How To Build An Indestructible Mindset That Will Allow You To Achieve Anything

Get my new book Make Money Easy here! Join me for a powerful masterclass on developing a strong mindset with two exceptional guests. First, legendary athletic trainer Tim Grover breaks down what most people misunderstand about success, sharing insights from working with elite athletes like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Then, Harvard professor Amy Cuddy reveals the science behind body language and confidence, including how small changes in posture can dramatically impact our mindset. Finally, behavioral scientist Katy Milkman explains how to overcome procrastination and harness "fresh start" moments for lasting change. Get ready for game-changing wisdom on building unstoppable confidence and achieving your goals. In this episode you will learn:Why the steps to success are infinite and constantly shifting - and how embracing this reality leads to breakthrough growthHow to transform self-doubt into productive action by focusing on proving yourself right rather than proving others wrongThe science behind power posing and why expanding your body language can boost confidence in high-pressure situationsWhy surrounding yourself with the right community of supporters is crucial for building lasting self-beliefHow to leverage "fresh start" moments like Mondays, birthdays, and new years to catalyze positive changeFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1715For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Tim Grover – greatness.lnk.to/1111SCAmy Cuddy – greatness.lnk.to/1198SCKaty Milkman – greatness.lnk.to/1151SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:18Lewis Howes?

  What do most people misunderstand about success in general? You're around the most successful people, you train them, what do people misunderstand about success?

• 0:29Speaker 01

  I think the thing that people misunderstand about success is they're looking for the easiest way to get there, you know? And it's funny, how many people

• 0:44Speaker 01

  books have you read, or I won't say promoted, but had on your show, and everybody goes "Five Easy Steps", "Ten Steps to Greatness", you know, "Eight Steps to This",

• 0:58Speaker 01

  and those steps for success, they're infinite. They are infinite. You cannot count them. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it, those steps are constantly shifting. You don't know if they're there. Sometimes you have to trust that the next step is gonna be there when you can't even see it. And sometimes when you step on that step, you go right into quicksand. But you gotta be able to pull yourself back out of it again. So everybody's looking for these steps, and there are no steps. Those steps never, never end. And you just can't climb steps. Sometimes you gotta crawl though, those steps, and you finally get to the top, and everything shifts, and you're at the bottom again.

• 1:41Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. What does that mean? Sometimes you're at the top, and then you're at the bottom again?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Well, you may get to the top, and you're like, "I'm here",

• 1:51Speaker 01

  And then you look back down and you look up again, you're actually on the first step. You're on the first step again. And where you thought was the top is not even the top, it's the beginning. It's literally the beginning of where you're supposed to be. And that's when most people just quit. I just like, it just drives me crazy because everybody's like, here, look at, I always, people that I do the interview with, I always like to use them as an example because people can relate to that. Alright. You've been climbing steps for how long to get to here? To get to?

• 2:27Lewis Howes?

  I mean, since starting this, it's been over eight years, but the journey before then, it was, you know, decades to build myself, to prepare myself for this, and now I feel like I'm just getting started.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Right, exactly, so you have just, right, exactly. So, all the steps that you climbed just to get started.

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Just to get started. And people don't want to talk about those steps. They don't want to talk about those steps and how difficult those steps are, and how many steps that you stumbled on, and how many steps you didn't even see, and how many steps that people placed in front of you and they pulled them, and they pulled them off, pulled away. People that you were very close to, people that you knew.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  That people that you thought that were like, hey, these people actually have my back, except, yeah, they did have your back, but they were actually pushing you down the steps.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  For stabbing you.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yes. No? And it's funny when you talk about those things, when people talk about it, they seem surprised. But you should know that in that path, all those things are going to be there. They're going to be there.

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's the obstacles, you know, Ryan Holiday says, "The obstacle is the way." Uh, do you think that anyone can become a winner? Your book is about winning, "The Unforgiving Race to Greatness." Um, do you think anyone can become a winner?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Winning isn't all of us. That's what I always say, listen, and we have wins every single moment. And those are the steps that get us a little closer to what we want. We have a step, we, every minute, you have an opportunity to win, you really do. But with everything that's went on in the world in this past year, people forgot how to win. People don't even know what a win looks like anymore.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  What does it look like?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, people don't even know like, wha- wha- And so many times a wind just comes by because there's a constant change, there's a constant shift. And now with the paradigm of way everything is being handled now, you have to look at things completely different. Everybody's waiting for normal. A wind, a wind doesn't look like what it used to look like anymore. Right. Alright. What does it look like now? What does it look like now? For each individual, it's different. For each individual, it's different. For a lot of individuals, it's just like, getting out of that routine that you were stuck in for so long. And did the pandemic allow you to say, you know what?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in a routine, but the routine wasn't getting me anywhere. I was in a routine of comfort. And the pandemic put a lot of people in a routine that was very uncomfortable, that they weren't used to. They weren't, but it was a necessity. It was needed. You know, people always wish for this time during this thing that happened, I want to spend more time with my family. And now they have it. Now you have it. Okay? Schools aren't doing a good job with educating my kids.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Now you're homeschooling. Alright, I'd love to work from the house. Now you're doing it. Now you're doing it. Now you have all these things going on that you wished you had, as you thought were wins, and for some people, they were. And for others, you're just like, no. These were not, these are not wins. These are... I do a lot of Zoom stuff at home. And I got a cat and I got a very lively dog and you'll see the cat run right across the screen. Unfortunately, I don't have little kids in the house anymore. But trying to work and have them in the background, asking for school help or, you know, they're on their bandwidth, trying to study in their school stuff. And...

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Winning became a distraction.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  It became a distraction. And people are trying to balance all these different things and forgot, hey, this is what my win is. That you need to recognize what that win is now. And during the pandemic, it's not getting back to normal. It's getting beyond normal. Figuring out what your next win is. How to place it and how to continue to move forward on that win.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Cause it's easy to talk about the setbacks. Because so many people can relate to that. That gave us a nice little comfort thing. Everybody can use the pandemic as an excuse.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Alright, and then you have other people that thrive during that time. They're like, I got, I gotta find out a new way to win.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  I gotta find out like a real, real new way to win. And you had some people that really, really won big during that time.

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. They stepped up.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  They, they stepped up, yes. They stepped up, they saw the steps. And I was like, okay.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Are these steps stable? Are they unstable? It doesn't matter. I gotta climb them.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I gotta climb them.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  So how do we learn how to not let the doubt stay in us? How do we remove it? How do we get out? How do we turn doubt into fear and action towards greatness?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Continue, continue to work

• 7:36Speaker 01

  like a maniacal individual

• 7:41Speaker 01

  on what you want.

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  Is that the only way to get rid of doubt, you think? Is by working, obsessing over something and proving something so you don't doubt?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Prove it to yourself. We have so many other individuals that are trying to prove it to, to prove it to everybody, everybody else. Don't worry about proving it to everybody else. Prove it to yourself.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  And here's what I'll say around that. I think that's beautifully said because most of my life, until I was about 30, I was living to prove others wrong.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  And it was the second most powerful fuel and energy that I think humans have is like, I'm angry, I'm hurt, I'm frustrated. I'm gonna go prove these people wrong about me. And it drove me to be obsessed around winning, around achieving, around accomplishing my goals. And I did, I accomplished them. But it left me feeling very unfulfilled, lonely, insecure.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  Doubting myself even more. Why am I not feeling what I want to feel? Why am I not still getting what I want inside? Because I was driven by the wrong things to prove other people doubting me wrong. And you hear that a lot by like, people will say, prove them wrong. But I think it's prove yourself right.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Prove yourself right.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  And like you said, I love that you're saying this because you'll prove others wrong by proving yourself right. So you don't need to go prove them wrong, just do your best.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  You, you just gave an example.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  You're, you're one of your closest friends.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Man, that's a terrible name. That's a terrible name. All right? Prove yourself right.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't prove him wrong.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  Say, okay, I'm gonna go do this for me, whether you like it or not.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Right, and the best validation is when they come back to you.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  I was wrong.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I was wrong. That's the best, that's the best validation.

• 9:24Lewis Howes?

  You don't need to say, I told you so. You just say, I told myself so.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  It's a, it's a shift in it.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Right, and that person, what did they try to do? They tried to create self doubt in you. And if you would have, this would have been called.

• 9:39Lewis Howes?

  School of average.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, yes, normalcy.

• 9:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever it would be.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Whatever it been.

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  So when doubt creeps in and we start to believe the doubt, go back into proving yourself right. Go back into obsessing over the craft, doing it for the right reasons, not to prove others wrong, not to look good in front of a crowd or whatever, but doing it because you love the art of it, the expression of it, the creation of it, the vision of the thing you want to work on, not to validate something that's lacking, right?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  It, it, you, it's perfect. You look at when Kobe, his first playoff series.

• 10:20Lewis Howes?

  How old was he, do you remember, in his first one?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  It was early in his career. I think he was like 18. Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about before he won the finals. This was on the playoffs, in the playoffs, in the playoffs. I think he had this.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  No Shaq, pre Shaq.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had this horrible game against, I think, I think it might have been the Utah Jazz. I can't, well, he shot like four or five straight airballs.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  I remember that, yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Four or five straight airballs. All right? Now, he could have came back next year and said, I gotta prove everybody that's, man, you're too young, why'd you take? No, he was just like, you know what? That's on me. I have to own, I have to own that, I have to own that moment. I owned that moment. Now, I gotta prove to myself. I can overcome this because now everybody else is doubting me.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  But I can't doubt myself. I can't doubt my, I can't doubt myself and everybody's had that moment. Everybody told MJ, don't go to North Carolina, you'll never play. You'll never play. And one of the stories I share with individuals is Dean Smith, who was a coach at, uh, coach at the time. He introduced, uh.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Michael, he said, Michael, I want you to meet. I think I got the name right, I, I, I'm pretty sure he thinks I want you to meet Buzz Peterson. Buzz Peterson is a number, was a number one. Recruited player in the nation.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  To go to North Carolina.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  To go, to go, yeah, like the number one, anywhere. He was a number, number, number one, number one player in the nation. And Michael goes to Dean and says, how could he be number one, he ain't never played me.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  He said, how, how Dean saw something, he saw that competitive nature in, in, in MJ. And he wanted to see now if I tell him that, is that, is that kid gonna start doubting himself? Cause everybody else has already told him, you shouldn't be here.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  You shouldn't be here.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  And Michael went out and he said. I don't need to prove to coach. I don't need to prove. To Buzz, I need to prove to myself that I belong here.

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Did they end up competing? Did they do one on one?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, ended up, yeah, and it didn't turn out well.

• 12:35Lewis Howes?

  For the other guy?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the other guy, yeah. And, and. Coach Smith made them roommates.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh wow, that's hilarious. Speaking of one on one, uh. How many times did you get to play one on one against MJ or Kobe?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Often, it never turned out well.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever score a point against either of them?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yes. I did.

• 12:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  And it was the last point I ever scored.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  What was that like? Where was the moment?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  It was during it, it was during, well, see, it was, it was kinda like a setup. It was, it was, it was a setup. So it was, um. It was play, uh. Michael and I were kinda messing, messing around and we had just, he's just finished.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  A grueling leg workout.

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  He's like, can't even walk.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Grueling leg workout.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  So you get him when he's at his lowest moment?

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yes, oh yeah. And he's up there and he's, you know, we go up there to get loosen, loosen up a little bit and he's just like, he's shooting, he goes, man, I can't even, I can't even feel, I can't even feel my, I can't even feel my legs. I said, I got a great idea to kind of loosen you up a little bit. I said, let's play a little one on one. He thinks I'm just, yeah, he goes, I pass him, I just go right around him and then I score and he's, oh, big mistake, big mistake. You saw literally the lactic acid just flush out of his body in that second. And, and he goes, all right, motherfucker.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  That was the last point?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  That was, last time I touched the ball.

• 14:04Lewis Howes?

  Really? He wouldn't even let you play with it anymore?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I, well, I couldn't, I couldn't.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  You couldn't get the ball back?

• 14:09Speaker 01

  I couldn't get the ball back. I couldn't get the, I would get the ball back after he scored in the basket and I pass it back to him, but that, that.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  Or you got the ball and he was just swatted away.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it was just like, I couldn't get around him. I mean, when you're a professional at something, people don't realize how good.

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Those individuals are. I love the people that sit on the sidelines and all this other stuff and they doubt, they doubt how talented those individuals are. And I always tell them in any sport, I say, listen, you give me the, who you think are the five worst.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  In the league, yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  In the league. Pick, I don't care who that, any of them.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  They will dominate.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Anyone. You get your top five, they will literally dominate. Doubt can become an addiction, just like anything, just like anything else.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  Just like winning.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yes. So what do people say the first thing when you become an addict? You gotta talk about it. You gotta admit it.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Speak the poison out of your body.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:17Lewis Howes?

  Like, get it out, talk about it, it becomes less scary, it doesn't have as much power over you.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:22Lewis Howes?

  If it's inside.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Get it, get it, get it out. What do you, because what I might think you're doubting may be completely different than something that you're doubting. All right. I may see something and you're like, no, that, that, that's, that's, that's not it. Well, okay, let's, let's, let's talk about, let's talk about this a little more. Explain to me, explain to me what, what's going on here. What, what created that doubt?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  What created that doubt? And we know after seven years, those, it had finally gotten to the point where it was just like, and no one talked to him, because he, you know, Kobe wasn't gonna talk to anybody about it. He's never gonna talk to the media about it. He should talk to some individual that's like, hey, okay, listen, I understand. I'm as obsessed and as crazy as you are, because that's why you hired me.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Right? That's why you hired me. I understand the winning mentality. I understand what's going on in the head. I understand the skeletons. I understand the demons. I get those things. Mine aren't the same as yours, but I have them. We all have them, and very few can omit them. So when you start omitting doubt, and you start to be able to talk about it, you take something that you've tried to bury in your closet

• 16:39Speaker 01

  that needs to be addressed, but you're trying to hide it. You're trying to bury it. You're trying to put it away. And winning requires you to show up with all of you. It wants to show up the good, the bad, the fearful, the doubt, the anxiety, the ups, the downs. It needs to see all of you.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Otherwise, it's never gonna acknowledge you. It's not gonna acknowledge you. And you can't win with just one thing. You have to win with all of you.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  All of it.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  All of it.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  What was the greatest, three greatest lessons that Kobe taught you? We heard competing accountability and winning at all levels. For Michael, what about Kobe? The three big lessons he taught you?

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Obsession.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Extremely high threshold for physical and mental pain.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Discomfort.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  And also. Winning. They all had that in common.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  The winning mindset, the winning.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  The winning, yes, what he called it the mama mentality.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  What is, what is, what is the mindset of winning? They both had that. Obviously, they both had a lot of things, but what is the mindset of winning? When someone adopts that mentality, what does that do for them? As opposed to the mindset of? Well, whatever, whatever result I get is fine, or it's okay if I have this and I'm okay with that.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  So I look at it, I look at it three ways. So you have individuals. That compete. You know, a lot of people that compete.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  You know, every, we all know how to compete. Everybody knows how to, how to compete. You don't forget how to compete. We just decide not to anymore. But a lot of people compete just to finish. Then there's individuals that win. But they only win one time.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the hardest thing is doing it over and over. It's, it's easy, it's not easy to win.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  But it's easy to, it's, it's, it's easy to win and then never win again. I mean, it's so hard to do it over and over consistently.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  And then there's people that win at winning.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  They win at winning.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  That is an art and a science probably combined.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yes, because here's how it goes. You can't come back the same.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  Once you win, you can't come back?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Can cannot come back the same. You have to come back different. You have to come back better. This is why I always says, listen. Winning requires you to be different and different scares people.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  It scares people. So after each championship. Every single athlete, high performance athlete that I've worked with, even in business, would come up to me and say. What's next? Because I need to feel this again. I need to feel this.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  The obsession.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yes, I need to feel this again. So they know they have to come back. Something about them has to be better.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  They have to change, continue to evolve and change.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  How many teams do you know in professional sports? That they bring the exact same team back? I mean, exact same team that win again. They don't, there's always a little change. There's always a little tweak here, there's a change over here. There's something, there's something that goes on over here. And every athlete who's won multiple titles over and over again, or even in different business people. You look at, you just had Tony here. Look, he's won for decades.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  For decades, he's been doing this.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  He's always reinventing, always finding new coaches, always mastering some skill, learning, evolving.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  It's just like, you just have to, just watch what these individuals do. Just wa, he's not still using the same format he used 20 years. Like you said, new coaches, new content, new things, new techno. New, new everything. And it's available to us. But people like, oh, we did it once and we can do it the exact same way again. You can't. You can't. You have, there's people that win at winning. And this is how, this is extremely important on how, on how they do this. You said, well, how, you know, how you make sure you just don't go through this. We're all taught to manage time. Everyone tells you how to manage time. You know, make a list, this is what you do and here, here it is.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  This is, you know, have a little timer when it goes on and all this other stuff. And one of the things that I've teach all my clients, from a business standpoint, from an athletic standpoint. I was like, listen, don't manage time. Manage focus.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, what does that look like?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Manage focus. So what happens is when you try to, when you try to manage time, the clock is always against you. You're trying to finish off something and time goes by so quickly. When you're in that moment, when you're so focused. When you're so focused, you don't know if you've been at it for thirty minutes or you've been at it for an hour.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or weeks.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Or weeks, you just go, you just go. Time creates distractions. Lily, time, if you're like managing time, you get all these distractions that are going there. What does focus do? It blocks them out.

• 22:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  So, don't worry about managing time. Manage your focus. Be in that moment when you're in that moment, and then you'll get so much more done during that time. All right? You know, time tells you to stop, all right? Focus tells you, keep going.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  I often ask people, what is your biggest challenge? Like, what is the situation that you approach with dread? And that you execute with anxiety? And that you leave with a sense of regret?

• 22:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  And so, if you look at all, so dread, that is you projecting yourself into a future that's not gone well. So, you're borrowing trouble, basically.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  You know, the anxiety in the moment is you thinking more about what the other person thinks of you than what they're actually just thinking. You know, you're worried about what you said a minute ago, or what's gonna happen afterwards. You're not able to be in the present. And then regret is, or what we call post-event processing. You're going over it, wanting a do-over, going, I didn't show, I wasn't seen, they didn't see who I am. You know that feeling, like, oh, they didn't see who I am? And you wanna go back in, and like, in a rom-com, you get to have a do-over.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  But in life, sometimes you don't.

• 23:23Lewis Howes?

  In life, sometimes you don't.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Right. So, that sense of regret becomes like a piece of baggage that you carry into the next similar situation, and...

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  And then you're worried, because you don't wanna, you don't wanna do the same thing.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  You put more pressure on yourself.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  What if we could, you know, approach with a sense of, you know, composure? And execute it with a kind of calm and grounded confidence?

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  And leave feeling satisfied, even if we don't get the outcome that we want. We know that we did everything we could to show up. They saw who I was, and it wasn't the right fit, or whatever.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  And I can accept that outcome. So you can both accept the outcome and not have that extra piece of baggage.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like people are going to be struggling with overcoming these fears more because of the internet and social media? Or how can they continue to navigate that fear of like the tribe in person, not just online?

• 24:18Speaker 02

  I don't even know where to begin. It's because there are also, first of all, like if I make any statement about where I stand on that,

• 24:28Speaker 02

  there will be a million people telling me I'm absolutely wrong.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  But that's like, and the truth is complicated, right? And in some ways, social media, like, so, you know, my son's on TikTok. And I can't believe the courage he has now to just put a video out there.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  And, you know, sometimes it goes and sometimes it doesn't. And he's not, he's fine if it doesn't, if it doesn't go, if it doesn't move. So I think that that's actually been really good for him. It's, he doesn't feel rejected. He just feels like, well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But I'm never gonna know if I don't put myself out there.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  So I think in some ways, young people have become more courageous at trying things. I mean, you know, yes, I would like them to spend less time on it. And I like that he's doing music, you know, he's like putting out, my kid's doing quality content.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  No, but, but I think that in some ways, it's actually given young people an opportunity to be brave.

• 25:30Lewis Howes?

  To express themselves in certain ways.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And to sort of, to be rejected and see that they've survived, right?

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  But rejection, the rejection that I'm talking about is a video, a TikTok video not going viral. It's not that it's, which is not the same as nasty comments, like being rejected and trolled. That's a different kind of rejection, right? And that's not good.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah. What about the, just the anxiety of? Putting yourself out there, whether it be going into a store and just interacting with people, whether it be going, giving a speech online, putting up, you know, something in human interaction in person and feeling embarrassed or rejected or made fun of.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn to overcome that anxiety or stress about it? Is it, is it as simple as just you gotta practice it and just know that you're alive?

• 26:20Speaker 02

  I hate to say something so simple, but yes, like I am, I, I am just not afraid to embarrass myself.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  And I, I have to sometimes like, hold on to that, like, because I think it's, I think it was really important for my son to see that, like, to me, modeling that was really important.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Not being embarrassed.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, being like, you know, making mistakes, being goofy, like doing something goofy in a grocery store.

• 26:53Lewis Howes?

  And being okay with it.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, another one is, is, it's being okay with like chatting with a stranger. And maybe they don't wanna chat and that's fine, then you move on, but like, why not try? Those, I think doing those things, first of all, I think it's great to model that for kids. But I also think it's good to do it just to see the, you've survived, you're fine.

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  No one cares. Exactly, no one even cares.

• 27:22Lewis Howes?

  And not remembering this for the rest of their life.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  You might've made somebody smile.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Right, so.

• 27:27Lewis Howes?

  I'm all about social, like, creating social challenges for yourself. Like if you're terrified.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Well, I think that's a good one. I mean, like, chat with someone on, on the train or, and I know it's hard right now.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Do something consistently.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, or like, ask someone, ask, you know, if you're, if you're, I don't know why grocery stores seem like places where lots of silly things can happen, you know, if, if someone's like checking out, checking you, what do you?

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  Checking you out?

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Checking you out, but that sounds funny, checking you out, you know what I mean? Checking out your groceries. And they, they are looking down and they, they seem, you know, grumpy.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Instead of deciding they're not friendly, consider the possibility that they're having a bad day. And literally like pause and say, how are you? You know, or like try to connect with them without being intrusive. Make eye contact with them, thank them, you know, make eye contact. Maybe they'll just be annoyed and not make eye contact back. But I feel like that kind of thing is really important to try. And those are things that are create sort of social benefits for others as well.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. This is something you've been studying for, I guess, decades now, which is just mastering confidence, body language, overcoming these challenges. What's been the biggest challenge for you in the last 10 years that you've had to overcome? Knowing the research and practicing these things and talking about these things yourself, what's been the challenge for you, whether career or personal or?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I think the challenge for me has been adjusting to,

• 29:06Speaker 02

  you know, being more well-known than the average academic, right? And actually, you know, leaving academia. You know, I still teach, but I'm not, you know, I'm not.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Full-time.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  No, you know, I teach in executive education at Harvard, but I'm not, I'm not a professor. You know, I'm a lecturer when I lecture. Leaving was hard.

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:29Speaker 02

  So, I mean, it was a big, it was a big leap to say, to leave that security. But it wasn't, it just was not the right world for me. But I think the biggest challenge really has been dealing with becoming higher, sort of having, becoming higher profile and the kind of backlash that I endured as a result of that.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  The criticism.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Which is not, yes, and well, yeah, I mean, criticism's fine, but bullying is not, you know? And I know that this is common, like this happens to, in fact, it happens to a lot of junior professors who give TED Talks.

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's funny, somebody just wrote to me yesterday. She has a popular TED Talk and she. You know, she said that at her university, people started calling her TED girl and like sort of talking down to her.

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

  Even though it was a popular, well-respected TED talk?

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Well, because it was popular, right? Like, it's like if it had been, if it had not really hit the radar, it would have been okay.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  Really? But because she had some success?

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so people had to sort of diminish her in a way, you know? And I experienced a lot of the same stuff. So what became hard for me was talking to colleagues, right? Like, standing up for myself. And you, you know, the truth is, we need to stand up for each other, right? When people are in an acute bullying situation, they really can't stand up for themselves. But I'm still figuring out how to engage with other people in academia who weren't necessarily bullies, but might have been bystanders, who didn't do anything. And, but, but to be able to say, I still deserve to be having this conversation, I

• 31:08Speaker 02

  deserve to have the beliefs that I have, I deserve to defend, you know, this massive area of research on body-mind feedback, of which, you know, like I contribute a tiny bit to. Just because these people don't like it, doesn't mean I can't, you know, say, well, here's why I do believe it. Here's, that's really hard for me.

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  That is the thing that I would approach with the most dread, I think.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Were you able to implement and integrate some of your own practices and teachings when those things happened to you? When you were getting, whether it be criticism or bullying, or, you know, any of the stuff you were facing? Were you able to actually integrate the body language for yourself?

• 31:50Speaker 02

  I mean, for me, the thing that works the best is, I mean, certainly, I, you know, I do, like, I walk expansively, like, you know, like, long strides before this kind of stressful thing. I do, I won't sit. Sit down with my hands in my lap.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Like even putting your hands behind your chair. Like this is.

• 32:10Lewis Howes?

  Kind of opens you up a little bit.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  But it forces you to open up, just doing that. But the thing that works the best for me is breathing. And I know there is so much on breath work now and I don't want to, you know, I'm not an expert. But the relaxation response that's triggered by certain breathing patterns is incredibly effective for me. And so basically it sends your nervous system into this rest and digest state, which is the opposite of fight, flee, or faint. And so the one that I like best is called four, seven, eight breathing. And we can do it right now.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  So basically for four counts, you inhale. For seven, you hold your breath. And for eight, you exhale.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  So I'm going to count and you do it.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Okay, four inhale.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Seven, hold it. Eight, exhale.

• 32:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  And you repeat that a few times?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Three times. Like, one time, you feel it.

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  It will put me to sleep at night. You know, if I'm relaxed, it makes me sleepy. But if I'm anxious, it calms me down. So that just, I mean, there's just so much research on the relaxation response and breathing. And but what I think is interesting about it is that that kind of breathing is expansive. Just like what I talk about, you know, like expansive posture. That's expansive. You're breathing deeply and slowly. You're taking up more temporal space. You're expanding your, you know, like your physical body more. And when we expand, we tend to feel more confident, more powerful, more calm.

• 33:54Lewis Howes?

  Should we always, not always, should we be frequently be in an expansive postural state? When we're, you know, kind of nine to five-ish out in the world doing our activities?

• 34:04Speaker 02

  What we should be in is having good neutral posture. So it's interesting, before stressful events, you know, that's when I say find a private space. I think I said in the TED Talk, find a bathroom stall.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Which I honestly think just like I thought of at the moment, but I can't tell you how many emails I get from people like, I was in a bathroom. You know, or like people who see somebody in a bathroom with their arms up in the air. Like, are you power posing?

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  I think Ted Lasso was saying she goes to the bathroom and does that, right?

• 34:35Speaker 02

  I know, I loved it so much. You can't imagine, like, I love that show and I had no idea.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  You had no idea it was coming.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  I was like sobbing, I was like, oh my god.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  What's so cool that you, Brene Brown and Essa Perel,

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  who have had both of them on as well, were all featured in there and I'm just like, that's amazing.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  I know, and I think all of us were absolutely beyond thrilled.

• 34:56Lewis Howes?

  Like, this is cool.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  I mean, to have that, and I know, I was telling Brene this, but the first time I saw that show, at the end of the first episode, I turned to my husband and I said, "I love Ted Lasso."

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  It's so good.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  And he goes, "That's because you are Ted Lasso."

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Well, I guess I had good self-esteem then." But I am Ted Lasso, and so are you.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Right, you are. It's funny, because Brene says that she's Roy Kent.

• 35:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  She's Roy Kent.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  You can see a little bit.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  But anyway, yeah, so before these stressful situations, the ones that you approach with dread, that's when you find some space and really make yourself big.

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  Expansive.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Like, whatever feels comfortable to you, expand, you know? In front of other people, it comes across as really aggressive and domineering and off-putting. But if you're in, you know, the privacy of your own bathroom stall, or office, or whatever, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to worry about cultural norms or, you know, putting people off. In our everyday lives, we spend so much time like this, you know, like with our phones. And that is really bad. At first, it's bad for us, just our posture, and it's creating this sort of fixed thoracic stoop. But, you know, physiotherapists used to only see in, like, elderly people.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  And now they're seeing it in, like, 15-year-old boys from, you know, gaming and things like that. And that's something, like, you can't just be like, "Oh, I'm gonna sit up straight." You have to, like, work that out.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  For years, working it out, yeah. And align your body, yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Totally. But, so, it's not only hurting our posture, but I believe that it is affecting our mood. And so, you know, even just set up your workspace so that you can be more expansive.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  But we neglect our body language when we're alone because it's language. And if we're alone, we're not talking to anyone.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  We're talking to ourselves, though.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  But we're talking to ourselves, right? So it's really important, I think, for us to be minding our posture. Also... There have been a couple of meta-analyses recently, which basically are just, you know, studies that look at all of the studies on the topic and come up with a sort of, an average effect size. Like, they say, yes, this is a real effect, and this is how big the effect is, right? So, studies that have looked at power, meta-analyses of power-posing studies, show really clearly that it affects the way we feel.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  By shrinking our body.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Shrinking versus expanding.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Affects the way, whether in a positive or...

• 37:34Speaker 02

  More expansive, more confident and powerful, psychologically, you know, shrinking, less powerful, less confident. But, what's interesting is that there are two meta-analyses. One of them shows that more of the effect is driven by the difference between neutral and expansive. The other one shows that more of the effect is driven by the difference between, you know, contractive and neutral. So, I'm not, we still, in short, there's evidence that both of those things matter. But certainly, neutral is better than contractive.

• 38:12Lewis Howes?

  Shrinking, yeah, yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  And it's probably, you know, even if you were doing a meditative breathing technique, if you're closing your body off and breathing, you're still probably limiting yourself.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  So, you can be breathing and trying to relax the nervous system, but you're closing your body off. It's hard to feel like more alive and confident and calm, I'm assuming, right?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's funny, I once, this woman wrote to me, she said, "I teach people public speaking, and I had this student who was really stressed out, this man, and so I got into power pose for a minute, and he said it made him feel worse."

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:48Speaker 02

  And she said, "But then, then I watched, we watched the video." She said, "I videotaped him, and we watched the video, and I was like, 'Were you breathing?'" He said, "No, I didn't breathe, I held my breath the whole time."

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh!

• 39:01Speaker 02

  He's like, "Well, that's all, not gonna work."

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're gonna pass out, you're gonna faint.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Been like completely still in this power pose and she, I mean, she was laughing about it, but yeah.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  How long, how long should we be in an expansive postural states for?

• 39:16Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny, I, I really emphasized two minutes in the TED Talk because that's what we had done in, in those first studies. Um, I, I think actually less is more. Like we've gone out to five minutes. I think that, I think that it just gets awkward. It's, it's, it's that silly, like you feel weird, but also like your body get, you get sort of stiff. So I, you know, I just think it's, I don't even think you have to be still. I think you can be moving in an expansive way. You know, I think there's, it's the whole, I, I sometimes wish that I hadn't called this power posing because it was so, it's such a sticky idea, right? It's got alliteration, it's like.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  Great branding.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly, but, but at the same time, people got fixed on, on like standing like Wonder Woman or in the victory pose and it's not, it's, being expansive is more expansive than, than this.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  You know, it's, it's in whatever way works for you.

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the tighter you are, the probably less likely you're perform relaxed.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  And, and football, training before games and in practices, they would always tell us to be loose. You know, to move our body, to be flexible, to be expansive, but in a loose state of mind and a loose body. Not like rigid or you can't catch the ball if you're like too tight. So it's how can you be expansive, confident and relaxed at the same time?

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  And practicing that in life with the power poses, I think is great.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  Until last, she did a great, she was like, ah, it was like a monster pose or something.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  I think she was like.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  She made this facial expression that I thought was great.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  She's a great actor as well.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  I wonder if that was like, so like, if they were like, just do a power pose and she made it up.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  She probably did.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  I just feel like.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  She was great. She was great. When, um, was there ever a time where you didn't implement this strategy and you realized, oh, I had, I couldn't, I should have done, I could have done better had I done this, but I just thought I'd had it figured out?

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Um, only, you know, it's, so I really love public speaking and I, it doesn't, it's like my favorite professional thing to do. It doesn't make me nervous.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  So. For me, I think a lot of people assume that speaking is the thing that makes everyone nervous. So for me, it's not, it's not that.

• 41:35Lewis Howes?

  What makes you nervous?

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Um, you know, interpersonal conflict, like one-on-one. Or I get nervous in like smaller groups. I don't.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it interesting, like five or 10 people?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yes. Talking to three people, I find much more stressful.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Than talking to, you know, 3,000 people. So I don't like to sit in a room for a long time before I'm gonna get up and talk to people. I don't wanna sit there in a cold room, these rooms are often cold. And you know, you're going like this and you're totally sort of stiff. And then you get up and you're like, ooh. So I've, I had that experience enough times to learn I need to be moving around. I need to be warm, not cold. And, and come in sort of, you know, right before I get up to present or to discuss. So yes, I've had the experience of being still and kind of, you know, hunched up for too long.

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  Final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  I think people might think of it as sort of about being the most, the sort of the best, the most competent. I think it's, it's a combination of being, yes, your most sort of effective self, but also your most generous self. So greatness has to combine those two qualities.

• 42:56Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for us to get started, once we know, okay, now it's time to make the change? But it's still hard to actually get started in doing that. What holds us back from that starting step?

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, our motivation to make change is actually, just like our motivation to do anything, by the way. Tends to be sort of, you know, it ebbs and flows. There are times when we are in a more reflective, action-oriented, change-oriented mode. And times when we're more pessimistic or just sort of going with the flow, because we're, you know, in the middle of things. And so actually, I've done some research on something I call the fresh start effect. This is with Heng Chen Dai, who's down the street at UCLA, my former student, and Jason Reese, senior fellow at Wharton. And what we have, have shown in our work is that there are certain moments. That feel like a new beginning in life.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Like when?

• 43:47Speaker 03

  So, one that you know about already.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  New Year's or?

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly, right? Like, you didn't need me to come here and tell you about any fancy science. You're like, yeah, I know about New Year's.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  Birthday, New Year's, yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are moments that feel like, like, okay, I'm turning a page.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  An anniversary, a graduation.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Move to a new community.

• 44:05Lewis Howes?

  A new job, a new city, yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  You got it. Those are all fresh start moments. Actually, there's trivial ones, too, but they can matter. Like, the start of a new week can feel like a fresh start.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  You sort of sit down, you go into work maybe for the first time in a couple of days. You feel fresh at your desk, ready to sit and think about what are my priorities in a way that you wouldn't in the middle of a week. Start of a new month, following celebration of certain holidays, particularly the kind that we associate with fresh starts. So those are all moments when we feel like we've opened a new chapter. And we have a couple of things that go on at those moments. One is that we feel like, okay, this is a moment when I want to step back and think big picture about things, because you recognize that there's that break point. You think actually about your life, like you're a character in a book. That the way we organize our memories and structure them, it's not linear completely. Instead, it's like, you know, the college years, you know, the years playing sports,

• 44:59Speaker 03

  the years, the years living in Boston, whatever they are. That's how you structure your memories. And that means there's actually implications for the way you live your life. Because when you get to one of those chapter breaks, that's when you do this big picture thinking.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  And you also tend to feel like your identity is shifting, right? So you like step into a new role as you, you know, I'm, I'm turning 40 in the year ahead. And that feels like a big break to me. Like, I will be in a different age category. When I became a professor, I vividly remember. Like, that was a huge shift in my identity. I felt like a different, okay, I have a different set of expectations and roles and ways I should sort of dress and talk. And that identity shift that can come, even if it's something as, as small as, you know, you're stepping into a new year and you feel like the new year, new you. You can look back and say, well, you know, last year, my old job, when I was a graduate student, I didn't manage to eat right. But that was the old me, and this is the new me.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  And so you feel this sense of optimism and disconnect from those past failures.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's easy to procrastinate or kind of feel lazy.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  Which is part of your process as well. It's easy to feel that when things are okay. When things are like good, but they're not like, it's not a big enough pain for you to be like, I need the motive, now I have motivation to make a change.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that.

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  Do we need a bigger pain? Or is it possible to create exponential change or transformation when things are okay or really good, in your thought?

• 46:25Speaker 03

  It's so interesting. You know, I do think that even when things are good, we can have these kinds of fresh start

• 46:32Lewis Howes?

  We gotcha.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  experiences that shape us in positive ways. I'll give you an example. I was, I had a phone call, I was driving here from Santa Barbara this morning. I had a phone call with a friend who just got tenure. And he is thinking big, his life is great.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  For those who don't know, what does that mean?

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, fair enough. Not everyone is part of my weird world.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Academic world, yes.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  Okay, so in academia, if you're a professor, this is like the be all and end all of your career. You're working really hard, you get your PhD, you get your assistant professor job, you work really hard, you write a bunch of papers, you teach a bunch of classes. And if your university says, you know, you're doing great, if you're good enough, they bestow upon you tenure, which means permanent job. Job security basically can't be fired unless you do something illegal. And they're saying like, you have now total academic freedom, we're no longer going to be evaluating you.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  We trust you.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  We trust you. And it's like this bizarre institution's created to help people take risks. But it is a big moment in the life of an academic when they get to that milestone. It's like, there's nowhere else to go, you've climbed to the top of the mountain. And so, it's really exciting. It often happens to people around their 40s, sort of like midlife, when you might already be having some introspection going on about like, why am I here? What's my purpose? So a lot of academics step back at that moment and think, what do I want to do now? What do I want to do next? I've been climbing and climbing to this point. And I was having this conversation with a friend on the, on the drive here, who had reached that point and was having that exact, okay, what's next? And wanted to talk about writing a book, since I'd written a book. And like, what is that?

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Like, he thinks that might be the next big adventure for him. But nothing is wrong, everything is right. It's just that he reached a moment, he reached an achievement, he, he got to the top of a mountain and looked around and realized, okay, I've climbed to my goal, and it's time to figure out what the next one is. And I think that can be a fresh start too, when it's positive.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Identity is something that is interesting to me. How important is the way we shape our own identity or view our identity in terms of? Where we are to where we will be. Like if we stay stuck in old identities, how do we shed identities? You know, how do we create a new identity even though we've never actually lived it? Will that help us get there? Can you share more just about identity in general on how it hurts us or helps us?

• 48:48Speaker 03

  It's a fantastic question. And I'm going to give you a somewhat, first I'm going to give you a somewhat frustrating answer. It frustrates me. I don't feel like academic research has wrapped its arms around identity the way I would like it to. Because I think it is unquestionably so important, right? The labels we put on ourselves obviously matter. But I feel like we don't know nearly as much as we should. It's one of the things I'm most interested to study.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  It's a nice book.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Moving, maybe, maybe. We know a little. One of the things I think is most relevant to the way I think about identity is mindset. Which is, it's different than identity, but a mindset can come with, or can be triggered by an identity. And one of the barriers we haven't talked about yet to change that I think is really important is whether you believe you can change. And identity and mindset are a big part of that. So we know a lot about mindset from work, for instance, by Carol Dweck at Stanford, who's done this incredible-

• 49:45Lewis Howes?

  Growth mindset versus fixed mindset.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Exactly. And that's sort of an identity, right? You identify with being someone who can grow, or you identify as someone who is X, right? Like, you know, I'm only this smart, I'm only this capable. So in a sense, there's an identity that comes with believing you can grow, or an identity that comes with believing you can't. There's also wonderful research on the placebo effect. And how that extends beyond just medicine, right? We know about it in medicine, that like, if you believe a sugar pill is going to make you healthier, you actually experience physiological benefits. But there's some really interesting research showing it's beyond, you know, we think of it in this medical context, and that's where it was first studied. Actually, I learned from a children's book.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Like Ben Franklin studied this, and I don't know if you know mesmerizing. That term comes from Dr. Mesmer, who was the original. Sort of charlatan in France who was giving people fake medicine.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Anyway, and Ben Franklin figured it all out.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  Sounds like a Freakin' Amish show.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  It does. It was like, and it's also a wonderful children's book.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  I wish I'd known that before I wrote my book, it would have been in there. Anyway, there's a lot more, though, than just the medical component to placebo effects. Right? When we believe that we will achieve something that also can improve our achievement, right? When we believe we're going to get an outcome. One of my favorite studies that I describe in the book that I think is sort of related to mindset and identity is work by Ali Crumb, who's a psychologist at Stanford. She did this really interesting work with Ellen Langer of Harvard where they randomly assigned housekeepers to one of two groups, and those housekeepers were either told every day when you go and do your job in a hotel, you are getting exercise at the level that's recommended by the CDC. So you're getting a great workout when you do your job.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  You're burning a thousand calories, or you're getting whatever, like you're...

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Right. I don't know if a thousand calories is the definition.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  You're getting a great workout.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Oh, good workout, yeah. Maybe it's more like 300.

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay, okay.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  Just not to get too overboard. And then another group just wasn't told that information. And the question actually was, are there differences in the outcomes those two groups experience a month later in terms of health? So does a group that believes they're, you know, doing a job that comes with health benefits actually end up losing more weight, having more controlled blood pressure? And the answer was yes.

• 52:04Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:05Speaker 03

  Which is, you know, on the one hand, you're like, is that magic? Like, what's going on? On the other hand, you can start to see how it actually would play out and how this would be applicable in other settings. So they believed their job could give them a workout. And all of a sudden, maybe they're choosing to take the stairs from floor to floor to get those extra calories, or like leaning a little bit more when they're, you know, using the vacuum.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  I live in a townhouse in Philadelphia, and someone pointed out to me, like, it's so great that you live in a townhouse, all that passive exercise when you run up and down the stairs. And now I am the one volunteering to, like, you know, go grab the ketchup that we forgot if we're going to have dinner on a roof deck. That's exciting. I can get extra exercise. So there's like different choices that you make once you start to have a different set of beliefs about your, you know, what you're achieving. So anyway, I think of this as related. To identity because if you're now you're starting to have the identity is I am someone doing a career that's physically active and now you lean into that and then you experience the benefits. So I think I think the work on mindset is the the best work I have seen that's really rigorous and that relates to identity.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  So if belief supports you getting those results you want or making the transformation or the change you want, how would you suggest that we learn to believe in ourselves more from a scientific point of view? Like, what's the data suggest on, OK, if you say these affirmations, if you look in the mirror and do this exercise, if you just smile at people and you create more reflection of of joy, like, what is the thing that you've seen in data that helps increase belief in oneself?

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think the most powerful thing is who you surround yourself with.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 53:44Speaker 03

  So I think the social context you create, the people around you have so much to do with whether or not you believe in yourself. And by the way, I also want to I want to add like a really quick footnote because the academic in me can't stand not to, which is to say, you can you can have excessive confidence and that can be harmful. So this is a little bit of a dangerous like seesaw we're on here, right? You want to be confident enough and believe in yourself enough that you're going to lean into the opportunities and, you know, work towards the goals that because you believe you could achieve them. But if you're like, I've got this, I'm perfect, you're not going to practice, you're not going to work hard. So there is anyway, it's a it's a little bit of a delicate balance. But back to how do you get to that right level of belief?

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Everything I know from research points to the structure of, you know, the people you surround yourselves with, whether it's the people you work with, the people you train with, if you're an athlete, the people you socialize with, they give you a lot of those beliefs in yourself. And you you can choose them.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  But they, they will, with the messages they send you about what's acceptable behavior, what's normal, what they're achieving and how you measure up, it, it shapes so much about our confidence.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Really? There seems to be, I, I think this is true, and I also love the examples of some of the great athletes who have accomplished so much that were doubted over and over, growing up, and kind of have this chip on their shoulder, like, no one believed in them, and they said, "I'm gonna go prove them wrong," type of mentality, which I think can get you extremely far in terms of success and results, but never feeling this fulfillment inside.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  You'd never choose that, right? So I think what you're pointing to is like, it's not a necessary condition.

• 55:34Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's not the best environment.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  It's not the only, yeah, yeah, there are people who can thrive without it, but if you get to choose, and if you want to create an environment where you're gonna believe in yourself.

• 55:43Lewis Howes?

  So you think surrounding yourself with the right people, the right environment of people, the right community, what, what should those people be like? You know, what should their attitude, their energy, their communication style be like with you? If people were reflecting on their five to 10 people in their inner circle, what should they reflect on? They should have these qualities, they should say these things, or, or here's some red flags. If your best friend tells you you shouldn't do this, or your best friend says, "Ah, I don't think you look good doing it," whatever it is, what are those flags and what are those, I guess, positive signs?

• 56:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, okay, here, here, let me pivot a little bit to another, we're doing a lot of academic stuff.

• 56:23Lewis Howes?

  I like it.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  I'm an academic. I'm actually gonna tell you a story about a person in academia who was the most important person in my career, and that's my, my dissertation advisor, who, his name's Max Bazerman, he's a Harvard Business School professor, great human being, but, and a great academic. What he's truly exceptional at is mentoring.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  His PhD students have gone on to be tenured professors. Now, everyone knows what tenure is. At every elite institution in the world.

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  So he's good at instilling belief in other people.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Unbelievably good.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Confidence, belief.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Unbelievably good. And he does all the other things that you need to do to help someone succeed, right? Like, you know, good coaches.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 57:00Speaker 03

  Right, you know, he, you know, the training, like, the actual teaching of skills. All those things are part of it. But I think he creates an environment for people to thrive. And it actually took me a while after I had graduated as one of his advisees. And I was trying to advise my own students and figure out what was the secret sauce that made him so wildly more successful as a coach and mentor than anyone else in our field had really, I mean, stratospherically more successful. And what I realized is, he had all the obvious stuff, all those obvious ingredients, like, you know, you know, responsive and

• 57:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  knew his stuff and gives you, gives you feedback. But, but there was a, an unshaking belief. Like, he treated you like family. He was there for you. He believed that you could do it. He always was giving that positive reinforcement. Another thing that he did that I think is so interesting and related to research is he sort of created, I'll call it like mentoring circles within the students he was coaching. So that we were not always just being coached or mentored and advised by him. Right, but he would put us in the position to advise more junior students.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Smart.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  So, there's this wonderful research that I write about in the book by Lauren Eskras Winkler, who's a professor at the Kellogg School at Northwestern. And she had this amazing insight when she was doing research for her dissertation. She noticed that, she was interviewing all these people who were struggling to achieve their goals. And as she asked them what they thought might help them achieve more, because that's what she was interested in, how do we increase achievement? They all had these really deep insights, you know, struggling salespeople and C students. When she got them to introspect, they actually knew a lot. They maybe just hadn't gotten there and no one had asked them. They also really liked being asked, like, what's your advice? How would you coach someone who was in your shoes? And she realized, most of the time when someone is struggling or when we're coaching

• 58:53Speaker 03

  someone, our instinct, even if it's unsolicited, is to just whip out some advice. Like, here are the seven things that I think will help you get further. And it can be really demotivating, because it conveys, like, I think you're kind of... You haven't gotten your stuff together.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  You don't have the answers.

• 59:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna give you the answers. And that's our instinct. And she thought, what if we flipped the script? What if instead of putting our arm around someone and giving them advice, we said...

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  What would you do?

• 59:20Speaker 03

  What would you do? And actually, literally...

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  How would you coach someone else?

• 59:23Speaker 03

  And not even just how would you actually have them coach someone else? Like, put you in the role of a mentor and coach to someone else who has similar goals so that you feel like you're on a pedestal. Wow, someone trusts me to give this kind of advice. I must, you know, be kind of cut out for this. Maybe I'm better at this than I thought. And then you're gonna start introspecting in a way you might not if it was just your problem. Because you've got to help someone else. And you don't want to let them down. And then when you do that, you actually figure out, well, I've got some good ideas. And like, maybe I do know something. And then, once you've told someone else to do it, you're gonna feel like a hypocrite if you don't do it yourself.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  So this is another sort of social trick. Max would put us in these sort of advice-giving circles where the senior students are working with the junior. And he rarely gave advice, actually.

• 1:00:08Lewis Howes?

  He more facilitated the experience for you to learn and create the answer within yourself, I guess. By helping others.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Exactly. By helping others. And he's nudging along the way. And then, like, good job, or like, maybe a little redirection. And if you go to him and you're like, I need to know how to do X, he tells you. But there wasn't a lot of backseat driving.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  If that makes sense. And I think that also helped build confidence. It made us believe in ourselves in those roles. And I now actually have an advice club of people who are former Max students. Maybe no accident. We sort of try to keep this going even beyond that point in our lives where he was coaching us. And each of us were at similar career stages, all professors, similar goals. And we reach out to each other for solicited advice whenever we're facing a challenge, a career challenge, and aren't sure what to do. And it's just been totally amazing. So it's this peer group of people who support each other, care about each other, there's friendship, that's all built in.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  We see others achieving, and it helps us see, oh, if they can do it, I can do it. But then also, we get to give advice, and we grow from that as well.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are the top three or five things that a coach can do to instill belief in someone else that you witnessed from him or that you've also seen with your peer group?

• 1:01:35Speaker 03

  I think, I think a lot of positive feedback is super important. That that's like the predominant sense is that this person thinks I'm doing great, even if they're also telling me ways I can improve. Because you don't want to only, obviously, it's really important to also get, well, like, a little more like this. You need, you need that nudging, but it needs to be with a positive. Sometimes people call it a feedback sandwich, right? You like start with the positive, anyway.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  So I do think that positivity and like conveying they believe in you. I think creating a social structure for you, which is one of the things Max did. There was sort of a whole ecosystem of other students and, and supporters and, who were all striving towards similar goals. And instead of feeling like we're in competition with one another, it was very clear that we were all part of a team. Almost every email starts with, "Hi, team." Right, these are academics all vying for jobs and to sort of achieve. And you could see it being very cutthroat and competitive. We weren't on a team, right? We weren't playing for a team.

• 1:02:33Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  But we were a team. And that was how we saw ourselves. And then the structuring, you know, some, everybody structured to help others who are below, you know, below them. It's sort of part of your role is working with them. So those are a few of the key things. I'm not sure I've hit your number.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  Positive feedback, social structure, supporting the team.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, putting people in the role of advice givers or supporters and mentors.

• 1:02:56Lewis Howes?

  I think you, yeah, he's, he said, you said he believed in you. He treated you like family, mentoring circles, yeah.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, so maybe we have hit your, the number you asked for.

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  That's great, I love that.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Those were the keys.

• 1:03:10Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneymeasook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment, moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness.

• 1:03:56Lewis 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.

• 1:04:40Lewis Howes?

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