Stop Waiting for the Perfect Moment, It Never Comes | Kier Gaines

Licensed therapist Kier Gaines, author of “It All Starts When You Do: How To Do The Real Work Of Self Healing,” discusses anger, victimhood versus accountability, and identity formation rooted in his upbringing in Washington, D. C. The conversation references “Sapiens” and “The Mask of Masculinity,” alongside journaling as a therapeutic tool, survivor's guilt, and youth mentorship program experience.

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

• 0:02Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere I go, airports, events, walking down the street, people stop me and say, Louis, this show got me through one of the hardest seasons of my life. And it's one of the coolest things when people come up to me. So if you see me, please come up and say hi and let me know how this show, The School of Greatness, has impacted you. It lights me up because our mission at Greatness Media is to impact 100 million lives every single week. So if today's conversation hits home for you, do me a favor and push the follow button right now. It means that the next conversation will be delivered to you and will find you exactly when you need it. Again, thank you so much for being here and listening to The School of Greatness. Make sure to follow right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Everyone has a plan until emotions come and completely derail whatever you thought you were gonna do. We have a tendency to believe that it's the negative emotions that only hijack us. But it's the positive emotions that can hijack you.

• 0:59Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you were able to start letting go of the anger?

• 1:02Speaker 01

  I consciously realized that it wasn't helping me. It went from being my sword and my shield to being my anger.

• 1:07Lewis Howes?

  He's a licensed therapist and one of the most trusted voices on making mental health accessible. He's an author of a new book called It All Starts When You Do. The one and only Kier Gains. Why do you think so many people like to be a victim in their lives?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  The idea of self-victimization is the most salient and grabbable thought tool. When someone else does something to you, I think it's more obvious to the brain what happened.

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

  It's not your fault.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  It allows you to exonerate yourself from any wrong. Blame doesn't do that. Blame is a heat-seeking missile and it just needs to hit something.

• 1:44Lewis Howes?

  What is the biggest challenge that holds all people back from feeling more fulfilled and happy in your mind?

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Waiting.

• 1:51Lewis Howes?

  Waiting for what?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  That's the million-dollar question, waiting for what?

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  If someone is feeling stuck right now, watching or listening to this, you believe it's likely due to unconscious emotional hijacking? Oh, yeah. What, what does that actually mean?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  So you remember Mike Tyson had that quote?

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Where he says, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. Unconscious emotional hijacking is very similar.

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Everyone has a plan until emotions come and completely derail whatever you thought you were gonna do.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Your emotions.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Your emotions, absolutely, the things that you feel, either deeply or more topically. And we have a tendency to believe that it's the negative emotions that only hijack us. You, you wanna go in and you wanna be the best father that you can, but fear, insecurity hijack you. And instead of taking the kids to the park, you kind of sit on the couch and you just ruminate. But it's the positive emotions that can hijack you.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  Really? How so?

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So let's say, one example that I really like is,

• 2:55Speaker 01

  if Louis and I have a disagreement, you and I have a disagreement and I feel like you disrespected me, Louis. And I come in and I've been washing my dishes in my kitchen and I've been practicing all these things I wanna say to you. I'm gonna bring up how you've never been there for me and you weren't that good of a friend. I have all these, I've, I've developed this script that I wanna explain to you, to tell you how much you haven't been to me, to make you feel as hurt as you made me feel. And then when I come in, you're all smiles and you're all apologies and you completely disarm me. You disarming me doesn't mean that I don't still have conflict with you that doesn't need to be discussed. But the good feelings completely hijacked the plans that I've had. And now the situation is completely different and so is the strategy that I deployed.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  So that, that happens a lot to us and I think that there's a profound sense of guilt that is associated with deviating from whatever your game plan was because of the way that you feel. And the guilt is understandable, but a lot of the work that I do as a therapist is helping people navigate around the guilt. To still reach, to still resolve your conflicts, to still understand what the distress is between you and the other person. And so that you could still be whole, you could still explain yourself, you could still, move in a direction that brings you closer toward a sense of fulfillment or a sense of self-expression instead of just, you know, venturing off into the great blue yonder.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  And talking about the things that really need to be discussed.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  Of all the clients that you've worked with in the past and all the people that you either work with, directly or indirectly online, what is the biggest challenge that holds all people back from feeling more fulfilled and happy in your mind?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Waiting.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Waiting for what?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Good question. That's the million-dollar question, waiting for what? It depends on the person. I'm a fan, I see you got a football right there, you're like, y'all don't know, which, which one is my camera?

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  That one right there.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Okay, you all don't know, but Louis is like six foot eight.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  So you-

• 5:04Lewis Howes?

  Do I not look tall on, on, on social media?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Just sitting down, I can't tell. But, um, so you're a sports guy and sports guys know that you get good at the things that you practice. And a lot of the times we get really good at practicing waiting. We wait, we wait until we find the right kind of love in our lives, we wait until we feel ready, we wait until we feel inspired. And when you practice waiting and you become good at waiting, it gets harder to become unstuck from that pattern of-

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And the perfect moment, it rarely comes. You don't get a perfect moment, you only get the moment that's right in front of you. So when people come into my office or if I have a speaking event and I'm talking to people afterwards, that's one of the through lines, no matter where you're from, no matter how you identify, no matter what culture you hail from, it's waiting.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting you say that, like the perfect moment. Let's say you waited for the perfect moment. Like you did all the things, you got the degree, you got the website built before you launched, you got the, whatever, you got the courage, you put the right outfit on to go ask someone out, whatever it might be.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Most of the time, even if there was a perfect moment, when you did everything you were supposed to do to be ready for a perfect moment, people still don't take action when everything's perfect. It's like, like you said, there's no perfect moment. And if there was, you probably still wouldn't take action because you don't have the courage or the skillset of acting when things aren't perfect. So why would you wait years until something's perfect to act?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that internal readiness architecture, is how ready you are on the inside and your mind and your heart. But it's, it's two-part, there's another part to that too. You develop this idea of what perfect is supposed to look like. You've drawn up this idea and it's not based on anything concrete or anything you've seen.

• 6:58Lewis Howes?

  You've never experienced perfect, you've never experienced, so how do you know it when you see it?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. So if the moment was right on top of you right now, would you be able to recognize it? That's what's dangerous about it. What if this is the perfect moment?

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And instead of acting in it, like you promised yourself you would, you're still waiting for it to look like something else.

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  What are people afraid of most? Like, why are they so afraid to take action on whatever it is they wanna act on? What are they afraid of that they feel they need to wait for the perfect moment to act?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  I think action is irrefutable evidence sometimes. And it can be incredibly painful to be reminded that you were not ready for the thing that you prepared yourself for. It can reinforce the idea that perhaps I'm not worthy of this thing or perhaps this is something that I'm incapable of maintaining.

• 7:49Lewis Howes?

  Like if I acted and I failed or if it didn't work out?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:52Lewis Howes?

  Then it reinforces that I wasn't capable of it.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely, negativity bias can kick in. And if it reinforces that it's not just the failure that happened, it's the fact that the failure attaches a narrative onto how you think about yourself. And the failure goes from being experiential to a part of your identity.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  So break it down, what is the difference between being a failure experientially versus being a failure as someone of who you are in your identity?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good question. So a failure experientially is something that happened. Failure is an occurrence. It's, it is, um, it's an artifact of trying and maybe not meeting the mark. It happens. A failure, if you have that as something that's central to your identity, it's not what you do, it's not what you've performed, it's who you are. You can change what you do. It's very hard to change who you are. And the thing is, if you have that belief, beliefs are terrifying because a belief doesn't have to be true. And they can, you can hold on to a belief with, I mean, irrefutable evidence right there in your palm and you'll still hold on to it.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And you cannot be a failure and you can have so many wins and successes, but you won't internalize that reality because you spend so much time believing it.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Cause you don't, yeah, cause you believe you're a failure or you believe you're not a failure, right? It's like, so how important is how we, how we view our own identity towards our level of joy, success and fulfillment versus being a failure and being miserable?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's critically important because who you are is something that lives with you. Not just when you're sitting on a podcast that has an audience of millions. Who you are is something that is obvious to you in your quiet moments where you're alone, you're watching TV, where you're home with a book, when you're in the shower with your thoughts. And there's nobody around to judge or evaluate, it's just you. And your own eternal messaging, that negative eternal message can be one of the most difficult things to contend with. Because it's, it's always with you, it's almost unavoidable. And it's not always a voice in your head, it's not always words that you hear inside your mind, sometimes it's an impulse.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Sometimes it's just a flash, sometimes, I talk about this in the book, sometimes it's, just an inclination that you have. Or it could just be something that's reminiscent of what you've heard before. Maybe it sounds like a teacher scolding a child, scolding a student or a friend who's profoundly disappointed with someone that they love. But it's you talking to you. It's when people come into therapy. That's one of the things we try to unravel, Louis. Where that voice comes from, when is the first time you heard it? What story is it writing about not just who you are, but who you've been? Not just who you've been, but who you have the possibility to be in the future.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  You know, that type of internalized failure. When it comes to happiness or when it comes to just positive possibilities, it time travels. It doesn't just live in the present.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  How, how does it time travel?

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Well, it can make you obsess over the past, which is time that's already gone.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  This is the story that we're, we're thinking about?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yep, the story that the failure or the story that the negative self messaging attaches to your identity. It, it lives in the past where you ruminate on something that already happened.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  And you attach a meaning to that story or that event.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  Whether it's true or not true.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  You've made it true based on the belief of the story you've created. And so it goes to the past, but how does it go to the future?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  It goes to the future because you begin fortune telling. You begin trying to guess what's gonna happen next. Based on a compromised image that you have on yourself.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  And it's gonna make you either, if it's a negative story, it's gonna make you hesitate on things that could be opportunities for the future, right?

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'll make you hesitate on things that can be opportunities for the future. It can make you not really see the full scope of possibilities that are available to you. If you act now, it could convince you again to wait, to wait until things look perfect. It could just bring tremendous self doubt where you focus on what you're not capable of doing, what you're not capable of achieving, instead of realize, it, it doesn't allow you to ask what if. You know, I was talking to you before the show, I told you I grew up in a really, really rough neighborhood in DC. And I never ever thought that I would live to see 21 years old.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  No, never thought it, never thought it. I'm 40 now.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  You made it.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  I made it. And now my mind has to catch up to the idea of that. Because I spent so much time thinking that, oh, I'll never see 21, I'll never see 25. I never ever thought about the possibility, what if I, what if I live longer? What if I do see 40? What if I do see 50? What if I do see 60? The possibility, the positive possibility of what if, just doesn't materialize in your mind the same way.

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  Do you ever feel guilty that you made it out and so many people you grew up with didn't?

• 13:17Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Survivor's guilt is, is a real thing, but.

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  How does that feel and how does that impact you?

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Are you there positive? Is that what we doing right now?

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  You asked me to be curious.

• 13:30Lewis Howes?

  How does it make you?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Good question.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  How do you, how do you feel like it impacts your ability to have more joy, peace, hope and abundance versus the opposite?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  It gives me gratitude. It makes me feel the exceptionality of my reality.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  It makes me understand how impermanent things are. So I grasp on and I hold them a little tighter. Not holding on to them tight as if I'm hanging off the edge of a cliff, but hold them securely as if I'm holding a newborn baby. It makes me feel very lucky. It makes me realize that the work that I do isn't just laborious. It's, it's something that I get to do. It's something, I get to connect with people, I get to change people's minds. I get to use my, my skills and abilities to develop possibilities with our folks. Even my daughters, I have two daughters, I have a nine year old and a four year old.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  And kids, man, they are, they, they're not good at giving you receipts that you're a good parent sometimes. You know, they, they act up, they go against the things that you taught them. But when I see the kindness, uh, when I see where they live and how safe they feel and how different that is than the reality I experienced growing up. It brings everything home.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it gives me empathy for other people too, man. Gives me a lot of empathy for folks. There's so many kids from my neighborhood that probably could have been mathematicians or accountants or they, they could have had tremendous futures if the circumstances were different.

• 15:09Lewis Howes?

  If their environment was different or situation in their homes or what?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Everything, I think the environment shapes a lot. You take a perfectly healthy goldfish, put them in a dirty tank. It won't be a perfectly healthy goldfish for long, right? So that, that environment dictates a lot.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Something you've talked about in the book is, um, it argues that real obstacles isn't your environment or your past. It's a blindness to the truth about yourself. So what's the number one truth most people are avoiding then?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  The number one truth most people are avoiding? Well, in the book I talk about uncomfortable truths. I don't know if there's a number one truth, because people come with a myriad of different lived experiences and challenges. I'll tell you the truth that I, the uncomfortable truths that I encounter in therapy a lot. One of them is I can't change.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  People say that to you?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  I can't change.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  I can't change, it's too late for me to change. I've been doing this my whole life, I can't, I can't change now. So, well, define change. And oftentimes, we see change as this massive event that is earth shattering and life shifting. We don't see it as tiny adjustments. And our work together is typically helping you understand how little, how much little shifts matter. Even if the evidence isn't necessarily there, uh, you know, social media does the job of making things very grand. You know, the gestures are grand, the sentiments are grand, the introspection is grand. And I think excuse our thinking.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Little changes, what's, what's the first thing you do in the first 10, 15 minutes of waking up? Are you action oriented or are you awareness oriented? One of the things that I offer up to clients is just to sit on the side of your bed and notice things. What do you notice? What do you feel? Are you experiencing your body fully? Can you feel the softness of the cushion under you? Can you feel the insole inside your shoe and how melancy it is? Can you feel your fingertips?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Are you sitting in silence? Is the silence forced? How much silence do you have until you have to jump into your day? When you jump into your day, what are you jumping into? Is it work? Is it family? How tight is your schedule? These things we do, we're just on autopilot and we're, we're managing them as they come. And we don't really get a chance to respond. We're just reacting the entire time. Just a few days ago, I was sitting in a cafe and I was eating, I was eating a salad. And Louis, I was eating a salad like Garfield the cat. You know how he just shells food in his mouth, he barely chews. And I had to remind myself, hey, what you doing, marriage slaughter?

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  What are you rushing for?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, what are you rushing for? Where's it going? I'm walking down the street and I'm just going and, and rushing to go somewhere that doesn't have a timetable on it. Hey, man, where you going? Look, just notice the tree right there with the flowers on it. What color are the flowers? Can you sit there and just look at it, not judge it, not evaluate it, but just notice it for two or three minutes? There was a point in my life where I feel like I couldn't change. I feel like I had to be on go. Everything has to be an accomplishment or everything has to be building. I, I have to continue to grow. Like, no, sometimes the name of the game is just sustaining. Name of the game is just surviving. The name of the game is just noticing the environment that's around you.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. In the book, I saw that you're pushing back on a culture.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  Or it looks like and it feels like a lot of people blame their challenges on their circumstances, right? A lot of people blame their challenges on their circumstances. But what you made, um, what you talk about a lot is around, you know, the problem is not always your circumstances, it's more how you show up in the circumstances. I believe that's part of what the things you're talking about. Why do you think so many people?

• 19:21Lewis Howes?

  Like to be a victim in their lives. It's and and really think that it's everything else around them is why they're in their current situation.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  You know, I don't think I will phrase it like that. I don't think I will phrase it is why they like to be a victim in their lives.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Or where they choose to be a victim or say they're a victim or.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say sometimes the idea of self victimization is the most salient and grabbable thought to them.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  It's because it's it's very, when someone else does something to you, I think it's more obvious to the brain what happened.

• 19:59Lewis Howes?

  It's not your fault.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it allows you to step back and take yourself, it allows you to exonerate yourself from any wrongdoing. It allows you to, um, you know, in the book, I talk about fault versus responsibility. Uh, blaming versus accountability, how accountability says, hey, this right here is mine. This is mine right here. I did it. I contributed to it. It's not my fault all the way. But it doesn't matter because now it's my responsibility to handle and this is how I'm gonna do it. I wanna process everything that happened around me. I wanna allow my feelings to exist somewhere outside my head and this is mine. Blame doesn't do that. Blame is a heat-seeking missile and it just needs to hit something.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Um, and I think that the blame allows you to offload a great deal. Or as you characterize it, the victimization, it allows you to offload a great deal of the responsibility.

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  On to an event that's outside of yourself, but don't get that confused with not acknowledging the fact that you've been victimized. There's difference.

• 21:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  There's a difference between acknowledging that something bad happened to you that was completely out of your control. I think that's incredibly healthy versus holding victimization essential to your identity again.

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Where it's the launch point by which a lot of your thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  So what's the difference between acknowledging that you have been victimized? Versus acknowledging that you are still a victim long after the event happened?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Gotta be careful with that because it depends on what we're talking about. Let's just say it's something like, let's, let's give a specific example. Uh, let's.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  And more so using it as like the reason why you're not able to do something. The reason why I don't go into a relationship is because I got cheated on and I'm never gonna trust anyone again. The reason why I'm not gonna go apply for the job is because I got fired and wrongfully fired. So I'm never gonna do that again, or whatever it might be, you know, something where it's like, I was victimized, something happened that was, it shouldn't have happened. Whether it's true or not, like let's just say it shouldn't have happened. And then I hold on to that identity and it holds me back from taking responsibilities to go create what I want.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I like that contextualization. So I think the difference there is if you could, if you sit in that framing of it, it, uh, it gives you the opportunity to not have to challenge your longstanding beliefs. We do not like challenging our beliefs. There, there's just a, a very, it's like a warm blanket. It's comfortable, it's predictable, you know the ins and outs of it. And again, you don't have to take fault in it. You can completely offload that and say, no, that's all on you. You did that. I had nothing to do with it.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  But even if it keeps you from financial freedom and love and abundance and health, it's a blanket that keeps you in the familiar. Instead of putting yourself out there and trying something different.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  That's right, because if I put myself out there and I try something different.

• 23:08Lewis Howes?

  It'll hurt even more.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  I give myself the opportunity to fail and it just reinforces all these negative things that are on the periphery of how I see myself already. Um, it's, it's in, it's, it can be incredibly challenging, especially as a therapist, Louis, can you imagine? You're sitting with someone who is adhering to that perspective of life. And I mean, just right on the other side of that is greater love, growth and opportunity. And as a therapist, we don't tell people, I don't tell you what to do.

• 23:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  I could just, I guide you with breadcrumbs and I ask you questions so we can chip away at it. And if I tell you, no, this isn't how it is, let me explain this to you. Well, now you're just a doc, I've, I've loaned you my reality. You didn't come to that idea by yourself. So once you're not in my vicinity anymore, you're relegated to whatever tools that you grew yourself. You know, it's like you eat what you kill. Once you don't have my influence anymore, what are you gonna do? What are you naturally gonna think? How are you naturally gonna come to those connotations and challenge yourself?

• 24:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  That's very, that's very difficult. And I think the trap is, um, the should've trap. Uh, I should, I shouldn't think that way, or man, I should be able to look past that by now. But should doesn't matter when you can't. And should is a gigantic T-shirt that it, it doesn't fit your body at all. Like, yeah, you're still, you're still covered. It does the job of a shirt, I guess, kind of, but it does not fit you. It doesn't, it, it's, it doesn't fit your expectations. It doesn't fit your lived experience. It doesn't fit your bandwidth, nothing. You, you, you're adhering to what you think

• 24:58Speaker 01

  should be the existence that lands on you without really paying attention to where you actually are. So you don't recruit the help you need. You probably won't accept the help if it's offered to you. Um, and it really puts you at a disadvantage that it's, it's the antithesis of growth. It can, it can be extremely growth prohibitive, man.

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  I wanna go back to something we were talking about before, which is around beliefs and self-talk. From your experience as a therapist, do you believe that people get tied into devices, numbing addictions? To escape their own internal thoughts and feelings? Or to escape the thoughts and feelings of others around them on them?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Hmm, it depends. I think it could be a little bit of both. I think it depends on who you are. Um, you know, addiction is tricky and I'm not gonna pretend to understand the ins and outs of the neural chemistry of addiction. Uh, because that's not my ministry as a therapist, but the, we don't like to feel pain and discomfort. And the things that distract us from pain and discomfort give us relief. Uh, they give us relief. Sometimes we get that relief at the expense of our long-term health and wellness.

• 26:18Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  And it's attractive. And, and even when you talk about, uh, devices and, and phones and social media, there's, there's a other side of that. These things have hacked the brain. Your phone is, my goodness, a, a billion dollars worth of technology, research, development and engineering.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, power in your hands.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Everything is right there, even the way it feels, the device itself. It's the right weight, it's the right smoothness. Um, like, uh, the snacks that we eat, uh, a bag of chips, I don't know who sponsors your pod.

• 26:53Lewis Howes?

  Salty, sugar, all of it, man, it's like.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  But they do so much research to figure out exactly what the perfect amount of crunch is. Or the perfect shape of the snack so it feels just right in your fingers. Or the perfect saltiness where, I mean, I don't know about you, I've definitely had snacks where I, I take one bite and I say, oh, that's the last one I wanna have. And I blink and the bag is gone.

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's not just by happenstance. It's developed that way. So while we're thinking about these things that we gravitate towards, I think it's important to remember that they were developed to keep us engaged with them. It doesn't, you know, it, it doesn't exonerate you from the responsibility of detaching from it, but it just proves how difficult of a job it'll be to separate yourself from these things.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. If you

• 27:45Lewis Howes?

  were sitting across from yourself as a therapist to yourself.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  What's the one piece of advice that you would give you today with all the tools and knowledge that you have?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 27:57Lewis Howes?

  To support you in your personal growth and achieving a, a, a better level of health, peace, abundance, freedom internally? What's the coaching you would give you?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I think I'd ask myself a question.

• 28:14Lewis Howes?

  What's the?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  I ask myself two questions. How much is enough? And what does satisfaction look like?

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, how much is enough?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I'll tell you when I get there.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  What if you never get there?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  I know, well.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  That's the scary thing, right?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  It can be. I'll tell you, Louis, real talk, man. If, if nothing ever happens, if my career never advances past where I am now.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  Would you be satisfied?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 28:44Lewis Howes?

  Would it be enough?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 28:47Lewis Howes?

  Then why do you need to ask yourself those questions?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Because it, it still challenges me what I believe. I think that self interrogation is a powerful tool. I, I wrote this book on the premise of self interrogation. Interrogating your immediate thoughts and beliefs away from shame, blame and guilt. And even though I feel that way in my heart, anything that makes me reevaluate my philosophy, I think can be helpful. Because perhaps with deeper thought, I realize that this isn't enough. Or growth, growth, it goes hand in hand with impermanence. I may feel this way right now today as I'm sitting in front of you. I may not feel this way in three years. I may have a completely different mindset. So I don't think it's just I would ask myself that question.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  I would continue to ask myself that question periodically.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Check in with yourself.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Check in with yourself. It's one of the things I like about journaling. When we think about journaling, we think about just being able to express ourselves or dump all of our thoughts in one place. But journaling does more than that. Journaling gives you a concrete place to be reflective. And what I mean by that is if you were to write 15 years ago, all the things that you're most worried about, all the things that you're most excited about, what your, um, what like your immediate apprehensions are in the moment. And then you would look at it 10 years later. You would be able to see the things that are completely different.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Some of those things might be miniscule comparatively. But you might also realize that you've been worried about the same thing for 10 years, just in a different font. Now imagine instead of just journaling once over that 10 year span, you have journal entries incrementally every month. And you're able to see the changes and the differences.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  That, that type of tracking is invaluable. And that's what I would hope I'd be able to give myself if I was sitting across the room. Just checking in on the philosophy, man, how has it changed? How is it different? Where's your heart? Where's your head? What are you excited about? What do you love? What motivates you?

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  If you could give your 15 year old self three tools that you've learned as a therapist, and only three tools, what would you give 15 year old you? When you were going through a very challenging time and all the friends around you were getting in trouble or going to jail or passing away in a rough neighborhood?

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  What would those three things you would say?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  I think those three things, I think one would be being different is a gift. I think Gen Z, they're really comfortable with being different. We were different, like we, being different was an indictment on your ability to gain community and your ability to fit in back, back in my day, you know? Being different is a gift, lean into it.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  I would tell myself that anger, it, it captivates all of your awareness, but it's a terrible motivator.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  And I would tell myself that as long as you keep your feet moving, you have a chance. Do not stop.

• 32:15Lewis Howes?

  How angry were you and what made you angry?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Looking back, I was tremendously angry. I think it was environmental. I think that I lived in an environment where a lot of people were frustrated because they couldn't ascend to their highest potential. And they took it out on the people around them. And I think when you live in an environment full of angry people and you're still young and impressionable, it can turn you into an angry person. And I also thought that I deserved a different life than I had, you know? Our, our apartment, man, it was, it was something. We used to have like roaches and mice really badly, really badly. And I couldn't understand why we lived that way. We seemed to be good, hardworking people and we, we couldn't get out of the muck. And I didn't understand why.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  And I think that confusion i- in the mind of a child was converted into frustration and anger. And that's why when we were talking and you asked me if I played a sport, I was like, yeah, for a little bit. And then I had to start working at high school. I had to start paying for my own prom.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I think that the, the anger and frustration came from the inability to be a child that was allowed to be a child, if that makes any sense.

• 33:28Lewis Howes?

  You didn't feel like you were able to be like a kid or have kid experiences?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Not at a certain point, no. You got, you kind of have to grow up quickly, assume responsibility.

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  Start working.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, start taking control over the life you want.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  That's tough. Yeah, it is tough. And I used to do this thing where I would say, you know, it's tough, but uh, you know, other people had it worse. It's like, no, it, it was tough.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Period.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  You know, you had.

• 33:54Lewis Howes?

  Other people have challenges that are tough for them and I had my challenges that were tough for me.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. And I think that I thought that at some point,

• 34:06Speaker 01

  I, when I was past it, it, it wouldn't affect me.

• 34:09Lewis Howes?

  It still did.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the shadows live long.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  It just lingered.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it lingered and that's, and I've come to the point where I'm, I'm fine with that because I know it's something that I'll have to constantly remind myself for the rest of my life. It's not a, it's not a one and done thing. That's something that I'm going to have to cope with and overcome for the rest of my life.

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I'm thankful I have the tools, man.

• 34:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, otherwise you'd still be angry.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Otherwise I'd still be angry. And now I live a life where there's nothing to be angry about. You know, I get frustrated sometimes, but I live a wonderful life that I created for myself. And anger can be much like victimization, there's a comfort.

• 34:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  In sitting inside.

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  It feels good for a while.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Oh man.

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  Powerful.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, especially when it's an identity. You know, working with youth, when I ran my youth program, there were so many young men who didn't feel heard in the house that they lived in. They didn't feel seen. You know what gets you heard and seen really quickly?

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  Destruction.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Anger.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  Anger.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  If I flipped the table over.

• 35:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Oh, now you hear me, see me and you feel.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  But it also invites a kind of attention toward you that isn't very helpful or nourishing.

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. How does someone dismantle anger if that's all they've ever known?

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  If they'd never felt heard, seen, loved or valued? And anger is their response. How do they learn to let that go?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I think one of the ways is getting out of the environment that arouses those feelings.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  Getting away from the people, spaces, the environments.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  The influences, the culture, anger can become a culture.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the culture of anger. Some people have families that are very angry. That's the innate response is to respond with anger. That's always around you and that's always your influence. It's going to be hard to take a half step back away from that. Think you have to detach from the things that kindle that feeling in order to see something different.

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  But you, you said that you grew up pretty angry, right?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  It had a point in my life I was angry, yeah.

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  This is like teen years or like?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, teen.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Okay. But you grew up in DC and you're still in DC, correct?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Well, I'm in a suburb.

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so you're not in like, you can still be in the same city, but not in the same home or same, you know, kind of environment. You can still move a little farther, not too far away and be in a different space.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, which to my point, the, the environment's completely different in the influences. I wake up next to my wife, who's the happiest person I've ever met in my life.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  So nice, right?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Every single day I wake up to kids that are excited to see me and they love me.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  That's a dream.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  And I'm snuggling with them. I got a, I got a pimple growing on the side of my head because their hair oils are all on my face from, from sleeping on my pillow every night.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a beautiful life and it'll be profoundly unfortunate to have that reality all around me, but not have the awareness to see it and experience it fully.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you were able to start letting go of the anger?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  When I consciously realized that it wasn't helping me. It wasn't helpful, it wasn't doing anything for me. It went from becoming my sword, it went from being my sword and my shield to being my anger.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  How old were you around that time when you became aware?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Early twenties.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Early twenties, I started to move into like a corporate America type space. And one of the, you know, one of the things that happens to people and that happened to me is the things that you thought were, the things that protected you. You know, anger protects you in a tough neighborhood. It keeps you from being a victim, keeps you from being bullied. But when those, when the behaviors you have aren't helpful for you anymore, when they're not protective, when they just become prohibitive.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Either you can keep leaning into them and do more of what's not working or you can put your foot in the ground, pivot and decide to change something. And the latter took me a solid, I'd say maybe seven or eight years. And in those experiences, I went to undergrad. You know, I lived in a different place in the city where people were completely different. And I was with young professionals and I got to see something different, like different influences. I got to see the world, I traveled a little bit more. I realized how much more to my identity was uncovered outside of just anger and frustration.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  As long as it made me feel something.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  That I would describe as meaningful at the time, it was easier to hold on to. But when it felt like it started holding me back from love and relationships, connection and community, it became painfully obvious there's something needed to change.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely, man. I didn't know how to change or where to start. But I felt it inside and I felt it deeply and I saw everything as a constant reminder.

• 39:56Lewis Howes?

  That this anger does not serve me.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  No, it's not serving me. And it's destructive.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  Very destructive, right? So what was the aha moment that allowed you to start healing the anger that was inside of you?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  I think it was a series of moments. I I'd be lying to you if I said there was just one like definitive turning point where something happened and it just dawned on me. It happened so gradually that I can't tell you when it turned on. It's like like glaucoma. Glaucoma is like one of the leading causes of blindness. Glaucoma is so tricky because it slowly takes away your peripheral vision.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  But you can still see.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  You can still see, but it slowly takes it away to the point where you don't realize that your vision is becoming more and more narrow until one day it's too late. And in a more positive way, that's kind of what happened with the anger. It just dissipated slowly. As I gained more in in different friends, as I found different interests, as I started to get academic success, as I started to get different types of love in my life, different experiences. As I started to learn how to receive different types of love in my life, the it just slowly dissipated to the point where it wasn't there anymore.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Which isn't everybody's experience.

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  No, no.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not. So I'm very thankful for that as well.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  Was there a um but how did you learn how to let it go? Because for me, I accomplished a lot of my goals and success and made money, but I still had anger inside of me. And it wasn't until I realized, oh, this energy, this frustration or anger, accomplishing the goals doesn't remove it from my heart.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  No, which you which seems like it would, right?

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  You're like, oh, I should be happy now, but I still wasn't. I still had anger inside of me. So it took, you know, therapy, workshops, self-awareness, reflection, retreats, for me to start learning how to let it go and how to start healing those wounds that anger was tied to, that I was attached to. And so once I started healing some of those wounds or stories or beliefs around events, then I could have more grace for myself, have more self-love and acceptance, and start to release some of that frustration, those triggers, right? So were there any, like, did you learn this from anyone? Did you go to therapy? Did you have a workshop? Did you read a book?

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  Like, where did you learn the tools to let go of anger and heal?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I think it was the feedback from my environment.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I it just, things started feeling different for me. Um, and I think it unlocked parts of my identity that I liked a lot better. And there is this indescribable, but certainly palpable feeling that you get when you so I think self-love is packaged and sold in a very weird way. But when you begin to like yourself in a different way, I like who I am when I am not angry. I like how people treat me when I am not angry.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I like how I treat myself when I am not angry. My quiet moments are more peaceful. I have more clarity.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  I in terms of goals, my goals are more diverse now. It's not just about surviving and making more money. It's about doing things that please me.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And then it expands. Oh, I really enjoy working in a community and working with other people and helping them. I found more purpose. And that purpose, the more you find your purpose and you lean into it, you realize that that purpose has subgenres and pockets and other categories that you can lean into. And life just feels better. And I like that.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  You just started feeling better. That's great.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  For someone who's done the reading, done the journaling, done the meditating, done all these, all this work on themselves, but they still feel stuck. They still feel like I'm not getting the breakthrough. I'm not creating the results I want. What do you think is the next thing for them?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Take a look at your goals. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And is it reasonable for who you are in this moment? Sometimes it's not, I need to try harder. Uh, it's not, I need to recruit more of these programs and I need to learn more. And no, sometimes we need just need to reflect. What is it that I'm trying to do? And if these obstacles are in my way, perhaps they're not a statement of my capability. Perhaps the obstacles in my way are a warning sign that perhaps I'm moving too fast or I'm moving in a direction that I'm just not ready for in the moment. Your goals, goals are beautiful. Goals, they're wonderful.

• 44:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Set all the goals you can and try to achieve them. But if you are knocking your head up against a wall, Louis, I think that is it is indicative that you need to stop and probably go in a different direction.

• 45:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  The analogy I use a lot is just about a newborn baby. If a newborn baby, it just had the capability to walk fresh out of the womb. I don't know if those tiny legs and that weak muscle structure would be able to support the weight. You have to do one thing at a time. First, you learn to hold your head up. Then you learn to scoot. Then you learn to crawl. Then you learn to get up and fall down a bunch of times. It's a gradual process, but there are waypoints in between that are developmentally appropriate. It's obvious when we see a baby. It's not always obvious when we see ourselves.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, that's true.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  So what points are, what are you skipping? Like, let's let's reverse map and deconstruct this thing. Maybe there are things that you need to work on in between where you are now and where you ultimately want to be that deserve more of your time, attention to them and awareness. What are they? And let's get more comfortable with understanding that we need to spend more time there. It's okay.

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is a self-sabotaging pattern that's become so normalized in today's society that most people don't even recognize it as self-sabotage?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  I think just, just just piggybacking off of what we just talked about. I think it's trying to be in too much of a hurry to be over something. In the book, it's one of the uncomfortable truths I talk about. I I'm I'm ready to be over something that happened to me. It's like when people put the E D at the end of heal as if it's a destination, then you know that.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  No, it's forever, man.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Nah, it's forever.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  It's a journey.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  It's a forever journey. Even when you say that, it it doesn't really encapsulate all that that encompasses. But um, I I think that it's it's when we're in too much of a rush to be over something and as and as opposed to just sitting in it and recognizing what the hard moments are here to teach us. Recognizing what the hard moments are indicating about where we are on this road, we're ready to just zoom past it. We're ready to say, you know, I'm unbothered or I'm not worried about that thing anymore. And it's something that we verbalize and we say, but we don't feel deeply.

• 47:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  And that causes an incongruence because your inner experience doesn't match your your presentation or your outer experience. And when your inner experience is one thing, but you have to present something different.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  It creates a gap and in between that gap moves a lot of inauthenticity.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes. You're out of integrity, you're out of harmony, you're out of alignment.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  Right? You're trying to project something that's not true.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know that it's not true, mainly. So then you get stuck in the cycle of performing. Because you're not the thing, so you have to project the image of being the thing out into the world.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  You're playing a character.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  You're playing a character and at some point it gets exhausting.

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Exhausting.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Then what? Because I think as a younger person, you know, playing the character might be a fun game. But as you accumulate life and life experiences, and if you find a partner, oh, boy. Finding a partner is different because you can't hide from the person you live with. They will see you. And then you start building this life and things will start collapsing because you can't, you can't. The the easiest thing to do, the easiest move to make if you want to destroy everything is to not be the thing but to perform the thing.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Because the second that you're tired or you let your guard down or you you really walk in a space of authenticity, all these things that are pillared by you moving the furniture around in your mind in order to, you know, do the things that you think the world needs you to do or be the person that you think the world needs you to be. As soon as you're compromised even a little bit, it becomes a house of cards.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Everything falls down one by one.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  It does.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  Playing a character is exhausting. I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity. Uh, nine years ago now, and for me, it was about the masks that men wear. And it was my own reflection of the mask that I was wearing most of my life to try to fit in, to try to belong. It was all strategies to survive psychologically, emotionally, right? Um, which felt like physical survival, but even though it wasn't. And you can only wear those masks for so long before they all, before it just all crumbles down. You know, before it's so exhausting, so overwhelming, so daunting.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  And you lose yourself in a mask and you're like, who am I?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  You haven't practiced being who you are.

• 49:57Lewis Howes?

  That's exhausting.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  You haven't reinforced it. You've been playing the character the entire time.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  It's exhausting, man.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Once the character leaves, what are you left with?

• 50:04Lewis Howes?

  Scary.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  It's scary if you don't know who you are, how to trust yourself, how to like yourself, like you said. It's scary, but.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  You have to practice those things. It's not something that just, you know, dawns on you out of thin air. You have to continuously practice.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And you, in the book I talk about, um, if, if you want to be who you say you are, prove it to yourself. Practice it. You, you think you want to be a genuine person? Make sure that the relationships that you're open and vulnerable in, in, in your words, that you're open and vulnerable in, in your actions. Even when it's scary because on the other side of vulnerability is, is possible pain.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Practice it. You say you're a generous person? What, what do you provide your community?

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Go donate your time somewhere.

• 50:52Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  You know, you say that you, you are a family oriented person? Close, close the laptop and you don't have to, you don't have to play with the kids for three hours. Spend some time with your family, doing the hardest thing that any human can do, and that's being present.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  You have to, when we think about things that we have to prove, we think about proving things to other people. Trust, you know, I trust you when you prove to me who you are over time and consistently. But we have to have that same relationship with ourselves. I trust that I am who I say I am when I prove it to myself consistently throughout time.

• 51:29Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for people going into the next few years of their lives? With where the economy is at, with where AI is at, with where social media is at? With the uncertainties of the world, financially, politically, wars? With all the uncertainty coming, what is the biggest challenge that human beings face as a therapist's perspective?

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Knowing what to believe.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  What's real?

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Knowing what to believe, what's true, what's in my best interest? I think that there is a comfort, you just talked about survivor. There's a comfort and certainty. And the, the newness of our evolving world gives us a profound sense of uncertainty.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  How are you going to be okay? What does your future look like? What do your future economic opportunities look like when a computer can take your job? You know, it's, we, I saw a joke on Instagram where it's, it's this guy. And uh, he's, he's playing his dad. And he says, when my dad is trying to figure out whether or not AI is real. He's like, he, son, is this real? And he takes the phone and you see what he's watching. And it's a guy on the pier and he's fishing and an alligator comes up and then the alligator jumps out of the water and puts up his dukes. And he's like, geez dad, like my goodness. But with the proliferation of technology and AI, it's going to become harder and harder to decide what's real and what's not.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Just what, I had a, my first phone was a Nokia fifty one ninety, you know, the big brick joint. I, only game I had on it was Snake and Tetris. And now, just in what, twenty something years? I have unlimited possibilities on my cellular device. This technology is only going to get better. I think knowing what to believe is going to trickle down into knowing what to trust.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  And that is going to dovetail into not only trusting things, but trusting people. And if you marry that with taking away third spaces, where people don't mean a person anymore? Where even romantic relationships are a hotbed for skepticism and distrust. What happens to humans when we lose our desire for connection?

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  I'm not going to pretend to know. It's, it's, I, I, but, um, I still think that there's great hope. I don't think it's, it's doom and gloom. Um, I read this magnificent book called Sapiens. And in the book, uh, it said, if you took somebody from the sixteen hundreds and planted them in the seventeen hundreds? The world wouldn't be that remarkably different. But if you took somebody from like the early nineteen hundreds and you transplanted them a thousand years later, they would have no idea where they are.

• 54:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, for a hundred years later, maybe.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Even still.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  You know, technology, it changes the way advancements go. We think it's, it advances like one, two, three, four. And it feels like it's starting to advance like one, two, four, eight, sixteen, twenty four. Like the quantum leaps are becoming more and more obvious. So it, it does give me, um, a lot of consternation around where we're going and what we're doing. But I think a lot of the answer is going to be around tapping back into our humanity.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Developing actual community, face to face communication.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's it, man.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  In person, it's going to be a key, I feel like.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  It's already starting, man. Did you see the thing, the Gen Z kids are getting rid of the smartphones and they got like the flip phones?

• 55:14Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  I like that, yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  I think, I think, I think we're collectively kind of over it, man.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  Uh, no, it'll always pull you back in though. It's, I mean, hopefully, hopefully there's already created balance with it, you know, that's the goal.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope so. Ba- balance and harmony. I, I, I surely hope so. Um, and in terms of just mental health, you know, more people deciding to be practitioners. We don't have enough of us for the need, it's just simply not enough of us, man, for the needs of the world.

• 55:48Lewis Howes?

  How many therapists are there in America right now? Do we know?

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Oh, who knows? I don't know. Not enough.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  Not enough, huh?

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, not, not nearly enough. I think there's a severe shortage.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  And imagine if people could learn to be their own therapist in a sense, where they could learn certain tools and skills about their emotional understanding and start. You know, I'm always going to be wanting support, mentorship, therapy, coaching. Even though I have a lot of the tools, but imagine learning to be with the tools yourself and practicing them. If you can't afford it or if you don't have access to someone right away, just people would be better people in general if they had these tools. Like what you're talking about in your book.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, but I think it's starting though.

• 56:30Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  I think it's starting in a way. Just think about, just think about the parent, the father that your dad had.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  In terms of emotional capability, emotional bandwidth, just his, his aperture for how he sees life. Think about that versus the kind of dad that you are.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  How different that is.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, so different.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Night and day.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  So those things are already happening. It's just not been, not enough time has elapsed for us to see the fruits of that labor.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  What do you think your kids are going to say? Or maybe your grandkids are going to say, you know, our dad didn't have what we have now. Like, you think they're going to keep saying that?

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  What are they going to say in fifty years that like, you know, my dad was as great as he was and this and the therapist, but he didn't have what? You know, I, I need to break generational trauma still. Like, what is that generational trauma that our grandkids are going to need to break?

• 57:26Speaker 01

  That is such a good question, man. Um, the way I think of it, the worst phrase in my mind is what are my kids going to have to forgive me for?

• 57:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Lewis Howes?

  What is that?

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's going to be.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  And you could be the best possible dad you can be.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll keep your kids out of therapy.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Why is that? Just because challenges occur. Your kids don't just survive the worst parts of you. They have to survive your personality. There are parts of your personality that are just going to create gaps and divots. And one of the most frustrating parts about being a parent is that we do not fundamentally understand the needs of our children.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  It's impossible to keep up with.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so those gaps are going to be where need exists. And they're going to be things that you simply can't see. I think what my kids is going to be resilience.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  You don't think they're going to be able to have the resilience that we had?

• 58:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  It's been so easy and comparative.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Did you hear me talk about?

• 58:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  I didn't have A C and now my house doesn't go above sixty eight degrees.

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  I can't go to bed without sixty nine at least.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  You see?

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  It's too hot at sixty nine. I'm like, dude.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  It's but.

• 58:35Lewis Howes?

  Resilience, huh?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  It's going to be resilience.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  Those things are too easy, too fast, too much convenience, instant.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  We're too protective.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh. Interesting.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Your kids ain't going down the street by themselves to go play at the neighbor's house.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  We're always there. They don't get to develop those parts of their personalities without us around.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think it's going to be a resilience thing. I think we spend a lot of time giving our kids what we wish we had.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  And then we, yeah. But they need some of what we had.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do. And we give them as much of what we had as we can, but we have to understand that our children's realities and our children's upbringing is, they're not our upbringing.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's funny, and I'm sure there's going to be a bounce between me and my wife, but I'm like, this morning, like my, you know, I have twin girls that are ten months old, and I'm noticing that one of them, this is going to be hard, because one of them is starting to crawl more than the other. And I'm like, stop baby. Like, like, stop babying the other one. Like, let her fall a little bit, let her crawl.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  She's like, but she's a baby. You're like, it's like, she's a baby. I'm like, okay, yes, I get it, but you can't hold her all day. You know, as sweet as they are, you can't carry her everywhere all day. Not that she's doing that, I'm just making a case for us. You can't hold them all day and make sure everything is perfect. You don't want to make it's not perfect, but let them crawl and struggle.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Let but them.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  You know what I mean? And she's like, but when she's making this, ah, and starting to cry, you should care. I'm like, no, let her, let her struggle.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  And let her feel a little pain. It's not like it's, I'm not hurting her. She just can't get her arm up to move right now, and that's okay.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  That's, but that.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  Give it five seconds.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  That's the great big wilderness, though. Louis, that's the wilderness because as parents, especially as parents within our age range, we see our kids struggling as our own personal failures.

• 1:00:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Your inconvenience is my, and not to see your wife.

• 1:00:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  But a lot of parents can bounce to this. I've done this before, so I can identify with it.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Your struggle is my personal failure. You're uncomfortable, that's my personal failure. You're hungry?

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  You should struggle.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely. How else will you learn how to navigate that?

• 1:00:53Lewis Howes?

  Self resilience, you know?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  I said on Instagram one time, you know, my job as a parent isn't always to make you feel better. I know that sound, that's going to sound crazy to someone. You know, my daughter felt really guilty about something, and I wanted to swoop in and just be like, no, don't feel guilty, baby. It's an A B C. No, I let her know that she wasn't a bad person, but I allow her to feel those feelings. How can you navigate something that you never had the autonomy, the leash, and just the space to fully navigate? It's okay to fully navigate guilt within the confines, let's say, confines, you know, you need to have parental guardrails, of course, but it's okay to feel bad about something that you did.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  And then figure out, and then realize you don't like that feeling, and figure out what you can do to self soothe and climb your way out of it eventually. You know, of course, there's a limit to allowing your kids to struggle.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  That resilience piece is interble, man.

• 1:01:51Lewis Howes?

  Healthy, safe struggle, you know? Create the healthy, safe struggle, but allow them to struggle, right? So we'll see. I could see myself, I think I saw Steve Harvey say, like, I ruined my, my girls. Like, my sons I was hard on, but my girls, I just gave them everything, I spoiled them constantly. He's like, I screwed them, I ruined them.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Dads do that a lot.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  You know what I mean? It's like, and I could see myself potentially going down that route because they're so sweet, they're so cute, they're so innocent, all these things. But it's like, I feel like you've got to create some type of, even if it's a game, even if it's an activity, creating struggle and adversity in a safe context. Otherwise, you're robbing people of a potential future of greater gain.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You rob them of the ability to figure it out themselves. My daughter, my youngest daughter, she, man, immediacy is a thing for her.

• 1:02:44Lewis Howes?

  She wants it now.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Now. And I was realizing that when she wants it now, she gets it now. So now we practice waiting. Even if I can do it right now, say, okay, give me a second, daddy is doing something. I will get this for you in a couple of minutes. And she's old enough to be able to know, she has a concept of time, so say, hey, it says five ten on the clock on the oven. When that last number says twenty, I'll get up and do it, okay? You have to practice waiting. You have to practice waiting. Her inability, I mean, she's four, reasonably, she's.

• 1:03:18Lewis Howes?

  It's, it's the relatively appropriate for her.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 1:03:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she doesn't have that, yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  But if we don't practice it at four, she becomes a seven, eight, nine year old. She doesn't have the ability, it only becomes harder.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  It gets harder.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  So we've been practicing waiting.

• 1:03:31Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  And then at the end, I give her the affirmation, baby, you did such a good job waiting, thank you so much. What did you want to get? Show me, go to the pantry, show me the thing that you wanted. Or explain to me the thing that you were trying to tell me. My wife and I are trying to have a conversation, and the kids are a little Budinsky's. They come in, they want to have a full conversation in between us conversing. Wait a minute, mommy and daddy are talking. I see you right there, I see you. Give me a second, when I'm done talking to mommy, I will talk to you, and you have to practice waiting.

• 1:03:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's beautiful, man. Your new book is called It All Starts When You Do, How to Do the Real Work of Self Healing.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:04:06Lewis Howes?

  I want to make sure everyone gets a copy of the book. If you're looking for tools to help you improve the quality of your life, heal, transform, and understand the emotions that seem overwhelming, make sure you guys grab a copy. Two final questions for you, Kier. This one is called The Three Truths. So imagine hypothetically, it's your last day on earth, many, many years away.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  I thank you because you put a cap to my life. You're like fifty years, you said daddy was, I was like, damn, Louis, someone's going to live to ninety.

• 1:04:35Lewis Howes?

  You get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on earth.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:37Lewis Howes?

  And you get to create and accomplish and experience all the beauties and joys of this, this world, but on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. This is a conversation, your book, your content, gone, hypothetical.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:51Lewis Howes?

  However, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. I call it three truths. What would those be for you?

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Give me a second, let me process that.

• 1:05:03Lewis Howes?

  And this is all that we would have access of your content, of these three truths.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  These are only three things that I leave behind, only care artifacts. I got you. All right, so I think the first one is, they could be instructions?

• 1:05:18Lewis Howes?

  Anything.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:19Lewis Howes?

  Lessons, instructions, thoughts.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  The first one is always tell the truth of yourself. Even when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's uncomfortable, always tell the truth of yourself.

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  But not tell others.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Well, when you practice telling the truth of yourself, it becomes easier to tell the truth to others. So one bleeds into the other. The second one will be, being present is a lifelong practice. Continue to practice being present.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  And three, just, just want to cover the book, It All Starts When You Do, on the title of the book. Don't get good at waiting. Even I tell my daughter to wait. That's something completely different. Don't get, don't get so good at waiting that you miss opportunities you absolutely deserve.

• 1:06:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Don't rob yourself of the beauty of life, to keep waiting for something that is not promised to you.

• 1:06:20Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, Kier. And I want to acknowledge you, man, for putting yourself out there. I know this has been a, a journey over the last five years of you creating content and sharing with the world, so keep doing it, man.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  You're inspiring a lot of people, we need your work, so keep it up.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Man, and I'm gonna give you your flowers, too, because I've watched a lot of your podcasts, and you do something that I aspire, that not aspire, but I beg clients to do all the time. We talk about it, this is the one thing, if you don't do anything else, do this, be curious. A curious mind is a catalyst of greatness.

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Every single time, yeah, man. So thank you for being curious.

• 1:06:57Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, bro.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  And putting that version of masculinity out into the world.

• 1:07:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Because it's well needed, and there's so many young men, not just young men, but especially young men that could benefit from having an example like you out there.

• 1:07:11Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, bro. Yeah, man, thank you, I appreciate it. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  The definition of greatness to me is closing the gap between who you say you are and how you show up in the world. Narrow the gap.

• 1:07:32Lewis Howes?

  Snap. Kier Gaines, my man. I appreciate it.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Appreciate you, Louis.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  Nice, brother.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely, man.

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  Powerful. My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact a hundred million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. 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.

• 1:08:17Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.