front of a group setting where you can hear other people speak, you can speak and practice your speaking ability. And I remember I joined one of these clubs in Columbus, Ohio called Midday Toastmasters. And

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  It was terrifying. It was the scariest thing that I've probably ever done in my life. And I got up every single week and I practiced speaking. And I was the worst person in the room. They were all professionals. They'd all wore suits. I was wearing like a T-shirt. I was like a, you know, just got out of, I had a cast on in my first few sessions because I was still recovering from the surgery. And it was terrifying. It was humiliating. It was embarrassing. It was so uncomfortable. But every week I showed up, I would record the speeches. I would watch them back. I had someone help give me feedback. And I just said, how can I be a little bit better and practice the skill every single week?

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  By the end of that year, I was getting paid to speak on stages. Now, it wasn't tons of money at that time, but I was making around $500 to speak because I just went all in on improving the ability to communicate in front of others. And I remember I practiced for two weeks to give my first speech. I kid you not, I was so nervous. Just thinking about the idea of getting in front of 20 people made me nervous for weeks leading into it. And I wrote my speech word for word and I looked down and I just read my speech the whole time. I didn't look up once in my first speech. But I did it. I showed up. I built a rep. I showed myself. I can humiliate myself and get through it.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  And then each week I got better and I practiced and I improved and that helped me build confidence.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  But we can't create just these tiny little goals because again, like Price Pritchett said, you benefit from friction. It forces you to grow and change. Small goals create small energy. Big goals create bigger energy and you don't only achieve more, you become more.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  I wasn't trying to make tons of money as a speaker. Now my speaking fees are multiple six figures for me to speak in front of an audience for 60 minutes. And if you would have told me this when I was 25, 17, 18 years ago, if you would have told me this, I would have been like, you are out of your mind. There is no chance. But I just kept showing up for myself to become more, not necessarily to accomplish more, to become less insecure. And when you make a commitment to go all in on your fears, your fears will eventually disappear. And that's what you need to be thinking about.

• 44:53Lewis Howes?

  You need to be thinking about what is the list of fears or insecurities that I can make my superpower. If you are insecure and you're afraid to speak and use your voice, it means you are meant to be a communicator. It means you are meant to guide people. It means you are meant to use your voice to bring hope, to bring inspiration, to bring positive encouragement to someone. But you've got to learn how to do that for yourself first. Comfort feels safe, but comfort also keeps you stuck. Comfort tells you to stay quiet, to avoid the hard conversation, to not rock the boat.

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  Don't put yourself out there too much. Courage is different. Courage is feeling fear and moving toward it anyway. Courage is being seen when you'd rather hide because you don't want to be embarrassed. And I'm telling you, when I went all in on the speaking, when I went all in on the podcast, when I didn't know what I was doing, it unlocked incredible things for my business. But when I went all in on the thing that I was truly the most afraid of, which was opening up about sexual trauma that I experienced when I was a kid, and I opened up about it publicly on my podcast, I thought my life was going to be over. I thought I would have no friends. I thought my business would be done.

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  But I felt like it's something I needed to do. I needed to practice the courage. And share. And I was like, if I can help one man who's been through some type of sexual abuse in the past, or one woman who's experienced this, who has been living in shame, who's been living quietly in fear, who has been traumatized over and over again, because they've been living with this stress in their life, this trauma in their life, and it's been stuck in their body. If I could help one person, then it's worth it. And I did a whole episode about this over 10 years ago, and it completely changed my life. And I got hundreds of essays that people wrote

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  in saying, thank you. And then starting their healing journey in that as well. And then it led to a book that I wrote called The Mask of Masculinity, which was about the masks that men wear to fit in, to try to belong, to try to look good, to perform, to, you know, survive

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  when trauma or a violation has happened. And I started understanding the masks that I wore for most of my life, to perform, to achieve, to try to feel loved, needed, and worthy, but really deep down inside, I didn't feel worthy at all. I was running away from the past, chasing things to try to make myself feel better. And no matter how much I achieved, I still never felt enough. And so what you really need to understand is that courage is not a personality trait. It's a daily decision. And saying this manifestation to yourself every day allows you to make that

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  decision easier and easier. Every time you choose courage, you are creating more opportunity for yourself, which leads us right into manifestation number five.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  And I need you to repeat this manifestation to yourself. Today, I am open to receive what is meant for me. Today, I am open to receive what is meant for me. Now, if you've made it this far in this episode, and maybe you've been critical about what is all these, you know, manifestations that Lewis is talking about. I'm going to see if this is all just BS or some mumbo jumbo, or whatever it might be. If you have a mantra in your life and you say, "Today, I am open to receive what is meant for me."

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  It's just saying, "I'm creating space for the right things to come into my life." And instead of mentally blocking yourself and saying, "I don't deserve," or self sabotaging because you don't believe you're worthy, you're just creating a block and you're, you're walking through life with a filter of negativity and you're not allowing for goodness to come in your life. But if you simply repeat and believe and own this one manifestation, "Today, I am open to receive what is meant for me." If you wake up and say this to yourself, if you walk out the door and say this to yourself, if you're driving in your car and you just say, "Today, I'm open to receive what is meant for me, and only good things come my way." You're going to find good things coming your way.

• 49:45Lewis Howes?

  You're going to find beautiful things coming your way. And a lot of people are trying to manifest, but they're closed off to possibilities. They're so fixated on one specific outcome, one specific goal, one specific path. It has to look like this. They can't see the opportunities sitting right in front of them.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  So they've decided what success is supposed to look like by maybe pressure from their parents or what their peers do, or what they feel like is cool, or whatever it might be.

• 50:15Lewis Howes?

  And without realizing it, they've shut the door on something bigger, something more lines, something they couldn't even have dreamed of. Again, when one door closes, it's opening the possibility for something much greater that was meant for you. But it's so hard when we're fixated on keeping that door open that we really thought was supposed to work out. But when you have the trust in the previous manifestation, and you have the belief that something great is gonna happen today that is meant for me, then man, good things are always coming my way. Good things are always coming my way. Great things come to me every single day. A lot of people are working hard, but they're working alone. They're carrying everything themselves.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Let me know in the comments or just nod to yourself right now. If you feel like you put the weight of the world on your back, and it just is carrying this tense load and you feel like your shoulders are always tight because you feel like you have to hold up this emotional baggage. It is exhausting. Let yourself relax. Stop trying to carry everything yourself. People are trying to force the timeline, trying to just, oh, I need this to happen now. They're stuck in the mentality of if I don't do it, it won't get done. But receiving is not weakness. Receiving is trust. Receiving is believing that life can meet you

• 51:45Lewis Howes?

  in ways that you did not expect. And it could surprise you if you allow it, if you allow for the abundance, if you allow for the support, if you allow for the possibilities to just make magic in your life. Life becomes magical. Receiving is allowing for people, conversations, instructions, and opportunities to move you forward instead of you pushing everything forward alone. And I want to share a piece of my conversation recently that I had with Rhonda Byrne. And she talks all about the need to be more open to the will of the universe. Let's watch this right here.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  It's a piece of cake.

• 52:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think one of the reasons that, one of the things that trips people up is they try too hard, like they're trying too hard, but you know, we deserve everything that we could possibly want. And so there's no, you know, the universe to be, to put it, you know, sweetly kind of, the universe wants us to have everything and to live a full life. And so, yeah, it's not a battle or anything like that. So I think sometimes we just like try too hard and trying, of course, says that I don't have it yet.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 53:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  Isn't there something around like, I guess, putting in effort or putting in focus or putting in some energy to developing a skill so that you can receive more of what you want? Or is it really as simple as just kind of let it go and allow things to come to you as, as they come?

• 53:19Speaker 04

  Well, I think if you, you know, with a skill, like you, you know, you can't just pick up a violin and be a maestro, right, right? So, and those kinds of things we all tend to love anyway. Learning things and accomplishing things and building, you know, businesses and all of those kinds of things. But we do not, we certainly do not need to put as much effort into all of that. Like it, everything, everything is coming from the mental first, first. Whether we realize it or not, it is, every action we take is a thought first. Every word we speak is a thought first. And so if we did more mental preparation before we took an action,

• 54:05Speaker 04

  that action would be so smooth and just flow. You know, and that's kind of the part that in the future civilization will definitely realize and get really good at. And there's an opportunity for people to get really good at it now. So life's not so hard. Go big, think big.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  You know, what have you got to lose? Think big, go on, you know, and you can put lots of small things, you know, there too, you know, I want a new pair of Nikes or I want this or, you know, thing, small things. But yeah, think big things. Cause one of the tricky things I think with people is they haven't ever stopped to think about what they want because they think they can't have it. And so to think about what they want is too painful. You know, so they don't, they don't do a list. That's the last thing they want to do.

• 54:50Lewis Howes?

  Cause it seems so far away.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  It seems so far away and impossible. And it's just going to make me feel bad that I can never have it. Cause I was born here, you know, I don't get those lucky breaks like the person over here that's really lucky.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  And yeah, so I, that's why it's so great to write a list. Because for many people who, who follow this, I bet they've never written a list before of what they want. No limits.

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  A, a friend and mentor of mine who told me, you know, he grew up without a lot of money. He lived in Southern California, but he was probably two hours away from the ocean. But he always dreamed of like having a house by the beach and the ocean.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  And he's like, when I was in my twenties, I would just visit the ocean and look at the houses. Then when I started to make a little money, I was still so far away from affording it. But I was like, what if I just rent the house for a day to experience what it's like being in that kind of property, looking out on the beach. And I think the closer we can get to dreaming it by writing it down and making a wish list, and then getting closer to the experience, even if you just touch it, touch the car you want to buy.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  Touch the house that you want to live into, or rent the house for a night. You know, you can't buy the whole thing, but it's like rent something like it and see what that experience feels like for a day, for an hour, for a moment. You can go on Sunset Boulevard and rent a Ferrari for 30 minutes if you want to, you know, for a hundred bucks.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  Experience the feeling, right? Get around the feeling.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  So good.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  I love this quote that said, "The universe wants us to have everything and to live a full life. It's not a battle. People haven't stopped to think about what they want because they think they can have it." And this manifestation is about releasing the need to control the how. How is this gonna happen? How I'm gonna make this? How is this gonna be done by the time I want it? You may know the direction, but you don't always know the route. And sometimes the route that actually gets you there looks nothing like what you thought should be doing yourself. It's not the exact path that you wanted, but it still gets you there.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  And sometimes what you're asking for, it doesn't arrive at all, or not as exactly how you requested it. It arrives as a conversation you almost didn't take. It arrives as a location that you almost didn't go to, an event that you were gonna say no to, and you went last minute. And then boom, the person you needed to meet, the thing you needed to hear, the sign that you needed to see. Oh, man, it just came to you. And it reminds you to keep going.

• 57:30Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like as an invitation, you almost said no to. I know you've experienced this. If you're here so far in this episode, this means it's resonating with you. Like this has happened for you before, and this is a reminder for you. It might be, it might have shown up in your life as like a delay. Like you had to wait in line longer, you missed the bus and you were delayed, or that flight got canceled. And you're like, oh, why did this happen to me? But it forces you to slow down. And something else comes your way. That's another sign. Could be a redirection that takes you off your plan and on to a better one. But you only notice these moments when you're open, when you're not clinging and putting the weight of the world

• 58:14Lewis Howes?

  or the responsibilities on your back constantly and feeling stressed and just keeping your head down. It's like, when you're not clinging to how it's supposed to happen, things will start to unfold. When you're willing to say, this may not be what I planned for, but let me pay attention to what it's trying to show me. Receiving requires humility. It requires a letting go, a surrender. And that's hard to do. It's not, it's not enjoyable to say, I surrender. Just show me the way. It's not easy. It requires you to let go of the identity that says, I have to do this all by myself. And it requires you to trust that support doesn't diminish you. It expands you.

• 58:57Lewis Howes?

  So this manifestation is not about waiting. It's about awareness. It's about staying present to what life is offering, not just about what you are chasing. So say this with an open heart. Today, I am open to receive what is meant for me. And beautiful things come my way. Even if it doesn't look like what I thought I wanted, beautiful things come my way. Even if it requires me to change direction, beautiful things come my way. Even if it comes through other people, beautiful things come my way. These are not just words we're talking about here. These are daily practices. This is a way of being.

• 59:41Lewis Howes?

  These are daily reminders of who you're becoming. I want you to say them. I want you to feel them. I want you to live them. Because when your words, your beliefs and your actions match and align, your life will expand in beautiful ways. Your life will change. You will evolve. One day, one decision, one manifestation at a time. If you've enjoyed this, please like it up. Leave a comment of what resonated for you. Because I believe that you're deserving and worthy of a beautiful, rich, abundant life. One of peace, one of harmony, one of powerful, beautiful relationships,

• 1:00:25Lewis Howes?

  one that brings you a lot of joy. But you've got to get in alignment with yourself first. You've got to start acting upon these five manifestations. I believe you're worthy and deserving of a beautiful, rich life. But you've got to be willing to act upon these five manifestations on a consistent basis. And we're all going to go off track at times. No one's perfect here. I'm not asking you to be perfect. But I am asking you to practice these things daily to the best of your ability. And watch what unfolds. Watch what unfolds in the next few days. If you say these five things just for three days in a row, I want you to see how you act differently, how your energy shifts, how things start to come your way,

• 1:01:08Lewis Howes?

  how synchronicities, signs, conversations lead you into the path that you desire. And again, I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are worthy, you are loved, and you matter. 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.

• 1:01:52Lewis Howes?

  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 there and do something great.