Stop Waiting to Be Ready: The Truth About Fear, Ego, and Personal Power

Lewis shares the moment he realized that achieving his biggest goals left him feeling exactly as empty as before, discovering that success amplifies who you already are rather than fixing what's broken inside. He walks you through the painful process of confronting the wounds he spent years trying to outrun through achievement, explaining why your unhealed pain will always surface in your relationships, habits, and ability to lead. You'll learn why comfort feels safe but acts as a trap that keeps you stuck, how your ego protects you while simultaneously limiting your growth, and why the most liberating moment of your life happens when you stop waiting for someone to rescue you. This isn't about motivation or quick fixes, it's about the uncomfortable work that creates lasting transformation and genuine inner peace. Make Money Easy: Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer LifeThe Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life TodayThe Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest LivesThe School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a LegacyIn this episode you will:Discover why chasing achievement without inner work creates an endless cycle of emptiness and how to build true worthiness from the inside out instead of seeking it through external validation. Understand the difference between being fearless and being familiar with fear, and why taking action before you feel ready is the only way to build genuine confidence. Break through the exhausting pattern of wearing masks to protect yourself and learn why vulnerability is actually strength trained in silence, not weakness. Uncover how your inner circle either expands or limits your future in every moment, and why choosing your friends is literally choosing the trajectory of your entire life. Transform your relationship with failure by recognizing that your ego, not the failure itself, is what stops your growth, and why being seen while trying and failing opens up entirely new levels of opportunity. For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1876For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Dr. Daniel AmenPrice PritchettDanny Morel Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  The person you want to become requires you to face the truths the current version of you avoids. Most people say that they want to grow, but they run away from the very things that would actually help them grow. And you cannot transform your life if you are unwilling to face uncomfortable truths. You cannot evolve if you refuse to be honest with yourself. And you cannot step into the greatest version of yourself while you're still clinging to comfort, denial, or excuses. And there was a time in my life when I had to learn this the hard way. The moment when the world forced me to face myself.

• 0:40Lewis Howes?

  Not the version I performed for other people, not the version I wished I was, but the version I actually was. And I had to admit that my ego was in the way, that my fears were making my decisions for me. And that my entire sense of self-worth was built on external validation. Man, it wasn't fun. And that I wasn't being honest about the habits, the relationships, and the patterns that were keeping me stuck from creating the life that I wanted. And as painful as that realization was, it was also the moment that everything started to change. Because growth doesn't come from feel-good motivation. It doesn't come from comfort.

• 1:24Lewis Howes?

  Growth comes from truths, and the kind of truth that shakes you awake. It's like, it's like, wake up. It forces you to confront yourself, and it makes you uncomfortable enough to finally evolve. And today, I want to share the nine harsh truths that I wish I knew sooner. Truths that would have saved me years of pain and frustration, confusion, and the biggest of all, self-sabotage. They're not easy, they're not soft, but they're worth it. Truth number one is success does not create happiness. Success will not fix your sense of self-worth.

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  You can chase achievement, money, recognition, followers, status, all those things. But if you don't feel whole within yourself, nothing you accomplish will make you feel like you are enough. I've been there, I've tried all of it, it didn't work for me. Success only amplifies who you already are. It does not replace what you refuse to face. So if you feel like you're insecure inside, so you need to go chase more accomplishment, more followers, more fame, more money, you're going to amplify that insecurity the more you have it. Most people chase goals because they believe the finish line will finally

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  secure and silence their insecurities. People say, if I make more money, I'll feel confident. If I accomplish this big thing, I'll finally feel worthy. If people respect me, then I'll finally respect myself. But that's not how it works. You cannot achieve your way out of emotional emptiness. Oh, let me say this again. You cannot achieve your way out of emotional emptiness. You just can't. And I remember hitting goals I thought would finally make me happy. I had goals that I set five, 10 years away, and I would grind and work so hard to accomplish them. And I remember finally accomplishing them, and I still didn't feel good. The exact same emptiness

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  feeling was inside of me after accomplishing them. And I was like, this was not how it's supposed to be. When you accomplish the big thing, you're supposed to feel happy. But I realized I hadn't built happiness. I had built a distraction. And you might be doing the same for yourself right now. A distraction from the deeper work that I didn't want to do. A distraction from the things that I didn't want to look at inside of myself, that I was afraid to bring to the surface. Success didn't heal the parts of me that were insecure. Success didn't replace my lack of self-love. Success didn't erase the shame, or guilt, or fears

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  that I carried quietly for years. That's when I learned the hard truth. Success is never the solution. Inner peace is. Happiness, my friend, is always built from the inside out, always. It's never built from the outside in. And if you don't learn to feel worthy before the achievement, if you don't feel to be feel loved before the relationship, you'll never feel worthy because of the achievement, the relationship, the accomplishment, the goal.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  The diploma, the degree, you're not going to feel worthy at the end. You'll just keep moving the finish line. You'll say, well, now I need a bigger goal. Now I need more accomplishment, more money, more fame, more love, in order to feel the thing that I'm lacking. And it will always be moving. Big truth, number one, success doesn't create happiness. Truth, number two, if you don't create your vision, someone else will. If you don't decide who you want to become, the world will decide for you. And when you don't have a clear vision, you just start to go around life drifting. You say yes to all the things that you don't align to. You follow paths that don't fulfill you.

• 5:28Lewis Howes?

  You become a character in someone else's story instead of the author of your own. Huh. Again, I've had to learn this lesson the hard way many different times. And for years, I used to let other people's opinions shape my identity, shape my decisions, shape my emotions, shape my thoughts. And it would cripple me. I tried to fit in. I tried to impress people. I tried to be who I thought I should be. Until I finally asked myself, what do I want? That question changed everything for me. What do I want? What do I want? I don't know if you remember that, that line from The Notebook. What do you want? It's like, we have to get clear.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Not what my family wanted, not what looked good on paper, not what society said was impressive, not what I thought would make people like me more. But what my soul wanted. And this is important for you. What does your soul want for you right now? What is your soul screaming at you, say, this is the decision you need to make? This is the goal you need to go for. This is the dream. This is the person you need to become and stop becoming this person. What is your soul screaming at you right now? It's speaking to you every single day, but you're probably just blocking it. Everything you see in my life today, the podcasts, the books, the speaking, the followers, the business, the whatever you see around me,

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  none of it existed until I created a vision powerful enough to pull me forward. To draw me into this because vision is not a luxury. Vision is a direction and the clear you get on your vision. It will support you. Vision is an identity. Vision is freedom. Without a vision, you become reactive. Again, you're just like taking the scraps of life that people give you. Instead of creating boundaries because you have a clear vision of where you're heading. With that vision, you can say no to all these things that don't fit into your vision. That's what you need. The clarity of a vision will support you in making better decisions, better boundaries, better structure and more freedom.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Again, without a vision, you become reactive. Without a vision, you become

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  someone who is confused. You become a secondary character. With a vision, you become intentional and that is hard truth. Number two, if you don't create your vision, someone else will. Truth, number three. Failure is not the enemy. Your ego is. People don't fear failing. They fear looking like a failure and there's a big difference there. They don't want to see, they don't want other people to see them fail. They don't want other people to say, ah, I knew he couldn't do it. I knew she was going to make a mistake. Uh, she looked silly trying to do that thing. Uh, he, that didn't really, that didn't really work well for him. I can laugh about it with my friends now behind his back.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  People don't fear failing. They fear looking like a failure. They fear being seen as not enough. They fear the judgment of other people. They fear disappointing other people. They fear not living up to an image they created or some expectation that other people had on them. It's not failure that stops people from growing. It's ego. It is not failure that stops people from growing. It's ego. And many people live their entire lives inside of this cage of like, I am only going to do something that I know will be accepted by others. I'm only going to do this thing because I don't want to be laughed at or humiliated or made fun of. The moment I stopped pretending I had it all together,

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  that I was this confident person when really I was insecure, that I knew these things when really I didn't know anything. The moment I allowed myself to stumble and say, I don't know, I don't have the answers. The moment I failed over and over again and didn't take it personally or didn't beat myself up like I did for most of my life. And I said, this is all just part of the process of learning, getting feedback and improvement. Failure is the key to success. It's not being a failure. The more I started to learn, the more I started to try again, the more I improved and my life started to expand.

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  The turning point came the moment I finally admitted to myself that I don't have it all figured out and I don't need to. Oh my gosh, what a relief. Can you take a breath with me and just say, I don't have it all figured out and I don't need to? And just let go of that emotional weight, let go of that need or imaginary need that you have to have everything put together. You don't. You're not a perfect human being and that's okay. You're not supposed to be, but you are able to improve and progress and see how far you've come day in and day out. And when I stopped performing, because I was a big performer most of my life.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  If that resonates with you, just give a nod, leave a comment below and say, yep, I was one of those people that performed. When I stopped pretending, I pretended a lot. When I finally let myself stumble, fail and start again, my entire life opened up. My entire world started to change. Opportunities showed up to me in different ways. Mentors revealed themselves. New levels of growth increased in my life. And it wasn't because I succeeded, but because I allowed myself to be seen trying and failing and making mistakes. I allowed others to see myself not look perfect. And my ego shrank and my growth exploded in that process.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  Big lesson is that your ego wants to protect you. It's kind of running the show until you learn to rise above it. But in the process, it also limits you. And failure isn't a sign you're not enough. Failure is the proof that you're evolving. This is a big key. When you fail or have a failure at something, it doesn't mean you are a failure. It actually means you are a success because you're putting in the work. You're making mistakes. That's where the lessons come from. That's where wisdom comes from and you're evolving. That is a success. And that's the truth. Number three, failure is not the enemy. Your ego is. Truth, number four, you can't outrun your inner wounds.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  Who? You cannot work your competition, but you cannot outwork your pain. You can hustle your way to success, but you cannot outwork trauma, your fears or your unhealed parts. What you don't heal will eventually surface. It does for all of us. It'll surface in your relationships, in your habits, in your confidence, in your emotional reactions, in the way you love people, in the way you lead people. Most people don't self sabotage because they're weak. They self sabotage because they're wounded. And there's a difference between weak and wounded.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  I spent years chasing achievement. I mentioned this already. And mostly it was because I was trying to fill a hole inside of me. I felt unworthy. I felt not lovable. I felt like I wasn't enough. I felt like no one would ever accept me, all these different things. So I was driven to accomplish. Early on in sports, then in business and all these different ways, I was driven to look good and impress. But I'm telling you, no trophy could fix my insecurities. No success could heal what I was unwilling to confront. And it wasn't until I sat with my pain, one of the hardest things I'll ever do. No football practice, no boot camp, no training session was ever harder than sitting with my pain.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  That childhood, identity of wounds and different things that I was just kind of messy. The identity, the emotional patterns that I was avoiding. The real transformation began when I sat with my pain and faced the parts of me that I was most insecure about, most afraid of. And this may sound like a little weak. See, myself, kind of a former jock, business entrepreneur guy, you know, podcaster, writers, talking about past pains and healing these things. But I'm telling you, if you want freedom, if you want true power, if you want to feel like the most powerful human being that you can be in an authentic, conscious way, you have to be willing to face the pain of your past and release those pains and process those

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  and integrate healing into your life. Cause when you heal, you create wholeness. When you create wholeness, you are free. When you are free, you are authentic to be yourself and you are able to go through life without feeling the fear crippling you and holding you back. And you're not needing to posture and lead with ego to try to impress. You're doing it out of service and everything starts to change when you lead from that way. And healing for me, it wasn't glamorous in any way. It was not fast. It took a long time and it's a journey forever. It wasn't easy, but it was the foundation for everything meaningful in my life today. I've got a beautiful wife, a beautiful marriage.

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  I've got twin girls. I've got a beautiful business that I love being a part of. I've got health. I've got beautiful relationships.

• 15:17Lewis Howes?

  I've got a home. I've got so much to be grateful for. And there's no way that I would have these things and feel peaceful about my life without doing this type of work. True growth requires inner work.

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  And that's truth number four, you can't outrun your inner wounds. Truth number five, fear will never wait for you to be ready. You will never feel totally prepared. You will never have the perfect game plan. You will never reach a moment where fear disappears. Fear is not a sign you shouldn't move forward. Let me repeat that. Fear is not a sign that you shouldn't move forward. Fear is the invitation to move forward. That's what it's all about. Every major decision, my life happened before I felt like I was ready. Every major decision that I made in my life. It happened before I felt ready.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Starting the podcast, I had no clue what I was doing. I was just like, this is 13 years ago. No one even knew what a podcast was. I didn't have this equipment, a studio. I just started recording on my phone and sat down and started asking questions. I didn't know how to interview people. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know the right way to do it. None of that. I didn't know how to write a book. Now I've got three New York Times bestselling books. I didn't know what I was doing. I almost flunked out of English class in high school. I barely speak English. My vocabulary is horrible, but I just took the action before I felt ready and I was afraid. Confidence didn't create action. Action created confidence in myself. And that's what it'll take for you.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  Acting on what you want, acting and failing and learning and then acting again. And allowing yourself to fail because failure doesn't mean you are a failure. It just means there's feedback that you need to learn and apply the wisdom to move forward and get a different result in the future. I want you to repeat this to yourself. Courage is doing the thing before you feel prepared. Confidence is what you earn on the other side. And you don't become fearless. You become familiar with fear and that's a big difference. Again, repeat this to yourself. Courage is doing the thing before you feel prepared. Confidence is what you earn on the other side. You don't become fearless.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  You become familiar with fear. So it no longer controls you or consumes you. And that's a difference. And that's why number five, fear will never wait for you to be ready.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  Truth number six, your inner circle shapes your destiny.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  You may not like this. You may not like what I'm about to say right here. The people around you are either expanding your future or limiting it. There is no neutral. Your circle influences your beliefs, your habits, your standards, your vision, your confidence, and your potential. You rise to the level of the people around you, or you sink to match them. I realized I had to distance myself from certain people that I was just in relationship with too many different people. And at the start of my kind of business journey, no one knew who I was. So I needed to build lots of relationships to create opportunities. And for whatever reason, I created, I thought like, oh, because we're building a business relationship, we're also friends.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  And not everyone was my friend, even though they acted like friends. I tried to invest in certain relationships in certain ways to build friendships, because that's where I come from. And I realized that not all of them were in the same alignment or the same frequency, and that's okay. And it's not because they were bad, but I had to distance myself from certain people because we weren't growing in the same direction. It doesn't make me right or wrong, or them right or wrong. Now, I stayed in those environments and in those relationships. I wasn't going to grow either, and neither were they, and that's okay. But I had to learn to be able to either distance myself, or just create boundaries, or just invest more in other people, rather than that time in those individuals. And if you consistently spend time with people who think small,

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  who are victim in their mindset and mentality, then you're going to start shrinking your dreams without even realizing it. Or you'd have to work so much harder to overcome that victim conversation, that gossip conversation that's kind of keeping you in a limited mindset. But if you spend time with people who complain, you're going to also find reasons to complain. It's hard to be listening to someone complaining all day, and then not join in a little bit. You're going to be like, yeah, that's kind of messed up. Yeah, I didn't like what that person did either. Yeah, you know, you're going to, you're going to start clinging to the complaints together. If you spend time with people who settle, then again, you might start settling as well, or it's just like...

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  You have to be the one always leading and trying to lift someone up. You don't have to be at the same stage of growth, but you want to have a similar mindset with the people that are around, where they're at least growing, they're at least willing to change their language, their narrative, their environment to improve their situation. But on the other side, if you intentionally surround yourself with people who inspire you, who challenge you, encourage you, stretch your thinking, model the habits that you want, raise your standards, then you're going to outgrow the old version of yourself automatically. It's just going to happen because they're going to force you to start leveling up, or they may not want to spend as much time with you as well. You may be the person that they say, ah, you don't want to work out. You want to go out late and drink.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  I'd rather work out and play, you know, sports together. You don't want to go to an event that's going to help us learn. You want to go do some weird party thing that doesn't add value. Eh, I'm going to say, I'm going to pass now. They're just going to stop wanting to spend as much time with you. And again, you don't choose your friends. You choose your future through your friends. And that is the end of truth number six. Your inner circle shapes your destiny.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  Truth number seven, hiding your true self is the real weakness.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Wear a mask long enough and you forget who you are. I wrote this book called The Mask of Masculinity a number of years ago. It's probably my most important piece of content I've ever created because it's all about identifying the different masks that you wear, why you wear them, how it's holding you back from certain opportunities in your life, how to overcome them and take off those masks to reveal your true self while also feeling safe, loved and worthy. It's called The Mask of Masculinity and I highly recommend you check out this book. Get it for a friend, get it for yourself and go through this book. And I want you to tell me what the mask is that you've been wearing

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  most of your life, because we've all worn them. Some of us wear more than others. I used to wear a lot of them, but these masks are only trying to protect us from something, but they're holding us back from feeling true inner peace. And you know, you wear a mask long enough and you forget who you are. We're taught that strength means don't feel, don't show weakness. Don't let anyone know that you're struggling or going through a hard time. But that belief doesn't create strength. It creates isolation. It creates suffering and pretending to be strong, pretending to be perfect, to be fine. It destroys you. It destroys connection.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  It destroys love and it destroys joy. And I want you to get your joy back. The most liberating moment of my life was admitting my struggles publicly for the first time. The whole reason this book kind of came about, The Mask of Masculinity, was because I did an episode on this podcast many years ago, maybe 12 years ago. And I talked about going through sexual abuse when I was a young boy. And by the babysitter's son. And I was terrified of telling anyone about this. I was crippled of the thought that anyone knew about this, that I would be done for the rest of my life.

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  I went through an emotional intelligence workshop where I actually opened up about it for the first time after 25 years. And when I opened up about it in person with a small group, I was still terrified. I was like, my life is over. No one's going to want to talk to me. I'm a loser, like no one's going to accept me. And it was the opposite. I realized that people thought I was courageous and they, they really honored me opening up and sharing it. And I felt more accepted and more loved and more seen. And I go, huh, this is strange. I thought if anyone knew about this, no one would love me. No one would accept me. I would be done. My business would be over. These were all the fears that I had. It was the complete opposite. It actually was a catalyst for creating incredible healing in my life

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  and impacting a lot of people around the world who'd also gone through that. So I opened up about it on my podcast after a very thoughtful. You know, about six months of whether I should talk about it because 12 years ago, no one was talking about sexual abuse with men, men going through this. So I was really afraid of opening up about it. And I did an episode on my podcast talking about the journey. And it kind of broke the internet in a way back then where I just had essays coming in all day long for months of men sharing their story for the first time with me. And boy, you know, originally I had a kind of an emotional hangover. It was like, it felt like a heavy weight, but then that weight lifted more and more.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  And it created connection with people and I felt like I was reclaiming my joy and my love. And it was freeing. It was powerful. When I stopped hiding, my life opened up. My life expanded and people didn't run away from me. They ran toward me because vulnerability is powerful. That moment taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life. And that is hiding is exhausting. Honesty is liberating. You cannot build a meaningful life while pretending to be someone you're not.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  And when we wear masks, when we wear these masks, we are pretending to be someone that we're not in front of the people we care about the most. And you cannot form real relationships if you never show the real you. Oh, man, it's tough. It's a tough pill to swallow. But again, you cannot form real relationships if you never show the real you. You cannot experience authentic joy, connection, or self-respect until you stop performing, until you stop people pleasing and start allowing yourself to be human. Vulnerability isn't weakness. Vulnerability is strength, trained in silence.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Truth number seven, hiding a true self is the real weakness. Truth number eight, comfort is one of the most dangerous places that you can live. Oh, that comfort zone. Comfort feels safe, but it's a trap, my friend. It's a trap. Nothing great happens inside your comfort zone and growth requires discomfort always. That's literally how you grow through discomfort, through something that's, ah, it's a little bit of strain. It's a little challenging. It's uncomfortable. When something's uncomfortable, you start growing. That's how it works. Now, listen, I'm not saying every second of every minute of every day, you have to be always doing something that's uncomfortable.

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  We need rest. We need sleep. We need recovery. We need downtime. We need all these things like you have to have some rest. You need some leisure time. You need playtime, all these things. I'm not saying that, but if your life does not have some type of built in mechanism for growth, you're going to start to feel something's off. And most people don't fail because they're incapable. They, they fail because they choose comfort over growth. So many times that it becomes a habit. Their comfort becomes a habit. They start gaining tons of weight because they're staying comfortable. They stay stuck in a relationship far too long. That's abusive because it's familiar and there's some comfort in there.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  And it's easier than trying to get out and try to build something new. They stay stuck in debt and financial strain because it's hard to try to learn a new skill or create a new job opportunity or start a business. These things are challenging, but they stay stuck. And then the stuckness becomes a trap.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  That's not where we want to be. Every door that opened for me came from stepping into something completely new, completely scary at the moment and uncomfortable. New skills, new rooms, new people, new challenges. And if you feel too comfortable in your life right now, you're probably not growing. Comfort is not your friend. Again, you can have moments of comfort, but comfort in your life is not your friend. Comfort is the enemy of your potential. Growth requires discomfort. It requires new skill sets, new environments, new relationships, new challenges, and it requires you doing things you don't feel ready for. That is the secret to truth.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Number eight is that comfort is one of the most dangerous places to live. And truth, number nine, bringing this one home. Before I share with you, I want to make sure you get my book, The Mask of Masculinity. But if you're looking for a roadmap to help you unlock the power of your life in a beautiful way, you gotta check out The Greatness Mindset. This is a book that I wish I had that talks about how to really face the inner things in your life to create the external life that you want. So if you want to unlock the power of your mind, and if you feel like you feel stuck in any way, get The Greatness Mindset today. It will help you create a roadmap, frameworks, exercises and stories

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  to support your growth internally and externally. But truth, number nine is a big one. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to rescue you. This is the hardest truth to accept and the most freeing truth you'll ever learn. No one is coming to rescue you. It's not going to happen. Not the perfect partner, not the dream job, not a mentor, not a friend, a breakthrough or a lucky moment. A lottery ticket is not going to show up and help rescue you from financial debt. Your life will not change until you decide to change it. You, and this is one of the hardest things. No one is coming to save you. No one is going to rescue you. No one's going to pull you out of debt.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  No one's going to take you out of that relationship. No one's going to help you lose all the weight overnight. And that's exactly why you should get excited about it. That's exactly why you should be pumped because the moment you stop waiting for someone to rescue you. You reclaim your power back. You say, I am the leader of my life. I am in charge. I am in control. I'm not waiting for someone to help me. I am going to lead and other people will support you the moment you step into your power. I kept waiting for someone to help me, discover me, fix my situation. It was a moment when I was on my sister's couch for a year and a half, living with her rent free,

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  not able to pay for food, living on credit cards, student loan debt, lost my identity from playing football, trying to figure out what do I do with my life? This is 2008, 2009, the housing crisis crash, economy was bad. I was in a bad situation and my father had just gone through a traumatic brain accident a couple of years prior where he got hit. He was driving a car and another car came on top of him and hit him right in the head and split his head open. He was in a coma for months. He finally woke up and survived the car accident, but his life was never the same. He couldn't work anymore. He wasn't emotionally or mentally really available. He forgot a lot.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  He could start to talk a little bit, but he, he was never the person who was able to be my father or the mentor or the leader of my life anymore. And this is the time when I was in my early twenties. And I remember thinking, my dad was my backup plan. He was the guy who, you know, I was going to go chase my dream. And if something ever happened, I could always go and kind of like work in the insurance business with him and learn from him. And now I couldn't. I didn't have that backup plan. I didn't have that person to kind of come and give me a safety net, a backup plan. No one was coming to fix me. No one was coming to save me. No one was coming to rescue me. No one was coming to bail me out from my debt. No one was coming to teach me the lessons I needed to teach.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  And it was tough for a year and a half because that's what I was hoping would happen and it didn't happen. Nothing changed until I decided to take full ownership of my life. And this is what you need to know right now. The moment you take full ownership of your life right now, and you say, I am going to do this. That decision gave me my power back, and it will give you your power back as well. I'm not saying this is going to be easy and overnight, you're going to have money drop from the sky and everything's going to be handed to you. But you're going to feel more free because you're taking your power back. And you're leading your life instead of reacting to your life and hoping someone's going to rescue you. When you stop outsourcing your happiness, your success and your future,

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  you instantly become unstoppable. Responsibility is not a burden. It is a superpower, my friend, because if you created your current circumstances right now, then you can create better ones. And what a blessing. If you are in your circumstance right now, because you created it, that means you can go create anything you want. And that is true power and freedom. This is the end of truth number nine. No one is coming to save and rescue you. These truths are not comfortable. They're not supposed to be. They are the truths that woke me up. And I hope they wake you up. I hope they shake you up and force you to grow into the person that you're meant to become.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  Because I believe that you're meant to make a difference, make an impact, and make it matter today to your own life and the people's lives around you. I believe that for you. There's, there's a reason you're watching or listening to this right now. There's a reason you are here all the way to the end of this episode. It's because you know you are meant to make today matter. You know that you're meant to make a difference in someone's life. There's something inside of you that's speaking to you, saying, Yeah, you can create more, you can do more, you can experience more love, joy, fulfillment, happiness. You can serve greater. You can be healthier. You can expand these things. You can have a beautiful relationship with your friends, your family, your spouse,

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  your children. You don't need to master all nine of these truths today. I just want you to pick one truth and start living by it. I want you to share in the comments here on social media, the truth that speaks to you the most right now in your life. Comment below what that is. Because one truth can change your entire life if you act on it consistently and just show up consistently. Comment the truth below that you feel most excited about confronting and committing to. The one that you maybe, ah, I don't want to do that, but I know I need to step into that. Comment that one below. And I want you to start taking

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  action on this and start becoming the greatest version of yourself. Once you do. This is the nine harsh truths that I wish I knew sooner. My name is Lewis Howes. I'm so grateful you're here. And if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  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.