Manifest Success With These Daily Affirmations EP 1373

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today! Humble The Poet (Kanwer Singh), is a Canadian-born rapper, spoken-word artist, poet, best-selling author, What began as reciting spoken word poetry in coffee shops to impress girls evolved into a creative adventure that has spanned the last 10 years. His first two books, UNLEARN & THINGS NOBODY CAN TEACH US have become international bestsellers. Visit him at HumbleThePoet.com. Make sure to check out his new book, How To Be Love(d)In this episode you will learn, How to get rid of the outdated programming inside of you. Reasons to question “the spark” you feel with someone in a relationship. Why establishing boundaries can help your love life. And much more! For more, go to lewishowes.com/1373James Clear On The Habits That’ll Help You Not Waste Another Year Of Your Life: https://link.chtbl.com/1372-podDo THIS To Destroy Laziness [SOLO]: https://link.chtbl.com/1365-podVishen Lakhiani’s 6 Steps To Manifest The Future You Desire: https://link.chtbl.com/1348-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.

• 0:02Lewis Howes?

  If you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're gonna love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your copy today.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Love is being disagreeable. Love is saying no. Love is standing up for yourself. So, love is risking being likable, you know, if you're positive.

• 0:39Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  I didn't write a book as a love guru. I wrote this book as the guy at the front of the class, taking all the notes, trying his best to understand this, and sharing it with everybody.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  So, what did you discover?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  I discovered that if I love... You don't find love. You don't win love. You don't earn love. You can only realize love. So, going back to analogies, love is a breeze. The only work you have to do is opening your sails. And if you can't open your sails to receive love, it doesn't matter how many people love you. It doesn't matter. You can have somebody worshiping the ground you walk on. You can't receive it. You can't receive it. So, that was one of the biggest lessons, which was there, you know, realizing that, "Oh, I don't have to do or be anything to have love in my life. I have to do the work to receive the love." That's literally, I'm being flooded and surrounded by it. And I think that was a big thing where instead of me thinking, oh, I'm not with the right person.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I just need another person. I need another person. It's like, no, you have to address your root issues. And if you don't address your root issues, you're gonna have this problem forever.

• 2:07Lewis Howes?

  What were your main root issues for you?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  My main root issues, insecurity, unaddressed, not addressing racism I had growing up. So now overcompensating, trying to be as desirable as possible. And only being able to measure my desirability through how many women were sliding in my DMs. Value who validates me, you know, but then realizing that, okay, there's so many places I'm in the in club. But if I don't feel like, you know, like after Poland, the amount of millionaires that DM'd me saying, how do I get in on this?

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  It was a moment where I was like, wait a minute, did I just fall into the in club? Because it doesn't feel any different. So maybe I need to, the issue isn't who accepts me, who invites me places. It's how I feel about myself. And so I think for me, working with myself, having the relationship with myself, keeping promises to myself, voluntary, doing hard things, like sitting in the ice, taking cold showers.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And then at the same time, choosing love over being likable.

• 3:14Lewis Howes?

  What's the, what's that mean? What's the difference between being loved over likable?

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Being likable is not disappointing anybody. Being likable is being accepted by everybody. Being likable is feeling included. Love is being disagreeable. Love is saying no. Love is standing up for yourself. So love is risking being likable, you know, if you cross, love is having boundaries. Telling you, you're crossing, these are my boundaries. You have to respect them. And not being afraid of being like, oh, that's gonna reject a romantic partner or a friend or a business opportunity because I have, I have rules and I have a code and I have boundaries. So I think these are a lot of things because so often when we feel like we're in competition, the first thing we'll do is we'll reduce our boundaries to be more accepted.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Like I'll work around Lewis's schedule, whatever he needs, just so he'll hang out with me. That's me reducing my boundaries to be liked.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  But now what I'm doing is I'm chasing self-esteem and I'm reducing my self-respect. But the more self-respect I focus on, the less self-esteem I need. And we all know those people that don't care to impress anybody. And then we want their acceptance even more.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  So I think for me, that's been a really big one, which is like, okay, I have been outsourcing. When I feel alone, I've been outsourcing that. Not understanding that loneliness is not a circumstance, it's a feeling. Cause what's the difference between loneliness and solitude? Solitude, when you're by yourself, solitude is what it feels like when it's rewarding. Loneliness is what it feels like when it's a punishment. What's the difference when I enjoy my own company?

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why do you think so many people don't enjoy their own company?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Because

• 4:56Speaker 01

  we have spent so much time understanding ourselves in relation to everybody else. And I think, you know, my parents grew up in a village, so I think for me, it hits closer to home. It's not like multiple generations ago. My parents grew up in a village of fifty people max. What everybody in the village said about them mattered. It probably directly impacted their actual survival.

• 5:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  So they were very mindful, like what will people think? What will people say? That's not as relevant in a major city. But that stuff's still etched in their DNA. It's like, it's old software.

• 5:31Lewis Howes?

  Survival software.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Survival software that doesn't serve us in these environments. And I think from that standpoint, that's why we care. And I think on top of that,

• 5:45Speaker 01

  you know, understand like, okay, I told Lewis the story, but then while I'm telling him the story, he, I can see his eyes gloss over. And those are the subtle things that we used to think about. Do people like me? Do people not? Now there's a number attached to it. I posted a picture. I got this many likes, this many comments. Oh, then I posted another picture with a Lamborghini and I got this many, I should do more of that. You know, and I think we're getting these subtle pushes and pulls by every, all these different platforms and societal kind of tools that tell us, this is who you need to be to gain more acceptance. And we're not doing it to feel better, we're doing it to feel less anxious. Cause we have this constant anxiety of we're gonna be rejected, we're gonna be pushed out. And I think that's,

• 6:29Speaker 01

  you know, our environments have evolved quicker than our bodies.

• 6:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  So it's old software on the phone that we can't delete. And we just, the only thing we can do is be aware of it. And I think so for me, that's been this journey of being like, okay, well, what do I, do I need to be a bestselling author? Do I need to make a bunch of money? Do I need to make sure I'm included in, in, in the, in the cool getaways and discovery groups? And I need to make sure I'm with the, you know, with all the cool kids in the wellness group? And then, you know, all the other people who are looking at from the outside see me as the cool kid? Like, do I need that? Or do I need to say, hey, you're waking up at six thirty AM and you did it? You take in a cold shower and you did it. You promised so and so that you were gonna show up to their event and you were super tired and you're stuck in traffic and you wanna flake. But you showed up.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  But you showed up because you said you were gonna show up. Right. All of these things are dramatically more important and they're going to reveal much more love in your life for yourself. And now you're the source of love instead of something that's thirsting and chasing love and trying to find it from everybody, from every different situation. And I think that's been a huge situation. Because I've also realized that I've had so much external validation. And it's great, you have the moment and then there's a day after. Right. There's a day after the one night stand, there's a day after the award, there's a day after having an event where you're the center of attention. And then what? You know, there's a day after getting recognized on the street. There's a day after all of these external things. You just want more.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  It just leads to you wanting more. There's no, they're delicious, but they're not nutritious. And I think for me, that's been a really, the awareness of it. And, and, and the last chapter of this book, I specifically say, look, all this book is, is me explaining the difference between french fries and broccoli. That's all I'm doing. And while I'm writing this book, I'm eating french fries and broccoli. Right. I'm not better than anybody else. And I'm saying, maybe there's a world where a plate can have french fries and broccoli in it and we can have a little bit of both. Right. Recognizing that one is way more delicious than the other, but one is way more nutritious than the other. And when we know the differences, um, that'll help us make better decisions. And here's why we were fooled to believe certain things. Because the most exciting couples we've ever seen on TV and in the movies.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Are gonna be dysfunctional. They have to be dysfunctional. You know, when you're in a good relationship, it's probably not worth filming because it's not the most eventful. There's not super highs, super lows. I have a friend who produces reality shows and they just produced somebody's wedding on a reality show. And it's a happy couple and she goes, I had to figure out how to make it dramatic without making it toxic. So I'm like, so what did you do? She goes, well, we didn't force them to fight. All we did was we made everything they ordered for the wedding. We made it all get lost.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, there had to be some frustration.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Had to be drama, but at least they didn't allow it to be between the people. It's just like, oh, you ordered your wedding dress from this country? We sent it to the wrong location. So now the episode will be about chasing that. So we have to realize that we've been socialized to think that our relationships have to have drama because drama makes for good television or good movies. But relationships should be peaceful and unadversable.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Loving.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Lewis Howes?

  Kind.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  And which makes us, which should make us question this idea of the spark. Everyone's chasing the spark and there's that great book attached that says, we're not saying soulmates don't exist. We're saying you probably passed your soulmate because you thought they were boring.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. That's a good one.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  And there are studies that prove that the spark isn't something that many long-term couples ever had.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  And also you hear from a lot of therapists saying like, if you feel that exciting spark when you meet someone, run.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  Run away. Right. It's like run away because there's probably some trauma bonding or some type of thing that you're needing that this person might have or may not have.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  They remind you of your earliest trauma and we all choose nostalgia over health.

• 10:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  You know, if it's familiar, we're gonna, we're gonna choose that more than we're gonna choose than what's good for us.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  And we all do that. It's whether it's the sugary cereal that we grew up with or having people, because in our households when we were younger. We internalize everything like it was our fault. If our parents had a bad day at work and came home and were in crabby moods, we didn't know the context as to why they were that way. We thought it was our fault. So then we, a lot of us made earning love our default. So we find ourselves attracted to people who make us feel like we have to earn our love. And then if it's easy, we don't want. I saw a funny video today of a guy explaining all his green flags. And then another dude in the back had a big red flag. And the girl's like, I gotta go. And she chased after the guy with red flags.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  So funny.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  And it's making fun of this idea, but we've been conditioned to think we have to earn it. But love isn't something you earn.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? Why do we go out? Why do certain people go after individuals with all the red flags? Trying to earn or change them or be deserving of that person? Why is that?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I think it, I think it goes back to our upbringing. I think our first models of love were the people who raised us. They weren't perfect, but we had developing brains. We could only look at life in terms of black and white. You know, if you're like nine to 12, you know, your brain's not even fully developed in any capacity. It can still develop until 25, 26. And then we're gonna look at that and be like, okay, I had to earn their love. I had to earn their attention. I had to compete with my siblings to get them to notice me. I had to do all of that. That becomes a coping mechanism that never gets revisited when they become an adult. And then that's what feels right.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  It's familiar. It's familiar.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  It's familiar. And it's like, it's, it's no different if, if, if, if there was two identical pairs of shoes and one was $90 and one was $100. I can logically say I'm gonna pick the $90 shoes because they're $10 cheaper. But I can't logically tell you why I'm picking vanilla ice cream over chocolate. There's no, you know, it just feels right. So that's when we chase people. It just feels right, but we don't know why it feels right. It feels right because it reminds you, it, it matches the flavor of the trauma that you had growing up. And you're still feeling that trauma and it feels like a safety blanket, even though it's the exact opposite.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  And you talked about in the beginning about learning how to open your sails and receive love. When we chase after unhealthy relationships, whether it be friendships or societal relationships or intimate partners.

• 12:54Lewis Howes?

  Do you think that we're not able to receive love? Like in a healthy way if we're chasing an unhealthy individual? Or what? And how do we learn to receive love? In a healthy way?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  I think receiving love means being open to it. And I love the preter crono idea of creating pathways to love. You can't say, "I love you." You say, "You show me where love is." And you create a pathway. Because chasing somebody is more so we're chasing things that are facsimiles of love. You know, like the bootleg version of love. Attention, affection, adoration, success, power, control, validation. All of these, they look and feel like love, but they're not. And they're quick fixes. They're fast food versions of it. You know, you can eat a bunch of fast food and feel full, but you're not going to feel any nutrition. And you're going to get hungry a lot quicker, and you're probably not going to feel so good. But it's addictive. It's extremely salty.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And there's nothing wrong with any of us being addicted to that. You know, the subtitle of this book is going easy on yourself. I'm pointing these things out, not to judge you, but to be like, "Look, we're all, all of us can't have just one potato chip."

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  And if you're chasing validation from somebody and you've spent your whole life chasing validation from people, I understand how it's addictive. And addiction often can come when the rewards are unanticipated. You know, so when people gamble, they don't know when they're going to hit it big. That's why they do it. When people are in abusive relationships, they don't know when they're going to have a good day. That's why they stick with it. When we're on social media, we can scroll for an hour and see things that make us sad, see things that trigger our emotions, see things that make us compare ourselves to other people, you know, see things that make us feel depressed. And then all of a sudden, a cute puppy. And we're like, "Oh, it was all worth it." It's always these unanticipated rewards that make us, make us feel addictive. And I think that's the same thing with these relationships. Where it's like, you know, somebody is in a good place.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  They're going to compliment you every morning. They're going to say all the right things. They're going to take care of you. There's almost this lack of excitement that comes with it. You know, it's not as salty and it's not, it's not a potato chip. It's healthy. It's nutritious. It's broccoli. And that's what we need in the long term.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  So I think, as I said, my only goal is to help people become more aware of that. Be like, "Look, this is why I'm chasing this person because they remind me of my dad." "I'm chasing this person because they criticize me the way my mother used to criticize me." And it feels comfortable. But if I want to have a different life, I'm going to have to do different things.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  On a, on a scale of one to 10, two years ago when you were engaged and, and ending the engagement, scale of one to 10, how lovable did you feel to yourself? 10 being like, totally love, you loved yourself 100%, totally lovable. You believed you were a lovable person, one being unlovable. Where were you on that scale?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Probably a three.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  Three?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Probably a three. I think there were, there were definitely parts of my life where I wasn't as insecure as maybe other people. I've never really experienced imposter syndrome, for example. Like, I, I quickly understood that, oh, I'm just as capable as anybody else in that capacity. I know I can write, I know I can do the things I can do, I know I deserve to be in the rooms that I'm in. But in terms of receiving positive feedback from people, receiving, feeling seen by people, that was a very weird situation. And I think also my upbringing had taught me unintentionally, without blaming anybody, that vulnerability was a weakness. And I didn't realize that vulnerability is the only way to connect with other people.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, when we were in Poland, that was a wonderful example of everybody being vulnerable. Me knowing a bunch of guys for five days and developing lifelong relationships.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Till this day, but it was through vulnerability. It was through us being scared as crap to go on the ice, through us sharing stories and crying together and holding each other. And these aren't things that I ever realized was a thing when I was in a long-term relationship. Because I always thought I had to maintain a level of protection. And I didn't realize that the, the fortress I was building was a prison. And what I thought I had to do to protect myself, because I had a few negative experiences as a child, and I, and I was thinking very simply, we're not serving me as an adult. So my ability to receive love isn't there. And I think a lot of people, a lot of people can't, even today, can't receive compliments. They don't know how to accept compliments. And I think that's a good sign right there that we don't know how to be open and receive love.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  And I think that's the first step to understanding that there's not a lack of love. In anybody's life.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  It's a lack of receiving love.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  It's a lack, yeah, again, the breeze can be there. If your seal is closed, then you're not going anywhere.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  And it's more about doing the work to open yourself up to this. And it's scary. And it will blow up in your face sometimes, and you may be vulnerable with the wrong person.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  And it may totally feel like you just dumped your heart in a situation and nothing came out. But it's not about what you got from it, it's what you become through doing it.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And I think that's been the journey for me, realizing it's like it's being more and more uncomfortable every single day. And realizing that I'm only entitled to the work.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  What comes from the work, that's not my concern.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  The results, you don't know, yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  The results I don't know.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  What were the two or three things you did over the last two years to create more lovability within yourself, the ability to love and receive love more?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  So, what I learned through, and I believe it was potentially Jordan Peterson in one of his interviews was the definition of sin, the actual word sin, the definition is to be without aim.

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  And it helped me realize that I was actually avoiding setting concrete goals and concrete directions to anything I wanted. So, um, one of the first things that I did was realize that I need, you know, if you want to get in better shape, you hire a trainer. Uh, if I want to be a better writer, hire a writing coach. So I went and I got into therapy. And again, that's a dating process in itself, took a few therapists until I found the right one. Um, and once I got a therapist, one of the things we did when it came to romantic relationships was she had me relive my entire romantic life.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Ooh. All the relationships you're in.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I mean, even the little ones when you were like seven, eight, the little crushes.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  And how long did that process take to relive those?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  That was probably two full hours of just storytelling. And she paid attention to my face, and whenever my face got bright, she was, write that down. And what we ended up doing was we ended up becoming aware of what qualities actually make me. You know, excited or actually make me wanna be more vulnerable. Or actually, I, cuz I think.

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  Feel more loved, all those things, yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Feel more loved, and I think also what I'm actually enthusiastic, cuz I think everybody will have the generic, like, this is what I want in a partner, or this is what I want in a friendship, and they'll all be the same answers. And I think what that, that was, it really pointed out to me the unique things that actually mattered. You know, reminding, remembering the very first, uh, person that I dated that had said to me, you know what, the world needs to hear what you have to say, like, the world needs to hear humble a poet, like, you need to stop doing all this other stuff. And like, thinking about, okay, versus dating somebody in the future, when I was telling them my plans, and they're like, but what if that doesn't happen? Like, can't we have a plan B, you know? And realizing that, okay, there are two very different directions that people can take me in their influence on me. So I need to be with somebody who's gonna constantly push me.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Out of my comfort zone, who constantly wants that for themselves. And then also learning that, hey, not only are we just discovering qualities in a person, we have to relate, how do those qualities make you feel?

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

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• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  That's promo code GREATNESS at masterworks.com. See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.com/CD.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So instead of saying, I want someone attractive, the question is, first off, what is attractive to you?

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Because beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and what does that do for you? Is it you want someone attractive because you want a piece of arm candy to impress your friends? Or do you want someone attractive because you want somebody's symmetrical face that you can look at? Or do you want someone attractive because, you know, you have a commitment to beauty and you want to enjoy being around beautiful people? Or you want someone attractive because they smile a lot? You know, there's different definitions of that. And I think forcing me to go deep made me become very specific with who I wanted to be around. And even this morning, I had a therapy session. And she was explaining to me, people either fight, fly, fight, freeze, or fawn when they're nervous.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  And she goes, fawners are people who start to manipulate the situation to be more likeable. She goes, listen, when you discover a fawner, run the other way. Don't be around any women who prioritize being likeable over communicating clearly, who, or conflict resolution. Be around people who can communicate successfully and in a straight line to you. And she goes, don't spend time and energy around those other people. And that's, that's a tricky thing because we want to be liked by everybody. But this requires you to be like, okay, you're not somebody I can invest time and energy in. And again, not just romantically. This also means work relationships and in friendships. So being clear with what works for me and what doesn't work for me versus wanting everyone to like me,

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I think was a very important step into revealing and realizing more love in my life. Because being like, okay, everyone listening to this interview may not like me, and that's okay. You know, let me be around the people I need to be around with. Going through this process of selling a book, we're playing the attention game. You know, there's endless things I can do to catch people's attention on social media. But a lot of those things might, you know, might not be things that are in line with my core values. So reminding myself, like, even though, like, your career and your paychecks matter and relate to this, ensure people find you for the right reasons. You know, I might not be able to play certain games or make certain type of content.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  But then I'm also not trapping myself on that journey if it works.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  You're not doing dancing videos all day or something that doesn't work for you or makes sense for you, right?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Completely, or even relying on controversy, relying on polarization and saying things.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Or news or whatever it is, yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Whatever, yeah.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  News related topics or headlines.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  And we've had that conversation before too, where you've had people over here where you could ramp up the controversy, but you don't. Because that's not what the school of greatness is.

• 24:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  And I think there's a beauty to that, and it may make the growth slower, but it's more sustainable.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And.

• 24:17Lewis Howes?

  It's healthier.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  It's way healthier. And I think that it's choosing health, the slow, long term, over the fast immediate. And it was you who said to me, and it's always stuck with me, good things happen to people who defer gratification. And I think about that all the time, because in front of me is always this gratifying option, and then there's the long, hard road. And I was like, okay, Lewis.

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  I know. And you also have a tattoo that says, remember the future, right?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Which I got watching this show. Joe Dispenza said this on your show, and I remember hearing it over the pandemic and being like, I love it. And, um, yeah.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  I think it's thinking about our future self, you know, as frequently as I can. It's funny, I had a therapy conversation last night with my coach. And I'm gonna be 40 in a few months, right, March. And I never really pay attention to birthdays, right? I acknowledge them. I'm like, I have my lessons and I reflect on it. But I don't really do big things, because I try to celebrate every day, right? Anyways, not the point. But she was kind of like bringing it up and saying, you know, what's your vision now moving forward? Like going into this new decade, kind of like what's the dream, what's the vision, what's the aim? And I was like, I want to look, I want to be talking to myself now as my 50-year-old self.

• 25:38Lewis Howes?

  And coaching myself on all the challenges or fears that I'm faced with. And seeing like all the actions I know I can take that I feel like are gonna be scary, but then when I'm 50, I'm gonna say that was nothing. You know, that was. Good job, like I'm glad you went through those fears, I'm glad you conquered that. You got us here, but really that wasn't that big of a deal. You know, it wasn't that big of a deal, it just feels like a big deal before we do it, so. But it's funny, I was having the same similar type of conversation about remembering the future. Cause I'm trying to make a few big decisions in my life and she was like, is this gonna feel like a big decision 10 years from now? I'm like, no, it's gonna feel like a small decision 10 years away.

• 26:18Lewis Howes?

  But it's something I need to do in order to feel now as opposed to delaying it in order to feel that later, so. Um, it's interesting, what's the biggest thing that therapy has taught you?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Therapy has taught me, and, and, and I think this is a great way to, to, to define therapy. Therapy has taught me that a lot of our challenges come from our black and white thinking. We think it's either this, or it's that. And I think a lot of that comes from childhood, when we had less developed brains and that's how we could think. We couldn't think in terms of the complexities. So we thought, mom's mad, she's mad at me. You know, it's either that or she's not mad. And I think as we get older, we're like, oh, that person might have had a hard day. You know, we can see the complexities, we can see all the gray in between. And I think it's oftentimes, we've made so many decisions when it comes to our personality. How we're gonna handle conflict, how we're gonna handle challenges when we were young. And we don't upgrade that software, we don't upgrade those choices.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  So for me, it's having these conversations with my therapist and arguments, me and my therapist. She says, I love to argue. And she says I'm one of her favorite clients for it and she wins every time. Which is, which is, which is why I keep her around, cause I'm, I'm a very stubborn individual, so.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  She's right.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  She did a lot of that, those moments, she catches me all the time. And very often it's like, she'll simply be like, why is it only this or that? Why are those the only choices? Why can't there be other options? And it's really interesting, cause then it makes you discover the root. You know, I'm the child of an immigrant, I grew up in scarcity mindset, you know. Uh, the vast majority of the emotions that a human can feel are leaning in the negative side, cause negative emotions keep you alive. But I don't live in scarcity. I'm doing okay. I don't have to, but I think, you know, I think the way my mom raised me. You know, which is if you can make it, don't buy it. Not realizing that making it takes way more time than buying it. Yeah. I have, I have a puppy and I still use a leash my mom made for him.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  You know, because it's a sentimental value to it, but that's how her upbringing was. But none of us, you know, my parents don't have a mortgage, they don't have bills and I'm the youngest and I'm doing very well. So like, it's a mindset, you know, it's like, why does this have to be this or that? It could be this and that and something else. We can live in contradiction. We all do live in contradiction. We don't have to play, play these games. So I think therapy, that's been the most important thing for me. It's helped me realize how often I've created a cage for myself because I'm looking at life through duality. And life is beyond that. And what I've also realized is in terms of love, love is what exists beyond duality. When we stop looking at the world in terms of duality, what's left is love, because love is everything and nothing.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  You know, when you're in love with somebody, that's when pretty much your ego boundaries start to melt and you view them as you. There's no I, there's no you and me, there's we. And you, so you, you, you cease to become something, but at the same, same time, you feel everything. And there's that beauty there and it's kind of like the center. You know, it's not on the outside looking in, you're not on the inside looking out, you're in the middle looking everywhere.

• 29:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  And I think there's a beauty to that. So I think having that realization in therapy has been amazing. And I don't always catch myself doing it. So having these stories, having these conversations with the therapist and then having her quickly realize like, okay, well, what are your choices? And I say the two choices. She's like, why? I'm like, well, what else, what else is it? She'll be like, you tell me what is the other choice?

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  And it's so often like, well, I didn't consider that an option. She's like, why not? And you're like, oh, it's because I was raised a certain way.

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I was raised to think that I can only live at one place at one time. And I can only play, pay rent at one place at one time and I can only, I would only pay rent if I'm actually living there at that time. Why would I have a place in this city and in this city? I have to pick between the two versus why not live in both?

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  And I think that concept has been really important to me. And it's helped me with friends who have reached out to me. I can quickly identify too that they're just living in black and white mindset.

• 30:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  And again, there's nothing wrong with that. We all made these decisions when we were kids and that's, and I used to be a school teacher. That's how kids think. They can't think. In terms of complexity, because our brains are still developing.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  So I recommend everybody see a therapist, and if you can't afford a therapist, journal every day, because even the process of journaling and getting these thoughts outside of you, and getting them on paper, will help you start to realize there's way more options than what I just thought.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  And this wasn't as heavy as I thought it was.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  I want to go back to people pleasing.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  Because you mentioned about trying to be liked with everyone, and I think a lot of people have lived that at some point in their life, or are still living that.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the mantra or the strategies that supported you from moving away from people pleasing? Because I feel like it's a spectrum probably. It's like, okay, I used to want everyone to like me, and now it's like, less of the time, and then it's just I have my friends and I don't care what people think, or whatever. But what was the, what is the mantra and the strategies you've used to move away from needing to be a people pleaser to everyone? Towards reclaiming your energy and loving yourself?

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Completely. I think the first one is realizing that people can only receive you where they're at. You know, if I'm not in a good place, and let's say something's not going well in my career, and then I see you post something about something wonderful in your career, I'm going to interpret that as negative. You know, and if I'm not in the space of self-awareness, I might even take it as an attack. So you start to realize that even when people leave mean comments on your post, they're telling you their story, not yours.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  I've also had to make peace with the fact that, and there's a line in Siki that says, you know, "A saint is unimpacted by praise or slander." So it's not, not just caring about when people say negative things to you, you have to be equally unimpacted by the positive things. Because you have to realize that these are, especially if you're a public figure, these people have a limited view of you. So they think you're amazing, they're wrong, and if they think you're a piece of garbage, they're wrong. Because they're, they're sitting in the nosebleed sections of your life and have a very small view of who you actually are. So not all opinions are equal, and we can't chase the praise and, and ask ourselves to be unimpacted by the slander or the negative sides of it.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  So for me, it's become, I'm unimpacted by, if, if you don't know me, I can't give a lot of value to your words, even if you're saying things I like. You know, so chasing likability from that context is, is not there. And also realizing that I don't like everybody. That's, you know, you can, you know, you can be the juiciest peach in the world and some people just don't like peaches.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I don't like peaches.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you don't like peaches, I can show you, you know, the most expensive, beautiful peach.

• 32:57Lewis Howes?

  I like it, yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Exactly, I think for me it's caviar and it's like, I don't, I don't get this, I don't get the expensive stuff or the cheap stuff. And it's like, so being okay with I'm not everybody's cup of tea, everybody's not my cup of tea.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  So spending my time in this arena is not something I need to do. And instead I have ten to fifteen years now of friends who have been there for me, given me couches to sleep on, put money in my pocket, have made introductions for me, have put me in positions to really realize my potential. These are people I care about, doing work with the motivation of proving them right has always been something that has really given me something to be proud of. You know, I never want someone to put me in position and feel like they wasted their energy or time or reputation for doing so. So that's been something that's been really important where it's like focus on the people in your life. And it was actually a musician who taught me, he said, listen, when you make music,

• 33:50Speaker 01

  ten, you know, one percent wanna know everything about you, ten percent will listen to everything you do. And, and, and he goes, you know, the other eighty-nine percent, you're back on music while they're studying. You know, and if you don't give them what they want, they're gonna move on. He goes, focus on the one to ten percent, focus on them. And it's not about, you know, when we all start out, the people who support us are our friends and family. Create more friends and family, create these deeper meaningful connections and doing all of that. And I think for me, that's been a big thing. And being out here, especially in Hollywood now, it just starts to see the correlations between the city and, and politics. You know, where a politician's job is to keep everybody happy, cause that keeps them in power.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And they'll say everything and do everything and make a bunch of promises until they get the power and then they break the promises and then they do it again. But it's this idea of the people pleasing, that's the only job where you actually have to be a professional people pleaser. And for the rest of us, we have to say something. And to, to say something means having a group of people to disagree with you. And that's okay.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  And being okay with it, yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Being completely okay with it. So I think for me, that's been a really interesting journey. And also, the reminder that

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Again, it's not reward or punishment. You know, it's not either I'm being rewarded by social media for participating or I'm being punished. Either I'm being rewarded by society or I'm being punished. It's really, you can be rewarded for doing certain things or just being left alone.

• 35:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  You know, so if I don't play the social media games, I may not grow, but that's not a punishment. Nobody's making it hard for me to still log into my phone and

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  be on social media and do all the other fun stuff. I just may not be rewarded with growth.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  But that's not a punishment. It's the same thing. If society, society has its own agenda. Society wants us to work certain hours, contribute to the economy, buy a bunch of stuff. Like this is what society is built upon. If we don't participate in that, society doesn't throw us in jail. It may not reward us with nice things. It may not give us cool opportunities or cool experiences, but that's not a punishment.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So I think for me is that reminder of like not going to the event is not a punishment. You know, if Lewis wants me somewhere and I couldn't go, it may result in him not inviting me again. That's still not a punishment. You know, that's just, I'm not, that's not gonna get the rewards of that.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  And I think that was an important thing for me to understand because I only have so much time, energy, love, focus and attention in my wallet. And I should be mindful of how I spend it. And making everybody happy is an impossible task.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  So hard.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  It is.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  Impossible.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it feels so much better.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Making yourself happy is hard.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Extremely.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like trying to make yourself happy and everyone else around you is challenging.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  No, Nipsey Hussle said it really well. Do you wanna be at war with the world or do you wanna be at war with yourself?

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  You know, and it's picking one of it. Cause you're at war with yourself to make everybody else happy. Or to keep yourself happy is gonna potentially cause some conflict with people around. Because people want you to meet their expectations. They want you to be who they think you are, based on their limited view. And I think for me, that's been a really interesting thing to really pay attention to. And sometimes it's as simple as if I needed to, turning off comments or

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Downsizing my lifestyle if it means I can't go further and make a bunch more money. And I think that peace is way more valuable than this constant growth and chasing. If it requires me not to be my authentic self. Because if I'm not my authentic self, then there's not gonna be a lot of self-respect. And then now I'm just chasing it on the outside.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Right. What do you feel like is the next level of self-love and growth for yourself after this, you know, a few-year journey, the discoveries, the book, the coaching and therapy, and reclaiming, you know, your ability to receive love? What's available for you next?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  I think recognizing, you know, one of my favorite quotes in the book, and eventually I'll put it on a T-shirt, is, "Love is fuel, not the glue." "Love doesn't keep us together. Love is what keeps us working at it." So really recognizing love as the verb that it is. And when I say, instead of sounding kind of pie in the sky and saying I'm committing my life to love, committing myself to service.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Say it again, "Love is fuel, not glue."

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Love is fuel, not glue.

• 38:11Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  So, a lot of people, the assumption is when you love someone, that's enough to keep you together. Or when you love your job, that's enough to keep you going to work. Love is fuel. It's what gives you the energy to put in the effort to make, to keep two people together.

• 38:27Lewis Howes?

  But love is not enough.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Love is not enough.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't hold it together.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's the gas in your tank.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  It's not the car. And it's, uh, so love, so don't think, "I love this person, and because we love each other, we'll be together forever and we're fantastic." No. "I love this person, so I'm gonna get up an hour early and we're gonna go to therapy together." You know, that, that fuel, you know, "I love this job, so those days, I don't feel like I want to do it. I'm gonna give myself that extra push and make sure it happens." So for me, I'm realizing that I want to live a life of love, but it's not a lo-, it's not this, again, simplified life of, "I love everybody." I think what I'm realizing is love is service. The more love you try to share and provide with other people, the more love is realized. I'm creating more pathways of love with people and learning. That service isn't simply giving everybody what they want.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Service is just leaving people better than you found them. And, you know, if somebody needs something from you and you can't give them everything, you still give them something. Yeah. Again, and for me specifically, growing up in a house, an immigrant household where we had a lot of scarcity mindset, I need to push myself into this mindset of abundance, meaning I can help as many people as possible, but I can also respect myself to be like, "Hey, I know you asked me for X, Y, and Z. I can only give you X. But that's what I can give you and I want to give you that." Versus getting really nervous and just ghosting you, you know? Or overextending myself and giving you everything because I don't want you to stop liking me. Yeah. And I think that's been a really interesting thing for me because when you do that,

• 40:01Speaker 01

  it also puts you in one of the darkest places that I believe humans can be in, is resentment. When you don't establish your boundaries, and I have a chapter in the book called, "Love is Showing Your Teeth." If you don't show your teeth, if you don't establish your boundaries, what ends up happening is you end up living in resentment, which is such a dark place. It's a place where love can't be realized. So often, and you know, I have another chapter in the book that's, "Love is Saying No." You know, saying no to people is an expression of self-love. I can't do that. But again, we don't live in a black and white world. If you ask me to, you know, help you move on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I can, I can say, "Hey, I can't do Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I can be there all day Wednesday."

• 40:44Speaker 01

  You know, and I think that's the important process of this, is setting those boundaries, letting you know. Setting boundaries isn't pushing you away, it's teaching you how we can, we can exist in a good harmony. Yeah. And when we're in a good harmony, we're in peace. When we're in peace, we do less things to chase pleasure. Pleasure now for most people is a medication from a lack of peace. It's not an enhancement of the peace we're in. Right. We're just trying to get back to zero. You know, we're, we're just... Are people pleasing isn't even making people like us if we're working to make people not hate us. You know, we're trying to avoid somebody's criticism. We're not even trying to seek their praise. We're trying to get them off our back.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  So we're doing so much energy and effort and time and focus. Spending just to try to get ourselves to a default, keep our lips above water, that we're not pushing ourselves forward and growing with people.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  In the sports world, they call that playing to not lose as opposed to playing to win. You're like, you're playing just to like, I don't want to lose. As opposed to risking and going all out and playing to win. Uh, and whatever that might be. And, and when you play to win, you might lose. You might fall on your face. You might, you know, do whatever. So.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  It's interesting you brought that. I, I, I just got back from England yesterday and they were asking me about baseball. They're like, what is this sport? And why is it so long? And I'm like, it's the only, the beauty of the sport is it's the only sport. You can't run out the clock. You can't run out the clock. You can't, so you can't play to not lose. Every, every single, I'm like, and there's a beauty to the spirit of that. Which means you gotta stay till the end because anything can happen. And that's how we have to play. We have to play knowing you can't be on the defense. You know, you have to continually, you know, either you're growing or you're not, you know, or you're shrinking. We're, we're moving in these different directions. And I think that's a really important idea to understand. And we can't just try to maintain friendships.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  You know, we can't, you know, simply keep people off our backs. We have to grow with people, evolve with people. And I think there's a beauty to that. And I think, you know, just going back to how we met, like our entire relationship has always had this foundation of our love lives. Talking about them, whether.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Going on hikes, talking about it or going to Poland or whatever it is. Yeah.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Soho House, wherever we were at, it was always talking about it from different places. And I think, you know, that's been the common story, but it's like, that's what creates the growth. Where it's like, okay, I remember Lewis when he was on a high. I know, I remember when he was on a low. I remember when he was trying to figure things out. And vice versa. And I think that's a really important section to this, where it's like, we're not maintaining. There's not maintaining a friendship. And I mean, again, like the simple fact that I, when we went on the last hike, I said, I'm frustrated being in the city. I don't have artist friends. You connected me with Reuben.

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  And the next thing you know.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Cover of the book.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  He ends up doing the cover of the book.

• 43:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's cool.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  You know, the organic beauty of this, I think, you know, for me, I just want to honor you for that.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  You know, as I said, you know, I I tattoo stuff that I hear on your stuff. And again, like the the amount of lifelong friends you helped me make going to Poland. And I remember when you text messaging me about Wim Hof, I didn't even know that was a person's name back then. And it was, you know, these these experiences of just continually being uncomfortable is more important than playing it safe. Because discomfort finds us, and we've all learned that since dealing with the pandemic.

• 44:05Lewis Howes?

  Did I see you at Thanksgiving with Hussey?

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Hussey has become my my puppy's babysitter.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's amazing. Because Audrey loves dogs.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  He loves dogs and he loves the idea of having a part time dog.

• 44:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  But we're we're also learning, yeah, we're also learning that he he won't admit it. But she has told me that he tries to bribe my puppy to get extra attention. So he'll, I'll give him a, I'll give them a bag of treats for two days and the treats will be all done. And I realized Hussey's bribing her to sit with him.

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  So he's, he loves dogs.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure he loves it. It's the idea of having the dog twenty four seven is a lot. But maybe this is gonna help him get a dog one day.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and you know what? I don't, I honestly don't mind them co-parenting. And my puppy has realized that she can get away with so much more with them. Cause I got there and she's barking at them and it's like, what's wrong? What do you want? I was like, you can't let her bark at you. She's like, yeah, so she she likes it because it's a place with less rules.

• 45:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, dog.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  And they got a nice, they got a nice house with a backyard, they got all this stuff. I live in an apartment, so like, she loves, and she's the center of attention all the time. But it's it's a great thing, but it's, yeah, developing these friendships beyond, you know, just what, you know, they they could have been had you met somebody once, like, oh, let's stay in contact, and no, you don't. Yeah, spending Thanksgiving, that was my first Thanksgiving ever, too.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't grow up.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  You had your first American Thanksgiving with some British people.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  With all British people.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, my first time having turkey on Thanksgiving, doing all that. I'm Canadian, we have a different Thanksgiving. We never celebrated that, but it's, yeah, having these new, unique experiences and continually, again, as I said, pushing to grow relationships with people. I think that matters more so than kind of this being a social butterfly, maintaining relationships and not letting them go anywhere.

• 45:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm curious, in the book, you talk about. Small love and big love.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:01Lewis Howes?

  Or little love and big love.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  What is the difference between those two?

• 46:05Speaker 01

  So that that's an idea from another one of our friends, Aubrey Marcus. You know, me and him have had some great conversations. And small L love being this kind of validation love. Again, what I would consider, you know, what feeds your ego.

• 46:19Lewis Howes?

  The pleasure love.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  The pleasure love. You know, and then big, big L love being the what fills your soul love, you know, like small L love being chocolate ice cream, you know, after a long day. Big L love being a hug from your grandmother, you know, and seeing that. And, and again, I'm just encouraging an awareness and encouraging people to see that there can be a difference in what we chase. And sometimes the immediate stuff holds us back from the long term, more sustainable stuff. So realizing that not, you know, not all of the things we consider love are actually love. And the way he framed it so beautifully is just big L love and small L love.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  And I think that, you know, chase the big L love because that's not immediately gratifying. But that's the stuff that's going to keep you going, keep you energized, keep you full of nutrition and life.

• 47:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. And so do you still feel like the need to please people today? Is there like this thing that pulls you back sometimes? And so do you have like a mantra or a saying that you say to yourself to keep you like grounded and peaceful in that people pleasing?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I, I am constantly catching myself being a diplomat and a politician. And I think there's a reminder of, A, you know, the people who are around you, they care about you. Everybody's super busy, not hearing from somebody that doesn't mean anything has changed. They haven't, not speaking to Lewis for six months doesn't mean his opinion of you has changed. He's on his journey, he's on his mission. You're on your journey and your mission, make time for each other. That's a big one. And I think it's also a reminder of if you go down a road to make more people like you and that road isn't authentic to you, you're building another prison. And I'm always reminded of my friends, when I first started coming out here, I first came out here with Lilly Singh. And when I came out, I was staying with her and she exposed me to this world of YouTubers.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  And what I was meeting with, I was meeting certain people who had very successful YouTube channels. That they made in their teenage years. You know, and they might be doing goofy. Right. You know prank videos or whatever, stuff that makes sense for a teenager. But now they're in the mid to late twenties and they couldn't change what they did because that's what they built an audience of. Wow. And it almost felt like this prison. Wow. That they were stuck doing, you know, like you can imagine yourself at eighty still talking about greatness. Yes. This is authentic to you. Yeah. But I think they, you know, when they were younger and I don't hold it, I don't, I don't think they did anything wrong, but I, I quickly realized that they had created a prison where now they were in their late twenties, still trying to make prank videos.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  And it wasn't feeling authentic and it, it didn't feel real and they weren't enjoying themselves, but they created lifestyles and had bills that required them to keep doing this. And I think that was something I always remind myself of like, you definitely have an entire dictionary of options that you have never explored to make more money, to grow your, to grow your readers, to grow your exposure, to, to get more famous. But once you start that, you're gonna have to keep doing that. Right. And do you want to keep doing that? And if you do keep doing that, how are you gonna have, how are you gonna create harmony with that? Now all of a sudden you're gonna have to take more vacations or turn to substances or do different things like that.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  And right now I'm in a good situation where it's like, okay, I write for a couple of hours a day. I go for nice, long walks. I have good friends who are my actual friends that I can trust and, and believe, and I have childhood friends that I, I still have in my life and I measure my success and how long, how long have I been doing this without losing anybody that mattered to me in my life? And I can, you know, live, you know, and I can always have more as we all could. And the higher we go on this journey, you start to meet people with more and it does make you think and identify gaps in your own life. But I think choosing that peace is, I think, the first step to ensuring that I can realize more love. And I feel like everyone's.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Definition and motivation for why they do the things they do is to receive more love.

• 50:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  And again, we're, it's not our fault, you know, we, in order for people to sell us stuff, they have to make us feel like we're not enough. Like, you're not enough, you need to own more than seven pairs of shoes. You're not enough, you need to own five cars, even though you can only drive one at a time. You're not enough, you need to take pictures of you in, in business class or on a private jet. Like, you're not enough as you are. But the truth is, there is no such thing as enoughness when it comes to a person. There's no measure, enoughness isn't a measurement for people.

• 50:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Worthy isn't a measurement of people, you know? These aren't things when we think about the people we love, the people we authentically love in our lives. We know all their imperfections. None of those imperfections disqualify them from us loving them. We've also fallen in love with our nieces and nephews, that's when they were babies, held them for the first time, and we were flooded with love. We had no history, never had a conversation, they might have pooped in our hands.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  And none of that disqualifies them and makes them unworthy of love, because love doesn't require worthiness, doesn't require qualification. These are ideas that have been given to us because we live in a world that requires us to buy stuff. And the only way you're gonna buy stuff is if you feel like you need stuff.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  It's like you're separate from it.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  You're separate from it. It's like, oh, you need the latest this, you need the latest that. And if you don't have it, then you're feeling you're left out. And remember, feeling left out is triggering our ancient feelings of being, you know, unaccepted by society. That feels like death, and if we're not in a situation of awareness, then we're gonna clamor to that, and we're gonna line up outside the building and spend endless amounts of money to get the newest gizmo gadget, shoe, car, or whatever, to feel like it matters. And I think it's a really interesting thing, especially, as I said, social media puts an exact number on it. You're like, okay, I want people to see me in the latest, I wanna see, people see me with the coolest. And then, you know, the, the invisible they will accept me.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  And that's the big one, you know, Khalid always says it, you know, they don't want you to win. God did. It's like Khalid, man, who's they?

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  The invisible they.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  And why did, why did they get so much attention and validation?

• 52:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Whereas, you know.

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  Why do you put all your energy on they?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, when, and when they aren't even a thing. They are the people that comment on you. They're, they're not individuals and whoever they are, they're telling their story. Through their pain, with what they're going through.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  And also, you know, I'm sure for the next week, if I left mean comments on your Instagram posts, even with us being friends, I would get more attention.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm, probably. You get validation for it.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would get, I would get out, external validation. If you, if you posted.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  And you get followers and you get all this attention.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you post something and I said, congratulations, brother, it would mix in with the ninety nine hundred congratulations.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  One, yeah, but you sucked here, yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if I said, oh, yeah, of course Lewis did this. I heard he paid off someone to get it done. And then, and then it was create an argument. It would create, you know, polarity and all of that. And that, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's creating a car accident for people to notice you. But then I would be doing me myself down that journey forever.

• 53:23Lewis Howes?

  You'd have to keep doing that to get the attention.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  And we've seen, and look, man, I'm, we've seen that a lot and it never, it never lasts. Controversial creators and artists, you can only be controversial so long until people will be like, oh, okay, I'm used to this controversy.

• 53:36Lewis Howes?

  It sucks at your soul too, right? It's got to. If you're just constantly trying to attack others or create controversy, I feel like it's gotta eat at you in some way.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think also just if you have a position on something, that's enough. You're gonna find people who disagree with you anyways. And I think, you know, people, as going back to the original conversation, people can only meet you where they're at. So if we start talking about relationships, there might be someone listening right now who feels attacked because this may apply to them being in an unhealthy relationship. And that may motivate them to lash out because that's a lot easier than correcting their situation. And I think, again, that's not something that I need to internalize for myself. But um, as I said, I'm, I'm grateful that I have a lot of friends in this where I, I see the prisons that they've built for themselves and try to encourage them not to be in those prisons.

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Because, because it's, it's a slippery slope that you're gonna be trapped in forever. And again, we're not politicians.

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  We're people here trying our best to share. And as I said, through writing this book, I'm not an expert on love. I'm just a guy who's so desperate to figure out why his situation didn't work. That he read all the poets, all the philosophers, all the, all the science-backed research, all the people who've written the dating books, uh, watched all the interviews, did all the research possible, and this is me sharing my notes. And I used to be an elementary school teacher, so I don't use any words bigger than mayonnaise. We're talking about stuff. And every chapter's two pages, and the goal here is to help people become more aware of what love actually is and what may look, feel, and, and, and come across as love, but actually is a waste of our time and our chief focus and, and efforts.

• 55:14Lewis Howes?

  We started with you, man. How to be loved. Is it how to be loved or how to be loved?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's the, that's the interesting part. So I think, you know, I actually learned it from Hus-. I, I learned from Hussey. You, you know, you have to meet them where they're at. So I think a lot of us want to be loved and the only-

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  You have to be loved first.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  The only, well, to be loved, you won't want to, you don't, you won't need to be loved at that point. When you realize you're a source of love.

• 55:35Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Now your cup is full of love and you want to devote your life to sharing all the extra love you have. Then you're not, you don't need to seek it from others. And again, we have these relationships in our lives. If you take care of a child, you're not getting anything in return for taking care of them.

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  That doesn't make you feel resentful. That makes you, you know, the service is what creates the love. We can serve others, we can love them. Love is not a, it's a gift. It's not a loan. I don't have to love you wanting it back and keeping track of how much love I gave you versus how much love you gave me. I should be giving you love because I'm a source of love and I have so much of it, I want to give it.

• 56:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And I think so for me, it's understanding, the only way for me to feel any love is to be loved.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  And that's why it's how to be loved with, with, with the D in there. So that's the big spoiler is, I'm not teaching you how to find love. I'm not teaching you how to craft a text message. I'm not teaching you how to pick up girls at the mall. I'm, I'm teaching you how to realize the love that's always existed, how to clear away the blockages that have prevented you from opening your sails. And a lot of that has to do with our relationship with ourselves. Uh, revisiting our past from a lens of understanding trauma uh and coping mechanisms. And prioritizing our future and realizing that, hey, so often I'm trying to be liked by everybody. But I'm denying myself realizing love and experiencing love.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  And I don't require anything other than the ability to enjoy my own company. To feel this love that we all crave, we all crave it. Sure. And for some people, it's wearing expensive clothes and peacocking to get noticed. Cause they think attention is love. And then for other people, it's having admiration or power or control. So we have very wealthy people getting into politics. Cause all that stuff didn't do it for them. Now they're like, I need influence. I need power, I need control, but love is surrender. It's almost, it's the opposite. And some of the best stories ever told, I was very lucky and fortunate to sit down somehow with George Lucas. The creator of Star Wars.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  And he explained to me that Darth Vader lost the only thing he loved. So he wanted to control the entire universe. He goes, you can't, and what he never understood is you can't control everything. It's like trying to pick up a river with your hand. Right. And he goes, and that's how you saw things get deeper and darker for him. Cause he kept trying to control more and more and more. Cause when he was in love, he was able to surrender. But the moment he lost it, he wasn't in a situation where he could love anymore. Hmm. And I think that's a really important idea for us to start to see with certain individuals that we see. That we're taught to look up to, the extremely wealthy, the extremely powerful, the extremely influential. Taking that route is actually showing that they're lacking in their life.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  And they think, just a little bit more, just a little bit more, just a little bit more. And they keep doing it versus the people who are content and at peace. And again, they wouldn't make for good media, they wouldn't make for great television. They wouldn't make for a great reality show. But those even keeled individuals who have found peace, who, who instead of having everything, they want less. Hmm. Every single day, that is authentic love. Cause and we've all had those experiences. When we're so madly in love with a person, with a project, with an activity. We are completely present and we're not thinking about what else we need. We're not thinking about what happened yesterday. We're not worried about what's happening tomorrow. We're just, we're in the here and now.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  And I think making more choices to create that for ourselves without needing anybody else will put us in a position to attract more like-minded people and beautiful people to have a significantly more abundant life.

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How does someone heal after they lose love? How do they get back to that place? Like Darth Vader, he lost a love and then he went darker and darker. But how do you, how do you get back to a sense of love if you've lost it?

• 59:33Speaker 01

  It's so ironic that you asked that question. One of my favorite lines is from Jay-Z, "You can't heal what you don't reveal." Tonight, I am booking my ticket to go back to Trinidad, which is the place I got engaged.

• 59:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  And realizing that I initially was like, "Oh yeah, you know, we used to party there every year." And realizing that I'm not framing this as a journey to a party. I'm framing this as a challenge to go revisit a place that I, you know, I could easily avoid because it's going to trigger so many negative emotions and pain. And I'm voluntarily doing it.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  7:00 PM tonight, we're booking our tickets. And it was something I wanted to avoid. I was, I was, I'd written out 12 paragraphs to my friend who was organizing the trip, saying why I couldn't come. And then I realized that fear is a compass. I should definitely go. And I should, you know, make, make, make more wise decisions. I might not party as hard as I normally party when I'm there because I'm not at a place of peace with this. So I'm not going to medicate my lack of peace. But I'm going to go there, I'm going to face it. And I think that's important.

• 1:00:45Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Many, many, many years ago, I was violently robbed in New York. And I don't think the healing and the PTSD was ever addressed until I went back to the spot. And I sat there. And again, the negative feelings aren't the enemy. The anxiety isn't the enemy. We have issues with mental health when we try to suppress the anxiety. And I mean, you know, Dr. Leach spoke about that at the Summit of Greatness. And it was such an eye-opening idea, whereas when we go to these places and we revisit these pains. Feel what we feel and as men, I think we feel that as a big challenge. I think that's one of the reasons men are problem solvers. When someone comes to us with a problem, we want to solve it, not because we want to solve it. It's because when people come to us with their problems, it makes us feel pain.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  We don't want to feel pain, so we want to shut them up by solving the problem. You know, but empathy is feeling it. You know, attunement is being in their skin and saying, I know what you feel like and I'm going to feel it with you. And let's just sit in this pain together. So in order for us to heal, or I think a better word would be integrate. Integrate the learning that comes from these. We only, you don't learn when you're happy. You learn from unpleasant experiences. So integrate the learning that comes from these situations means visit them. I had to go back to that dark alley where I got beat up and robbed and I had to sit there with feeling my body shake from the pain of it. But that's a step and doing that repeatedly is what's going to help you integrate the learning.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Because there's things that I needed to learn from that experience. You know, it was done for me, it wasn't done to me. And I think it's the same thing, you know, going back to Trinidad is going to be the exact same thing. I opened the book with that story about the engagement and it's, I know the exact spot where, you know, everything happened and I know I have to go back.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  And I'm not going to say it's going to be a triumph and I'm there and I am healed. But it's going to take me, and this is a big idea that we talk about in the book too. I'm not looking for perfect, I'm looking for progress. I'm going to make more progress by taking this trip. I'm not going to be completely healed and unimpacted by seeing her on social media or running into her in person because we have so many mutual friends. I'm not going, I'm not promising myself that. I'm promising myself progress. And I think when we prioritize progress over perfection and we're able to make small moves every day. This is, you know, we set New Year's resolutions, but we set these goals like I need to lose 10 pounds. I need to, I need to make this much money per month. And then we're subconsciously telling ourselves, we're not good enough until we do.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  But instead, instead of doing the listed intentions, I need to live healthier. I want to wake up earlier. Every single day I'm going to wake up five minutes earlier. Or this week I'm going to wake five minutes, five minutes earlier. Or I'm going to just go to the gym. Whether I do anything or not this week. And then let's focus on progress. Okay, I got there every day this week. Now I'm gonna go there and do at least five minutes on the treadmill or something. And that progress adds up. Instead of us saying, oh, I didn't hit my ten pounds, I'm a piece of trash.

• 1:03:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  You know, and, and, because the truth is, you're gonna hit that ten pounds, the, the, the next voice in your head is gonna be like, what's next?

• 1:03:54Lewis Howes?

  I need more, I need.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  I need more. So instead, let's just focus on the progress, steadily making progress. So I think for us, um, I don't wanna minimize what people have gone through in their life, and I don't know if simply revising a space or, or being in therapy or writing in a journal will make it all go away. But it will make progress. And progress is better than nothing.

• 1:04:16Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent, man.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  I love this man, how to be loved. The simple truths for going easier on yourself, embracing imperfection and loving your way to a better life. And I think one of the biggest things is going easier on yourself. I think a lot of people are so hard in the banning on themselves. And I think it's one thing to be disciplined and organized, and also be easy on yourself. You don't have to be perfect, so.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  It's, it's definitely surrender, and, and going easy, and as I said, pointing out why we make mistakes.

• 1:04:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  It's not to judge you and be like, stop, you know, stop chasing after unavailable men because that's what you're used to. No, like, let's realize it. Be, because being nice to ourselves. Um, I have a chapter in here saying, you know, love is being your own nurturing parent.

• 1:05:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  When you revisit your past, you're gonna realize that the people that raised you, whoever they were, were flawed human beings. Instead of just going back to them and being like, you messed me up, realize that now you have the capability of filling in the gaps. You know, there's, there's, there's an activity called self-havening, which is hugging yourself.

• 1:05:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  You, you can do it. We don't need to, to, to find a, a romantic partner to, to be this for us. We can be our own best friend, which is our biggest cheerleader, and also the person that kicks us in the butt when we need it. The person that tells us what we need to hear because they're on our team. We can be this for ourselves. We can, these, these things that we lack sometimes, we can create them for ourselves now that we've realized it. And it doesn't require us to go back and be like, I'm a victim of my past. Be like, okay, I learned that, you know, these people who raised me weren't perfect. My parents had to go to work every single day. They could have been sleep deprived, they could have been stressed out. And if they yelled at me, I completely understand it. And I mentioned this in the book, how my mom raised me versus how I see her as a grandmother.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  And I'm like, who is this woman who raised me? Her context and her circumstances are different. She's retired, she could spend all day following around my niece and nephew.

• 1:06:13Lewis Howes?

  Loving on them, yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Loving on them, not being the disciplinary, feeding them all the food that they're not supposed to eat. Cause it's not her responsibility. And I think that's important. So for me now, like I need to be the nurturing parent for myself. Which means, and even as a self-employed individual, and you know this. When you work for yourself, you have the best and worst boss imaginable. Cause you'll say things to yourself you would never let anybody say to you. You would say things to yourself that you would never say to anybody else. And I think from that, but that doesn't lead to more productivity. That's not efficient, you know? So saying, oh man, we were supposed to write a thousand words today and we didn't. You piece of garbage, why, what's wrong with you? Why'd you watch TV all day? That's not what you would say to an employee.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  You gotta be like, look, man, we had some goals today, we didn't hit them. What can we do? What can we do to do better tomorrow? And speaking to ourselves with love, cause we're still speaking to an inner child.

• 1:07:09Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  And that's what going easier on yourself is. It's not just like, this is what's wrong with you. The goal here is to figure out where the gaps were.

• 1:07:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Address those gaps. We have to do it effectively. And doing it effectively means with love.

• 1:07:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  And speaking to ourselves kindly and tenderly. And again, sometimes love is a kiss on the cheek, sometimes it's a kick on the butt. You know what you require, you know? It's not, it's not these romanticized ideas that we've seen in the films and on television. That's not what it is. We know what true love is, cause we all have true love in our lives. And all we have to realize is, we can multiply that with ourselves. And as we become the biggest source, and if we give love and express love without requiring anything in return, then we'll be very surprised to see how much more love we can realize.

• 1:07:57Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent, man. Well, I'm excited for you and the book. Again, make sure you guys get a copy, check it out, very powerful, inspiring stuff. Share with friends. I acknowledge you, Humble, for revealing this and for going through this. I know it's not easy to talk about these things and to talk about, I guess, the lessons or the failures that you might think you have had to get to where you're at and start reclaiming the love that's always been inside of you. So I really acknowledge you for creating it and using your artistic expression as a poet, as a leader, as a creator, to provide this for us as art for ourselves, too. So I really acknowledge you for that, man.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 1:08:34Lewis Howes?

  Where can we follow you and support you with the book? The best place?

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  So the book is available everywhere books are sold. You can find me on Amazon easily. You can find me, you know, all major retailers, Barnes & Noble, if you're out there in the UK, Waterstones, you know, your local bookshops should definitely have it. You can find me @humblethe poet on all socials.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  And humblethe poet dot com slash love is the easiest way to find all the links for the book.

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, love it, man. What's a, this is a question I asked you before, but I'll ask it again. It's the three truths. We'll see if it's changed. Imagine it's your last day on earth and for whatever reason, you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish in your life. You live as long as you want, but you gotta take all of your works with you. This book, every book you've written, your poetry, your music, everything, for whatever reason, it's gotta go somewhere else. It's no longer here on this earth. But you get to leave behind three lessons to all of us, three truths. And that's all we have to remember you by. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  The newest truth that I've adopted for myself is I have divorced myself from chasing happiness and success, and I now chase fun and hopefulness.

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's cool.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  So I want to, and hopefulness I define as having something to look forward to.

• 1:09:52Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  I think everyone needs something to look forward to.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Realizing that we, we gain more from wanting less.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  It's okay that there's so many things around us to want.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  But the happiest moments that we have is when we are in a position of not needing or desiring anything and to put ourselves in that situation. And it rarely comes from ticking off boxes. It comes from, from internal work.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  And I think lastly,

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  There will be so many obstacles when you try to help yourself. There are next to no obstacles when you try to help others. And as somebody who grew up in eastern philosophy and then seen a lot of eastern philosophy kind of move into the cross the ocean and become kind of packaged here in North America.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  A good litmus test of spiritual practice should be service.

• 1:10:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  If the spiritual practice doesn't include this idea of serving outside of yourself, then you're probably in a pyramid scheme.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Whatever your spiritual practices needs to involve living a life beyond yourself.

• 1:11:10Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  And whatever your definition of service is, for me, it's just living a life beyond myself, realizing I don't live in a universe of one. I am a piece of a system and love is an essential service and serving people in any capacity that you feel. You can go to the food bank, go to the food bank. If you can, you know, spread the word on social media, spread the word on social media. If you can, you know, give to the homeless, whatever serving people means to you, make it a priority, put it in the calendar. And I think the quality of your life and how much love you reveal will definitely supremely grow more than doing some of the other external stuff.

• 1:11:48Lewis Howes?

  I agree, man, that's beautiful. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  I want to talk about the summit. This is, this, listen, as I told you, it's a, I've been to so many cool events. I've been to Google Camp, look that up if you want to know what that is. That's one of the most exclusive events on this planet. And it was cool, it was fun. I've been to Google Zeitgeist, I've been to TED Talks, I've been to the World Domination Summit, these are all wonderful. I am a think tank geek, I'm a think tank groupie. Anywhere where there will be speakers and there will be learners, you will see me there. And then I visited just some of the greatness this year for the first time. And what I realized was a commitment to not cutting corners, a commitment to giving it everything, sometimes not finding the most efficient way, sometimes not maximizing

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  profits, sometimes it's about creating the best experience within your capabilities. And I think when I went there. And I saw it, just you structured it perfectly, just two speakers, you know, I've been to events with like seventeen speakers. I'm tired and the best ones at the end, I'm just like, my brain's already shot. The way you did that, I thought was beautiful. The way, there was this theme, and I don't know if this was intentional. You were making fun of the speakers and they were making fun of you. So, you know, if I didn't know who you were, I thought you were a stand-up comedian because you were in between the speakers. And it was a beauty to that. And I know I can't share this stuff publicly, but some of the footage I have of your after-party was bananas.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  And I'm not talking about my unique experience, I'm talking about when I was up top. Oh man, you can share that stuff, why not? It was, because some people aren't wearing clothes.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  But I looked at it, it was be great in your learning, but be great in your celebrations. So I think, you know, greatness isn't what, greatness isn't what the outside world sees. It's seeing the effort, you know, and I'm an artist and people say art is subjective. I disagree when I see effort. You know, when we see Ruben's work, it's like, okay, he's writing the word love over and over. First off, him doing it consistently is energy and effort. Him getting to that position, him committing his life, there's energy and effort there. So I think when it comes to greatness, it's only you know if you gave it your all, irrespective of the outcome. You know, you can, you can play certain, you know, you played sports, there's certain games you played gave it seventy percent energy and you guys won.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  There's games you gave it a hundred ten percent and you guys didn't win. The outcome isn't as, to me, the outcome isn't as important as the energy and the labor. Because that's what builds the self-respect, that's what builds all of that. So to me, that's what greatness is, greatness is what you put into it. And I think the summit for me was that, because I feel, I've been to so many, they've been on autopilot. And then the way I saw, and then knowing the speakers and having them speak about their experience, what their hotel rooms look like. Having the experiences of, you know, the speakers dinner, having the after-party, being like, okay. Somebody, all I know is somebody cared, every step of the way. And then being in the audience, finding people that were coming back there, not just for the events, because they made lifelong friends.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  And being like, oh, I'm here because this is the only time I get to see so and so, I've been coming for the last three years. And then, you know, hearing all of this, being like, okay, this is a beautiful situation. And I think the way greatness was defined through that was this energy effort of love. And I'm sure it could have been, you could have overextended yourself and made it bigger. I'm sure you could have charged more for the tickets. I'm sure you could have done a whole bunch of different things, but you didn't. You kept it the way to maximize it as a beautiful experience. And I think for me, you know, I'm proud to know that, you know, as, as, as Ruben's been affiliated with the word love, you've been affiliated with the word greatness, because when these cameras go off, you are, you are just as wonderful, if not more.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  And I think, I want your audience to know that. I've known you for years. Appreciate it, man. You're just a dope dude. Everyone we speak to knows you're a dope dude. And, um, you know, so greatness is just putting in that energy and effort and, and doing things with love. Amen. Appreciate you. Thanks, Hubble.

• 1:15:53Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:16:35Lewis Howes?

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