Before You Waste Another Year of Your Life, Do THIS w/ Mel Robbins EP 1405

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today! Today I'm so excited to share an interview I recently did around my new book The Greatness Mindset that I felt was so powerful and I wanted to share it here on our School of Greatness feed. Make sure to follow Mel Robbins' show for inspiration in your life!https://www.melrobbins.com/podcastWords from Mel Robbins:This is an episode about how to face the things you’re scared to admit, or as in the case of my guest today, had never publicly spoken about. Today, you will meet a friend of mine who had some serious sh*t to face, and has spent the last several years addressing the things that used to drag him down. Do not miss this deeply personal conversation. It is profound. It is relevant to your life and packed with so much wisdom, and we jump right in. Lewis Howes is host of the award-winning podcast, The School of Greatness, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary and has over 500 million downloads. His brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, teaches you how to discover your own unique gifts and talents but more importantly, how to do the work to heal. This conversation is “unguarded” and covers sensitive topics. (Particularly, perhaps, for the men in your life). So skip this if this isn’t for you today. You will learn:How to live with an abundance mindset. The mindset necessary to achieve greatness. Where the enemy of greatness lies. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1405Mel Robbins’ The High 5 Habit & The Secret To Motivation: https://link.chtbl.com/1170-podAndrew Huberman On Eliminating Brain Fog, Increasing Your Focus & Controlling Your Motivation: https://link.chtbl.com/1204-podJordan Peterson On How to Build Confidence & Cultivate Inner Peace: https://link.chtbl.com/1094-pod 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?

  You can't be great without having peace and without going on a healing journey in my mind. You can accomplish a lot. You can achieve a lot. You can get a lot of awards and make a lot of money, but I feel like if you feel like you don't, still aren't enough, then you're not. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:38Mel Robbins?

  What do you want to get out of this interview?

• 0:39Lewis Howes?

  Whoever's listening, I want them to be, to be inspired and impacted in a positive way to, to take action in whatever it is in their life that they need support with. And so that's my intention. Support the people. They, the people listen, they love you more. That's what I want out of this.

• 0:57Mel Robbins?

  Wait, say that again?

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  The people that listen to this, they love you more.

• 1:00Mel Robbins?

  Me?

• 1:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:01Mel Robbins?

  That's your intention?

• 1:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes, because then they'll, then they, then it means you did a great job of getting a lot out of this interview for them. So they're going to love you more and want to share about you more. That's my intention.

• 1:14Mel Robbins?

  Lewis, that was a mic drop moment. And I haven't even asked you a, a, so, so first of all, I got to give everybody a takeaway. Cause did you hear that? Like we're talking about your, we're talking about everything, your life story, like so much wisdom that you have to give to the world. And I want to make sure everybody just picked up on something. That he walked in here not to shine a light on his book and how it would help you, but to actually shine the light back on me and to have me be successful.

• 1:51Lewis Howes?

  That's kind of what I've been doing for 10 years, you know, with my show is just putting the spotlight on others. And I've found that when I'm shining in other people, it reflects back in positive ways. Sometimes it's unexpected, but just for your show specifically, I think it's amazing how you've launched this show and it's served so many people. So that's why when you asked me what I want out of this, I was like, well, if you do a great job and making great content in this episode, then people are going to love you more and they're going to want to share more and help you build your show bigger. So that's my intention.

• 2:23Mel Robbins?

  Awesome. Okay. Well, my intention, my intention, because I always have like a very specific intention with every show, was to shine the brightest light I possibly could on you. Because you have spent so much of your success and time and energy lifting other people up. And you remind me in many ways of somebody I love more than anybody else in the world, and that's my husband, Chris. And one of the things that I love about you is you're this big, masculine, super successful, professional athlete dude. You are also becoming a professional like Tango dancer.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  Salsa, yeah, yeah.

• 3:06Mel Robbins?

  Salsa, okay, Tango salsa. I knew it was like ended in a vowel.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  Latin dancer.

• 3:11Mel Robbins?

  Latin dancing. His hips don't lie, people. And yet, there's this incredible quiet, softness, strength and vulnerability to you. And you often say a lot without saying much.

• 3:29Lewis Howes?

  Thanks. Appreciate it.

• 3:30Mel Robbins?

  Do you see that, guys? He's just staring at me right now with his piercing eyes. Like, I am saying a lot at you mouth.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think it's interesting that you say that because I didn't feel like I had a lot to say when I was growing up because I felt very insecure in school. So I was always in the bottom of my grade all the way through middle school, high school. And it took me seven years to finish college and graduate. And I always had a tutor every semester. And in middle school, high school, I would be in the special needs classes and a lot of times during recess, I would have to do extra tutoring. So when other kids were playing or having fun, or I'd have to do a short lunch break and then go right into reading class. Cause in eighth grade, I had a second grade reading level.

• 4:12Mel Robbins?

  Wait, hold on, in eighth grade?

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  Eighth grade, they started testing me with everything. I went to a new school. And they essentially told my parents, like, we have to either hold him back or we need to get him tutors to get him caught up. Because he has a second grade reading level. So it was just very challenging for me to read a page of any book and comprehend it. It was just, it would take a long time to read it. And then by the time I'd finish it, it was almost like it was so long that I don't remember what I was reading. That I'd have to go back and read the page over and over again. So I would get through. A couple pages in what would seem like thirty to forty-five minutes and, and kind of give up. My attention span would be short then. I would just be tired and like, I don't have the focus. That's why I started using my energy in sports. And when I.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  When I'd asked to speak aloud in class, specifically in high school. I just felt insecure because I knew I wasn't the smartest. I knew I was always in the bottom of my class. Cause they used to rank us on our grade cards. So I would always be in the bottom four. And a lot of times I cheated my way through quizzes and tests and homework to just pass. To stay like not in the bottom one, right?

• 5:22Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Lewis Howes?

  And so we would get the grade cards, I don't know, every semester or whenever it was, every quarter. And I'd always see in the bottom four all through high school. So I just felt very unsure of myself academically. And so when they'd ask to speak aloud, I just would always try to skip or like go to the restroom. And I know that, that it was going to come to me. I'd try to get out of actually speaking in front of people. Cause I always thought people were making fun of me or laughing at me. And maybe they were sometimes or they weren't, but that was also my interpretation of not believing in myself academically.

• 5:53Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  And so when I got into kind of like the business world and life of just being out there after sports. I didn't have the confidence to speak in front of people what I thought. And so I just said, I'm going to ask people questions. So that was in my twenties. I would be in rooms of like networking events and I started going to trade shows and conferences from like twenty five to thirty. And I was traveling around the country, going to all these big kind of industry events to learn and network and meet people. And so often people would say, you're like the most interesting guy here. And I never said anything except for asked questions and would follow up. And I think when, when, when you really are interested in other people, you become more interesting.

• 6:39Lewis Howes?

  And so I've, I kind of took that and ran with it for the last ten years of my own show. I was just like, I'm going to try to be as interested in others and good things come back.

• 6:49Mel Robbins?

  Well, they certainly have.

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Mel Robbins?

  I mean, when you talk about a hundred million views every month on your YouTube channel, which is impacting and empowering people around the world, or the eleven million plus people that follow you online, the five hundred million downloads. I'd say that's not bad for the bottom four of your middle school. And, and what's one of the reasons why I love your story? Because it's not like you were this heavy hitter in business, sold your company, and now you're going to go out and tell everybody the secrets. You had to figure out what greatness meant for you and you had to figure out how to be successful in a world that was telling you that you weren't.

• 7:33Mel Robbins?

  And I want to go back to really where your newest, I'm sure, New York Times bestseller,

• 7:41Mel Robbins?

  starts, The Greatness Mindset, and it starts on the couch. And in order to bring as many people as possible into the tent in this conversation that we're going to have, would you just put us at the scene? Of Louis on the couch. What your life looked like, looked like, how old you were, what was going on?

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  This was, uh, September two thousand seven. I just had surgery on my wrist. So you can kinda see the scar here still. And they took a bone out of my hip, put it in my wrist. So I was in a cast from my shoulder to my fingers. I couldn't use my thumb. It's kinda locked in this position.

• 8:18Mel Robbins?

  Locked in like a cactus position?

• 8:20Lewis Howes?

  Like this, yeah, yeah. You know the, the, the movie Rookie of the Year? This like baseball kid player who has a broken arm and then gets the cast off and it's like super strength. It was kinda in this position, like an L shape like this. Um, I could move it down.

• 8:33Mel Robbins?

  Can I ask you a question?

• 8:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Mel Robbins?

  So when you have your hand locked in a cast in a ca- cactus arm position, do your fing- are they numb all day, your fingers?

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Well, I can move, I can move it down.

• 8:43Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  I can move, I can move it here and like here, you know, but I couldn't straighten my arm.

• 8:47Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  And so there was this kinda big bulky thing here and it also just smells really bad, you know? I don't know if you've ever.

• 8:51Mel Robbins?

  Cause it's lifting your armpit up.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  It just smells really bad and it just gets dirty under there and you're sweaty and it's, it's just not nice.

• 8:57Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  So, um, during that time, it's, uh, that's the end of August, so September, um, November, December, I'm on my sister's couch right before Christmas, two thousand seven, going into two thousand eight. And I'm, I'm in denial at this time, cause I'm thinking my body's gonna heal. I'm gonna go back and play football. Like this thing's gonna come off.

• 9:19Mel Robbins?

  So you've graduated from college?

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  I hadn't graduated yet. I left to go play arena football. I tried to make the NFL, didn't make it. So I played an arena football, uh, for a season to try to get more practice than go to the NFL. In my rookie season, I get injured. I dive for a football into the wall. It's indoor football. So imagine a hockey rink. Football. That's what it was. So I dove, I, I snapped my wrist like in the wall. That was the second game of the season. So fourteen more games I played with a broken wrist. I taped it up every game, cause I was like, I don't wanna stop and get surgery now. I wanna play. I don't wanna, I don't wanna wait a whole nother year to get game filmed to try to make my dreams come true in the NFL.

• 10:01Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 10:01Lewis Howes?

  So I just played through the pain and at the end, the, the surgeon was like, you probably should have done this before. Because every catch, every block, it was just like grinding the bone and, and disintegrating the bone in my wrist. There's a bunch of little bones in the wrist. One of them was just kinda like disintegrating. And so that's why he said, we have to take a bone out of your hip. And I didn't know it would be the almost more painful from the hip because there's no easy way to like sliver a little piece of bone out of body. They take like a sledgehammer and they just go away on your hip. So my whole body was black and blue from my armpit down to my knees on the side. Twenty staples, I couldn't walk, just kind of bent over for six weeks. That hurt more than the wrist surgery.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  So that was a period of just healing and recovery physically. Before the Christmas time happened in two thousand eight. Now I got my.

• 10:53Mel Robbins?

  How old were you?

• 10:54Lewis Howes?

  I was twenty, probably twenty-three at that time.

• 10:57Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 10:57Lewis Howes?

  I think going into twenty-four in that March coming up. And so. This time I'm in the denial phase. I'm like, I'm gonna heal, I'm gonna be fine. I'm, I'm, my ego is so big. That I'm like, I feel like I'm a superhuman. So I'm like, nothing can hurt me mentality, like whatever, I can take the pain. Let's tape it up and put me back out.

• 11:17Mel Robbins?

  Wait, is that not the greatness mindset?

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 11:19Mel Robbins?

  Nothing can hurt me, I can take the pain?

• 11:20Lewis Howes?

  No, it's not it.

• 11:21Mel Robbins?

  Now you got me, I'm hooked. I wanna know what this is.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  That's the ego mindset.

• 11:25Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Which gets certain results, but left you, leaves you feeling very alone inside in a lot of ways. So I. I get um. That, so I'm in denial and then every six weeks I do a checkup with a doctor, thinking they're gonna take this off, I'm gonna be fine.

• 11:39Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  And they keep saying another six weeks, another six weeks, another six weeks. What was supposed to be three months turns into six months with a cast on. So I'm not able to straighten my arm for six months.

• 11:49Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 11:50Lewis Howes?

  And so by the time I actually get it off, I can't straighten my arm. Uh, the, the, the tendons, the muscle, like it won't straighten all the way without a lot of pain in my elbow. So it takes about a year and a half. Just to like rehab my arm to be able to straighten this, let alone learn how to like use my wrist and function fully. So I went through a phase of like sadness, denial, depression, I don't know about depression, but it was just like extreme sadness.

• 12:16Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Lewis Howes?

  Okay, this identity that I had. I may not be able to do again and it and it was kind of dwindling every day I would try to strengthen my arm and realize I don't have the strength anymore. So when I when I originally thought like I am.

• 12:30Mel Robbins?

  Gotta be a professional athlete.

• 12:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm like, nothing can hurt me. I realized quickly, oh, things can hurt me. And they can take away from my my dreams in certain areas. So it was a period of. Uh, and right before this, my dad gets in an accident where he has a traumatic brain injury from a car accident. A car comes on top of his car on the road, goes through the windshield and the bumper hits him in his head and splits his head open. They have to airlift him out of the car. They have to cut the car open, airlift him. He's in a coma for three months. This happens a year before I get injured. So for me, my dad had woken up after months in a coma in a hospital. He was physically alive, but emotionally dead.

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  So he wasn't able to really communicate. He he just passed last year after seventeen years. But it was.

• 13:25Mel Robbins?

  You mean seventeen years after the accident?

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  Seventeen years after the accident, he just passed last year. But he had, it was like he, it's like he was gone. It's like you.

• 13:35Mel Robbins?

  How did that impact you?

• 13:36Lewis Howes?

  He was physically there, but he wasn't my dad anymore. He was my dad, but I couldn't have a conversation with him because. I mean, you could speak to him, but I'd see him and he'd say, what's your name again?

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  Didn't, what sport did you used to play? Where'd you go to school again? That was the conversation every time I'd visit my dad. And he was at every football game. He was my biggest fan and he he loved to see me succeed. So it was, it was. In some ways, if that didn't happen, if he didn't go through that near death experience, I would not be where I'm at because. I always had a backup plan with him. He had an insurance business that he was thriving in after thirty years. He struggled to get to a certain level and finally started to make money. Then he had this accident. And he was always like, you can go chase your dream and if you ever want to come work with me, you can come work with me. And you can take over the business one day if you want to and I'll train you up.

• 14:35Lewis Howes?

  So it was kind of always like a backup plan. He had to sell his business right after this accident within the year. Um, cause he wasn't able to work anymore. He wasn't able to really function in that way anymore.

• 14:46Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  And in a sense, that was the greatest thing that happened to me, like essentially losing my dad emotionally. Losing the backup plan. Cause I never thought I would ever make money my own or be an entrepreneur or do anything that I'm doing. But that was a catalyst, along with my accident, my injury. Into saying, okay, I want to make something of myself and try this. So I'm on my sister's couch for a year and a half. In this phase of sadness about my dad, sadness about my identity, my injury. It's also, two thousand eight was like a, it kind of felt like twenty twenty with the economic crisis.

• 15:23Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  And so I'm, I don't have a college degree yet. I'm trying to figure out how to get my degree and finish it. While get a job, but no one's hiring people without degrees at that time. So it was just kind of like, what am I doing in this world? Why are these things happening?

• 15:36Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  One of those phases.

• 15:37Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, and I think I just want to say that there's a lot of times in life. Where things happen and you can feel like that. Whether your marriage didn't work out and you never expected to be divorced. Or you go all in on a business and it goes bankrupt. Or you end up struggling with an addiction after surgery and painkillers. And so I think this moment is really important for us to unpack. And so I want to have you read a part of your book.

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:14Mel Robbins?

  So that highlighted section, I'd love for you to read because it takes us right back to the moment of what you were feeling. When you were on that couch. And I want you to read it because it's so easy, Lewis, for everybody to see. How unbelievably successful you are. And not realize that you started in the exact same place that so many people listening are in right now.

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  I felt like all I could do during those dark days was flip through TV reruns and infomercials with the remote as I felt my chance at greatness not just slipping away, but sprinting as fast as it could go. I didn't know what to think, how to feel, or how to process my own emotions. And on top of that, I hadn't even finished college at the time. I was financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually broken. I wondered what to do next, and from my perspective, I was now very much alone. But I knew this couldn't be how the story of my life went. I knew there had to be more to my story. There had to be greatness inside of me, but I didn't know where or how to get started. Yet, deep down, I knew I would eventually figure it all out.

• 17:24Mel Robbins?

  So

• 17:27Mel Robbins?

  obviously, your book is a roadmap to that. But can you just talk to somebody who's like, yeah, like, how do you tap into that knowing? That you are meant for greatness, especially when the shit hit the fan, and your life feels like a disaster. Like, what would you say to somebody that's listening right now that just feels as lost as Lewis circa 2008 was?

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  I'm very grateful that I had a voice inside of me that was keeping me going. And a lot of times when I was in elementary school, I used to say, I wish I was dead, a lot. I would get in trouble, get sent to the principal's office, and I'd say, I wish I was dead. I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. And, and I don't know if anyone can relate to that feeling. I didn't, never felt suicidal, like I actually was going to do it. But I remember saying, essentially, why am I here? Am I enough? Am I lovable? Will I ever matter? That was like a thing that was just a constant theme inside of me. But there was a voice that was also like, just keep going, you know? It was like, you got this. Just keep going. So I'm really grateful that I was able

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  to hear that voice, even though I was so distracted and the, the loudness of insecurity was crippling my mind. It was so loud and so overwhelming that it felt like I was drowning emotionally. And so if someone feels that way now... What I would say is two things. Number one, like, hold on to whatever voice that says, even if it's like a second a day, that's like, keep going, like, hold on to that voice, because that is the thing that has allowed me to overcome so much. And I wish I would have learned sooner what I talk about in the book, which is allowing myself to heal all the memories and pain from the past.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  And it really wasn't until I started that process ten years ago of healing past memories, where things started to unlock, where I started to feel free internally. And then externally, the things that I was accumulating or creating or developing was more meaningful, because before thirty, I was successful, I was accomplishing, accumulating, attracting, but it didn't feel enough, because I didn't feel enough. I didn't feel like I was worthy of receiving, I didn't feel like I was deserving of love, because I didn't accept me. And it really wasn't until the last two years, when I went even deeper into healing,

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  that I was like, I'm gonna go back into every painful memory of my past and create a new meaning from those memories. And I'm going to create a loving relationship with any shame or guilt or insecurity that I once had, and just have a new relationship with it. It doesn't mean it wasn't painful, it doesn't mean I wish things didn't happen, it doesn't mean I didn't do things I'm ashamed of, but creating a new relationship with it, so it doesn't hurt me today. And those two things of listening to the, kind of, the voice inside of me telling me to keep going, and being on a journey of healing, has given me such a sense of emotional freedom and peace that I've never felt in my life.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  And it allows me to not abandon myself anymore. And I think for all many years, I would abandon myself to fit in, to belong, to be accepted.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  And the more I would do that, I would feel shameful because I was doing things that I knew weren't in alignment with who I was or my highest self was. And so, once I started to heal, I could stop abandoning myself, create barriers or boundaries in my emotions or in my life. So that I could stay in peace and be okay with disturbing things around me. Um, by standing my ground in certain situations and that has been the biggest gift I've given myself. Because it has allowed me, someone was asking me on the phone when I was driving here. He was like, how did this book come about? I go, I had the idea for it for years, but I didn't have inner peace. I couldn't, I couldn't, I didn't have the energy to create it.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  And once I got clear on my inner peace, like this just came out and I'm already like just creating so much because I have clarity. And it wasn't until I was able to get full clarity and ownership of accepting who I am. Where I was able to start doing these things authentically. So it's been a journey.

• 21:59Mel Robbins?

  So. There is so much to unpack. In what you just said, and I'm so happy you went deep.

• 22:08Mel Robbins?

  In the beginning.

• 22:10Mel Robbins?

  Because it's been a journey from being the twenty-three-year-old lost former professional football.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Mel Robbins?

  Person. To really realizing that chasing success got you so far. But you had to fix what felt broken on the inside.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you know, as a, growing up, I wanted success. The, the thought of success was like the answer, right? And that was maybe, I don't know why that came about, but it was always about how to be successful. And. I achieved success for my, on my terms, but I didn't feel fulfilled. And I didn't feel like it was enough. So then I would have to achieve more and more and more to fill something up where I didn't feel enough. And I, and I think there's a difference between success and greatness where success is more selfish about me and greatness is about we. It's going after your goals and dreams, but making it about impacting others in the process and them being celebrated and them accomplishing as well or improving as well.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  And it's much more rewarding that way. So I feel like I want to create more, but I'm also happy with where I'm at. And it's a sense of peace. It's like, yes, I'm always going to be striving for more. At least in this season of life, maybe when I'm 90, I'm just like, okay, I don't want more. I want less and that'll be a different season. But for now I want more and I'm also just peaceful with where I am because I accept who I am. And I didn't know that that was the game, accepting yourself. It's accepting, but also saying you still get to improve. You still get to grow. You still get to transform. But also accepting and loving where you're at.

• 23:48Mel Robbins?

  Okay. So let me unpack this a little bit because I think there's so much wisdom that you just drop like boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And I also want to say something. If you're sitting here going but, but, but, but, but, but, hold on a second. I don't even know how he went from 23 year old, broke. Like on the sister's couch, lost for a year and a half, dad having this to now all of a sudden this crazy, successful business and podcast and millions of followers. Like, how did he do that? And wait a minute. Lewis Howes, are you telling me this inner peace? Like I need to pay my bills. Like, don't be talking to me about that. And so I want to say a couple of things.

• 24:24Mel Robbins?

  Yes, we will get to the story of how he went from the couch to building what he built. But there's something much bigger in terms of the master class that is being offered to you in this moment. Where Lewis is going to save you the almost 13 years, was it? How long was it? 20, two decades or whatever of pain that he put himself through? To get to the wisdom and the greatness that he has unlocked in himself. Cause I've known Lewis for five years. He is a different human being. A different human being than even just a year ago. And I think that it is possible, and Lewis will tell you this, to be a competitive and to compete at the highest levels, which he does.

• 25:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I still like to win.

• 25:11Mel Robbins?

  Oh, yes.

• 25:12Lewis Howes?

  But it's a win-win, you know, it's a different type of win.

• 25:14Mel Robbins?

  And to be a calm, cool, and confident person. Because you have peace with yourself.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Mel Robbins?

  As you are doing those things.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  And even just to comment on what you said about paying bills, I don't think you can have financial peace unless you have inner peace. Because there's so many people that you know that have lots of money who are overly stressed.

• 25:36Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  And more money doesn't always solve every problem. It solves lots of problems, but it doesn't always solve the problem of accepting and loving yourself.

• 25:46Mel Robbins?

  That's true, and I'm gonna add something to that. Because both Lewis and I have been in moments of our life, and ironically, it was during 2007 and 2008, where neither one of us were able to buy groceries. We did not have any savings, we did not have any income, we were relying on other people to help us get through. And the stress that you feel when you cannot pay for your basic needs is a toxic level of stress that can consume you. But what I also want you to consider is the added stress and shame and mental beat down that you add on top of that reality doesn't help you pay your bills either.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 26:28Mel Robbins?

  And so whether you are at a point where you've been wildly successful, but you're deeply unhappy, or you're at a point where you're having trouble paying your bills, cultivating a sense of peace inside yourself, an assuredness that you can rely on yourself, a steadiness, so that the world around you does not trip you up emotionally, that that is a superpower, that's part of this greatness mindset that you're talking about, and Lewis has been on this profound healing journey, and so I wanna, I wanna go there.

• 27:04Lewis Howes?

  The game is healing.

• 27:05Mel Robbins?

  The game is healing.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  The game is healing in order to, you know, create anything in my mind.

• 27:11Mel Robbins?

  What does healing even mean, Lewis?

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  I used to feel a lot of pain in my chest, or tightness in my throat, or disturbance in my stomach. I used to feel like I couldn't sleep at night because I was up for an hour and a half, like ruminating or thinking and stressed. I used to be very reactive when my nervous system was triggered.

• 27:34Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  I feel like that's, that's the opposite of healing. You know, healing is learning how to overcome all those things. So your nervous system is in peace when there's chaos around you. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna feel triggered momentarily, or feel like, oh, I don't like that, or react to a thing, or feel disturbed. But it's learning how to recognize it much faster, and from a place of integrating healing and lessons, be able to respond differently when there's a disturbance, as opposed to based on a wound. So most of my life, I was just reacting, responding based on wounds that I was unaware of. Or maybe I was aware of them, but I was just like, this is who I am, don't mess with me.

• 28:14Mel Robbins?

  Oh, how many of us have heard that?

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, this is, don't try to change me, don't mess with me, like this is who I am, I'm fine. You know, there's nothing wrong with me, like this like reaction. And um...

• 28:24Mel Robbins?

  Can you give people a sense, that don't know, you've wrote about this extensively in your New York Times bestseller, The Mask of Masculinity.

• 28:33Mel Robbins?

  And you talk about this on your podcast, but can you give people a sense of some of the things that needed healing? So I'm gonna just point out one of them. So being in a classroom where you cannot do cognitively because of a learning difference, you and I both have dyslexia, yours seems to be probably more profound than mine.

• 28:55Lewis Howes?

  Even reading my own words, I trip up sometimes because I still have to practice, like reading slowly and with a cadence.

• 29:02Mel Robbins?

  So what was that like for me to pass the book to you?

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  I was even gonna say it, I was like, you know, this is like, I get to practice my insecurities all the time. I have to read on a teleprompter all the time, and I'm always like, just take a deep breath and know that, I just know that I'm not gonna be the best reader in the world, and that's okay. And so I just say, you know, I accept myself when I stutter, I accept myself when I stumble, I accept myself when I have to redo a sentence over and over again because I wasn't able to see what's coming next, and it just didn't sound right. It probably takes me twice as long to read my audio book as you do, right? And, uh, and I, but I used to hate myself for that and beat myself up. And now I accept and love myself. And when I do that, I notice I read a lot better and I flow a lot better.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  And it's the, you know, it's not perfect or anything, but I'm like, it's just, I save a lot more time, I'm more relaxed. And as opposed to, I used to, to beat myself up and be the biggest critic. Now I'm just a positive self-coach in those moments. I was like, oh, you got this. It's okay, you know.

• 30:03Mel Robbins?

  Can we unpack that for a minute? Cause I think it's a really relatable example. So every one of us has something that we're self-conscious about, or that we beat ourselves up about, whether it's our weight, or like, you know, something about our skin, or our hair, or our height. Or, you know, for you, you mentioned stuttering and stumbling and reading out loud, or being slower at something. And you so beautifully talked about how you used to just beat the hell out of yourself. You hated that about yourself. How do you, or how did you, Louis, learn to accept something you hated? How do you do that?

• 30:41Lewis Howes?

  There's many different modalities of

• 30:43Mel Robbins?

  What worked for you?

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  Of healing.

• 30:45Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  And I, and I feel like over the last 10 years, I was telling your husband, Chris, about this. I was like, cause he was asking me about all these different things.

• 30:50Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 30:51Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, I feel like I've tried lots of different stuff because I got a lot of work to do. So I'm willing to, I'm willing to dive in and like, take a look in the mirror and say, tell me what to do and I'll try it.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  And I did workshops, emotional intelligence, leadership training workshops 10 years ago, that helped me unlock and open up about sexual trauma. That was kind of stage one. It was one of my biggest shames that I didn't want to talk about. I didn't want anyone to know about, because if anyone knew that I've been sexually abused, I thought no one would ever love me. So it was a huge. Protection that I was a shield that I was putting up on myself. To show people that I was strong, to show people that I was confident, to show people that I was, that no one could mess with me in sports or whatever it might be. And that that's supported me in accomplishing certain results, but hurt me and feeling loves and harmony and alignment within myself.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  And so it was exhausting. It's draining. It's an emotional train wreck because you're kind of living a double life. Inside, you know the truth. Outside, others don't know the truth about you. So you're hiding something.

• 32:02Mel Robbins?

  And you know, I want to point something out about this because we've been doing a whole series on trauma and nervous system repair and you talked earlier about how your lived experience, even though you were super successful on the outside, is like not in the stomach, tightness in the chest, something in the throat. You don't even have to be conscious about the fact that you're hiding this thing. It's not like you're walking around thinking about the fact that you were a victim of sexual abuse. It's that it's stored in your body. So your body operates in a state all the time as if something bad's about to happen.

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  I wasn't even like aware that I wasn't telling people. I was just like, you know, trying to block it and and and cover it up constantly. But it was always in my mind, like maybe every few days, the memory would come up in some way. It was just like a movie that was repeating on a repeat. And when I did this first workshop, a lot of things started to happen in my life where I was having breakdowns. Intimate relationship, business partnership, just life. I just felt like, man, stuff is breaking down all around me. Although I'm successful, why are all these things breaking down? I'm the common denominator. A friend of mine was like, Actually got in a fight on a basketball court. This was kind of the tipping point. Where I was the perfect storm.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  And a friend of mine who was there was like, I don't want to hang out with you anymore if you're gonna keep reacting in this way. Because I was the same fun-loving guy. But when I would get triggered. I was like, this reaction would come out of me.

• 33:30Mel Robbins?

  Like you get like, super physical like a linebacker?

• 33:33Lewis Howes?

  I would just like, try to defend myself energetically. But if someone was physically trying to attack me. Which in a basketball game is kind of a, you know.

• 33:42Mel Robbins?

  Isn't that part of the game?

• 33:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes, but I would take it so personally. So when there was a cheap elbow, I'd be like, turn around and be like, let's go, let's fight. So I didn't have the filter, because I felt like someone was always trying to. Abuse me or take advantage of me. Exactly. And so this was kind of the, the, the last thing that happened. I got in this fight. And my friend was like, hey, I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to play basketball anymore with you if you're gonna react like this. And it was a tendency that was happening for many months, more and more, until this like fistfight came about.

• 34:10Mel Robbins?

  Fistfight?

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  Fistfight.

• 34:11Mel Robbins?

  On a basketball court?

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  On a pickup basketball court, yeah. There was no stakes on the line. It was just like a friendly game in the mean streets of Beverly Hills, yeah. And, um.

• 34:21Mel Robbins?

  How old were you?

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  I was ten years ago. Yeah.

• 34:23Mel Robbins?

  So how old are you now?

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-nine.

• 34:25Mel Robbins?

  Thirty-nine, so when you're twenty-nine years old.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  And I remember there was a police station right across the street. It was in West Hollywood. It was ten minutes away from here and, um. And I remember. Going home. After this. Well, I remember seeing the guy's face when it was done. And being really scared of what I had done.

• 34:45Mel Robbins?

  Meaning?

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  His face didn't look good. I'll just say that. And he, and I always had this rule. That I'll never hit someone unless they hit me first. That was kind of like my thing. But I'll, I'll fricking get in someone's face, I'll talk trash, whatever, but I was like, I'll never hit someone unless they hit me first. He ended up headbutting me. Because we were like, kind of in each other's faces and he headbutts me, and then I kind of just go blank. And I, and I turn into like, the Incredible Hulk.

• 35:10Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  In that moment. Like this guy hit me. There's no rules. And, um. And afterwards, I had so much adrenaline. Uh, because I don't think I'd gotten in an actual fight since I was like thirteen, right, so. I played football to get my aggression out, but then no, I no longer was able to hit people legally. Right? And so this was a point where this happened. And I remember going home and looking at myself in the mirror and being like, who are you? I did not recognize myself. And I was really kind of like shaking because I was like, what am I doing? Like, who am I? What are you, why are you reacting? I always started to like, ask myself this question. And I remember thinking like, I have too much to lose now.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  To allow my anger, my fears, my wounds to be in control. Yeah. Because I had built a business and I was like, what if someone, I don't know, what if someone had a knife or a gun or whatever? Like, or I injured myself in a worse way, or I hurt someone else? Like, what if something really bad happened? He was ending up fine, we were fine. But I remember thinking, oh, okay, this could really get out of control. And this was nothing. This was like a little incident and I was so reactive. So that's what got me down the path of saying, let me take a look in the mirror. I asked some friends for some, some suggestions on what I could do. I went to some workshops. The first workshop I went to got me to a vulnerable enough state to talk about sexual abuse for the first time. Out loud? Out loud. First time I spoke the words. What was that like?

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  The most terrifying moment of my life, to be honest. Because I never thought that this had happened to any other man. So you have to imagine, if you think that what has happened to you has never happened to anyone else, then you think you are wrong, broken and the worst human being alive. Yeah. Now, that's just, it was my interpretation, right? And I got to a place during this workshop where it was a five day experience and a lot of people were going through about, it's a leadership workshop, but we have to go into our past and mend things to clear on what we want for the future and then move towards the future, right? So it's kind of like a process, a journey of your personal life to help you have more tools of leadership. Yeah.

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  And at one point during this workshop, people were open up about different stuff. It was a vulnerable state at this time, but it was like after the third day.

• 37:38Lewis Howes?

  The trainer goes, okay, we've gone into these different past experiences. Parents and this and that and breakups. We're not talking about the past anymore. We're moving on. We're going into what you want to create for the future. Like, we're done. We're moving forward. But if there's anything you haven't shared, now is the time. Like, if there anything you haven't shared from the past, now is the time, or we're moving on, and you're gonna miss your moment. For whatever reason, that voice came back out and was like, okay, and during this time, I started to address all these different things from my childhood. My parents, you know, they probably should have never been married in the first place, but they went through a divorce eventually, and just kind of the fear of their arguments and fights as a young child.

• 38:23Lewis Howes?

  That was stressful. My brother went to prison when I was eight for four and a half years. Uh, so I didn't have friends for four and a half years because in a small town, uh, you know, the moms wouldn't let their kids hang out with me. So that was just a lonely time, and it was traumatic to go to a prison every weekend and watch your brother in a, in a room full of convicts and their families. It was a traumatic experience for the whole family. Um, you know, being picked on in school and special needs classes and all these different things, breakups, heartbreak. I was like, okay, I've already addressed this stuff. I feel fine here. But what about this thing that I've been thinking about almost every day for 25 years?

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  And whatever inside of me just said, you have to stand up. And I remember just like standing up and getting out of my seat and walking to the front of the room. And there's probably, I don't know, 30, 40 people in the room. We're kind of like in a semi circle and I stand up. And this was interesting because I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. I stood up. I like looked down at the carpet, went in front of the room. And just said, when I was five, I was sexually abused by the babysitter's son. And I went through the entire story of the entire event. It was almost like I was in the bathroom again, reliving it. And I shared this, but I could not look up because I was so ashamed of what I was saying. And I was just thinking to myself, man, everyone's laughing at me. Everyone's like,

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  you know, thinking I'm a loser, everyone thinking I'm unlovable. All these things came up for me and I was like, My life is over, essentially what I was thinking. And I remember sharing this staring down, like walk through the whole thing.

• 39:58Lewis Howes?

  And somehow I was like semi calm. I was like standing there just maybe because I wasn't looking in anyone's eyes, but I was pretty calm. And able to just get through it. I wasn't crying or anything. I was just getting through it. And then I went and sat down and there was two women sitting on either side of me. When I sat down and I remember just looking at one of them and she's like weeping and the other one is like holding me. They're crying. Now it's like twenty five years of pain just kind of erupts. And I start crying and. They're holding me. They're all kind of like jumping and shaking like, you know, they're crying uncontrollably. And I'm just like, I have to leave. So I run out of the room. It was in kind of a conference room of like a hotel. Run out of the hotel to get some fresh air.

• 40:41Lewis Howes?

  And I'm in the back alley behind this hotel. By LAX and there's a wall. I kind of just put my hand against the wall and I'm just like sobbing. And a few minutes later, I feel a touch on the back of my shoulder. And it's this guy who's bigger than me. He's probably in his late fifties. And he turns me around. He's crying. He looks me in my eyes. He says, you're my hero. You're my hero. I will follow you anywhere. I vividly remember this. He goes, I have three kids. I've been married for twenty something years. My wife doesn't know. My kids don't know. This happened to me when I was eleven. This happened to me multiple times.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  And I've lived with shame and doubt and insecurities my whole life. Thank you for being the first person to open up in front of me. You're going to give me the courage now to go and tell my wife.

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  All these men from the room started coming out. There was only a two or three guys who'd been sexually abused that told me that for the first time, by the way, they hadn't opened up either to anyone in their lives. And then other guys were just like, I've never heard anything like this. This happened to me. I feel really insecure about this in my life or this thing I'm ashamed of, right? And it was so powerful because I was thinking all these, everyone's gonna make fun of me, but in fact, it made them trust me and respect me more and love me more. The thing that was the scariest thing for me was actually the thing that that brought me closer to people. And and people could actually see me for the first time fully, at least in that regard.

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  Uh, and it was, that was the start of ten years of lots of different healing modalities, which I'm happy to talk about some of them, but it was, uh, that was the start of processing the healing. The next step is integrating the healing, which is where all the work is.

• 42:35Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, that's true. Well, we will get you back to go in and talk about all the modalities. But I wanna just say that this is yet another one of those areas where you and I have a parallel path. Because I had a very similar thing happen to me when I was in the fourth grade and I buried it. And I knew in the back of my mind, somewhere in the back of my mind, that something had happened. And it wasn't until I was at a leadership seminar.

• 43:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:07Mel Robbins?

  That was in the personal. No, well, what happened is somebody else shared. And they shared about how it had, they had been molested and they had forgiven their parents and forgiven the babysitter, but they couldn't forgive their sister. Because while this was happening to them in the bathroom, similar to their story, their sister was watching TV.

• 43:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 43:30Mel Robbins?

  And as she said that, I had a very vivid memory of the moment that had happened to me in the middle of the night. And when I kinda rolled over, because I, you know, was scared that this person was on top of me, the first person I saw was my brother. Because he was sleeping on the bunk bed, like, right across. And I thought, I don't want this person to hurt him. So I was just like, quiet like a mouse. But it was the sibling connection and it, like you, just flooded in. And I was like, I gotta share this. And for a minute, I questioned whether or not it had happened. And it was speaking.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  Was it a bad dream, or was it a reality?

• 44:06Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  Or was, did I block it? Was it real? Yeah.

• 44:08Mel Robbins?

  Yes, but that voice, that knowing, that flood of emotion made me, like you, say, I, I, I just have to say it out loud.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  And what, and what happened when you said it out loud?

• 44:20Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I just collapsed, sobbing, same thing as you. Like, so many people come up. I mean, it is such, unfortunately, a very common story. One in four women, one in six men have experienced something like that, but it's in the, either the, the denying that it's real and questioning it, or the shame that you feel around it, as if somehow it's your fault.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Mel Robbins?

  Or it somehow is damaging to you, and carrying that inside, which really is damaging. And so, I think that it's an, it's an important, thank you, first of all, for sharing that story.

• 44:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 44:56Mel Robbins?

  Um, and I think, speaking the things that you hate or ashamed of, is a form of acceptance. Because if you keep this stuff silent, if you're unwilling to talk about it, it's gonna continue to haunt you. And so, you know, you've been on this incredible journey of healing. What has it taught you about greatness?

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  You can't be great without having peace, and without going on a healing journey, in my mind. You can accomplish a lot, you can achieve a lot, you can get a lot of awards and make a lot of money, but I feel like if you feel like you don't, still aren't enough, then you're not great, I don't think.

• 45:36Mel Robbins?

  Cause it's the enough, the thing that you're chasing is outside of you.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  It is outside of you, and again, I was chasing them to feel better about myself, to feel like, okay, I matter, and I have value. Because I didn't believe I had value. And I think, um, once you believe you have value, then you're creating from a space of love, and win-win, and service, as opposed to, I need to do this for me, and look good, and fill something up inside of me. You're doing it from a more healing journey, uh, place, and then you're able to give more, you're able to create in a better place. So a lot of my life was doing things to prove people wrong, that I felt abused, abandoned, made fun of, bye. It's like, well, let me go make, create, succeed, to prove people wrong.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  So when I would lose, I was a bad loser, cause I was like, oh, I didn't prove them wrong. I lost, they were right. And so it was just a different energy of creation. It's the second most powerful fuel is the fuel of anger and not enoughness. You can go nonstop for years trying to prove your enoughness from that state. But it is exhausting energy. It's draining. It's like you feel like, oh, what was the point of this? So many times I accomplished things in sports, biggest dreams after ten and fifteen years of thinking about them, working hard and accomplishing it and feeling like so angry after I accomplished it because I thought I would feel something different. And I still didn't feel good enough. So I was like, I need to go create more and accomplish more.

• 47:09Lewis Howes?

  And then I would do it. And I was like, why am I still feeling alone inside? It's because I didn't have a good relationship with me internally. And once I started to shift that, I just feel such a good sense of peace. And because I have a meaningful mission that is not about me, it's about others as well.

• 47:28Mel Robbins?

  You talk about mission in this book.

• 47:29Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's the foundation. It's like getting clear on a meaningful mission.

• 47:32Mel Robbins?

  How do you do that?

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I mean.

• 47:35Mel Robbins?

  I mean, you've got, you've got the framework in here, but, but I'm, I'm trying, I'm thinking, Louis, about the person.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  It depends on the season of your life. And again, if you were trying to pay your bills, you can't think about a meaningful mission. You got to think about protecting yourself, safety and getting to a place of.

• 47:50Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's a meaningful mission, right?

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  And that is a meaningful mission for this season, right? So when I was on my sister's couch, that's all I could think about was like, how can I make enough money to get off the couch?

• 47:59Mel Robbins?

  Great.

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  And so that was the mission for that season. But the ones you complete that, you got to think about something bigger that includes others. Right? And so I was still including others in that by adding value to people in order to get money from them. Right? Essentially, I'm going to give you a service. I'm going to help you and you're going to pay me.

• 48:15Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 48:16Lewis Howes?

  So I'm helping them overcome a problem. And I was using my, my passion and my power to solve a problem. And that's what I started to do. And then I started to, once I, once I overcame that mission or accomplished it, I was like, okay, now I can see a little bit further. Now what I want to create. And same thing happened with the School of Greatness.

• 48:34Mel Robbins?

  Now, so hold on, I just wanted to tell everybody. So Louis, basically, in looking for a job, figured out how LinkedIn worked.

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 48:41Mel Robbins?

  And then realized, oh, whoa, I can teach other people how to use LinkedIn like a pro. And so he literally became wildly successful being an expert on monetizing and utilizing LinkedIn and One Platform. And tell everybody how you came up with the School for Greatness idea.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  So after, I don't know, four or five years of, of kind of teaching LinkedIn and then expanding it into just social media and marketing in general and courses and stuff like that, I realized, okay, I had enough money for maybe two years to live.

• 49:17Mel Robbins?

  Oh, that's pretty good, Louis.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  When you're broke and poor, at least from my point of view.

• 49:23Mel Robbins?

  The holy grail.

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  When you're broke and poor, from my point of view, I didn't spend anything. I was like, I just need to stack everything because I was in scarcity mode.

• 49:30Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 49:30Lewis Howes?

  So I wasn't like spending anything. So I had enough, and I also didn't have a car. You know, I was living in like apartment that was like $495 a month. I was like living in the lowest amount I could. I was like taking trains places, not like flying anywhere. I was like, how can I say?

• 49:46Mel Robbins?

  This is Louis the squirrel.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:49Mel Robbins?

  Ordin his nuts, man. Here we go. That's right.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Put him in my back pocket. And, um, and once I realized, oh, I can actually like, I'm surviving now, right? I'm thriving, I'm surviving. I got out of this kind of like scarcity mentality.

• 50:02Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:02Lewis Howes?

  I was able to think beyond that. I was able to think beyond this like need to like just make money really quickly. And, um, I realized I didn't want this anymore. This season of life, I was like, I don't want to do what I was doing in this business anymore. So I sold it to a business partner I had. And I was like, okay, I've got about two years of cash if I don't make any money to survive.

• 50:23Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 50:24Lewis Howes?

  This is the exact moment when I got into the fight on the basketball court. I was going through a breakup in a relationship that I moved to LA for. And I was just having breakdowns in life. And so I was literally stuck in traffic in LA a little over 10 years ago. Tuesday next week is my 10 year anniversary for my podcast. No way. Tuesday next week. So a little over 10 years ago, 10 years and three months ago, I'm stuck in LA traffic. All this stuff had just happened. And I'm just thinking to myself, man, I don't have it all figured out. I thought I did. I thought my ego knew it was right. Yeah. I thought I, you know, accomplished stuff and this and that. Featuring the White House and all these others.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  I was like, man, I should be the man, but I feel like a loser. And I was stuck in LA traffic. We were literally on the 405 and we were not moving. And all these people around me in cars stopped, were screaming and honking and flipping each other off. And I'm honking and I'm like, man, I'm stuck, we're stuck, everyone's stuck. And I was just like, okay, huh. If people are stuck in traffic and they're taking them so long to get places. What if I could offer value and solve a problem for them to get unstuck? This was literally what I was going through. And I was like, I need the solution myself. And I just started hurting about, hearing about podcasting. This was 20 like 12.

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  I just started to hear like whispers, you know, whisper, podcasting. What is this thing, right? And I was like, I literally called two friends in the car. It was a long drive, being stuck. I called two friends, I go, I know you have a podcast, I just saw you launch this thing. Pat Flynn and my friend Derek Halpern. Okay. Called them both. And I go, tell me about the podcasting thing. And they're like, I love it. It's the coolest thing ever. The audience I'm connecting, the building, the relationship. It's the best thing ever. I don't make any money, but it's the best thing ever. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, man, I think I could do this because I had started to just interview people for myself. Recording it for me, like business leaders and sports athletes and all these people for years leading up to that.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  That's how I got in kind of the LinkedIn space. I would network with people, I'd interview them. And I just was like, man, I've learned so much from these people, which got me here in my business results. So let me take it a step farther. And they were both telling me like, well, you should just make it about like marketing and entrepreneurship because that's what you're doing.

• 52:55Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  I was like, ah, it just doesn't resonate with me. I feel like I'm supposed to do something more. They're like, well, don't go too broad because it probably won't work.

• 53:01Mel Robbins?

  Oh, you mean like greatness?

• 53:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And I was like, and who are you? You're still just like getting started. You're like an internet marketer. You don't have a big audience. Like you can't go too broad.

• 53:11Mel Robbins?

  You just beat somebody up on a basketball court.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  I know, right. Like you're breaking down everywhere in your life. And I was just like, again, that voice kept saying like, I just feel like this is what I want to step into though. And even if it fails, I'm going to make it an experiment. I'm going to do it for one year, one episode a week for a year and just see if I like it. So I discovered the mission by exploring something, by being curious and trying it. And I gave myself some parameters. I'm not going to try to make money. Again, at that time, I had money for two years.

• 53:42Mel Robbins?

  Got it.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Some people may not have that luxury.

• 53:44Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  When they're figuring this out in terms of making money. You might have to make money really quickly. If I needed to make money, I could have.

• 53:51Mel Robbins?

  Well, you also don't have to go all in.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 53:53Mel Robbins?

  What I loved about what you said, did you hear what Louis said? Experiment. He gave himself permission to experiment with something for a year. Number two, he took the pressure off and said, I'm not going to make this experiment generate money. And so if you can, whether you're on the couch or you're working a job, if you can give yourself the grace of an experiment. And take the pressure off of money, you now are walking in the footsteps of greatness here. And so you set out on this experiment and you didn't know about how to do it. You have two friends that.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  I had an iPhone that I used to record in the beginning. I had no clue what I was doing. I was, you know. I was trying to do what I thought I was supposed to do. I was just like trying stuff and my, it's funny because my assistant listened to the first episode like last week. She goes, I went back and listened to the first episode. She goes, you're a completely different person. And I'm like, because it was more about success, right? It was more about like achievement and winning and like results.

• 54:51Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I have to go back and listen. I was like, yo, Louis, we might have to pop in a little audio of Louis introducing himself.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Then after, then I went to this workshop a few months later.

• 55:01Mel Robbins?

  Oh, the one where you spoke for the first time?

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  About sexual abuse and all these things. And I actually, this is so funny. I actually learned the concept about no one wins. You don't win unless everyone wins around you. You know, that was like, what? That concept didn't make sense to me as an athlete. I was like, no, there was one winner. Everyone else must lose. Otherwise, you're the loser, right? That was kind of like the mentality that I was trained with.

• 55:26Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  It was the programming that I was conditioned to have. And this workshop taught me that you don't win unless everyone wins.

• 55:35Mel Robbins?

  You embody that, dude.

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  And it's about, and thank you. And it's about, it doesn't mean, you know, winning could look differently for everyone around you, but there must be like a win-win experience. Otherwise, your win doesn't mean as much if others aren't improving and growing and succeeding in whatever it is they're doing as well, right? Doesn't mean it has to be equal winning or something like that. And that's why I was like, yeah, that's right. This podcast can't be about like results. It should be about elevating others and about improvement and how we can all win together. And that's when it started to shift and I started to like be a little softer. It was like, let's just get results, you know? And it was beautiful. So there's so much that happened in that first year of the experiment where I started to like

• 56:22Lewis Howes?

  try something and it wasn't perfect the first hundred times. I just said, how can I make it better every time? How can I listen to the feedback and make it better every time? And how can I find my voice in this process? You know, even if I'm not comfortable sharing my voice, how do I find it by practicing it? And after the first year, I remember being like, man, I just really loved this and enjoyed it. And so 10 years later, here we are, I still love it, still enjoy it.

• 56:49Mel Robbins?

  When you think back on literally probably thousands of people that you've interviewed, what's one interview that you reflect on the most?

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  I was gonna say Kobe because he was my favorite interview, but when you said this, there was an interview the first year that I had with a guy named Chris Lee, who was the actual coach and trainer of the workshop I went to when I opened up for the first time.

• 57:17Mel Robbins?

  Really?

• 57:18Lewis Howes?

  He had such a massive impact on me from that experience that I ended up hiring him as a coach for a couple of years just to like coach me personally. And I had him come on the show and I had him put me through.

• 57:32Lewis Howes?

  Well, I guess he put me through it, but I asked him about like, I was single at the time. I go, how do you find the dream like partner? And he put me through a guided meditation where he had me close my eyes. And he like walked me through a scenario and a scene of my future self. He said, I want you to imagine waking up next to this person. I want you to imagine what they look like, what they sound like. I want you to imagine what you, when you open the windows, where you are in the world, what your view is. I want you to imagine the feeling, the experience you're having with this person. And the reason I'm talking about that is because I said to myself during that, my eyes were closed.

• 58:15Lewis Howes?

  I was like, I don't know if this is weird or not, but I was like, I wake up next to the woman of my dreams. And when I open my eyes, she looks at me and she's smiling at me every morning. And I remember saying that, I don't know why that came to me, but I was like, she's, she looks at me, she's smiling at me because she's so grateful and happy that we're in this relationship together. And essentially eight years later, I'm in a relationship with a person that wakes up, that literally opens her eyes and looks at me and smiles. And this is no joke, it happens every day. She looks at me, she hugs me. Some days she wakes up crying, I'm not kidding, because she's just a grateful human being.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  Not just because of like, I'm in her life, but she's just a happy person. And I dreamt of this. And so for me, that was a powerful, powerful episode because I had two other relationships before her and after this conversation. Those, those things didn't happen. And I realized that it only happened the moment I started to fully heal a lot of the emotional things that I still wasn't ready to face in intimacy. So I healed one element, but not all the other elements. And it wasn't until I, I'll Literally, there was a pain in my chest for still for years from other things, not the sexual abuse pain. Cause I could talk about that freely and be at peace.

• 59:43Lewis Howes?

  But in other things that I still wasn't willing to face. And it wasn't until I faced those things two years ago. There was a pain in my chest for many years that would come and go. It disintegrated after about five months of intensive therapy, integration, healing. It finally disintegrated in my chest and I felt this ball of pain go throughout my body. Into like complete freedom. And it hasn't come back since.

• 1:00:05Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:00:05Lewis Howes?

  It took five months of intense reflection, exercises. Practicing of healing the nervous system to where that went away. That is literally. A month or two later, I met her.

• 1:00:19Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  And it's been a game changer ever since.

• 1:00:22Mel Robbins?

  Have you talked publicly about what that thing was that you faced?

• 1:00:25Lewis Howes?

  I just started. I haven't really talked about it publicly. I just started kind of telling people that. Cause I don't know if other people feel a pain in their chest. I don't know if. If you've ever felt like a ball that's kind of like this. Not palpitations, but just kind of a nagging pain.

• 1:00:39Mel Robbins?

  I think people feel the, I feel it more kind of like right above the stomach.

• 1:00:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Mel Robbins?

  That's sort of where my. And I know when it's coming because it hits the ankles first and then this clenches. Yep.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  Like wobbly legs or something?

• 1:00:50Mel Robbins?

  No, like I feel literally the, when I get triggered, I literally feel it start.

• 1:00:55Lewis Howes?

  And it comes to your stomach?

• 1:00:55Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, but I think you want to know why. It's because that's how the person approached me.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:00Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:01:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I. Cause it was used to be the throat and the chest for me. You just feel like I couldn't speak.

• 1:01:06Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  And there was like a pain here and I was just like. It wasn't like I felt like I was on a heart attack or anything like that, but it's just like a nagging pain.

• 1:01:14Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Lewis Howes?

  It would come and go and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it or how to like eliminate it and it just. I went to five months of intensive every week therapy, sometimes. Five, six hours on Saturdays where I was just like, I'm a mania kind of mission. To create. Peace, clarity and freedom. The first day I stepped into the therapy with the, my coach. I call her an emotional coach because I think we should all have one. She said, what's your intention for starting this process? I said, I want peace, clarity and freedom. Cause I didn't feel like I had any of those.

• 1:01:48Mel Robbins?

  Can I take a guess at what your biggest block was?

• 1:01:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:01:53Mel Robbins?

  It was an inability to even allow love in. Is that what it was?

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if that's what it was, maybe, but it was my inability to not abandon myself.

• 1:02:07Mel Robbins?

  What does that mean for somebody who's never heard that term?

• 1:02:09Lewis Howes?

  So it was my inability to to not abandon myself in intimacy with one person. The person that I was choosing to be in a committed relationship with. Cause I wanted to abandon myself in other areas. I would stand up for those like, no, I'm not gonna do that.

• 1:02:24Mel Robbins?

  Oh, were you like a nice guy doormat type in relationships?

• 1:02:27Lewis Howes?

  I was more trying to buy peace. So whenever my relationship was, uh, relationships in the past would try to, it would be upset at me.

• 1:02:36Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Lewis Howes?

  You didn't do this. Uh, I'm sorry. Okay, I'll go do it now.

• 1:02:39Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  Whenever there was disturbance emotionally.

• 1:02:41Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:02:42Lewis Howes?

  With the environment, or they were screaming at me, or they were cold shoulder, or they wouldn't speak to me. I was like, I don't like this feeling. And so I didn't know how to navigate my inner world when that would happen. I didn't know how to be peaceful under chaos emotionally. So I would do things to buy peace. I would say, okay, I'll stop doing this. Even though I don't want to stop doing something, I'll stop doing it to make you feel comfortable.

• 1:03:07Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I'll give in here. Okay, I'll, I'll come home five hours early. Okay, I won't go on that trip because you don't feel comfortable with me going alone.

• 1:03:15Mel Robbins?

  See, I don't think people understand how much men struggle with this. That, that, no, I, I mean it. Like you're, you, this is why I said, you remind me a tremendous amount in ways of Chris. Same thing. Like just would shut down.

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Mel Robbins?

  And.

• 1:03:33Lewis Howes?

  Or give in.

• 1:03:34Mel Robbins?

  Or give in and not capable of expressing what he needed because his experience as a kid was it didn't matter anyway.

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And a lot, a lot of times, you know, in general, a lot of men were never trained on how to navigate uncomfortable emotions through.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  Their highest selves, they would navigate it through their ego self, which is defend, protect, and show that everything's okay. And that works in some cases, but not in every case. And I think I didn't have the tools, the training, the knowledge, the experience, the wisdom on how to navigate stressful emotions in love, in an intimate, loving relationship. I could do it in business and sports and other things.

• 1:04:20Mel Robbins?

  Wasn't modeled for you when you were little?

• 1:04:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was constant, it was a constant low level stress and like resentment from my parents of each other, which made me always like, ah, what's gonna happen, right? And they loved me and I, I knew they loved me, but it was, I knew they also didn't love each other.

• 1:04:34Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:34Lewis Howes?

  And so that was stressful. Um, and so I didn't know how to, how to be with a woman who was like, you can't do this, screaming at me, don't do this, I don't like when you do this, this is not okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cause what they are saying is you're not enough. And I don't accept you for who you are, Lewis. So I didn't accept myself for who I was. I, I knew, I knew I wasn't enough, that's how I thought. So I said, I'm gonna do what's gonna make her feel like I'm enough for her.

• 1:05:01Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  And after a year, two years, three years of doing that and just giving in and giving in and giving in, you fully lose yourself.

• 1:05:09Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  You lose all your, you, you lose who you are. Then you get resentful, you get frustrated, you get angry. So I lacked the emotional ability to say no. And if you don't love me and accept me and you wanna walk away, that's okay. And I lacked the emotional ability to, um, to just be okay with me walking away from something as well. And that's why when I met Martha, uh, which you've met her a couple of times now.

• 1:05:38Mel Robbins?

  She smiles at you all the time.

• 1:05:40Lewis Howes?

  I had a, I had a fully different experience.

• 1:05:43Mel Robbins?

  Because you were different.

• 1:05:44Lewis Howes?

  Cause I was completely different and. And I just told her like, straight up, I was like, this is my values, this is who I am, and I'm never gonna abandon myself for anyone.

• 1:05:54Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:54Lewis Howes?

  You, this, that, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm just never gonna abandon myself. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna be a flexible human being and supportive and all these other ways, but I'm not gonna give up who I am to please one human being, because they're not happy with me.

• 1:06:07Mel Robbins?

  Dude, if you could sum up the greatness mindset, I think you just did. There is this quote that goes viral all the time. I have no idea who said it first, but it's that thing that when you, uh, put all your energy into trying to keep the peace with others, you create a war inside yourself.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:06:23Mel Robbins?

  And that is just what you described.

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Mel Robbins?

  That tension in your chest, and so many of you listening, listen with it, or that pit in your stomach is the war.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:32Mel Robbins?

  That Louis just described with yourself, because you're so much more focused and concerned with keeping the peace, making sure everybody else is okay. And until you invert that.

• 1:06:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:43Mel Robbins?

  And you focus on creating peace within yourself, that's it right there.

• 1:06:47Lewis Howes?

  And this is the moment when it unlocks, I remember now exactly what happens when this, the pain went away. Because I was working on, because I didn't feel free, right? And so for five months of therapy, going in every week, I was committed. I was like, I'm gonna figure this out, and I'll go as long as it takes.

• 1:07:05Mel Robbins?

  You're like a truffle pig for healing, man. He's gonna root that thing out right there. I'm doing it, man. I'm not gonna stop until I healed. I love that. I'm proud of you.

• 1:07:12Lewis Howes?

  And I remember, and healing's a journey. It's not an event that happens overnight. There's an unlocking, there's an awareness moments, but then you've gotta, then PTSD occurs if you don't keep integrating it, so it's a constant journey.

• 1:07:23Mel Robbins?

  So what was that moment?

• 1:07:24Lewis Howes?

  So the moment was, many, because every time I would meet my coach, she'd say, what's your intention? Peace, clarity, freedom. I didn't feel them. And so we were talking about which each one is, when do you not feel peace? When do you not feel clear, freedom? I was like, I've never felt free in my life. And a lot of it came down to modeling parents. They weren't free in their relationship. They both were resentful of being in the relationship. They both got married when they're nineteen. They didn't know any better.

• 1:07:52Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Lewis Howes?

  They had four kids. They were working their butts off. Just staying together. So I don't blame them, but they stayed together, not because they wanted to, because they didn't know how to, how to navigate it as well. And so I saw them trapped. That was what it was for me. I saw them trapped and I was afraid to be trapped. Cause I didn't want to repeat the feeling of them being trapped and feeling miserable a lot of the time. And I was like, I don't want to create that in my life, but I didn't know how to stand up for myself. So that was the thing. And she just kept looking at me. It was kind of like a goodwill hunting moment. She was like, you're not trapped. You're not trapped. You're not trapped. You're a free man. You're a free man. You're a free man.

• 1:08:36Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know what it was, just like all the months of like the practicing, the integrating, the, the opening it back up. Where it's just kind of like, this like rush is like finally connected to me. That I am a free man, that I am not trapped. She was like, you can walk away at any moment. You can walk away at any moment. You don't have to keep working in this relationship. Like, especially since you're not married, you don't have to walk, you can walk away at any moment.

• 1:09:02Mel Robbins?

  But even if you are married.

• 1:09:03Lewis Howes?

  You can walk away. And that was the thing. I was like, I'm so afraid to get married because I don't want to have the shame of getting divorced. Or the pain that caught that, that happens after divorce that so many people go through.

• 1:09:14Mel Robbins?

  Well, it's so interesting. You were so focused on not feeling trapped, that you actually trapped yourself.

• 1:09:20Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent. And it's so funny because I went to a prison almost every week for four and a half years. And I watched men who were trapped behind bars. Some of them were emotionally free. Some of them were there, but I saw them free men. Like they were in a state of complete peace. Not all of them, but some of them had so much love in their hearts, were very kind and generous. They had their families around. And they were free emotionally, but they just did something that put them in there physically. And I realized for so long that I was. Trapped emotionally, but free physically, and I didn't know how to break free. And that was the thing where I was like, I'm just sick and tired of feeling this pain.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  I'm sick and tired of repeating the pattern where I'm the common denominator in all these relationships, choosing them, staying in them and not standing up for myself. So that was a massive game changer for me was investing in emotional coaching, showing up consistently when I didn't want to and doing the work. And I think a lot of us will get business coaches, career coaches, health coaches, but the emotional game is the game that most of us don't know how to master. And yet, we won't invest in coaching or find support. And I just think it's so crucial.

• 1:10:35Mel Robbins?

  Well, you write at the very end of your fantastic book, The Greatness Mindset. You're talking about unlock the power of your mind and live your best life today. You have a huge section in this on healing.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  A whole section is healing. I feel like you cannot be great.

• 1:10:50Mel Robbins?

  Huge section, like the whole middle of the book. It's healing. I feel like it's not even unlock the power of your mind. It's literally unlock the power of your mind, body and spirit, integrate it all.

• 1:10:59Lewis Howes?

  Well, you know, everything's a Trojan horse.

• 1:11:01Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's true. Nobody's gonna pick up the healing book. So they're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy the mindset book. But guys, if people understood the art of falling in love with yourself, the world would be a much better place. Lewis, the world is a much better place because you're in it.

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, Mel.

• 1:11:17Mel Robbins?

  And I wanted to ask you, let's see if I can.

• 1:11:22Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna make me read one more thing?

• 1:11:23Mel Robbins?

  I am not gonna make you read one more thing, especially now that I know that that was a trigger for you.

• 1:11:29Lewis Howes?

  No, I'm happy to. Give it to me.

• 1:11:30Mel Robbins?

  You did fantastic. So, first of all, everybody, please go get the book. I'm not done asking Lewis questions, but please, please, please, support the man that has supported all of our greatness for the last 10 years. You will love this and it's The Greatness Mindset. And so I wanted to close by just saying, I want you to imagine that it's your last day on earth. And you can only leave the world with three truths, three lessons that you want to impart on the world. What are they, Lewis?

• 1:12:06Lewis Howes?

  You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:12:11Lewis Howes?

  Again, if we understood that and embodied it and truly believed it, then life is just a much better place.

• 1:12:20Mel Robbins?

  And what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:12:23Lewis Howes?

  For me, it's

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  going on a journey

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  to discover your unique gifts and talents.

• 1:12:34Lewis Howes?

  And in that discovery, figuring out what your dreams are.

• 1:12:39Lewis Howes?

  And on the path of going after your dreams, making the maximum impact on the people around you. For me, that's greatness.

• 1:12:46Mel Robbins?

  Wow, and you embody it, that's for sure.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:12:49Mel Robbins?

  You're welcome. Thank you for being a part of my life.

• 1:12:52Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, appreciate you.

• 1:12:53Mel Robbins?

  Oh, man. Well, and you know, before I go, I just want to make sure that you hear Lewis and I tell you something, which is, in case nobody else in your life tells you this today, I want to tell you that I love you. And I know Lewis, you probably want to say the same thing.

• 1:13:06Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent, yeah. I love you.

• 1:13:08Mel Robbins?

  And I believe in you and your ability to take absolutely everything you heard today from Lewis and put it into practice in your own life. And not only develop the greatness mindset, but to go heal and to learn how to fall in love with yourself and use that transformation to change the world around you. I love you, Lewis.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  Love you too. Appreciate it, Mel. Thanks. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels, at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.